Mendenhall is gone, and it's OK to be disgusted with college sports

This is the part where you roll your eyes, cross your arms and huff off in the other direction, maybe kick a little dirt as you head back to your couch to sulk.

This is also the part where you tell yourself not to fall in love, not to believe, to build walls and sit back to watch the world burn.

Buy tickets to another game? Not on your life.

Seem apocalyptic? For the college sports fan, not so much.

As the 10 p.m.

news cycle hit Thursday, Lobos fans were hit with another sucker punch to the privates when reports surfaced Bronco Mendenhall was ditching the UNM football program hed been in charge of for 366 days in favor of the lateral move to Utah State.

Conveniently he waited until Day 1 of Year 2 of his contract to make the announcement, a day that dropped his buyout from $3 million to $2 million.

It was a business decision that, to steal his words from earlier in the week, make you want to take a shower because of how skeezy it felt.

In a blink, the states most well-compensated public employee took all the development and progression and consistency talk and put a match to it.

The guy who espoused to be the laid-back, patient program builder, the owner of a lucrative five-year contract worth more money than most New Mexicans will see in five lifetimes, was a one and doner.

It immediately opened the floodgates to a mass exodus that we all saw coming.

Although the NCAA transfer portal doesnt open until Monday, news quickly leaked that all-conference quarterback Devon Dampier and running back Eli Sanders were leaving.

Mendenhall was prophetic during what proved to be his farewell address Tuesday, saying every Mountain West team would lose 35 to 50 players to the portal.

Expect another few dozen Lobos to hit the open road in the days to come.

Mendenhall saw it coming.

As much as Lobo fans dont want to admit it, they did, too.

Even the new guy saw it.

Fern Lovo, the 36-year-old who was rolled out as the new athletic director on Wednesday, issued a statement Friday morning his fifth day on the job, no less saying he was aware of Mendenhall shopping himself around and was prepared to offer a bigger compensation package to keep him here.

Now he can take the $2 million hell get from Utah State buying out Broncos deal and spend it on another coach who will come in, wear the red blazer and talk about how proud he is to be a Lobo and part of this amazing community with an up-and-coming program.

Whaaatever.

Well keep the moving van's engine idling for you.

The real gut punch is the announcement that Lobo-for-life Luke Wysong was also planning to jump ship.

Wysong, the versatile receiver and ballyhooed local kid whose parents were UNM athletes and whose brother was a Lobo, no longer wanted to be here.

What a lousy time to be a college sports fan not just of UNM or New Mexico State, but everywhere else.

Conferences are collapsing and rivalries being ditched.

The system is broken and the problems oozing from the afterglow are dictating the renegade nature of things.

Its OK to disassociate, to feel like walking away.

It truly is a business more than a sport, and it's the fans who pay the ultimate price.

With the archaic structure of the NCAA crumbling before our eyes, the power is now in the hands of athletes.

A few years ago, payments to players got programs blackballed and put on probation.

Now the first question asked in recruiting is how much money can you put in a kid's pocket to wear the (checks latest email) cherry and silver? Before we get into it, lets stop the stepping-stone talk about Lobos sports.

Mendenhall aside, of the previous eight football coaches only one (Dennis Franchione to TCU) left for greener pastures.

Yes, Rocky Long (San Diego State), Mike Locksley (Alabama and Maryland) and even Mike Sheppard (the NFL) did just fine down the road, but none of them actually left UNM directly for a better gig.

Long was forced out and became an assistant coach while Locksley and Sheppard were both fired.

UNMs basketball program, same story.

The last half-century has seen just two coaches (Steve Alford to UCLA and Dave Bliss to Baylor) get poached for another gig and we all know how that went.

The others were all fired or quit, guys like Norm Ellenberger (fired), Gary Colson (fired), Ritchie McKay (fired), Charlie Harrison (quit), the legendary Bob King (retired) and insanely less-legendary Craig Neal (extra fired) and Paul Weir (super extra fired).

If you buy the idea that the carousel ends with Broncos departure, we have a nice bridge over here we want to sell you.

Well have this same discussion three or four months from now when certain basketball coach of Italian/East Coast decent lands in the Big East or Big 12, or is handed the keys to an SEC or ACC program hungry for his surname.

Same, too, with a number of his players you love to love.

Cant wait to see No.

2 in a Duke or UCLA uniform next season.

Maybe No.

3 somewhere in Texas or the upper Midwest.

The house of cards they built will fall to the floor as their fans wait, hoping someone can walk through the door to make it better.

There wont be.

There never will be.

As college sports is teaching us on a daily basis, commitment only extends as far as the cash on hand.

Someone somewhere is always going to have a bigger piggybank and as soon as the hammer cracks that thing open, loyalty goes out the window.

Take a drive to UNMs South Campus.

Take a look at the cars in parking lot when practice is going on.

There are courtesy cars and newly purchased vehicles that make the ride you rolled up in seem pedestrian.

Theres nothing wrong with that.

Who among us would clutch their pearls and adhere to an ethical standard of solidarity to those who brought you here when someones waving stacks of cash in your face? You take what you can get, especially when the getting means more money in the next year or two (six- and seven-figure NIL deals every year, no strings attached, are standard for the top athletes) than anything youll come close to making after you get a college degree and join the 40-hour club like rest of us zombies.

Imagine being an athlete.

Youre 18 to 23 years old, you have the ability to run fast, jump high and do special things with a spherical object.

Full scholarship? You betcha.

While were at it, how about half a million dollars and facilities to match? Sign me up! At a time when most college kids are trying to find the anthropology building or figure out when the SUB makes fresh donuts while trying to do laundry in a dorm sink and deal with a roommates weird habits, the people who make magic on an athletic field are swimming in cash and making decisions on the advice of agents.

Its crazy.

Now comes the impending House vs.

NCAA settlement that will force schools to share revenue with athletes.

Many of them will make more money than their assistant coaches and certainly more than most of the people who pay their hard-earned money to buy seats to watch them play.

Then imagine having no moral or ethical reason to stick around.

You can literally leave the minute someone else offers more money.

Its happening right now at UNM, just like it is everywhere else.

The team you root for now will be entirely different next year.

The meteoric rise of Lobo football in Mendenhalls one year was a remarkable thing.

As much of a fan-favorite Danny Gonzales was when he was hired in 2019, it turned out that the local guy everyone wanted simply wasnt a good coach.

Great guy, sure, but someone whose ashes turned into Mendenhalls six-lane freeway to another post.

Gonzales' time on the South Campus was an abject failure that, sadly, is probably the most any Lobo fan can hope for; going 3-9 next year and hoping they dont get 50-pointed in road games at Michigan and UCLA.

Take a deep breath, Lobo fans.

Thursday night was painful and Friday was a stinker.

Next week wont be any better as the portal overflows with players who no longer want to be here.

Hold onto that feeling next season if the new guys somehow sustain Mendenhalls momentum and hope youll fill the seats to pump up that revenue-sharing thing.

Dont give in to temptation.

Everyone's getting paid here except you.

Your payment is wins.

It's school pride.

It's having a bunch of kids and a handful of adults give you the chance to puff out your chest and feel good about the school colors.

It's all a farce.

Stay home.

Play with your kids, take your dog for a walk, tend to your vegetable garden or, heck, lay on the couch and play games on your phone with the TV on in the background.

Until this college sports thing gets better, dont pour your heart out expecting the people you hope to protect it will make you a priority.

They never will..

This article has been shared from the original article on santafenewmexican, here is the link to the original article.