"I remember when...love for game/team/school pride/the mascot's leash....loyalty....VFL means xxxxx and yyyyyy....."
You remember a bad system of everyone cashing in but prohibiting the player from doing so. You liked it because that system - denying players the same rights of association, mobility, and to earn income that everyone carping about it NOW enjoyed - was stable, and unethically, unjustly so. Not only could you deny them rights but by running a cartel-like monopoly, you could freeze them in place to a degree and penalize them for transferring.
Coaches love the game/team/school, etc. but they're going to get paid, first and foremost or they'll love the game at a different team/school. However, the player critics can't conceive of the player have similar self-interest and rights while also loving the game/school/team.
"Yeah but FREE education, room/board, pro training & medical...." which add up to a really nice deal for UT cashiering over $100M/surplus revenues of >$50/60M while 'paying' what amounts to minimum/low-skilled wage to players. Critics with valuable skills who settle for minimum wage out of some sense of loyalty at least have room to talk, but they aren't very bright and are not to be emulated.
This is college football going forward; it will not revert to the bad system you remember and revered, because you never considered the inequity of it. You don't have to like or accept it, but for heaven's sake STFU with perpetually indignant carping about it. You're sky-yelling now; it's unseemly.
