Once considered taboo, is booing college athletes OK in the NIL era?

It seems like college football fans are booing the home teams and players more often, which goes right along with college football players getting paid in the open and college athletic departments early in the stages of asking for even more money so they can share court-mandated revenue with the players on top of name, image and likeness.

First of all, boo until your voice is gone. If you pay hard-earned money for a ticket to a college football game, you should be allowed to let fly with any non-offensive utterance at the highest possible volume. And yes, that includes boos directed at individual players.

This has been most apparent in 2024 at Florida State games, where quarterback DJ Uiagalelei has struggled and has heard a lot about it. The exact sum he got to transfer from Oregon State hasn’t been reported, but as one of several high-profile quarterbacks who partook in this sport’s annual free agency, it’s fair to say it was ample. The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman reported an NIL team budget of about $12 million for the Seminoles this year, and with rare exceptions the quarterback’s pay will top every team’s list.

In a sport that has been the NFL’s minor leagues for a long time but now can’t argue otherwise, fans should not be expected to act like anything but professional sports fans. I would argue those loud noises should be aimed more at the $9.9 million-a-year coach who put this team together, Mike Norvell, but I’m sure that’s the intent of many. Hopefully most.

And if exercising their right to express disappointment in the most guttural way possible is all they’re doing, these fans are not a problem. There are attacks on college football’s labor pool that are more problematic. They come from management. Let’s head to Hugh Freeze’s postgame news conference after Saturday’s five-turnover, 24-14 home loss to Arkansas.

“I know that there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football. We’ve got to find a guy that won’t throw it to the other team and we’ve got to find running backs that hold on to it,” said Freeze, who picks and coaches the players at $6.5 million a year, who is 8-9 in his second season at Auburn, who got this opportunity despite being fired in 2017 at Ole Miss for what the school termed “a pattern of personal misconduct,” who cites scripture often but did not come off very forgiving here.

College football coaches at this moment have unprecedented challenges. But annual free agency and more players getting paid more money — as opposed to select players getting paid under the table — don’t shift a sliver of accountability away from them. The coach who tries to hand any of it off is doing the work of a million boo birds and must be called out for something so pathetic.

The same is true of the coach who attacks a kid on social media. Remember that from Deion Sanders last spring? His son, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, got into it on “X” with Xavier Smith, a safety who transferred to Austin Peay after Sanders took over the program and told The Athletic of the transition under Sanders: “He was destroying guys’ confidence and belief in themselves. The way he did it, it could’ve been done with a little more compassion.”

That led to a back-and-forth that eventually saw an Austin Peay teammate defend Smith and Deion Sanders post “Lawd Jesus” in reference to a post about that teammate’s stats.

Lawd Jesus

— COACH PRIME (@DeionSanders) May 1, 2024

“I gotta do better on that and not ride with it, but I was bored,” Sanders later told USA Today. “I was bored, and I didn’t say nothing hurtful. I don’t attack people.”

Except that’s clearly an attack. On an Austin Peay player. From Colorado’s $5.7 million-a-year coach. Now let’s head to that coach’s news conference last week in which he was asked about going fishing with star player Travis Hunter.

“We talk about everything and he’s not the only one,” Sanders said, adding that “I genuinely love these kids” and then pivoting unprompted to commentary on media in the NIL age.

“Once upon a time, you guys never attacked college football players,” he said. “Now, they’re making more money than y’all. And some of y’all are envious and jealous about that. So you’re on the attack. It was hands off a college player because he’s an amateur. Remember that, guys? Now, it’s hands-on. Go at ’em. Any way you want. ‘They’re making more money than me and I’m mad about it. I’m upset about it.’”

Sure, that comment lacks self-awareness, historical perspective and accuracy. The attacks on Colorado are overwhelmingly reserved for Sanders, and in part because of how he has treated some kids. Sportswriters have covered college football players with fatter bank accounts going back well before Eric Dickerson and his gold Trans Am at SMU. Pro tip for would-be sportswriters: Don’t do it if you’re angry when around people who make more than you, because you’ll be in a constant rage.

But Sanders does bring up a point worth discussing. If it’s more acceptable for fans to boo in the NIL era, should sports media treat college players as pro players?

As a young reporter covering high school football ($25 a story, less than the weekly allowance of some kids, not mad about it), I once named a player who fumbled at a key moment. An editor took it out and explained it this way: We can say the team fumbled and name the player who recovered it, but we don’t need to publicly shame someone who isn’t on scholarship and isn’t paid.

College athletes have long lived in that in-between ground, on scholarship and perhaps headed toward riches but not compensated like pros. Now there are college quarterbacks confirmed as making more than San Francisco 49ers starter Brock Purdy, for one.

“I always look at pros as the highest level and I am more directly critical of them because of ownership of what they do, it’s their job,” ESPN analyst Booger McFarland said. “College kids, although they are the ones playing, I put the ownership on the coaches since it’s their job, so to speak. NIL hasn’t really changed my analysis of the players or the game. It will change my analysis of the coaches.  They are hand-picking these teams and deciding who gets the money.”

Here’s an idea: Treat everyone with fairness and as a human being, college and pro. Criticizing without getting personal is fine. Just as booing is fine. It’s also not entirely new.

A dozen years ago, I covered a Michigan State team that had multiple quarterbacks booed off the field. In a quick poll of a couple of longtime observers of Tennessee football, both chose the same two players as the most booed by the home fans at Neyland Stadium — pre-NIL quarterbacks Jonathan Crompton and Jarrett Guarantano.

Booing is fine. Sharing an athlete’s number on social media (happened last week to Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis) isn’t. Sharing a coach’s address on social media (happened recently to Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell) isn’t. Online haranguing of players and coaches and especially of people close to them — such as Uiagalelei’s fiancée, reportedly insulted by some FSU fans — aren’t.

Get guttural. Don’t get personal. NIL has changed things in three years. But we’re on about year 15 and running of empowerment of the most pathetic people in sports, those who land anonymous attacks directly on a sports figure’s phone.

The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman contributed reporting to this story. 

(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)