Back in the day, NFL scouts used to walk into college games with clipboards, stopwatches, and that one resting “I know ball” face. They’d look at a player’s 40 time, how hard he hits, and maybe how loud he yells after a touchdown. That was it. If your tape looks good, if your 40-yard dash game is great, and your biceps popped under the lights, you were on the draft board. Simpler times. No drama, no agents, no Instagram “business inquiries.” But now? Oh, it’s a different time.

Suddenly, NFL scouts and coaches are not just assessing athletic performance; they’re also navigating the complexities of NIL deals and transfer portals. Take Nico Iamaleava, for example. The quarterback had a standout season at Tennessee, leading the team to a 10–3 record and a College Football Playoff appearance. And oh, along the way, he also tallied over 2,500 yards and fell just one shy of 20 touchdowns. However, the player is now transferring to UCLA. The reason?

Simple: A new NIL deal that would pay him more than Tennessee’s over $2 million per year. “We’re moving forward…Going to have to find another (quarterback),” Vols coach Josh Heupel nonchalantly said in a statement. Just like that. But don’t think Iamaleava’s move to the supposed greener pastures is going to be the only instance of rosters collapsing in lure of a higher collective.

Oh, no. It has become a major issue for the NFL scouts and the coaches. And recently, the Raiders‘ newly appointed head coach, Pete Carroll, shed some light on this concern (and he wasn’t the one, which we’ll get to a bit later). During the Raiders’ pre-draft pressers, Carroll was asked if they’ve noticed any changes in college players. “Have you guys noticed any kind of a change in demeanor in the players?…People talked about, ‘Well, there’s going to be a sense of entitlement because they’ve already been paid.’ Have you guys picked up on it?” the journalist enquired, to which Carroll noted, “What I would say is that we are looking for that factor, you know, and trying to uncover the factor if it does exist.” Well, it does exist, and Carroll knows it pretty well. And he addressed every issue step-by-step.

For starters, “It’s only natural to think that. You know, guys know that they can go from one school to the next, and it depends on how much they’re offered and all that kind of stuff. That wasn’t happening. You know, that was not part of the equation,” he continued. Well, Carroll isn’t just talking the talk. Remember Carson Beck?

Yes, the quarterback who spent five seasons at Georgia and later announced that he was entering the NFL draft. Guess what? He wasn’t. In fact, he transferred to Miami in January this year to play for one more season. What’s more? Reports stated that his one-year deal with Miami would be one of the highest-paid ($4 million with incentives). Guess he isn’t going to ditch that. And who can forget Darian Mensah giving a rude surprise to the Tulane Green Wave by transferring to the Duke Blue Devils within 48 hours of entering the transfer portal? The issue was the same: The signal caller: An $8 million(!) NIL offer over two years. But that’s not just limited to college football.

Oh, no. The major concern for Pete Carroll is high school freshmen and sophomore players. “When you think about freshmen and sophomore kids in high school getting offered deals, which is happening, that’s happening,” he ranted. “If you can, you might think we’re stretching it. That’s the real deal.” Most notable example? It’s the Raiders’ offensive coordinator, Chip Kelly.

Last year, when Kelly signed as the OC of Ohio State, he visited Brady Smigiel, a four-star quarterback from Newbury Park, California. However, Smigiel was already committed to Florida State for the 2026 class. “Chip Kelly was out on the road recruiting guys for Ohio State, and he was talking to kids who were freshmen and sophomores…So that accumulative effect of being involved in that kind of decision-making, in that kind of world has to have an effect in some way,” Pete Carroll wasn’t sugarcoating while saying this.

Besides, Carroll also addressed the issue of the players staying in college just because they’re getting lucrative deals out there. “And guys staying in school because they know that they can get paid, you know, in that senior year pretty well, and they don’t take a chance of going to the draft. That just wasn’t the way the mentality was built,” he further said. The issue is real, folks. And it’s really becoming a constant nightmare for NFL scouts and coaches alike. And Pete Carroll doesn’t like it.

