Joel Klatt explains why NIL brings college football into a ‘Golden Age’

In the wake of Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game, which Ohio State won 34-23 over Notre Dame, fans have continued to lament the current state of the sport.

Many of the complaints have centered around the rise in name, image and likeness (NIL) dollars and the proliferation of the NCAA Transfer Portal, with some fans taking direct aim at the Buckeyes’ reported $20 million roster that included multiple elite transfers from SEC and Big 12 programs.

And then there’s FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt, who sees the current state of college football much differently.

“We’re in an era that I know is frustrating for fans, and I don’t want to minimize your frustrations with all the roster movement and everything, but NIL is good for the sport. It’s long overdue,” Klatt said on this week’s The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast. “Players have deserved the ability to go out and monetize their name, image and likeness. Nobody has an argument (against) that. But now, what that’s allowed teams to do, programs to do, and players to do is stay in school. Now what we’re seeing is more veteran teams, and now it’s becoming the blueprint for how to win a national championship.

“Back-to-back seasons we’ve had a team that basically committed to all coming back, yes the program invested through NIL to get those guys back, and you’ve got guys that have played 40 and 50 games in college that get to go out there trying to win a national championship, and they were able to do that. That’s exactly the case with Ohio State.”

Joel Klatt: Ohio State championship blueprint ushering in ‘golden age of college football’

Between retaining key veterans such as senior cornerback Denzel Burke, senior receiver Emeka Egbuka, and senior running back TreVeyon Henderson, and adding transfers such as graduate quarterback Will Howard (Kansas State), junior running back Quinshon Judkins (Ole Miss), senior center Seth McLaughlin (Alabama) and sophomore safety Caleb Downs (Alabama), Ohio State‘s loaded 2024 roster was a healthy blend of homegrown talent and critical portal additions.

It’s that sort of roster-building blueprint that Klatt believes other national championship-contending programs will copy moving foward in what he has termed “the golden age of college football.”

“What we’re witnessing in terms of the blueprint and the makeup of who wins the national championship is part of what I think to be the golden age of college football,” Klatt continued. “It’s great right now. I love seeing these guys play 50 games and not 22, not 23. … Think about how many guys on this Buckeyes team played over 50 games. Denzel Burke started 51 games at Ohio State. Emeka Egbuka stayed long enough to set the catch record for the Buckeyes. … That’s what we get now, the opportunity to watch these guys play for the schools that we love longer. That’s part of the Golden Age.”