Poll: Has NIL, The Portal & Kurt Cignetti Helped or Ruined College Football

[TGHusker]

Ok, College football is finally over. It has been a wild Portal season as well. Upstart Indiana comes out of no where to win the NC in Cig's 2nd year.
So college football has changed drastically over the past 2-3 years. Is it for the good or for the bad of the game?

1. NIL - Players are getting paid big $$s. Players go to the highest bidder. Loyalty has suffered. Does that matter?
2. Portal: Portal rules, or lack thereof, has been the means by which players can transfer seemingly without limits - leading to no team loyalty.
3. Kurt Cignetti factor- expectations have been raised throughout college football. If Cig can do it at lowly Indiana, why can't X do it here? Chaos erupts with the coaching carousal. Conference Championships, relevancy, playoffs and NC must be obtained by year 3 otherwise we are falling behind.

OR

Is all of the above just a natural evolution of the college game? Something to be expected and accepted in our day. Team loyalty isn't what is important - it is all about building the brand - the Team Brand and the Individual player brand. Thus pieces on the chess board (coaches and players) must move around.

Since I can only do one question, I created one choice for Helped, 3 different choices for Hurt (chose 1), and one Neutral Choice

 

[Red Five]

Cignetti has broken a lot of people's brains, including many on here.

 

[MLB 51]

I voted NIL, but I believe the portal is equally bad. They pretty much go hand in hand.

 

[TGHusker]

Indiana's and Cig's roadmap to success

How Indiana won college football's national championship

The program that was once the least successful in all of FBS is now the national champion.

www.espn.com

WHEN INDIANA FIRED coach Tom Allen in 2023, university leadership was prepared to take the next step with football. School president Pamela Whitten had laid the groundwork.

When she was hired two years earlier, Whitten was tasked with a long to-do list, including elevating Indiana athletics. This was during a revolutionary time for collegiate sports, with the transfer portal and NIL evening the playing field in a way that would allow more than the same handful of programs to compete for championships.

"We had to raise a lot of money to have the resources, both financial as well as the physical infrastructure," Whitten said. "So, when we were ready to bring in a coach, he needed that ecosystem to be successful as well."

She and athletic director Scott Dolson -- an Indiana lifer who worked as a student manager for Bobby Knight -- talked about what they wanted in their next coach. When they met with Cignetti, Whitten said, "It wasn't so much like an interview as it was a melding of the approach and values a

Though Cignetti did not guarantee a national title in two years, he refused to put any limitations on what he thought Indiana could do.

Dolson thought back to a conversation he once had with his brother-in-law, who played football at Indiana in the 1980s under Bill Mallory, who led the Hoosiers to six bowl appearances during his tenure.

"He said to me, 'Why don't we ever think big enough? We should think about championships. We shouldn't just think about bowl games,'" Dolson recalled. "He instilled that in me. It is important to have a plan to build a winning program across the board. Don't put any limitations there. It's what Coach Cig said from the minute I talked to him."

Forget about four- and five-star players and highly touted prospects. Cignetti valued character and production above all else. He was looking for not only hard workers but players who would put team above self. He approves every personnel decision. His first team had 23 people who either coached or played for him at James Madison.

In 13 seasons as a head coach, Cignetti had never had a losing record. Now, at the losingest program in FBS, something had to give. It wasn't going to be the stubborn coach.

 

[TGHusker]

I said portal - because it allows all of the chaos to occur. There needs to be some constraints added or we will continue with this wild west version of college football

 

[admo]

Let's just take the Huskers out of it for a minute.

Overall, CFB has been more exciting with NIL, the transfer portal, and the success of Cignetti/Indiana.

Personally, I find it interesting to see players transfer to other places and play immediately. I am also glad they can get paid, just like coaches and TV networks and Universities, etc.

I think the transferring part has made the game exciting and more interesting. It's fun to follow the free agent signings after the season, but also how they do during the year at the team they transferred to. It also helps all teams in some way or another. It's good.

What I do not like about this era (NIL and transfer portal) is the amount of money they get and how often they can transfer. More than 3 schools (counting the original school) should be the limit. And it is a little strange seeing transfers within the conference, but I am getting used to that over time.

