July 1, 2021. A day no college football head coach and no program can easily forget. A day that brought with it unparalleled chaos and a scenario that still is dubbed the ‘wild, wild west’ era of college football. An era that is still causing all kinds of drastic moves by the coaches, teams, and players. Yes, we are talking about the NIL ruling of NCAA v. Alston, which gave college athletes their NIL rights. But also opened a whole Pandora’s box for colleges to wade through.

It’s not like the transfer portal and transfers didn’t exist before NIL. However, it wasn’t used that extensively due to fewer financial incentives. To put things in perspective, in just the 2023 season, almost 650 FBS players transferred, just in the spring window, which is just 15 days short. Then in the 2024 season, the transfers rose to a whopping 900 players. In which 220 players chose to join the ‘Power 4’ conferences. That potentially created an even greater disparity between the ‘Group of 5’ teams and ‘Power 4’ teams. But there were big teams too, like Georgia and Nebraska, suffering from high attrition.

Kirby Smart, in a recent statement, highlighted how the NIL has changed the landscape of CFB. And no matter how hard you try to keep your players, you are never going to be sure if they will be on your team when fall comes. Josh Pate asked Shane Beamer’s opinion on the matter in a recent interview. Shane initially tried to dodge the question, as he talked about the negative effects of social media on players and the age of instant gratification. At the very least, he did talk a bit about Kirby Smart’s worries.

“I think the big picture has also led very much to the instant gratification. And I see it as the head football coach that guys come in and they just expect everything to be this way right now, where I’m going to come in as a true freshman and I’m going to catch 40 balls or have six sacks, and when it doesn’t happen. Well, something must be wrong. I’m going to go somewhere else, and it all goes back to that immediate instant gratification“.

Certainly, the landscape of the NIL is far from rosy. But, we could see all that change with the new House v. NCAA settlement potentially coming in sooner. The settlement will guarantee players a large piece of revenue, which will be about $20.5 million. However, in that case, teams are preparing to execute NIL deals and contracts that will have clauses to deter players from joining other teams. The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel and Ralph D. Russo reported about the contracts, “All contained language intended to deter the player from entering the portal“. This change, while positive for coaches, can still have its problems that will range from hoards of lawsuits and teams unable to release players if wanted.

Shane Beamer breaks silence on cancellation of Spring Games

Another problem that the transfer portal and the NIL brought was the concern of widespread tampering in college football. And that same concern has led to the cancellation of spring games by several top colleges. The colleges are increasingly becoming wary of other coaches poaching their backup and third-string players if they perform well. Matt Rhule started the idea of canceling the spring game, and other coaches followed suit. Steve Sarkisian argued about player fatigue while ASU’s Kenny Dillingham also pondered canceling it. And now, coach Shane Beamer has also weighed in his opinion.

In a March 17 press conference, Beamer highlighted the importance of the spring games for the Gamecocks. “It’s awesome for our fans to be able to come out and see our football team perform in the Williams-Brice stadium,” he said. “Some people that maybe aren’t able to come to a Columbia on a Saturday, they’re able to come and watch this […] I don’t want to take that away. We’ll have a lot of recruits every day during spring practice. [The game] will be a great recruiting experience for us, and I don’t wanna lose that”. He also stressed the importance of the game from a “recruiting standpoint“.

The concerns of attrition and poaching are quite real in the new ‘wild, wild, west’ landscape of college football. Coaches will have to change their strategies and devise plans that suit both the fans and the program, too. However, coaches still cite the redundancy of spring games as they are keeping their games quite rudimentary and basic. While other teams like Nebraska and Oklahoma are sprouting other events to fill the void of the spring games. Like the ‘Crimson Combine’ by the Sooners or the ‘Husker Games’ by Nebraska. So, there is a real possibility that spring games can become a thing of the past.