$illy $eason in college football

There have been a few interesting developments in the world of college football.

Lots of players are choosing to forego bowl games and jump into the NFL. There are even players that are jumping early despite lower draft grades. Why? Because it’s all about the second contract and getting there while you still have your health and athleticism. The first contract is controlled by the rookie-scale anyways.

It’s also obvious why college players would be learning to operate in this fashion when you have stuff like this going on.

Texas A&M has been throwing stupid money around this offseason. First giving Jimbo Fisher a $75 million dollar GUARANTEED bailout to leave the mess he’d found himself in at Florida State and finally turn A&M’s long noted potential into actual results. Apparently they weren’t done yet and also threw stupid money at Dave Aranda, one of the better DCs in the business.

LSU, who’s likely becoming increasingly concerned that they made a bad choice giving Ed Orgeron the HC job, HAD to hold onto Aranda. Or at least they thought they did, I’m not sure that you need to spend 2.5 million a year to produce a great defense at LSU. Perception wise this was an important move.

A&M moved on to their next target:


Evidently they had to throw some more crazy money out to make this work.

I’ve got two big picture thoughts on all of this.

Texas A&M is not going to be rewarded for this lavish spending

Football is one of the more collectivist sports in existence, which can be amusing given how beloved it is by conservative segments of society. The best teams are defined by rosters of guys that are willing to sacrifice and lay down personal gains or glory in exchange for team glory. If you don’t block and tackle, you don’t win. Period.

One of the challenges at a school like Texas A&M or Texas is in recruiting all of the best high school athletes who nowadays are spending their 15th, 16th, and 17th years of their lives being told how wonderful they are and how the world revolves around them, and then getting them to buy in on the kind of self-sacrificial work that actually results in championships.

The same challenge is likely to exist on the coaching staffs. They’ll be gunning to win because they have more accountability there then the players do but they have less of it than they did in the past thanks to the absurd demand for established resumes. The idea that championships can be bought in a sport that is so collectivist in its underpinnings is dubious.

Texas A&M continues to struggle to win. Throwing increasingly massive piles of money is probably not the answer in determining why their teams always seem to come up short or why the premier talent they bring in regularly fails to translate. This is really just a massive double down on what they’ve already been doing since heading to the SEC.

The teams that learn how to build and sustain winning culture will ascend after this bubble bursts.

You notice how Wisconsin, Boise State, and Alabama are consistently great (relatively) every single season despite coaching changes or player turnover? It’s a cultural issue. Those places have cultures that consistently demand the most from every player on the roster and the rewards of titles provide the needed sustenance to keep the machine rolling.

As Bo Schembechler put it, “those who stay will be champions.” You notice there’s some question as to whether people would stay or not? That’s because it was grueling and demanding to play football for Michigan under Bo Schembechler. He was telling his players to buy in on a longer-term time preference. Sacrifice now, reap rewards later.

Another important feature of winning culture is staffs that work well together and know how to shore up each other’s weaknesses. People tend to zero in on the head coach in college football, or the top coordinator, but it’s the interlocking chemistry that makes all the difference. The programs that become dynasties are the ones where people figure out how to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts, not just in terms of the players on the field but also the coaches in the staff room.

There’s no amount of money that will buy this and there’s probably a point at which the infusion of money begins to work against building the kind of organizational continuity and cohesion that produces winning.

Texas A&M has always wanted to beat Texas and become Texas. Well, they can become Texas by throwing absurd amounts of money around and bringing in top players every year…they can also take a look at Texas’ win-loss record this decade and see what exactly that has yielded in return.