I do not think college football players should get paid a million dollars. That part is way out of hand.

The idea was help the student/athletes get paid some cash and be able to transfer & play immediately if they requested.

I do not like opposing "agents" talking to players and their agents trying to poach them.

I think the huge mess with college football started with bad ADs making bad decisions, plus schools paying coaches millions of dollars after they get fired. And also, Head coaches job hoping for bigger money deals as well, chasing paper and bright lights. The mess started from the top and it's everywhere from ADs to HC to Coordinators to Assistant Coaches to Players. Do what you want, go where you want, and get that big paycheck.

The game is still fun as ever and just a little more exciting and interesting now because of the players transferring.

 

[InOmaha]

I get the NIL. It's a multi-billion dollar sport they were getting free labor to drive. But they should be contracts for however long and what terms they mutually agree upon. Jumping to 5 schools is silly. I think schools have wised up to this and written better contracts recently.

Make what they sign a contract that another school must buy out if they want a player who is on a $ and years contract. Maybe the contracted school could turn down the buyout offer until the contract expires.

That would slow it down.

Or they could start trading players mid season like the NFL. Since "going to college" is the joke part anyway.

 

[Hilltop]

I honestly think most of us will like all of it once/if we can get to a place and time where we have valid, enforceable, contracts and a more level playing field regarding financials. The intention is to let kids earn money and give them the opportunity to transfer for an opportunity to better themselves. Currently it is just bidding wars with the big money donors which I don't care for at all.

 

[Undone]

For me, NIL hasn't ruined anything because I believe that it is only logical that the players should be allowed to earn money for playing college sports. I think it's just an intellectually honest take, and really I think it came about 30 years too late.

But getting rid of the undergrad transfer rule? Yeah, that has essentially ruined the sport.

Having coaches who are great high school recruiters is now meaningless, and as a fan, you really don't even know who's going to be on the team next year after the last game of the season is played.

And I'm not sure why anybody would even ask if Curt Cignetti has ruined anything. The guy prevented all of the teams we all hate from winning a title this year.

 

[RedDenver]

Missing the option "Hurt: the universities refusing to collectively bargain with the players hurts the worst"

 

[BigRedBuster]

Missing the option "Hurt: the universities refusing to collectively bargain with the players hurts the worst"

I don't know enough about the subject. But, I'm guessing that now, the Universities would have to go to the players (through some type of players committee) and convince them to all come together on a collective bargaining agreement. So, if that's the case, why would they players agree to that now? Right now, the players have absolutely everything they ever dreamed of. There are absolutely no rules that they have to abide by other than whatever contract they sign individually.

Which, then would bring up the question, can the athletic programs all come together (without the players) and agree to certain terms that will be in all contracts such as limitations on transfering? I'm guessing the answer is no.

So, if all that is the case, then the universities did screw the pooch.

IF all that can be done, I would want the same to be done with coaching contracts. First and foremost, all players and coaches are bound to their current teams until that team's season is over, including post season.

 

[BaytownHusker]

Curt hasn't done any thing but good. He didn't create the NIL.

 

[JJ Husker]

Not sure I like the poll choices.
NIL (the way it has been and is currently structured) and the portal ruined things long before Curt Cignetti popped up.

The players should see some monetary benefit from CFB. Wide open billionaire checkbooks and unlimited, non-transparent payments is not the way imo. And the portal as it stands is ridiculous. Hopefully it is unsustainable and change for the better is on it’s way.

Curt Cignetti has nothing to do with it. His use of NIL & the portal was just a next step in exploiting a ridiculous situation, and hopefully it helps to bring about change. The thing that Cignetti doesn’t help is the expectations of fans and institutions (like Nebraska) that will think it’s just that simple. But I’m not sure anything would help those that don’t recognize that what he accomplished is an outlier and not the rule.

 

[Street Novelist]

This is a very confusing poll. Cignetti has nothing to do with the portal or NIL. They both existed before he went to Indiana.

 

[SouthLincoln Husker]

Its the lack of NIL caps that have hurt college sports!