The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(12-05-2022 08:27 PM)burden Wrote:  I’m afraid this is the way it will be forever. It more or less always was with coaches but now the players too. Read an article today that it is only a matter of time before teams have to drop out of bowl games because so many players hit the portal and they can’t field a respectable team. I guess North Carolina is getting close to that this year and they are a P5 team!!

I’m not sure dropping football and going after other sports is the answer. Power 5 schools play all those sports too. I think college sports as we knew them are done. There more like the NBA G League (or whatever they call it) now .

College golfers turn pro early, Olympic gymnasts retire and then compete in college because they can make a lot of money on social media, wrestling teams cover their weak weight classes from other D1 programs, etc. Schools like Kent just can’t compete.

If I’m going to watch pro sports I’ll stick with the NBA, NFL, MLB, European soccer, NHL and the World paddleball league.

Yup, and think of some of the best players we’ve seen in a Kent State uniform and wonder how many seasons we might’ve held onto them if the portal was what it is back then. All these hidden gems we’ve cultivated would’ve bolted at the first chance the big boys that never offered them out of high school me sniffing. Mining recruits by getting the table scraps, developing them only to see them get plucked to fill in the holes in their lineups really isn’t the college sports we always enjoyed. I know we can turn around and backfill just as quickly, and Lewis and his staff have done so, but this portal really sucks.