FRISCO, Texas — As day one of Big 12 Media Day rolled on Tuesday, coaches representing half of the Big 12's 16 teams came together for the coaches roundtable to discuss the state of college football.
Many of their concerns were apparent during their one-on-one time in front of the microphones. It was obvious that all eight head coaches are concerned about college football's direction, especially in consideration of their student-athletes.
BYU's Kalani Sitake was joined by Texas Tech's Joey McGuire, Iowa State's Matt Campbell, Kansas State's Chris Klieman, Cincinnati's Scott Satterfield, Central Florida's Scott Frost, Baylor's Dave Aranda and Arizona State's Kenny Dillingham to share their thoughts.
What were their primary concerns? The lack of strong incentives for players to stay committed to their programs, the timing of the transfer portal windows and the lack of standards for colleges to follow or enforce.
"We're in the profession, and we don't even know the rules"
That comes from Satterfield, who has been coaching at Cincinnati since 2023. The college football world has done anything but calm down in that timeframe, and has not been since 2020.
The prevailing sentiment from the roundtable was that there are several obstacles that prevent teams from operating on an even playing field. Sitake mentioned one possible method for creating those rules.
"The game of college football would be even better the more you include coaches in the rules and in making the legislation," Sitake said.
As hard as the lack of coordination has been for the coaches, imagine how much harder it is for the student-athlete.
"These men," Sitake said, referencing the other coaches on stage, "have done a great job of protecting the game of football together. The one thing I do love about all of them is that they do care about the student-athletes, and [about] getting them their degree."
This concern for the well-being of student-athletes includes problems arising from the timing of transfer portal windows, which happen during many programs' preparation for the CFP and bowl games. One team in the CFP last year had a backup quarterback enter the transfer portal to make it in time for the new semester.
Frost, who is returning as head coach to UCF this upcoming season and advocated for just one transfer portal window, noted the difficulty of getting the calendar right with varying school schedules, not to mention the loss of credits when transferring from one school to another.
"I don't think it's fair for college student-athletes," Frost said. "I think the reality of getting our calendar correct, helping one calendar window, finding the right time for the transfer portal to be open, probably some point in January, and then helping us have that opportunity to build our football teams from there [shows] we have a lot of work to do in college football."
The Big 12 coaches are united in doing what is best for their athletes.
ASU's Kenny Dillingham said, "I know this is a business. I know it's a profession to everybody, but anybody who's not in this to see a kid go from an 18-year-old kid to a 22-year-old man and enter the real world is in it for the wrong reasons.
"The reality is we get to impact a lot of young people, every single day, and we should do it with every single power we have in our body to help these kids achieve success in life," he said.