'Unreal Mess' – Dan Hurley Fed Up With State of College Sports

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Dan Hurley is fed up.

The two-time NCAA Tournament-winning head coach is sounding off on the state of college sports. UConn’s head coach has long made his opinion clear on the current state of college sports, with former college stars turned pros now attempting to come back to the NCAA level.

“Can a player that only played three years of football and then enters the NFL draft, can they leave the Arena League next year and go play? Can they leave the CFL next year?” Hurley asked rhetorically earlier this year. “If someone in the Big Ten needs a left tackle or something if a guy gets hurt, can you pull a guy off a practice squad of an NFL team? Can a guy from the Browns next year come back and play left tackle somewhere? This (expletive) is absurd.”

He added: “The person that has the most equity with me is Coach Izzo because he’s never been a cheater in recruiting. He’s a coach’s coach. I heard him say something and I’m smart enough to listen to the best coach, for me, in the game in Coach Izzo. We’re just gonna do the things we do at UConn the way that we do them, the way that we build the program. We want to recruit high school players, develop them, keep them, and then we want to go into the portal and do what we do there. We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. If at some point, the sport has changed so much that I can’t be effective doing it that way, then I’ll get out of college coaching.”

On Wednesday, Hurley’s fears were realized, as a judge issued a restraining order to more than a dozen former college football players, allowing them to return to the NCAA level. The group of players includes some current NFL players.

Hurley is fed up with everything

UConn’s head coach sounded off on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“And now it’s hitting college football…Unreal mess…Their season starts in a couple of weeks. ,” he shared on X.

College football programs have yet to say if they’ll be welcoming back these players, but everything surrounding college sports is just a mess right now.

This story was originally published by The Spun on Aug 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Basketball section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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