Realignment, NIL have drastically changed the framework of college football

Before kickoff next Saturday, when Pitt opens its 2024 season against Kent State, tradition will prevail and players – neatly dressed in shirts and ties – will follow coach Pat Narduzzi into Acrisure Stadium.

More memories will be made as the season progresses, perhaps similar to MJ Devonshire’s game-winning pick-six against West Virginia in 2022 and Ryan Lewis’ end zone interception that secured the win against Penn State in 2016.

There will be disappointments, too, but all of that – for better or for worse – is what keeps fans on both sides of stadiums from all over the United States coming back year after year, chasing the same thrill that drew them to college football in the first place.

However, things are different in college football.

For example:

• The ACC was a small league of seven South Atlantic schools when it was founded in 1953, but it has now grown into a coast-to-coast conglomerate of 17 teams (18 in basketball). As Florida State prepared for its season opener against Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland on Saturday, the ACC’s catchment area now includes Stanford, Cal-Berkeley and SMU, covering 24% of the 50 states.

• In total, 12 power conference schools plus SMU have moved, with USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington joining the Big Ten; Oklahoma and Texas finding new homes in the SEC; and Arizona State, Arizona, Utah and Colorado expanding the Big 12 to 16 schools. Penn State will play USC on the West Coast on Oct. 12, only its third time during the regular season and its first since 1991.

• Players receive payouts in the form of their name, image and likeness, sometimes as high as $1 million. Recruits pit one school against another to see who is willing to pay the most money.

• Unhappy players or perhaps those who just want to get rich with NIL can transfer and play immediately at their new school.

Many people believe that giving players this kind of influence and money is long overdue.

“I think in the long run it gets us closer to a real business model that, frankly, had to happen,” David Hale, a college football insider at ESPN.com who has covered the sport for 20 years, told TribLive. “You can’t generate billions and billions of dollars in a sport every year and none of it goes directly to the actual employees of the sport. That was inevitable, but there are going to be a lot of teething issues along the way.

“It’s problematic, especially the number of players moving around and the impact on graduation rates and academic performance. But I’m perhaps a little naive to think anyone cares anymore.”

Still, there are troubling aspects to consider, Hale said.

“We’re in an era of revenue sharing and players are basically getting a direct salary from the school,” he said. “When that happens, how long does it take for a player to say, ‘Uh, I’m not going to play on Saturday unless I get another $50,000 or something like that.'”

“I can tell you that I’ve seen numerous situations where people say, ‘Here’s my NIL deal coming in in December. All right, at the end of spring training I need a new deal or I’m going back to the portal. That’s already happening.

“So when does it happen on game day? Do we hear about it? Is it reported as an injury or suspension or something? Has it happened yet? I think it would be naive to assume it won’t be a problem.”

Still, Hale said the games, which are played over 60 minutes on 100 yards of grass or artificial turf, will remain largely the same.

“That’s a personal opinion, but it’s largely borne out by the ratings or the actual performance on the field: the quality of the games themselves hasn’t really been affected. There are perhaps some reasons to believe that more teams can compete in a world where money is the ultimate driver, rather than a series of ancillary things designed to replace money, be it facilities or whatever people use in recruiting.”

For example, five-star offensive lineman Josh Petty said NIL was “definitely a factor” when he joined forces with Georgia Tech and signed him to an $800,000-a-year contract, Yahoo Sports reports.

“Georgia Tech hasn’t gotten five-star O-linemen before,” Hale said. “You could say it gives schools that don’t have the best recruiting base or recruiting experience an opportunity to sign talent.”

“You could argue that the portal has allowed players you may not have even known about or seen on a Saturday to move from the Kent States and Miami (Ohio)s of the world to step up and play at a higher level. That’s good for the game.

“But there has to be a framework for it. Free agents and transfers are all designed to make professional sports more entertaining, more exciting and better. But there is a framework for it. Not every player is a free agent every six months of every year. That’s the way it works in college football right now. I think that will have a long-term negative impact on Saturdays. How obvious is it? How big is it? How noticeable? It’s hard to say.

“You have to be careful not to jeopardize what makes college football so great on Saturdays by chasing every possible dollar.”

These 13 schools are precisely on the hunt for dollars, some in the name of survival.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips was looking for strength in numbers when he recruited Stanford, Cal and SMU after Florida State and Clemson threatened to leave. Meanwhile, Stanford and Cal wanted to join a major conference and escape the sinking ship of the Pac-12 after it lost all but two schools to the ACC, Big Ten and Big 12.

SMU was so keen to get out of the American Athletic Conference, which it won last season, that athletic director Rick Hart, grandson of former Pitt coach Dave Hart (1966-68), agreed to forgo ACC television money for nine years, or about $24 million. Cal and Stanford will each receive only 30 percent of ACC payouts to start with.

But according to Athletic Business, SMU and its wealthy donors have raised more than $200 million to offset those losses.

On the field, SMU will add a high-caliber team to the ACC. Quarterback Preston Stone threw for 3,197 yards and 28 touchdowns last season before suffering a broken fibula against Navy on Nov. 25. He missed the AAC title win over Tulane – the last of a nine-game winning streak that gave SMU its first conference title since 1984.

“What I’m most excited about is the challenge we’re going to have as a team, which is to have a heavyweight fight every Saturday, come back the next week and get ready to do it again,” Stone said. “There’s really no drop off in performance from the other teams in Texas who are really competitive with us. Now we’re in a conference where we have the schedule to back that up. We’re fired up for it.”

Cal’s Jaydn Ott may be one of the best running backs in the ACC after rushing for 1,375 yards and 12 touchdowns last season.

But Cal has logistical problems with four games on the East Coast against Auburn, Florida State, Pitt and Wake Forest.

“Fly a day early,” coach Justin Wilcox said, “make sure you have enough food, water and Gatorade for the plane. We have Delta’s biggest plane, with reclining seats. A lot of players will have really comfortable seats, more comfortable than the chairs they sit in at home.”

Stanford will play at Syracuse and Clemson in back-to-back weeks on Sept. 20 and 28, but will not spend the week on the East Coast.

“We’re going to turn around (after the Syracuse game) so our students can go to class,” Stanford coach Troy Taylor said. “There are harder things to overcome.”