If you don't care about losing our ability to be competitive with some of the P5 and Upper G5 then I've got nothing for you. We have a completely different idea and viewpoint of what college athletics should be about.
Winning a conference championship is a great thing, but seeing where you stack up with programs that are generally regarded as "better" than you and who should be beating you is equally as enjoyable if not more enjoyable. Especially when you go on the road and whip them in front of their own fans, cash that $1.5 million check, and come home a winner despite being a 20+ point underdog.
We (along with the rest of the bottom of the G5) used to be able to rise up and beat these teams on occasion. When we had older junior/senior laden teams and a roster with some fringe NFL talent, we could go and win those games we were not supposed to win. You used to be able to look at a schedule and know we were gonna have a chance against teams like Missouri, Kentucky, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, etc. Now, they are guaranteed L's with the good possibility of us not even being competitive.
Now we are only allowed to compete within our conference. And our best players (that are a joy to watch for me personally) will leave after each season. I find it odd you don't seem to care. You think all players are created equally and someone else is just gonna come along and take a great players place? You didn't enjoy watching our better players like Richie James, Brent Stockstill, Jaylin Lane, Zaylin Wood, Kevin Byard, Darius Harris, Charvarious Ward, Marley Cook, Benny Cunningham, Anthony Amos, Malcolm Beyah (I could go on and on and on)....
Who took Jaylin Lane's place? Who took place of our whole OL that transferred out 2 years ago? Who took the place of our whole DL that left last year? Jakobe Thomas? Zaylin Wood? Sam Brumfield?
I don't want to be mean, but nobody replaced those guys. The losses we've endured because of the portal the last few years have been devastating. We have not even come close to replacing what we lost. It's a major net negative for programs like ours where we are forced to replace our best players with lesser talent. When you have to do that at multiple positions on both sides of the ball year after year....well...the results speak for themselves. 4-8 last year and gonna be like 3-9 this year. You can try and spin it however you want. "Our peers are just as screwed as us"....."A good coach will make the portal a positive"....all copium hogwash. The transfer portal is a devastating mechanism for programs like ours, period.
I would much rather watch and follow the NFL where there are strong forced parity mechanics and the richest owner can't just buy a championship (eat it, Jerry) and shit all over small market teams. I watch maybe 10% the amount of college athletics that I used to and every passing year it is less and less. The NBA and NFL is infinitely more appealing now that college athletics has been ruined. Well, ruined for schools like us. I'm sure the blue bloods of the world are loving life at the moment. Fun times.
latechsports.com
