Florida Atlantic's Tom Herman is 'scared' for coaches, where college football is headed

BOCA RATON — Tom Herman calls it his "most successful" coaching story, working through a rocky relationship with quarterback Cardale Jones before they united to help Ohio State win a national championship in 2014.

Herman was Jones' position coach and they "hated each other." But Jones stuck it out, worked on those issues through talks, counseling sessions and, yes, arguments; and now Herman calls Jones a member of his family.

"Cardale Jones doesn't happen (today)," Herman, the Florida Atlantic coach, said following a recent spring practice. "It just doesn't. Cardale Jones would have transferred well before he ever had an opportunity to win a national championship and build a relationship with the Herman family that he has forever."

And now …

"I'm scared," Herman said. "I'm scared for our profession. I'm scared for the young men that look to this great sport for life skills, not just a paycheck. Believe it or not, those young men still exist."

Tom Herman has moved on from his first season at FAU, which ended 4-8, and so, too, has more than 40% of his roster. FAU saw 26 players enter the transfer portal after last season, while 27 have transferred in from four-year schools.

Herman, though, knows he must adapt to the new normal in college sports. He understands the landscape has changed dramatically since he was the Ohio State quarterbacks coach or the head coach at Houston and Texas.

With the exception of dynamic receiver LaJohntay Wester, who transferred to Colorado, and one or two others, those departures were "mutual," according to Herman. Part of that is a product of Herman finding the right fits for his culture, as it is a sign of the times.

This, he believes, will mitigate year-to-year turnover.

"Our first meeting in January … I told the veterans, 'You've been around us for an entire year and you could have gone anywhere and you chose to stay. Here's the cool thing. We could have cut every last one of you. We chose you to stay, unlike those names that didn't,' " Herman said.

But Herman knows this model is not sustainable. Which is why he is "scared." Scared for the players. Scared for the coaches. Scared for the industry as a whole.

"The NFL, there's 31 billionaires that own those teams, the Packers are publicly owned, and if you went to them with a model: We're gonna start this professional league, we're gonna have 85 guys on each team and they're gonna be on six-month contracts with a player option after every six months so they get to stick around if they want, but they can leave if they want, and you don't get compensated.

"All those billionaires would laugh at you in the face and (say) that's the worst business model in the history of organized sports. And yet, that's where we are."

Collectives need more money 'fast'

Herman is waiting for the line to start forming outside his office door at the end of this month and players looking for money after the next transfer portal window opens.

FAU football players with consistent monthly payments through NIL (name, image, likeness) contracts are transfers, which was necessary to get many of them to sign with the school and replace the more than two dozen who departed.

Herman says more money needs to be raised to take care of those who have remained loyal to the program.

"We're still in the infancy stage to where there are starters on our team right now that bled red and blue for this university for three, four or five years that are making zero," Herman said.

"That's going to be a problem from a locker room cohesiveness if we don't fix that pretty quick."

Collectives work for the universities and their job is to keep up with the current rosters. But coaches cannot tell them who, and how much, to pay.

What the coach can do is make sure that money continues to flow to those collectives through fundraising, adding another layer to stressful jobs already packed with pressure.

"My job is to make sure that the next LaJohntay Wester has no reason under the sun to leave because of the relationships that he's built with our staff and the people surrounding our program," Herman said. "But we know in today's day and age, you got to pay him."

And if you don't, you wind up developing half your roster for the next coach.

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And that money to pay those players has to come from those collectives. FAU has two fundraisers scheduled this spring: A ladies' football clinic on Wednesday and a golf outing on April 25. Both will be hosted by the NIL in Paradise collective.

"Getting money into this collective … we need it, we need it fast," Herman said. "It's not good business to go into a gunfight every Saturday with a really dull knife. We need the same kind of guns that UTSA and Tulane and South Florida have.

"And right now in order to get those guns you got to buy them."

This changing landscape has driven many coaches out of the college game. Several in recent months have either retired — most famously Alabama's Nick Saban — and others have decided to take jobs in the NFL.

Herman recently took note of UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma lamenting the state of college sports, saying the players have one foot out the door all the time, are always looking over their shoulder and always looking for the next best thing.

"When we've given the young people in our society so many easy ways to quit hard things, I just worry," Herman said. "I know I probably sound like Bear Bryant did to my generation, but it just feels a lot faster, and it feels a lot worse now than it ever has."

When Jeff Hafley resigned as head coach at Boston College to become the Green Bay Packers' defensive coordinator, a source told ESPN Hafley left because college coaching has become "fundraising, NIL and recruiting your own team." Hafley, that source said, just wants to coach.

"The fact that (these guys) quit those jobs, to go do something other than be a head coach in the sport of football, that should scare people because it scares me," Herman said. "Close to 5% of our profession said, 'I'm out, this is not what I signed up for. I'm gonna go do something else.' "

FAU fundraising events

Wednesday: Ladies Night at the football complex. Learn about offensive, defensive and special teams strategies; meet the players and coaches, tour the facilities, and take part in light drills. Tickets for the 5 p.m. event are $100.

April 25: Gridiron Classic Golf Outing. at Boca West Country Club. A foursome sponsorship starts at $4,000. Other sponsorships are available starting at $1,500.

Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and golf writer for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: FAU Owls coach Tom Herman is 'scared' about where college football is headed