WACO, TEXAS – Craig Bohl has enjoyed success at the FCS and FBS levels as a head coach of two storied teams.
The three-time FCS National Championship winning head coach led the NDSU Bison from 2003 until 2013 before taking on the head coaching position at Wyoming, where he remained until retiring from coaching in 2023.
Now the Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association in Waco, Texas, Bohl is sounding the alarm that there are ‘choppy waters’ ahead in college football in the United States.
“As we work through this ever-changing landscape, I think if we can get the right stakeholders at the table that we can really make a difference,” Bohl said in an exclusive interview Friday on The Flag’s What’s On Your Mind.
AFCA Executive Director Craig Bohl on The Flag’s What’s On Your Mind
That ever-changing landscape’s scope includes making decisions ‘for the betterment of the student-athletes and the college football enterprise.’
Bphl said he recently spent time with North Dakota Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak.
“She brought up concerns that if we give a cart blanche pass that some of the larger conferences are going to try to garner all the TV exposure, all the TV dollars and disseminate those,” he said.
Bohl said former Texas Tech offensive lineman Cody Campbell is concerned where college athletics is at nationally. He’s close to President Donald Trump and feels had a proposal for a “more fair and equitable balance” in college athletics.
Bohl discussed the acutely problematic nature of the current Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) landscape, which involves players being compensated and attracting “marginal characters”, or predatory agents.
He says these agents sometimes represent underserved families, promising high contracts (upwards of a half million dollars) to players, causing parents to relinquish guardianship rights and potentially moving players across state lines, only to charge exorbitant fees of upwards of 25 to 30 percent, compared to the NFL’s three percent.
Bohl said the AFCA lobbied Congress because they agree on the need to stop young people from being exploited. There is hope for a standalone bill, like the SAFE Act or the SCORE Act, to address these agents, noting that this is an area where there is bipartisan agreement, even Senator Tommy Tuberville, former Auburn University coach, was concerned.
