Kyle Whittingham was talking about the drama surrounding Michigan football over the past handful of seasons, and made a remarkable argument in the process.
One that has been long overlooked while swirling in the short attention span theater of society.
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The problems at Michigan weren’t player-related, they were coach and administration-related.
“The players are doing what they’re supposed to do,” Whittingham said last week during Big Ten Media Days. “They’re living their lives the right way, and they’re accountable. Unfortunately, the drama came from the adults.”
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Now let’s take it one step further: The problems facing football specifically, and college sports generally, aren’t player-related, either. They’re all at the feet of the adults in the room.
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The coaches, administration and leadership of schools and their respective conferences.
There aren’t rules in the Protect College Sports act aimed directly at players, whose actions are in response to the adults soiling everything they touch. There is, however, a Lane Kiffin rule — one that prevents coaches from leaving a school for another before the end of the season.
If that rule were in place in 2025, maybe Ole Miss wins the national title, and maybe Kiffin is still in Oxford.
Everywhere we turn, those in charge have fumbled the ball over and over in the previous five years of the NIL era. Worse, they’ve done it at times through the guise of blaming others.
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It’s not me, it’s him (or her).
Former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh knew low-level staffer Connor Stalions was illegally scouting, and turned a blind eye. For the last time: Harbaugh — the control freak of control freaks — isn’t going to allow some schmo on his sideline screaming out play calls to his coordinators (who then adjust and change calls) without knowing exactly what’s going on.
No matter what Stalions intimates on a Netflix special, where he was paid to tell his side of the story.
Former Michigan coach Sherrone Moore had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate staffer. Soon-to-be former athletic director Warde Manuel was a traffic cop with blinders for the past five years.
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But it doesn’t end there in these five years of NIL infamy.
Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher and paid him $77 million to not coach. LSU paid Brian Kelly $53 million, and Penn State owed James Franklin $49 million before Franklin let the university off the hook for 40 large.
Florida hired and fired two coaches (Dan Mullen, Billy Napier) in the NIL era, a combined payout of nearly $34 million to not coach. All told, 56 of the 68 Power conference teams (including Notre Dame) have made a coaching change in the NIL era (2021-present).
Chew on that while you’re blaming players for the ills of college football because they found a judge in West Virginia to give them free player movement. For the time being, anyway.
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Since 2021, the adults in the room formed an “Alliance” of like minds to protect each other, before one in the Alliance stabbed the others in the back — a dastardly move by the Big Ten that led to the Power 5 conferences eating one of their own.
Since 2021, the adults left the first unbeaten Power conference team (Florida State) out of the College Football Playoff.
Speaking of the CFP, since 2021, the adults had a 12-team format everyone agreed to until the Alliance torpedoed it, and then the Big Ten suddenly wanted it again after the aforementioned gut punch to the ACC and Pac-12 eventually expanded the Big Ten’s numbers to 18 teams.
So the CFP expanded, and the adults couldn’t see the inherent flaws of the system until it was too late. Like Boise State receiving a first-round bye, or — my god, how in the world could they not have seen this? — an upset in the ACC championship game left Tulane and JMU in the playoff.
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And Texas and Notre Dame sitting at home.
Now the adults can’t agree on the number of future teams in the flipping thing because the adults in the Big Ten don’t trust the SEC, and the adults in the SEC don’t trust anyone.
Since 2021, the adults have begged Congress to get involved with the new NIL world because it was — choose your drama — “unsustainable” and needed “guardrails” and was “dying a slow death.” A slow death, mind you, where the Power conferences are raking nearly $4 billion annually in media rights revenue.
So Congress jumped into the fray, and I don’t have to tell you what happens when Congress sinks its teeth into anything. You get an 11th hour agreement pushed through last Friday, where too many have no idea what’s in the damn bill — but, you know, first you pass it, then you find out what’s in it (thanks, Nancy).
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If, that is, the thing can even reach a vote this week before Congress — also, by the way, adults in the room — decides to take the month off for what reason, no one in these beautiful United States can comprehend.
Meanwhile, Brendan Sorsby gambles on his team — and other various sports thousands of times — and you’d think amateur sports is caving upon itself. Various state attorneys general were getting involved, for the love of drama.
So the adults in the room had to rip that weed from the pristine and perfectly manicured garden of joy that is college sports. None of that on our watch, bub.
We’re too busy trying to hoard $4 billion annually.
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Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stop blaming players for ills of college football. Blame the adults | Opinion
