Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
I was watching Saturday’s slate of college football games, and something that was said started me thinking about the future of what we know as college football.
Todd Blackledge was working as the analyst for NBC Sports on the Notre Dame-Michigan State game Saturday night, and he mentioned that one of the Spartan quarterbacks was playing in his sixth season of college ball.
Sixth!
Cam Fincher is playing at his fourth school in those six seasons.
He started at Marshall and played three seasons there. He then played one season each at Florida Atlantic and Central Florida.
Now he’s playing at Michigan State.
I understand that the NCAA granted players who had to endure COVID during their college football careers an extra season of eligibility. I am pretty gracious when it comes to things related to COVID, so…whatever.
But it’s 2026 and the landscape of major college sports has changed in massive ways since March of 2020.
And it got me thinking, and it brought to mind a question: Why should a college athlete ever leave college?
The two biggest reasons in the past were because athletes had run out of eligibility or because they wanted to go to the professional league in their sport and make money.
Well, players are getting paid to play in college right now. The farce of “NIL” money is just a cover for writing players checks, and the cash is free-flowing.
I have brought this up before, but when was the last time you watched a college football game and the broadcasters mentioned what a player’s major is, what their field of study is or what their GPA is?
You don’t and you won’t.
The NCAA still claims there are standards that must be met in order for a college athlete to play in their team’s games. According to the NCAA website, athletes must maintain a 2.3 Grade Point Average (GPA) in “core courses” like English, math and science to be eligible.
But when was the last time you heard an announcer say that a player was not available for the game that was about to be played because of academic issues?
You don’t and you won’t.
So that begs the question: “Why would college players ever leave college?”
The NCAA set out to address this, sort of, with their “five in five rule”. That would allow any athlete to compete for the five years after their high school years are complete.
It would eliminate the “redshirt year” to allow freshmen to sit out a year for development purposes, and also the “medical redshirt year,” which allows a player who misses a year because of injury to add a year at the end to replace the year that was missed.
Let me lay out for you the foundation of the scenario I see coming.
A college football player at the University of Texas (as an example. It could be any college) has had a really good year or a really good career. He thinks he can play in the NFL, but the reviews he is getting from NFL scouts are mixed and inconclusive.
What’s to keep that player from going back to college for another year to improve their draft status and get paid while doing it?
Well, years of eligibility — that’s what.
Up until now, if you used up your eligibility, you had to move on.
But this is 2026, so what’s to keep a judge in Austin, Texas, from ruling that the Longhorns’ player in question can go back to play at Texas for the next year or as many years as he wants?
Nothing.
So only a judge’s signature stands between the scenario I painted being potential and being reality.
I am not ok with that.
Unless we now are declaring, officially, that what we know as college sports are now going to be the minor leagues for professional sports. If we are willing to do that, then that makes this make sense, and it’s the only thing that makes this make sense.
Now, the reason why you and I don’t want this to happen is because what we know currently as minor league sports will go away.
No more South Bend Cubs. No more Fort Wayne Tin Caps.
Baseball wouldn’t need them, because players could make more money and live in better conditions playing for colleges than they could in the minor leagues. They would still need a AAA franchise to move players up to replace injured major league players. But they wouldn’t need any level below that.
And baseball owners would be fine reducing their payroll and overhead by eliminating the bulk of their minor league structure.
And no matter what the sport, if you haven’t figured it out by now, it’s all about the money.
