The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos, by Armen Keteyian, published in 2024. I'm three chapters in. The first few chapters cover the reaction of Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh -- the coaches in the 2023 season CFP championship game -- to the advent of NIL, which was legalized in July 2021. Their reactions were not positive. 😁 Saban hated the lack of control he had over the development of his players and his team (comparing it to the NFL, where he had no control and no ability to motivate his players), and Harbaugh bemoaned the loss of developing boys into young men and the loss of the challenge of building a team over years. As a result, both Alabama and Michigan had poor NIL operations from the start. Bama basically didn't have one, while Michigan had six NIL collectives that were all over the place. Of course, both recovered and built strong NIL operations. Saban and Harbaugh hated the changes so much that Saban retired and Harbaugh returned to the NFL (though to be fair, Harbaugh was embroiled in scandal that was driving him out of the college game anyway). It gets back to what Kelly Woolwine said on that podcast we did a week ago .... everyone hates this system. Everyone. Hang in there, Hokie fans. I think, in the next five years, some structure will be brought to the system, with collective bargaining, contracts, transfer guardrails, etc. Everyone is crying for it. (Everyone except ESPN.) The P2 schools are currently using the system to crush the non-P2 schools and take all of their players, but even the P2 schools eventually want structure ... just give them a little time first, to choke the life out of the other 100 FBS teams. ** Edited by Will Stewart at 12/23/2024, 12:15:33 PM