Jason Gay, WSJ sports columnist, says college football is at an inflection point, and LSU's sudden firing of its head coach is only the beginning.

Baton Rouge

Wall Street Journal sports columnist Jason Gay discussed the rapidly evolving landscape of college football, noting that recent events at LSU and Penn State illustrate a new level of impatience and outside influence in the sport. The conversation highlighted how college football has shed any pretense of amateurism, with players now able to profit from their name, image, and likeness, and programs undergoing drastic changes in short periods.

Gay emphasized that donors and boosters now wield significant power over coaching decisions, a shift that has become more visible in recent years. The introduction of a 12-team playoff, increased player mobility through the transfer portal, and NCAA-sanctioned revenue sharing have all contributed to an environment where traditional powers feel intense pressure to remain competitive, leading to rapid coaching changes and program overhauls.

The 'insane' standards of modern college football

All joining us now is the Wall Street Journal sports columnist Jason Gay. It's great to have you on You've been writing some thoughtful columns about this topic, which is really Captivated people this week. Welcome Thank you for having me. It's funny I see some people suggesting that now that the governor down there has injected himself into this whole process What coach is gonna want to be the head football coach at LSU now? It's a fair question and I'm shocked to be saying this but even by the traditional insane standards of modern college football we have Crossed a new threshold This is now just the train is fully off the tracks when you have something like that work the governor Effectively fired the athletic director of LSU live on camera unbeknownst to the athletic director Yeah, it really is incredible Because the governor obviously made the comment that he wasn't gonna let the athletic director pick the next head football coach So it's interesting you really do think that this is an inflection point that we are gonna perhaps Reassess how coaches are hired fired and how they're paid especially at public institutions For sure and private ones too. I mean listen if you're follow the game You're aware of what's been happening over the last half dozen years, but you've had a situation now where college sports has stripped Away any pretense of not being professional sports, especially in the big revenue sports like football and college basketball And so now you have in a you know, you have a situation where players are able to capitalize on name-image likeness they have unlimited job mobility with Transfer portal and you're seeing the effect of teams being able to basically change themselves overnight at the same time You have this 12 team playoff in college football and what it's done. It's got is this created this like new insanity this Impatience that even again by the traditionally impatient standards of big-time college sports is just wild Teams like LSU is a five and three team. They had three losses to top ten teams This was not something, you know a complete disaster But they just cannot bear the possibility of not being in the national conversation and they felt they had to act in October Yeah, it was remarkable. There's there's no other way to say it Especially on the heels of you know, Franklin at Penn State getting fired and Igniting the whole conversation one that you know Nick Saban the the great football coach some would argue maybe the the greatest ever certainly in in in the last 30 Years or so when he was on game day last weekend. He made the point that Given everything that's happened in college sports the boosters the donors Now have way too much influence and it's out in the open. They they had it before But it was in the shadows now It's in the open on how coaches are hired how they're fired how they should use Their personnel and they feel much more emboldened because of the checks that they're writing to make those decisions Well, I think you're absolutely right that this was an economy that lurked below the surface and you know making it more public I don't necessarily believe it's a bad thing it's just kind of made people more aware of this sort of ridiculousness of how decision-making happens in big-time college sports and Nick Saban won seven national championships but the smartest decision he may have made was to get away from this insane game a Couple seasons ago and go play golf and talk on TV because it is a completely different job to be a college football college basketball college coach of any kind in 2025 when you consider all the myriad issues that you have to deal with in terms of player compensation You now have NCAA sanctioned revenue sharing with 20 million dollars being split among colleges And then you also have a situation where the players just move along and again this impatience It's this idea that you look at schools like Indiana and Vanderbilt Programs that are traditional doormats have basically overhauled themselves in the space of you know 12 24 months and become national powers that makes those big heavies Crazy the idea that somebody out out there is out foxing them as much as they are out spending them

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