I posted earlier about the “old days,” when at Oregon, we almost always developed our own QBs. Today, no program can afford to wait to grow its own.

I can be slow to the party, but with NIL and revenue sharing, the quarterback has become the pinnacle of the true free-agent market. The transfer portal is where many of these players will make more money than many will earn the rest of their lives.

The pay curve is steep. At a top program, a backup earns around $1 million, and a highly recruited backup gets closer to $1.5-2 million (reportedly, Dylan gets $2 million). A starter makes $3–4 million, and elite transfers get $5–6.5 million (Dante $5 million).

And the crazy thing is, when we look at the massive amount of money involved in CFB, they’re worth it – even worth the risk. It finally occurred to me that a talented backup QB can no longer afford to 'wait his turn.' Every season he sits can cost him millions, and his value drops.

I have to remind myself that most of these kids making $1–3 million per year will never take a snap in the NFL. For them, this is payday (and this is true of all other positions... the numbers are just lower).

There’s always been a transactional relationship in CFB between the institution and the players and coaches. But it’s now finally occurred to me that it is almost entirely transactional… and on steroids. Both the kids and the coaches have understandably entered the mercenary-portal.

As I said, I can be a bit slow to the party. But it finally occurred to me today that the old path in CFB of truly developing QBs died a quiet death.

Too bad most of those kids will have little to no education or self discipline ine the matters of money management.

Many are doomed to struggle with that when "student athlete" begins to fade in the rear view mirror.

Good insight, Desert Duck. I am like you - just don't get or enjoy this new age of CFB. Raiola getting paid $2M is insame and borderline criminal, judging from his performance so far. What happened to common sense nowadays?

By the same token, cudos to AS Jr for sticking around so far. For that he deserves to get a chance to play and show what he can or can't do. If he can't deliever, the fault is more on the coaches for failing to develop him. Like you said, that's simply not their focus any more. Why do the hard work when someone else can buy your players and you can buy anyone's players?

Edited 36 minutes ago36 min by DuckFan93

I don't think developing QBs has died. I do think that development of QBs has largely been offloaded to other programs (like lower tier P4 or G6) and the richer programs take them through the transfer portal in year 3+.