Barry Tompkins: Shhhh! College football starts this week

College football starts this week.

That is huge news in Athens, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Austin, Baton Rouge, Ann Arbor and Norman. But in San Rafael, Tiburon, Novato, and Sausalito, opening day of the college football season finishes a distant second in anticipation to the Fairfax Photo Club Exhibit and the ever popular Read to a Dog day at the Petaluma Library. (Now I’ve done it. My dog Dottie just heard me mention “read to a dog” and now I’ve got to go to her book club with her).

In these parts, Cal and Stanford over the years would occasionally garner a modicum of interest from students and alumni if they seemed to be on the verge of something slightly above mediocrity. Stanford had some Rose Bowl years and Cal did, too. In fact, the Bears have made eight Rose Bowl appearances. Okay, so the last one was in 1959. There are still at least 17 living people who witnessed it.

The Pac-8….then -10….and then -12 had its rivalries that could stir a few people out of their Lazyboy’s. Everybody hated USC, and the Big Game was at least mentioned on occasion at the office water cooler.

But since the demise of the Pac-12 and the start of an influx of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) money, interest in college football in the Bay Area has waned to the point that the Stanford Tree and Oskie, the Cal Bear’s affable mascot, both opted to enter the transfer portal.

It is the transfer portal that has — depending on where you live — either grown college football to massive proportions, or killed it. We all live where it’s on life support.

It wasn’t that many years ago that we laughed at an athlete who was getting thousand dollar handshakes from over-zealous alumni. We kidded that they “had to take a pay cut to turn pro.” The joke is now on us. It happens all the time.

Football budgets for the 10 biggest spenders hovers right around the $40 million mark. The difference between those 10 schools and everybody else? They’re nationally ranked. The rich just keep on getting richer.

The trickle-down effect is what galls me more than anything else. If a team like Cal or Stanford does manage to get a player who could lift the program or, at the very least, provide a recruiting edge down the road, he’s gone the next year to one of the big dogs for way more money than the paltry sums that Cal or Stanford can afford.

Here’s an example: Cal will be starting a freshman quarterback named Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, who first committed to Cal, was lured away by Oregon, and returned to Berkeley when he realized he would likely not be starting in Eugene. The bottom line is, he’s a big talent and Cal is fortunate to have him. I don’t know how much NIL money the quarterback is getting at Cal, but I’m guessing it’s in the $1 million area.

For the Bears, it’s sizable. For the big spenders, it’s chump change. Arch Manning at Texas this year will have $6.6 million in NIL money. If Sagapolutele is as advertised, what are the odds he’s not in Berkeley in year two?

To their credit, both Bay Area schools have hired what has become the latest addition to a college football staff, the general manager. Yes! Just like the NFL. Both schools picked a highly qualified and motivated person to fill that job: Ron Rivera at Cal, and Andrew Luck at Stanford.

Each starred in football at their school, each went on to star in the NFL, each is respected beyond doubt. Their job: Raise money and deal with agents representing an 18-year-old kid who thinks he’s the next coming of … well, Ron Rivera or Andrew Luck. And then try and keep him on campus. They are both great guys who really care.

And they will try to keep two age-old programs afloat, while swimming in a sea of sharks.

The University of Oregon is the fourth-highest paying university when it comes to NIL money for its athletes. How much has this gotten out of control? The NIL monies at Oregon come to an average of $241,000 per player.

How prevalent you ask, are players headed to the transfer portal? Cal lost 23 players off a team that got to a bowl game, including five running backs and six wide receivers. Stanford likewise lost 25 players to the portal. Cal brought in 25 transfers and Stanford 17.

Here’s how times have changed.

I once did a Stanford-Oklahoma football game in Norman, Oklahoma. It was what we call an Athletic Director’s game. That is, a game agreed to by the visiting AD because of the money the school gets, in exchange for the home team getting an easy win.

I’m not sure how, but Stanford somehow won the game.

My crew and I were sitting in the bar at the airport after the game waiting for our flight home and there were several Oklahoma fans there who, to the number, looked as though they just had put their dog down. We reasoned with them that this was a just a game — the sun’s coming up tomorrow. One Sooner fan who had been somewhat over-served said, “You don’t understand. Your kids are all going back to school and they’re all going to graduate and probably make lots of money. For our kids — this is it.”

Times have changed. A lot of Oklahoma players are making more money now than Stanford kids may ever make. The Sooners are ranked No. 15 in the country. Stanford is picked to finish 17th in the 17-team ACC.

Oklahoma plays its first game next week against Illinois State. They are an overwhelming favorite.

Stanford opens Saturday in Hawaii. They are a two-and-a-half-point underdog.

Welcome to a new season of college football in the Bay Area.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native.  Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.