Lifelong Missouri Tigers boosters and former players admit their passion is fading as NIL money and playoff politics reshape the sport. Ratings are up — but is the heart of the game quietly disappearing?
The stadium still fills. The band still plays. The cameras still sweep across painted faces and trembling hands raised in school colors. On the surface, college football has never looked healthier. Television contracts are larger, playoff spots are multiplying, recruits announce commitments with cinematic flair, and social media ensures no moment is ever truly forgotten. Yet among the people who once loved this game the most — the lifelong boosters, the former players, the fans who grew up believing college football was something sacred — a quiet question keeps surfacing: has the sport gained the world but lost its soul?
For many Missouri Tigers supporters, this question is no longer theoretical. It is personal.
Harold McKenzie first attended a Missouri game in 1968. He was a child, holding his father’s hand as they walked into Memorial Stadium. He remembers the smell of popcorn, the echo of the band bouncing off the stands, and the way the players looked impossibly large and impossibly human at the same time. To Harold, those athletes were not celebrities. They were representatives of a school, a community, and a shared dream. Today, Harold still watches every game, but he admits something has changed.
“I don’t recognize the relationship anymore,” he says quietly. “I used to feel like those players were ours. Now it feels like they’re just passing through.”
That sense of impermanence is one of the deepest wounds college football is grappling with. The modern game moves at a speed that leaves little room for emotional attachment. Players transfer freely. Commitments dissolve overnight. Loyalty is increasingly defined by opportunity rather than identity. For fans who once watched freshmen grow into leaders, who followed entire careers from beginning to end, this shift feels like watching a familiar story being rewritten by strangers.
Former Missouri linebacker Andre Lawson understands both sides. He played in an era when NIL money did not exist. When he reflects on his career, he remembers cramped buses, modest meals, and the strange mix of pride and frustration that came with being an unpaid athlete in a billion-dollar machine. He supports players earning money now. He believes they deserve it. But he also believes something fragile has been lost in the process.
“We used to talk about brotherhood like it was a promise,” Andre explains. “Now it feels like a contract.”
That word — contract — echoes through conversations across college football. What once felt like a calling now feels like a transaction. What once felt like loyalty now feels like leverage. Players are no longer just students representing a school; they are brands negotiating market value. There is nothing inherently wrong with that reality. Yet the emotional consequence is unavoidable. When every decision is filtered through financial opportunity, passion struggles to remain the primary language of the game.
Missouri boosters who once donated out of love now speak in the tone of investors. They want returns. They want wins. They want relevance in the playoff conversation. They talk about rosters the way stock traders talk about portfolios. The shift did not happen overnight, but it has happened thoroughly.
What makes this transformation especially painful is that college football was never just about excellence. It was about belonging. It was about walking into a stadium and knowing that everyone around you shared a story. It was about believing that the players on the field were not only representing themselves but also carrying the hopes of towns, families, and traditions.
Today, the playoff system has redefined what success even means. Conference championships once felt like climactic endings. Rivalry games once felt like the ultimate measuring stick. Now, everything is evaluated through the lens of playoff viability. A win is only celebrated if it improves positioning. A loss is not mourned for its emotional sting but for its mathematical consequences.
The game has become optimized.
Optimization, however, is rarely romantic.
Former Missouri quarterback Daniel Reeves describes the change in simple terms. “We used to play to prove who we were. Now teams play to stay relevant.”
That distinction matters. Playing to prove who you are invites risk, pride, defiance, and character. Playing to stay relevant invites caution, calculation, and politics. Coaches are forced to navigate not just playbooks but alliances. Conferences negotiate not just schedules but power. Players evaluate not just fit but exposure.
And the fans, watching from the outside, feel the shift in tone even when they cannot fully articulate it.
College football used to feel like a story told over decades. Now it feels like a series of episodes produced for immediate engagement.
Ratings are higher than ever. The audience is larger. The sport is more visible. But visibility does not guarantee intimacy. A game can be watched by millions and still feel emotionally distant.
