Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss weeks before the College Football Playoff. His players called him out on social media for lying about it. Fans booed him on the tarmac as he boarded a private jet to Baton Rouge.

A DIII coach I know lost another commit this week. Kid called to say he was heading to Lake Erie College instead. Better merit aid package.

Different sports. Different scales. Same question underneath: what does loyalty mean when nobody's bound to anything?

For most of college athletics history, the rules only went one direction. Coaches could leave whenever opportunity knocked. Players who transferred sat out a year. The system punished athletes for doing what coaches did freely.

That changed in 2021, then again in 2024. Now players can transfer unlimited times without sitting out. The field is level. And suddenly everyone's uncomfortable with what "free agency" looks like when both sides have it.

Kiffin chased a bigger program. The recruit chased a cheaper degree. Neither is more noble than the other. Both made rational decisions in a system that rewards mobility over loyalty.

Your kid's club coach will leave for a better job. The college coach recruiting your kid is also being recruited. That verbal commitment means something emotionally and nothing contractually. This isn't cynicism—it's just how it works now.

Nobody works at the same company for forty years anymore either. That version of loyalty—the kind where you stay because staying is what you do—doesn't exist in most industries. Sports caught up.

So what do you do with this?

You can mourn it. Plenty of people are. There's something lost when relationships become transactional.

Or you can operate within it. Keep relationships warm with multiple schools because coaches are doing the same. Get financial clarity before committing. Understand that a verbal is a direction, not a destination.

The families who navigate this well aren't the most loyal or the most cynical. They're the ones who understand the game as it's played now—not as it was, or as they wish it were.