It’s no secret that college football has seen its fair share of parity over the past few years.
A sport that was once dominated by the SEC, more specifically Alabama, has become completely wide open in terms of legitimate championship contenders.
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It all culminated in a team like Indiana, one of the worst programs in college football history, completing a 16-0 dream season with a national championship just last year.
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Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza passes against Miami during the first half of the College Football Playoff national championship game, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Florida. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Now in 2026, the parity has reached an all-time high, with no truly dominant team standing out eight weeks into the season.
Many fans and pundits alike have attributed this to the advent of NIL, and their reasoning is fairly sound.
Of course, the proliferation of talent would become “flatter” when every program is allowed to legally pay money for players.
Not everyone is on board with this theory, though, and one of the voices leading the charge in the opposite direction is none other than “The Film Guy,” Brooks Austin.
In an exclusive interview with OutKick, Austin reasoned that it’s actually the transfer portal, and not NIL, that is the cause for all this chaos in the ranks of CFB.
“Everybody blames it on NIL,” he explains. “I think it has far more to do with freedom of movement. The portal has changed this more than anything else.”
As Austin puts it, teams like Bama and Georgia can no longer stack talent and stick it on the proverbial shelf for three years.
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Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton (14) rolls out of the pocket against Alabama during the second half of a Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
“Georgia can pay their backup just as much as Wake Forest can pay him to be a starter… so when a backup defensive tackle has been sitting on the bench for 2 years, he wants to play.”
Money is a factor, according to Austin, but it has just as much to do with the disappearance of depth as it does with overall funding.
“I think NIL has certainly created some of this parity and created opportunities for dispersion of talent,” he says. “But I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that we’re actually able to transfer, we’re able to go.”
A perfect example is when the aforementioned Bulldogs and Crimson Tide met in the 2025 SEC Championship Game.
Parker Brailsford (72) of the Alabama Crimson Tide prepares to snap the ball against the Georgia Bulldogs during the first quarter in the 2025 SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Dec. 06, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
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“I remember last year in the SEC championship game, Georgia’s down several starters on the offensive line, and Alabama is down several starters on their defensive line,” Austin recalls. “I remember that same situation happening in 2022 before the portal got absolutely rampant and Georgia loses the starting left tackle and it’s like, OK, don’t worry. Here’s Broderick Jones. He’s a former five-star and he hasn’t been playing at all, he’s gonna go block Will Anderson for four quarters.”
“And, you know, Broderick. I don’t know if he stays around for 2 years to sit on the bench nowadays, right?”
A combination of NIL and the transfer portal is certainly proving to be the great equalizer in college football, but it’s fairly clear one has a lot more to do with it than the other.
