TAKE ONE: COLLEGE FOOTBALL HAS ALWAYS BEEN MESSY

There’s going to be a lot of hand-wringing by traditionalists over the plan for the Big Ten and SEC to each have four automatic qualifiers in the next expansion of the College Football Playoff. And honestly, for a lot of reasons, that worry has merit. College football today looks almost nothing like what we thought it would 25 years ago. Back then, the idea of superconferences swallowing up entire regions of the country, players openly signing endorsement deals, and postseason access determined by media empires was the stuff of fantasy. Now it’s just how things work. So, I get why people are nervous. I understand why folks long for what they remember as a “purer” version of the game. But when you really think about it, that purity may never have truly existed.

Would I have preferred college football to hold on to the things that made it feel so special? Absolutely. I miss the regional quirks, the idea that a team like Kansas State or Purdue could dream big without having to crash a party guarded by TV executives. I miss the bowl games that felt like a reward instead of an obligation, and the rivalries that weren’t held hostage by conference realignment. There was a time when Saturdays felt sacred, when the stakes felt tied to pride as much as to profit. But even then, beneath the pageantry, college football had its cracks. And most of them led straight back to the NCAA.

The truth is, college football has always been messy. Money has always been a factor in who wins and loses. Certain programs have always found creative ways to entice recruits with more than just shiny facilities and well-manicured practice fields. But the real problem wasn’t just the quiet under-the-table deals or the whispered rumors of envelopes exchanged in parking lots. The problem was the NCAA itself—an organization that spent decades pretending to protect the "integrity" of college athletics while wielding its power with astonishing inconsistency and a stunning lack of decency.

For years, the NCAA's answer to its own broken system was to punish the powerless. Players who accepted a few hundred dollars from a booster were ruled ineligible, while the institutions pocketed millions off their performances. Coaches could lie to recruits about their futures and skip town for the next big paycheck, but a player who transferred had to sit out a year and hope for a waiver that may or may not come. The NCAA acted like a moral authority while operating as a cartel, enforcing amateurism not to preserve the soul of the game, but to preserve the financial structures that benefitted the people in charge.

So when people talk about wanting to get back to the "good old days," I sometimes wonder what days they're remembering. College football in 2000 wasn’t any purer than it is now. In fact, in a lot of ways, it was worse—at least now the players are finally getting something tangible out of the deal. At least now the chaos is out in the open, instead of hidden behind closed doors and sealed envelopes.

Would it be better if there were more structure to the current NIL and transfer portal landscape? Absolutely. Fans, teams, and coaches alike would benefit from a system that felt a little more predictable and sustainable. Guardrails wouldn’t hurt anyone. But let’s not pretend we’re chasing some lost era of honor and fairness. The truth is, college football has always been a beautiful mess. The only difference now is who’s holding the power—and for once, it's not just the NCAA.

TAKE TWO: RECRUTIING POWER SHIFT?

Don’t look now, but USC is showing some real recruiting trail momentum that feels a bit different from years past. From the major early win with Jahkeem Stewart, once the No. 1 overall player in the 2026 class before reclassifying to 2025, to stacking up impressive early commitments in the 2026 cycle, the Trojans suddenly look like a program positioning itself for a top-five-level class. Lincoln Riley and his staff have clearly made some adjustments, and after a couple of years of underwhelming results relative to expectations, USC seems to be finding its footing on the trail.

But here’s the thing—I don’t think this new USC surge is necessarily coming at the expense of Oregon. Not yet, anyway. In fact, the biggest factor at play here might just be the strength of the overall talent pool on the West Coast, particularly in California. The 2026 cycle is shaping up to be the best year for high-end talent out West in at least a decade. There are just more elite prospects to go around right now. For the first time in years, it feels like multiple programs can win big on the trail at the same time without having to completely cannibalize each other's classes. The amount of four- and five-star players in California alone is creating real opportunities for schools like USC, Oregon, and even Washington and UCLA to keep talent closer to home.

Of course, there’s still a reality check looming in all of this. At some point, what happens on the field is going to matter again. For USC, that’s especially true. After back-to-back disappointing seasons and questions swirling around the future of Lincoln Riley’s staff, it’s hard to imagine they can keep this recruiting wave going through the cycle without delivering a big year in 2025. Another mediocre season in the Big Ten could trigger the same late-cycle regression that’s burned them in the last couple of years, where early momentum fizzles out when the product on the field doesn't match the hype.

And while we’re here, let’s address the popular narrative that Oregon is just “buying” players with an unlimited NIL budget. If that were actually true, wouldn’t the Ducks have finished with a lot more five-star types in the 2025 class? The reality is that NIL is a factor, sure, but it’s not the only factor. It’s not even the main one. All the same things that have always mattered to players and their families still matter: culture, fit, development, education, and a clear vision for the future. And yes—winning still matters. If anything, Oregon’s consistency on the field under Dan Lanning is what keeps them in the mix for elite talent year after year.

Oregon is going to be just fine on the recruiting trail. The competition was always going to be there. That’s the nature of recruiting at the highest level. It’s less about whether there’s competition and more about who the competition is. And in some ways, it’s actually more fun when there’s a little drama, when USC is relevant again, and when the West Coast feels like it’s holding its own instead of just being a hunting ground for the SEC.

With the expanded College Football Playoff, the Ducks are going to have to beat teams stacked with blue-chip talent no matter what. But now that they’re part of the Big Ten, and the sport is consolidating into these “Super Two” conferences, maybe we finally start to see the end of the West Coast talent drain. The better the region is, the better Oregon can be.

And that’s good for everybody.