College football has changed so much that Bret Bielema didn’t bother dressing it up on Tuesday at Big Ten Media Days.
“NIL and revenue share,” Bielema said. “When those two things came into college football, everything changed.”
That was the tone of the day for Illinois’ head coach and athletic director Josh Whitman, who both addressed how quickly the sport has been transformed by compensation, transfer movement and the new financial structure surrounding the game. For Illinois, the shift is not some abstract debate. It’s the reality of preparing for the 2026 season.
“The rosters have changed because of those two components, the transfer rule and revenue share,” Bielema said. “It’s a different world.”
Bielema said the old comparisons no longer fit cleanly because the sport has moved into a different era.
“I think anything that predates that is just a different time in college football,” he said.
He also pointed to how the expanded Big Ten has widened Illinois’ recruiting footprint.
“We’re able to go for any kid in the country,” Bielema said.
And when asked about programs that have been slower to accept the new model, Bielema didn’t hide his view.
“They kinda wanna live in 2005 forever,” Bielema said in reference to the SEC.
Whitman, meanwhile, focused on what could come next as federal legislation continues to be discussed in Washington. Illinois is keeping tabs on it.
“We’re carefully monitoring how those changes are progressing through the bill,” Whitman said.
A major issue in those talks is how schools would handle a spending cap while still dealing with unrestricted NIL money coming from outside entities. Whitman said those pieces can’t be separated.
“If you want to talk about the cap, you also have to look at how we are managing the infusion of third-party money,” Whitman said. “You can’t raise the cap, and still have a lot of openness to outside money coming in.”
He added that the Big Ten is involved in the process.
“The Big Ten wants to be supportive of it,” he said.
Whitman also said Illinois wants room to keep making its own scheduling decisions as the broader governance conversation continues.
“We want to maintain the ability to schedule the way we want to schedule,” Whitman said, adding that “there are other ways to get at those issues than federal law.”
For all the upheaval around college athletics, Whitman said Illinois is not treating any recent progress as a reason to relax.
“There’s not an ounce of complacency in me, our coaches or our students,” Whitman said.
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