In recent years, college football has changed quite a bit with the NCAA now allowing players a one-time transfer and to profit from their name, image, and likeness. And it’s not just affecting players at the college level.
During a press conference this week, Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said he can already see it affecting players as they enter the NFL, saying “it changes their mentality.”
“They’re getting paid,” Carroll said according to Pro Football Talk. “I think they can’t help but be affected by that. It’s a different world. They don’t have to stay at their schools anymore. They can go wherever they want. I think it changes the guys. It changes their mentality. I don’t know what the results of it’s going to be because it’s only a couple years old right now, but it’s evolving now, and we’re going to see, I think, some changes. Coaches in college are constantly recruiting not just people from the outside but their own guys because their own guys can leave. It just shifts somewhat of the dynamics of it.
“Again, we don’t know the effects of it, but we know that it’s changing things. For a guy to come in here and make a million dollars a year, some guys have been making a million dollars a year already, so it’s a little different than it’s been in that regard. I don’t know what the result of it’s been, but it’s having an effect.”
Carroll coached at the college level for eight years, leading the USC Trojans. So he has some experience with college players – at least before the massive changes.