A Grip on Sports: The changes battering college football hit too hard, too fast, making it difficult to embrace reforms that should have occurred gradually

A GRIP ON SPORTS • A headline caught my eye this morning. Something about college football. Whether it can be saved. And it hit me. The answer depends on how the person asking the question sees history.

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• Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics in “Glory Days.” Robert Redford’s character talking about the greatest year in “The Way We Were.” Heck, anyone who yearns for how things were in the “good old days.”

That’s one perspective. The comfort of the past. Familiarity. Memories of great games, great players, great teams. Great times. Even Springsteen admitted everyone dwells on it.

College football are no different. The game was easier to love back in the day, wasn’t it?

Time has a way of dulling the rough edges of recollections. Sanding them down like a piece of balsa, shaping them into what we actually want them to be, not what they were.

Nothing wrong with that. Other than it makes it harder to embrace the now. The good of the now, actually. Because positive memories, as our only way of comparison, accentuate the worst parts of now. And make it darn near impossible to embrace change.

I’m part of the camp that loves college football. Have loved the sport for going on seven decades. The pomp. Circumstance. Traditions. Competition. Moments.

Loved the wishbone and the Air Raid. Loved Don James’ meticulousness and Jim Walden’s wit. Loved the Wild Bunch and the Palouse Posse. Each season was different but, in many respects, the same. Building upon each other, stacking memories like a pyramid – with the requisite golden capstone of whatever year it was.

Except there was always a tendency to look at that one block of granite near the foundation and wonder.

Wonder if Alabama’s offensive line this year actually was as good as the one Vince Lombardi played on back in the day. Wonder if Barry Sanders actually was better than O.J. Wonder if Nick Saban could wear Bear Bryant’s houndstooth.

Maybe that’s why the overwhelming change college football is undergoing makes so many of us yearn for a simpler time. It’s more the pace than anything else.

The sport has evolved every year. Slowly. The past few years? The entire pyramid has tumbled into a big pile of rocks.

Can college football be saved? The better question is more nuanced. Does it need to be saved?

Fans of Indiana’s program probably don’t think so. Oregon fans have felt the game has been trending in the right direction for a decade or two. The USC, Alabama and Nebraska faithful? Not so much.

It’s easy to focus on the negative. How the game is, in one regard, becoming more stratified. How there will be a culling of the herd in the not so distant future. How just about everyone is worried their alma mater will be left behind.

Understandable.

But look at what the forces behind that upcoming earthquake has wrought.

The Hoosiers are the No. 1 team in the nation. Ole Miss is still standing while Alabama and Georgia are not. Oregon is the West Coast’s best program. Texas Tech and Duke, respectively, won the Big 12 and ACC regular season titles.

It is possible to turn any program around in a year or two. And it doesn’t take blue blood coursing through a school’s veins.

All it takes is what it always has in college football. Money. And a willingness to spend it.

OK, sorry to make you spit out your coffee. But how do you think blue bloods became that in the first place? Think Notre Dame didn’t decide a century ago to be great at the game and, poof, became so through divine intervention? Nope.

The Irish invested. More than its peer group. And left them in the dust.

Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma. They all spent more, some of it within the rules, quite a bit of it on the other side of the table. Anyone who purports to tell you otherwise is whitewashing the fence they built to keep everyone on the other side.

The fence has been torn down. At least for now. But don’t worry. Something will replace it soon.

Maybe football programs will be spun off from their university like a once-prized subsidiary, wearing the school’s colors, using the school’s facilities, waving the school flag but having no other connections.

Maybe another level of competition will emerge, a so-called “Super League.” The top 48 or 60 or so schools breaking away, telling the other 88 or 76 or whatever FBS schools to find a new division to play in.

Could be both, I guess.

But there is one certainty. There won’t be any saving of once was. The demolition is already too far gone. Either the debris can be used to build a new structure that can serve to house new traditions and memories or a bunch of shoddy patch jobs will last a little while and then crumble once more.

We are all stuck in the transition stage. And it sucks. But don’t lose faith. Today will be covered in glory at some point.

If the game’s past has taught us anything, it’s taught us it will survive. Get through the awful times and emerge on the other side. Maybe muddy. Maybe missing a limb or two. But it will survive. It always has.

