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Jeff Duncan: College football should learn from the NFL before it destroys itself
- BY JEFF DUNCAN | Sports columnist
- May 22, 2026
Pat Riley famously coined a phrase for the exact ailment destroying the sport: The Disease of Me. It occurs when the pursuit of individual glory, ego, and greed completely consumes the collective good.
Today, the Disease of Me is rampant across college football, where everyone is serving themselves and no one is serving the game.
The Big Ten and SEC are the worst violators. Their leadership had the audacity to pillage the Pac-12 and Big 12 for their most valuable members, and now they have the nerve to complain about the side effects of an unsustainable arms race. They broke the model, spent money like drunken sailors, and are now staring at the wreckage wondering why the sport is in crisis.
Perhaps SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti should spend less time trying to copy the NFL’s business model and more time studying the philosophy that actually built it.
Every day, college football tries to look more like a JV version of the NFL. Colorado football coach Deion Sanders said as much, stressing that “Our sport should emulate the NFL game in every aspect."
And college football appears to be doing just that.
Programs now employ highly paid general managers to navigate roster management and oversee million-dollar payrolls. Starting quarterbacks are bringing home staggering, pro-level salaries. If current market reports are accurate, LSU’s Sam Leavitt will pull down between $5 million and $6 million this season—roughly double what the Saints are paying Tyler Shough.
The problem is that college football wants the NFL’s money, power, and prime-time profile, but it completely lacks the discipline and shared sacrifice required to sustain it.
The NFL’s modern juggernaut exists because its founders understood a fundamental truth: a rising tide lifts all boats. Since Pete Rozelle implemented league-wide revenue sharing in 1961, NFL owners have operated under the same unwavering philosophical North Star — protect the shield at all costs.
Rozelle recognized the math from the outset. He knew that big-market giants in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles possessed an inherent economic advantage over small-market franchises in Green Bay, Kansas City and New Orleans. He leveled the playing field by splitting television revenue equally, betting everything on the idea that competitive balance on the field was the true lifeblood of the business.
That one-for-all, all-for-one mindset allowed the NFL to mushroom into a cultural goliath that dominates the American entertainment landscape.
As Jim Kensil, the NFL’s longtime PR executive, once noted: "Pete Rozelle knew that, for the strength of the league, they had to share the money equally or the league would go to hell."
"Gone to hell" is a pretty fair description of the current college football landscape.
It reminds me of a story about current NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. During a private meeting, he was asked why the league insists on such onerous rules for player safety. Had the league gone too far in its efforts to protect quarterbacks and defenseless receivers?
Goodell’s reply was telling: “If I didn’t, the players would kill each other.”
In other words, in a highly competitive environment, someone has to be the heavy and look out for the enterprise's best interests. Left to their own devices, competitors will destroy themselves.
If college football is going to insist on stealing the NFL's blueprint, it needs to learn the baseline lesson that made it work: Unchecked self-interest is an existential threat to the whole enterprise. The Michigans and Georgias need the Iowa States and Dukes just as the Cowboys and Rams need the Titans and Colts.
College football is racing toward the NFL model at full speed but is skipping the part that keeps the machine from flying apart. It is desperately begging for strong leadership and structural guardrails. More than anything, it needs its own Pete Rozelle — now more than ever.
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