Coaches Could Fix This Chaos — But They Don’t Want To

College sports didn’t “accidentally” become chaotic.

It’s not some mysterious fog that rolled in overnight. It’s not just the NCAA being incompetent. It’s not just NIL. It’s not just the portal. It’s not just lawyers. It’s not just one thing.

It’s what happens when the people with the most power—the coaches—keep choosing advantage over stability, even when they know it’s damaging the product.

And if you want a perfect example, look no further than Alabama’s Nate Oats.

Because after a judge denied Charles Bediako’s motion for a preliminary injunction, meaning Alabama’s “pro-to-college” experiment got slammed into a wall, Oats didn’t respond with, “Okay, lesson learned. This is probably a line we shouldn’t cross.”

Nope.

He basically said he hopes somebody wins one of these cases soon.

That’s not a leader trying to protect the sport. That’s a coach trying to break it.

And that’s the point: the chaos continues because the people in charge keep playing along with it.

The sport isn’t broken. It’s being exploited.

The argument goes like this: “Well, if it’s allowed, you’d be stupid not to do it.”

That mindset is exactly why everything feels unrecognizable.

Because it turns every rule into a suggestion and every boundary into a dare. Once everyone starts operating like that, it’s an arms race:

Who can “recruit” the portal hardest?

Who can pay the most, earliest?

Who can flip a kid the latest?

Who can skirt the eligibility line and then sue if it doesn’t go their way?

At some point, it stops being competition and becomes a legal strategy.

And coaches—especially the ones at the top—have the ability to slow this down if they actually wanted to.

They just don’t want to.

“But it’s the NCAA’s fault.” Sure. And?

The NCAA has been inconsistent for years. Everybody knows it. Inconsistency is basically their brand.

But here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud:

If coaches collectively decided, “We’re not doing this,” a lot of this madness would die on the spot.

Imagine if power conference coaches publicly agreed on just a few things:

• No taking players who have exhausted eligibility through professional play.
• No “mid-year” roster stunts that turn eligibility into a courtroom debate.
• No tampering through backchannels.
• No treating contracts—sorry, “commitments”—like they’re meaningless.

That would normalize behavior again.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking: Swanny, that’s Pollyanna. Coaches won’t do it because they’ll lose their jobs.

Exactly.

So don’t tell me they’re victims of the chaos. They’re participants in the chaos. The “everybody else is doing it” excuse is weak.

You know what this sounds like?

It sounds like the world where the speed limit is 70, but nobody enforces it—so everybody drives 90 because if you go 70, you’re the one getting run off the road.

That’s the logic coaches use.

They don’t want rules. They want loopholes.

They don’t want enforcement. They want flexibility.

They don’t want consistency. They want an advantage.

Then the same people act shocked when fans stop caring because nobody knows who’s on the roster, who’s eligible, or what feels real.

Here’s the part coaches don’t want to hear.

The sport loses when this becomes the norm. The fans lose because loyalty is punished. The players lose because development gets replaced by constant churn. The schools lose because long-term culture gets replaced by short-term shopping. The coaches lose because their jobs become “buy it or bail out.” The broadcasters lose because storylines don’t have time to breathe.

Everybody loses.

Yet coaches keep pushing for more of it, because “more of it” means more leverage and more chances to win today.

Even if “today” is slowly killing the thing they’re selling.

When a coach looks at a situation like Bediako—pro basketball, then back to college because the money and opportunity are better—and responds with “I hope someone wins a case like this”, what he’s saying is:

“I want the sport to be more chaotic if it benefits me.”

And he won’t be the last one.

Because until coaches decide the sport is worth protecting, college athletics will keep drifting into a place where the loudest voice isn’t a coach, a commissioner, or a president…

…it’s an attorney.

And that’s not college sports.

That’s Court TV with a scoreboard.