College football analyst and former Georgia LB David Pollack joined us on Thursday's edition of TexAgs Live to discuss the current state of college football as NIL and the transfer portal increase roster changes and decrease the number of undefeated seasons across leagues.
Key notes from David Pollack interview
- Camps are always interesting. You realize, as a player, that your social life is ended for months. Last year with Mike Elko, for the first time in three years, A&M won eight games. When he came from Duke, you knew what you were getting. Y'all had him before. The defensive prowess: I love the competitive sprint. I loved the accountability. The state of Texas is in a good spot with NIL. You look at the Longhorns, and Texas Tech has more mojo. Texas A&M is the same thing. They got their coach. Now that your quarterback is partially through the season and you’re adding through the portal, y’all have a lot to be excited about.
- I think that it's the realization this year. There are a lot of guys this year you look at and go: Who are the All-Americans? I think there’s a lot of unlinks and that’s what we aren’t accustomed to seeing. That’s why there isn’t as much love. Kirby Smart loves that. He'll be just fine. Last year, before the end of the year, it was Ohio State and Georgia because of their talented roster.
- College football is in a great spot with the transfer portal and NIL. The times of undefeated seasons… We are almost in the NFL world now. Longer seasons, obviously. And with the talent spread out, there will be losses along the way. If Georgia plays the same style as a year ago, they will be much worse with Gunner Stockton at quarterback. That was the worst rushing offense in 20 years. I was in school in Georgia last time they were that bad. If they don’t have balance, they will absolutely struggle and not be as good as we’ve seen Georgia in the past.
- I love parity. I love that more people have the chance to be successful. I love the transfer portal, but I don’t like the system and where we’re at. It needs to have more guardrails. What people don’t realize about the portal is that sometimes coaches are wrong and pigeonhole players. They’re not correct. Players could do more than they thought they could do. They get an opportunity and are very successful. There needs to be more structure, less movement and more accountability on both sides. A contract, so to speak, of some sort. You used to have guys who went to Georgia and Alabama who would sit on their bench for three years to develop and wait for the opportunity because they knew the NFL was next. That’s where they needed to go. Now those guys are like, I’ll go here, here and here. That’s why there’s been more diversity in the playoffs.
- As long as we have a system that isn’t the same, people will complain. The Big Ten has the last two championships, and they have the right to have some bragging rights. Do you look at them and say they're as deep as the SEC? Absolutely not. We could fix all this with scheduling. We have all this stuff that’s going in the right direction, and I feel like we could just give them a few tweaks. What if we did shorten the schedule to where everyone did eight games, but everyone does a crossover where you play one Big Ten, one ACC and one Big 12 team? The crossover would be fantastic. I think year to year, team to team, college football is evolving. But it's fair to say that they're debating for the best conference when they’ve won the past two. Week in and week out, there are a lot of teams that can beat you in the SEC. Look at Diego Pavia and Vanderbilt last year. There’s still magic. There are more dynamic and deeper teams in the SEC.
- Last year, everyone was talking about Notre Dame at the end of the season. I was going, “Man, I think they can win this thing.” If you spend a little bit of time with Marcus Freeman, he has a cool vibe. But he’s got the discipline vibe. High school recruiting is going this way, but you watch him coach and the aggressiveness... You figure out who they are.
- There aren’t a lot of things to say about Notre Dame that they won’t be good. Again, controversial for Penn State fans, but I think Jeremiyah Love is the best running back in the country. Then you throw in Cam Williams at receiver. He’s a great third-down receiver. Then, defensively losing Al Golden to the Bengals, can the system remain good? They have a lot of guys who went to the NFL, but a lot of guys came back. Notre Dame isn’t going anywhere.
- I was impressed with Florida. They got slapped upside the head by Miami to start the season. They lost so many guys to the portal, but Billy Napier did an unbelievable job. DJ Lagway showed you the cannon. He doesn’t take a backseat to anyone in this country. In the games he started, they were 6-0. The interesting thing to watch about the offense is that he missed all of the spring and camp. Can they keep him upright and healthy? I think their schedule is a murderous row. It’s like, goodness, whoever made this schedule, they don’t like them.
- LSU is interesting to me because they went transfer portal heavy. Whit Weeks is one of the best linebackers in the country. Replacing the secondary, if they gel together with their line and transfer portal, they lost four of five on the offensive line, and they have the trigger man. Garrett Nussmeier is so good. A&M fans know he’s so good, but he has moments where he can give it all away.
