Is College Football Just the NFL’s Minor League Now?

College football has spent decades insisting it is not professional football.

That argument used to rely on one very important distinction: the players were not paid.

Well, that distinction is gone.

The best players can earn money through name, image and likeness deals. Schools that opted into the House settlement can share millions in athletic revenue directly with athletes. Players move from one program to another through the transfer portal, while coaches recruit replacements the way NFL teams work free agency.

Meanwhile, conferences stretch from New Jersey to California, television networks help shape kickoff times and rivalries are discarded when they no longer fit the financial model.

But the players are still required to go to class so everyone can keep calling this college sports.

At some point, we should probably admit what major college football has become.

It is the NFL’s minor league.

It Already Looks Like Professional Football

This is not an argument against players being paid. They should be paid.

College football generates enormous amounts of money because people want to watch the players play football. Coaches make millions. Athletic directors make hundreds of thousands. Television networks pay billions for broadcast rights. Schools sell tickets, jerseys, sponsorships, parking spaces and expensive seats that require an additional “donation” for the privilege of buying them.

The idea that the quarterback was the one person in the stadium who needed to remain an amateur never made much sense.

That fiction has finally started to disappear. The NCAA says athletes may receive legitimate third-party compensation for the use of their name, image and likeness. Following approval of the House settlement, participating schools also entered a system that allows direct financial benefits to athletes; NCAA president Charlie Baker described the combined value of revenue sharing, scholarships and other benefits as nearly half of athletic department revenue at many schools.

That does not mean every player is rich. Most are not. It does mean the economic relationship has fundamentally changed.

Players are no longer merely receiving a scholarship in exchange for representing their school. At the highest level, they are compensated performers in a multibillion-dollar entertainment business.

That sounds a lot like professional sports.

The Transfer Portal Is Free Agency Without Long-Term Contracts

The transfer portal has made the comparison even harder to avoid.

A player can leave one program, hear offers from others and move to the situation that provides the best combination of playing time, coaching, exposure and money. Programs rebuild rosters in a matter of weeks. Fans track portal commitments with the same obsession NFL fans bring to free-agent signings.

Again, none of this makes the players villains.

Coaches have always been able to leave for a better job. Schools have always been able to recruit over a player or push him down the depth chart. Giving players greater control over their own careers corrected an obvious imbalance.

But once we accept that players should be free to seek better opportunities—and that money is legitimately part of the decision—we should stop pretending the result is the same old model with a few minor adjustments.

It is a labor market.

The NFL Helps Create This System

The NFL has no true minor-league system comparable to Minor League Baseball or the NBA G League.

It does not need one. College football supplies the players, coaching, facilities, development and national exposure at no cost to NFL teams.

The NFL’s eligibility rule is a major reason the arrangement continues. A player entering the draft must be at least three years removed from high school. In 2026, the league’s own announcement for underclassmen granted special eligibility only after those players had met the three-year rule and renounced their remaining college eligibility.

For most elite prospects, college football is therefore not simply one possible road to the NFL. It is the established road—and often the only realistic one.

The NFL gets a free developmental league. Universities get valuable football programs. Television networks get live programming. Fans get Saturdays filled with games.

Almost everyone benefits from maintaining the arrangement.

That does not make the arrangement dishonest by itself. The dishonesty comes from refusing to call it what it is.

So Should Players Still Have to Attend Class?

This is where the question gets uncomfortable.

Division I athletes are still required to make academic progress to remain eligible. NCAA rules require them to complete 40 percent of their degree requirements before their third year, 60 percent before their fourth and 80 percent before their fifth, along with credit-hour and GPA requirements.

Those standards sound reasonable if the central purpose of the arrangement is education.

But what if it is not?

What if a five-star quarterback comes to a university primarily to develop as a football player, compete for a championship, build his brand and prepare for the NFL? What if the university recruits him primarily because he can win football games, sell tickets and attract television viewers?

Making him sit through classes he does not want, in pursuit of a degree he may never intend to finish, does not suddenly make the transaction educational. It may only make everyone participate in the performance.

We do not require a 19-year-old actor to enroll in college before starring in a movie. We do not require a minor-league shortstop to pass algebra before playing the next series. We do not tell a talented musician that a record contract is available only after completing 12 credit hours.

Why should football be different?

Education Should Be Guaranteed, Not Forced

The answer should not be to throw education away. A free college education remains enormously valuable, especially because only a small percentage of college players will have lasting NFL careers.

The better answer is to stop forcing every player into the same arrangement.

Major programs could offer two legitimate paths.

The first would remain the traditional student-athlete path: admission to the university, a scholarship, academic requirements and participation on the football team.

The second would be a football-first developmental path: players would be paid to train and compete for a university-affiliated team without being required to pursue a degree at that moment. Their compensation package could include tuition credits or a guaranteed education benefit they could use during or after their playing career.

Players who genuinely want a degree could pursue one. Players who want to focus entirely on football could do that without pretending.

There would be difficult questions involving employment status, collective bargaining, medical coverage, taxes, roster rules and the connection between the team and the university. But those are real questions created by the business college football has already become. Avoiding them does not preserve tradition. It merely preserves the illusion.

This Would Not Ruin College Football

Some fans will say this would turn college football into professional football.

That already happened.

The sport has paid players, revenue sharing, agents, roster management, free movement and enormous media contracts. The distinction between college and professional football now rests largely on uniforms, campus geography and the requirement that players remain students.

And the things fans actually love would still exist.

Ohio State would still play Michigan. Alabama would still play Auburn. Bands would still march. Students would still fill the stands. Fans would still care about the schools and traditions that connect generations.

Nobody stopped loving Olympic sports when athletes were allowed to earn money. Nobody stops caring about a college coach because coaching is his paid profession.

The pageantry is real even if the amateurism is not.

Call It What It Is

College football is not one thing everywhere.

At smaller schools, it can still be very close to the traditional model: students receiving an opportunity to compete while earning a degree. Even within major programs, many players value their education and will never play professionally.

But major college football—the version filling 100,000-seat stadiums and national television windows every Saturday—is now a professional developmental system attached to universities.

We do not need to be angry about that. We do not need to romanticize the old system, which made plenty of money while denying players their share.

We just need to be honest.

College football is the NFL’s minor league. It is also one of America’s best and most entertaining sports traditions. Both things can be true.

And if a player wants the education, it should be fully paid for and protected.

If he does not, maybe it is finally time to stop making him pretend.