The State of College Football: Competition, Court Orders, and Chaos

My fellow Americans, we are now officially in the midst of the NCAA College Football season. Welcome back! Week 0 got underway with a nice win for Bill Belichick’s men under Dublin skies, but dark clouds cover the current landscape of college football among a series of absurd actions and rule changes that characterize NIL-era collegiate sports. In the rush to ensure athletes are properly compensated for their efforts, have we gotten in our own way? Is there a way out? Why is a Cleveland Browns tight end trying to return to the NCAA?

The NCAA’s longstanding rules regarding amateurism, while nuanced at times, are pretty cut-and-dry: eligibility to be a scholarship athlete requires not having been paid for play, media appearances, prize money, et cetera. Now, the NIL structure that has absorbed college sports and flipped them on their head has similarly scrambled the general understanding of these rules, so much so that those who think they can take advantage are going to great lengths to do so. To make matters infinitely worse, an August 19th Louisiana court ruling granted allowance to several athletes to return to the NCAA despite having participated on professional football teams. Enter Dae’quan Wright.

Dae’quan Wright, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, is a 22-year-old tight end who played for Virginia Tech and also Ole Miss… under head coach Lane Kiffin. Wright’s name was not announced during the 2026 NFL Draft, so he opted to sign with the Philadelphia Eagles as an unrestricted free agent, doing the same with Cleveland after the Eagles waived him. Once he was ultimately waived in Cleveland, reports circulated that Wright was set to sign an NIL deal and play for Kiffin’s LSU Tigers, alarming pretty much every college football fan, coach, and player across the country. Was this all Kiffin’s fault? No, but he’s an ass and he has done a tremendous job to make the situation worse.

Since then, all Power 4 conferences have acted swiftly and created rules to bar any such returns, with Wright being left to dangle in the wind as Kiffin continues to lob commentary from the confines of his swamp. Will that serve as a comprehensive solution to this potentially catastrophic issue? Not necessarily. At least for the time being, you won’t see Fred Warner ripping through the A-gap to tear an 18-year-old quarterback’s head off.

With that all being said, college football at present can at least tout an extremely competitive, albeit somewhat top-heavy, group of contenders. With three unique B1G teams taking home the last three National Championships, the rumors of the quasi-midwestern conference overtaking the SEC are picking up steam…

My best guess is that a continuance on the NCAA’s current path will lead to another seismic shift in the collegiate football ecosystem. And if we’re talking about revamping the existing NIL system for something more logical, structured, and team-equitable, we might as well just throw in conference realignment and get this figured out once and for all… right?