“Okay for Me, Not for Thee”: A Mirror to the Hypocrisy at the Top of College Football
In the ever-evolving chaos of college athletics, nothing sparks eye-rolls and online backlash faster than a former coach turned policymaker wagging his finger at college athletes. Enter Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach turned U.S. Senator, who recently floated the idea that Congress might need to penalize college athletes for breaking their NIL deals.
The irony, of course, is rich. And not just because Tuberville has a well-documented history of abandoning jobs mid-contract - including an infamous exit from Texas Tech where he reportedly ditched recruits at dinner without so much as a goodbye. The senator’s remarks illuminate a deeper, more pervasive problem that has plagued college sports for decades: a hypocritical double standard of loyalty, responsibility, and consequence.
“Do As I Say, Not As I Did”
Tuberville is not alone in preaching accountability to athletes while ignoring the revolving door of high-paid coaching turnover, but his recent comments laid bare the cognitive dissonance that persists among those who have built fortunes within a system that has historically required unwavering commitment from athletes and unrestricted mobility for everyone else.
When Tuberville says athletes should face consequences for breaking NIL deals, it prompts a basic question: Where was this energy when coaches were pocketing buyouts and jumping from job to job?
The coach-turned-senator even admitted that buyouts are part of the game, and often a coach’s jackpot. “If they fire you, you get paid,” he said. “But if you leave, you don’t have to pay anything… you’ve hit the jackpot.”
Exactly.
And yet, rather than focusing on the lack of ethical standards or inflated golden parachutes in the coaching ranks - public FBS schools paid out $147 million in football severance in just one year - Tuberville and others have chosen to make 18-to-22-year-olds the target of enforcement and reform.
A System Built on Asymmetry
Let’s break this down plainly.
A coach can sign a multi-million dollar contract, leave before the ink is dry, and still collect a check from his next gig.
A school can fire a coach mid-season, often after giving them fewer than three full years to implement a plan.
But an athlete who transfers to find a better fit? Now that might need Congressional intervention?
This is not about contract law or fiscal discipline. It’s about preserving control over a workforce that, for the first time in a century, is finally starting to gain leverage.
Coaches and administrators spent decades demanding loyalty from players in exchange for scholarships. But when NIL opened up the free market, and the House v. NCAA case cracked the foundation of the amateurism model, the power shifted slightly. Just slightly. And now, the powerbrokers are panicking.
Selective Morality in a Billion-Dollar Industry
There’s a familiar playbook at work here. When athletes find new financial opportunities - whether via NIL, transfer freedom, or revenue sharing - the moral panic button gets pressed.
“What about the purity of the game?”
“What about team culture?”
“What about education?”
Funny how those questions only seem to surface when players get paid—not when coaches renegotiate contracts midseason or universities collect hundreds of millions in media rights deals.
In 2022-23 alone, 21 college football coaches made enough to crack the top 100 highest-paid public employees in America. And yet, it’s the student-athletes, the ones generating the revenue on the field, who are being scrutinized for allegedly “not honoring their commitments.”
Spare us.
A Call for Reflection, Not Regulation
The debate over NIL enforcement and athlete mobility is valid, but any serious conversation about “accountability” in college sports should begin by looking at the top rather than the bottom.
If lawmakers, commissioners, and university presidents want to regulate college athletes’ behavior, they should first establish consistent standards for coaches and administrators. Until then, calls to discipline players for acting in their own best interest are not only hollow - they’re deeply hypocritical.
Senator Tuberville says he wants to “save” college football, but maybe what needs saving is not the sport itself. It’s the credibility of those still pretending to hold the moral high ground while privately negotiating their own escape routes.
The system isn’t broken because athletes now have freedom. It’s broken because the people in charge want that freedom to be theirs alone.
Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