Missouri Tigers supporters often describe a specific moment when the disconnect became undeniable. It is the moment when a star player announces a transfer days after promising loyalty. It is the moment when a coach leaves for a bigger program while speaking about “unfinished business” weeks earlier. It is the moment when a rivalry game is rescheduled or diluted for television convenience. Each moment chips away at the belief that college football is about something deeper than exposure and profit.
Yet the pain is not rooted in bitterness. It is rooted in grief.
Grief for a version of the game that felt personal.
Grief for Saturdays that felt sacred.
Grief for athletes who felt like neighbors instead of assets.
Grief for traditions that once felt untouchable.
Some fans blame NIL entirely. Others blame the playoff. Others blame social media. The truth is that the transformation is not caused by a single force. It is caused by the collision of money, technology, ambition, and global attention. College football has grown into something larger than its original emotional framework could comfortably hold.
When something grows too large, it often forgets the size of the hands that built it.
Missouri boosters who once met players in grocery stores now see them in luxury cars. Former players who once returned to campus as legends now return as footnotes in a constantly updating database. Coaches who once preached patience now sell urgency. The game moves faster than memory.
And yet, despite all of this, people still watch.
They still wear their colors.
They still hope.
This is the most confusing part of the modern college football experience. Fans feel betrayed, yet they remain loyal. They feel disconnected, yet they continue to care. They feel skeptical, yet they still believe in the possibility of magic.
Because deep down, they remember what the game once gave them.
Harold McKenzie remembers standing in the rain during a Missouri upset victory decades ago. He remembers strangers hugging. He remembers tears. He remembers feeling like the outcome mattered beyond statistics. When he watches today, he still looks for that feeling. Sometimes he finds it for a moment. Sometimes he doesn’t.
Andre Lawson remembers locker room speeches that had nothing to do with money or exposure. He remembers playing through pain because he did not want to disappoint his teammates. He watches today’s players and wonders if they feel the same weight or a different kind of pressure.
Daniel Reeves remembers rivalries that felt like emotional wars. He remembers fans caring more about beating a neighbor than impressing a committee.
These memories are not illusions. They are evidence of a culture that once prioritized belonging over branding.
The modern game is not evil. It is not broken. It is simply different. And difference, when it replaces identity, can feel like loss.
College football today is louder, brighter, and richer. But it is also thinner in some places where it used to be thick with meaning. It explains itself constantly. It markets itself endlessly. It justifies its changes relentlessly. And in doing so, it sometimes forgets to simply be what it once was.
The Missouri Tigers still run onto the field. The crowd still roars. The fight songs still echo. But beneath the sound, some fans hear an unfamiliar silence. It is the silence of certainty. The silence of knowing what the game stands for without needing it explained.
Ratings tell one story. Hearts tell another.
The danger is not that college football is changing. All living things change. The danger is that in its rush to become more efficient, more profitable, and more global, it may forget to remain meaningful.
Because meaning cannot be optimized.
It can only be protected.
Somewhere in the stands, a child is attending their first Missouri game right now. They are holding a parent’s hand. They are watching players who look impossibly large and impossibly human. That child does not know about NIL contracts. They do not know about playoff politics. They only know how the game makes them feel.
That feeling is the soul of college football.
The question is not whether the sport has lost its soul entirely. The question is whether it still remembers where its soul lives.
If college football can still choose loyalty over convenience, identity over exposure, and community over contracts, then the soul is not gone. It is only waiting.
Waiting for the game to remember that before it was a business, before it was a brand, before it was a global product, it was a promise.
A promise that Saturdays meant something.
A promise that players belonged somewhere.
A promise that fans were part of something larger than themselves.
Missouri Tigers supporters do not want the clock turned back. They know that is impossible. What they want is simpler and harder at the same time.
They want the game to feel honest again.
They want to believe again.
They want to recognize the heartbeat beneath the spectacle.
Because a sport without a soul can still entertain.
But only a sport with a soul can truly be loved.
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