Let’s Fix College Football with Common Sense

College football is foundational to college athletics and our country. It supports every sport, anchors school identity, and remains one of the most unifying traditions in American life.

For a long time, the system was not perfect, but it worked. Scholarships provided student-athletes with opportunities they otherwise might not have had, and many of these young people go on to be some of our country’s greatest leaders. But I had no idea how broken college athletics is until very recently, when I was pulled into LSU’s football program.

I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about how college football operates and frankly, the way the sport is run is a complete mess.

The problem is not that the rules are complicated. The problem is that the rules no longer make sense. Every attempt to fix the system has been temporary, and each temporary fix has opened the door to new problems. NIL was meant to give athletes control over their own name and image, but without a national standard it created unsustainable bidding wars and constant roster churn.