The 73-year-old added, “So we have to be very open and investigative to figure this out and see what the factor is. I don’t really like it, you know, because for these guys, for these young kids coming up, that they have to deal with all this stuff, but it’s real, and so they do. And so we’ll find out the effects of it, you know, in time.” Notably, this comes less than two months after college football analyst Paul Finebaum had sounded the alarm about the “threat”. 

Talking to On3’s Pete Nakos, he had said, “The thing I’ve noticed anecdotally this fall, as the season wore on through this moment in time, is growing fatigue from fans, especially older fans, 60 and above,” Finebaum said. “A gradual turn-off. And I believe very strongly that what wasn’t a problem a couple of years ago is now an existential threat to the future of college football. I say that feeling very comfortable and interacting with fans, both on the road when I travel every week and behind a microphone every day. It’s growing, and I think it is going to continue to grow.”

“The lack of leadership overall and cohesion in the sport is creating more of an issue and exacerbating the problem. We may have started at DEFCON Five. We are now moving toward DEFCON Two, and I think DEFCON One. The bells and sirens are going to be ringing very soon.” And then there was former Notre Dame head coach/one of the most decorated coaches in CFB history Lou Holtz who had predicted the unsavory nature of NIL deals nearly two years ago.

“The NIL and the transfer portal are both terrible for college athletics,” the Hall of Fame coach had said as a guest speaker at the Palm Beach Kennel Club’s “Dinner with a Legend” series in October 2023. “I think it’s going to ruin college football,” he said. “The quarterback at Rice this year (JT Daniels) played as a freshman at Southern Cal, as a sophomore at Georgia, as a junior at West Virginia and now there…I think that you go to school to get an education and to have that school be part of your diploma. … Why do we have athletics as part of college? Because you learn more lessons on a football field than you ever learn in a college classroom. You learn perseverance, you learn teamwork, you learn to wait your turn, you learn improvement. When you transfer, all you do is change the address of your problems. The problem’s with you.” 

“I think a player should be paid if he works at McDonald’s, but not to play college football. You leave college football without any bills. You get an opportunity to get an education. You have the best facilities in the world. You play in front of millions of people. … It’s just a great opportunity, but it’s not about being paid to play football,” the legend had said.

Having said that, the NFL draft is now less than a week away. So, in the meantime, let’s look at…

What’s new for Pete Carroll’s quarterback room?

Here’s the deal: At the start of the offseason, the Raiders were trying to fill the quarterback gap. You know, nothing had been working out for the past few seasons, and their QB situation was a revolving door of underwhelming performances. Gardner Minshew, signed in March 2024, started the season but suffered a season-ending collarbone injury in Week 11. Aidan O’Connell stepped in but faced his own setbacks, including injuries and inconsistent performances, leading to a 2–5 record as a starter.

Long story short: by the time the Raiders could recover from their QB issues, they were already down to 4-13. Fast forward to now, and no wonder Pete Carroll and Co. were looking to flip the script. Enter Geno Smith, a seasoned vet, who’s coming after a few breakout seasons in Seattle. But if you’re thinking that the Raiders are just done with their QB room, think again, because the NFL draft is almost here.

The Raiders have the No. 6 overall pick, and the rumor mill is buzzing that the team’s going to draft a QB. The reason? Well, if you’ve a 34-year-old as your QB1, then there’s always room for a young talent. And looks like the team’s general manager, John Spytek, just confirmed it. On Friday, during the pre-draft Pressers, the GM addressed the team’s draft strategies for the QB.

“You guys have all tracked, you guys have all done your investigative journalism well enough to know that we’ve brought some quarterbacks in and that wasn’t by accident, at it by any means,” Spytek remarked. “We remain open to the most important position in sports to get right, and we’re super excited to have Geno (Smith) here, and we continue to expect him to be here for a while, but you can’t have too many of those guys.” Translation?

Well, they’re super excited to work with Geno for a couple of years or maybe a little more, but they are eyeing drafting a QB in the draft for a long-term option. Who’s it going to be? We’ve no clue. Because the way things are shaping up, this year’s class has just two top QB prospects. Cam Ward is expected to be drafted by the Titans.

And Shedeur Sanders? Well, it’s hard to pin down that. All in all, it’s safe to say that Pete Carroll and Co. are looking to draft a QB. But we need to wait for a few more days to find that out.