Country star, former college football player Lee Brice rips NIL, pro players going back to college

The state of college sports, particularly the “money sports” of football and basketball, is in a pretty precarious position right now.

Between the increasingly bloated NIL budgets (that fans sometimes find themselves on the hook for), a crazy transfer portal period every winter, and professional players trying to find their way back onto college rosters, it’s getting harder to feel the same passion for the game many once held so dearly.

But you don’t need to take my word for it, even former college athletes from a time not-too-long ago are voicing their displeasure with the current state of college football.

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One of those former college athletes who is fed up with it all is Lee Brice.

Singer Lee Brice performs on stage at the 35th annual Barnstable Brown Gala on Friday night. May 3, 2024 (Maggie Huber/Special to Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

The country music star was once a scholarship player for the Clemson Tigers, and he joined the “Tomi Lahren is Fearless” show to discuss the issues plaguing his favorite sport.

“I’m not a fan of the way things have changed,” Brice said.

While he doesn’t disagree with the idea of paying college athletes who bring in millions of dollars in revenue to their universities, Brice was expecting there to be more rules in place.

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“In the NFL, you go and sign a contract. You can’t just leave,” Brice states. “But in college, you can go get paid all that money and then go, ‘I just want to go somewhere else.'”

That lack of commitment, as Brice puts it, isn’t teaching the young men who are having all this money thrown at them any of the values they will need as they get older.

The need for guardrails in the college game is precisely why Congress has become a battleground for paying college athletes, culminating in the Save College Sports Act which has been hotly debated on both sides of the political aisle.

Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, talks with a reporter after a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee roundtable on the “Protect College Sports Act and the current state of collegiate athletics” in the Russell building on Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

It’s getting to the point where hardcore fans like Brice can’t even stomach watching the game he used to love.

“It’s really hard right now to watch college football, because it used to be, it was all passion,” Brice admits. “They devoted themselves to this one team for four years or five years. And now… there’s just no devotion. And you kind of lose the magic of what college football was. So overall, no, I don’t like at all where it’s at. I think it could have been done better.”

Another hot button issue Brice burned on was the topic of players on NFL rosters trying to make it back into the college game.

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“It’s like once you go to college, even if all you did was work out with them for the summer, you could go back to your high school and it would literally be like… it’s just a different level,” he revealed.

“When your brain and your mind and your body gets to a different level. You just have a really big advantage.”

Luckily, coolers heads prevailed and the LSU Tigers never rostered the players they were trying to land from the NFL, but as Brice brings up, it would have given Lane Kiffin a decided advantage had they actually gone through with it.

Lane Kiffin speaks at a press conference as he is introduced as the new head football coach of the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Dec. 1, 2025. (Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)

“I was like, man, that’s not cool,” he said, shaking his head.

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You’re not alone, Brice.