Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Frank D. Murphy.
College football was never intended to function as a sovereign empire, operating independently from the academic life of the university. It was meant to complement education, not eclipse it. It was designed to foster character, discipline, teamwork, and community — all within the broader purpose of preparing young people to become thoughtful, responsible adults. Yet today, the leadership culture surrounding college football often reflects something very different: a system driven by ego, prestige, and the relentless pursuit of winning at any cost.
Somewhere along the way, the mission shifted.
The emphasis moved from developing human beings to producing entertainment. Athletes are now celebrated almost exclusively for what they can do inside a stadium, not for who they are becoming in the classroom, in their personal lives, or in the world beyond campus. Coaches are praised for the size of their contracts and the number of their championship rings, even when the student-athletes under their authority fail to graduate, struggle academically, or are left unprepared to navigate adulthood once the cheering stops. The phrase "student-athlete," repeated endlessly in press conferences and recruiting speeches, is a mere marketing slogan, rather than an educational commitment.
If we were sincere about the student-athlete ideal, we would structure programs to support long-term development rather than short-term athletic performance. We would insist that graduation matters, even if it takes returning to campus years later to complete a degree. We would require athletes to attend class and participate fully in academic life, not isolate them in athletic facilities where special treatment and lowered expectations undermine the very purpose of a university. We would enforce accountability to campus rules and to the law, because character is not only built on Saturday afternoons but also in private decisions, habits, and the way one treats others when there is nothing to gain.
Coaching would be understood as a form of teaching, not entertainment leadership. The measure of a program would not be how loudly a stadium roars but what kind of men and women walk across the stage on graduation day and what kind of adults they become ten years later. If a coach claims to mold young people, then that molding should be visible in the lives they lead — in how they treat their families, how they contribute to their communities, how they carry themselves as colleagues and leaders.
The reputation of a college football program should reflect the character of the university it represents. Success should be recognizable not just in rankings, polls, and bowl game selections, but in the everyday conduct of the athletes who represent that institution. How players act in dorms, in classrooms, at community events, on airplanes, and in hotels during road games — all of this speaks more to the integrity of a program than the score on the board. If professors feel pressured to lower academic standards, if fellow students feel intimidated or disrespected, if local communities brace themselves when the team arrives, then no number of wins can redeem that failure of culture.
Competition itself is not the problem.
The pursuit of excellence is one of the most valuable aspects of sports. Strength, discipline, perseverance, and sacrifice are qualities college football, at its best, teaches extraordinarily well. But when competition becomes a justification for self-importance, when athletes are treated as commodities, when coaches are celebrated as infallible heroes, when the scoreboard becomes the only moral compass, the entire structure begins to rot from within.
A championship ring means very little if the young men who helped earn it leave the program without the tools they need to build meaningful lives. A coach with a winning record who sends players into the adult world without direction, accountability, or the ability to sustain healthy relationships has failed far more profoundly than any coach whose team falls short on the field. A university that allows this failure to stand — or worse, rewards it — has abandoned its own reason for existing.
The future of college football requires leadership that remembers why these institutions were created in the first place. It requires presidents, trustees, donors, and athletic directors who are willing to say: We are responsible for who these young people become, not just how they perform. It requires coaches who understand that their legacy will not be measured in trophies, but in lives shaped. And it requires fans willing to value integrity as much as victory.
Until that mindset returns, college football will remain less an arena for education and growth, and more a stage for ego and spectacle. And the real losses — the human losses — will never appear on a scoreboard, but they will last far longer than any cheering crowd.
Dr. Rich Rogers serves as vice chair for American Values at the American First Policy Institute.
Frank D. Murphy serves as chair for the Athletes for America Coalition at the America First Policy Institute.
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