Former NFL head coach Jon Gruden did not hold back when speaking about the state of college sports while speaking with Dan Dakich.
The former Las Vegas Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach appeared on OutKick’s ‘Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakick’ and lamented the lack of player-coach relationships in collegiate athletics.
Gruden noted how these relationships don’t take ages to build but appear to be of little to no value in college sports.
‘The repetition is the mother of learning,’ Gruden said. ‘Right now you’re just seeing a bunch of rental clubs. You ever play golf and get a set of rental clubs? It’s like, ‘I don’t know how to hit this club.
‘I never putted with this putter.’ You make a lot of excuses,’ he continued.
Furthermore, Gruden discussed how the NIL era has affected the nature of college sports.
Former NFL head coach Jon Gruden called the current state of college sports ‘sickening’
Gruden, like many other coaches, emphasized the bad effects of NIL and the transfer portal
‘That’s what I’m seeing in college sports right now. Everybody is looking out for the transfer portal and how much NIL money we deserve. It’s kinda sickening really.’
Gruden is not alone in his assessment as the name, image, and likeness era parlayed with the transfer portal has been grinding the gears of coaches across the NCAA.
In February 2024, former Alabama football coach Nick Saban ripped the NIL age and its effect on college sports.
‘What we have now is not college football — not college football as we know it. You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist,’ Saban said in an interview with ESPN.
Legendary Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski acknowledged not having a method of taming the NIL era despite believing it’s benefits.
‘The game of college basketball is still very exciting, it’s just that college sports is in this incredible period of change. A lot of times when you’re changing, you know where you want to end up, and I’m not sure right now with changing, anyone knows where things will end up. It’s somewhat chaotic,’ Coach K said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
‘There’s no transparency at all, and the NCAA has really not done a great job in this. … So you need the leadership, I think, of the power-four conferences, their commissioners, more than the NCAA,’ he added.
‘I think there has to be a new model, and I think those commissioners are the ones that have to come together to figure this out.’
