For generations, being a college football fan meant buying into the long haul. You didn’t just root for the team - you rooted for the journey.
You followed recruiting battles like they were playoff games, scouring message boards and watching grainy Hudl tape of high schoolers who might one day wear your school’s colors. When one of them finally committed, it felt like the start of something.
You tracked their growth from wide-eyed freshman to seasoned leader, and if all went well, that player became a pillar of your fandom - a name you’d remember long after they left campus.
That emotional investment wasn’t formal, but it was real. The school got four or five years of eligibility.
The fan got continuity, connection, and a reason to care beyond the scoreboard. You weren’t just rooting for laundry - you were rooting for people.
But in the era of the transfer portal, that bond is being quietly - but unmistakably - strained.
This offseason alone has been a case study in how quickly things can unravel. Take Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr.
He initially agreed to stay with the Huskies, only to reverse course and enter the portal. Eventually, he returned, but not exactly on his own terms.
Now, he’s back in Seattle, but the vibe is less triumphant homecoming and more awkward reunion. It’s a dynamic that feels more transactional than emotional - and it’s hard to ignore how that changes the fan-player relationship.
Over at Duke, it’s a similar story with quarterback Darian Mensah. He too agreed to stay, then opted for the portal late in the game.
That decision sparked a legal battle, with Duke suing to enforce the terms of his agreement. It's a messy situation, and while the legal details are one thing, the emotional fallout is another.
What does it mean for a fan to cheer for a player who’s only on the field because he’s legally obligated to be there?
Sure, the connection between fans and players has always had a bit of fantasy to it - that sense that everyone’s pulling in the same direction, united by school pride and shared goals. But college football has always thrived on that illusion.
That’s what made it different from the pros. That’s what made it feel personal.
This isn’t an argument against the transfer portal. It’s not a knock on player empowerment, either.
For too long, the system tilted heavily in favor of schools and coaches, while players - the ones generating the product - had little control over their futures. The portal and NIL have shifted that balance, and that’s a good thing.
But in giving players more power, we’ve also - perhaps unintentionally - disempowered the fans.
Every offseason now feels like a full-blown roster overhaul. You don’t get to watch a freshman grow into a star - you watch a star arrive from another program, play one year, then leave again.
Your introduction to a new quarterback might come via a social media graphic with a photoshopped jersey and a caption that reads more like a press release than a welcome. It’s the kind of player movement that’s long been part of the NFL, but college football was never built that way.
It was built on continuity, on the idea that a player’s story was your story too.
Now, when a player breaks out, excitement is laced with anxiety. How long until another school comes calling?
Can your program afford to keep him? If you do keep him, what does that mean for the rest of the roster?
Suddenly, you're thinking more like a general manager than a fan. And that shift - from emotional to financial investment - changes everything.
You start checking in on your school’s NIL collective more than the depth chart. You care less about who’s committing out of high school and more about whether your program can outbid your rivals in the portal. The fandom becomes less about the team and more about the transaction.
And here’s the irony: NIL and the portal only exist because fans care. Whether it’s donating to collectives, buying jerseys, or tuning in to games that drive billion-dollar TV deals, the whole system runs on engagement.
But that engagement can fade. And when it does, it doesn’t usually vanish in a blaze of protest - it just drifts.
You skip that Thursday night game. You stop learning the two-deep.
You don’t bother getting hyped about a four-star recruit, because odds are he’ll transfer if he doesn’t start right away. The emotional connection erodes, not all at once, but piece by piece.
Even the way fans process departures has changed. When a player graduates or leaves for the NFL, it feels like a natural progression.
You celebrate their journey. But when a player hits the portal, it feels different.
It feels transactional. It feels like rejection - not personal, but still painful.
And when that player finally makes it to the NFL, and during pregame intros they shout out the school they transferred to - not yours - it stings a little more than you’d like to admit.
Winning, of course, still helps. It always does.
But even victory feels different when it’s built on short-term rentals. It’s harder to feel like you’re part of something lasting when the roster turns over faster than a TikTok trend.
Being a fan starts to feel less like a shared journey and more like content you consume.
Fans will adapt - they always do. But what they adapt into is the real question.
Will it still feel like college football? Will it still have that sense of belonging, of tradition, of watching a kid grow into a legend in your school’s colors?
Or will it morph into something else entirely - something more like the pros, where loyalty is fleeting and the emotional stakes are lower?
That’s the crossroads we’re at. And while the game itself is as thrilling as ever, the heart of college football - the connection between player, school, and fan - is being tested like never before.