At least that’s how I remember it.

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WSU: Football’s transition phase is dominated this time of year by roster transition. Greg Woods has a story on the newest players headed to Pullman. And updates his portal tracker. … Because the Cougars are also in the middle of a transition among their coaching staff, Greg has one more football story today. The newest hires. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, a quick note about ratings (and the changes in college football). Indiana’s rout of Alabama was viewed by more people than any other playoff game in the 12-team era, 23.9 million. … Now Oregon has to figure out a way to handle the nouveau-riche Hoosiers in the Peach Bowl on Friday night. Dan Lanning talked with John Canzano about the game. … Canzano also posted his weekly mailbag yesterday. … Oregon State joined the club of schools who have added players from the portal. … Washington has been busy in the portal. Both ways. … Colorado introduced its new athletic director, Fernando Lovo, who faces some questions right away. … USC and UCLA are adding to their rosters. … So is Arizona State. … Same for Arizona, which added a long snapper first. … San Diego State grabbed a quarterback. … So did Jim Mora and Colorado State. … Former Boise State star Ashton Jeanty will play for a new coach next season. He set a Raider record in his first one.

• In basketball news, Jon Wilner takes a look at how next season’s Pac-12 men’s teams are doing this season. And ranks them. … Two Big Ten games in Michigan, two blowout losses for USC. … Oregon lost 88-85 in overtime at Rutgers. … It can’t be any closer. Arizona retained AP’s top spot by one point over Michigan. … San Diego State is off to Nevada. … Utah State is also on the road. First stop: Air Force. … Fresno State will need a new sponsor soon for its basketball arena. … The Oregon women are in Los Angeles to face No. 16 (for now) USC.

Gonzaga: Not every stretch of a long college basketball season can be perfect. The Zags just endured a low patch. That hiccup didn’t cost them in the loss column however. But did cost them one spot in the Associated Press’ latest poll. Jim Meehan has that covered. … Theo Lawson looks back at how the Bulldogs pulled out of their early game blahs against Loyola Marymount on Sunday to boatrace the Lions.

Chiefs: The future is calling. But the present must be addressed as well. Spokane made a trade yesterday that Dave Nichols tells us deals with both.

Idaho: The Vandals have two new coordinators. They outlined their plans in conversations with Peter Harriman. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana State is the 2025 FCS champion. The 14-2 Bobcats, who last won the crown in 1984, dominated the first half, stumbled in the second but made a couple huge plays in overtime to edge 12-5 Illinois State 35-34 in overtime. … Montana is trying to catch up with its intrastate rival as it rebuilds its roster. … Weber State lost an assistant to Utah State. … Cal Poly is losing a lot of players now that there is a new coach in place.

Velocity: When the 2026 season begins March 8, Spokane will have a new assistant coach. The club hired Neil Hlavaty yesterday.

Seahawks: With the team enjoying a bye week, the Hawks coverage turns to other matters. Like ranking Mike Macdonald among his peers, the NFL coaching hires of 2024. … Or sharing the news, and opinions, about the guy he replaced, Pete Carroll, being fired by the Raiders after one awful season. … Or the Falcons asking to interview offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak for their head coaching position. … Will Charles Cross be ready? … This one sentence in this Athletic ranking of all 32 NFL teams says it all about the second-ranked Patriots: “New England has beaten just one team that ended the season with a winning record.” That can’t be said of the top-ranked Seahawks. … Joe Buck went through something a lot of us have. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Mariners: Yesterday we linked this Times story on the Hall of Fame chances of Felix Hernandez. And do it again today as it is on the S-R website.

Kraken: Seattle traveled to Calgary and routed the Flames 5-1. The Kraken are suddenly hot again.

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• The biggest problem with college sports, including football, is there has been too much change too quickly. It’s like a revolution when it should have been an evolution. For that there is one place to point the finger. The NCAA, the bureaucratic arm of every college athletic department in the country. In other words, if you want to criticize, be critical of your school. And every school. For years they decided to protect the status quo when it was obvious change was needed. Incremental change. The NCAA could have released the pressure gradually. Instead, the dam finally broke and flooded everyone. We are all dealing with the debris of years of mismanagment. Until later …