Former Florida star Tim Tebow has seen and achieved it all in college football, but the recent shift caused by NIL has left him worried about the sport’s future. The retired quarterback, much like many fans, thrived on rivalries, and as those fade, he feels the game is losing some of its essence. Tebow believes college football’s need of the hour is a proper “governing body” to manage NIL.

“The game we have is so great. I think if we could just be able to put the right governing body around it to allow these athletes to flourish and ultimately capitalize on their NIL, but do it in a way where still team and loyalty and rivalries are all still part of the game. I think we can find that balance and that tension in the middle of all of it,” Tebow said on the June 3 episode of the Almost Athletes with Dude Perfect podcast.

For Tebow, the issue is not NIL itself. It is what happens when money starts deciding loyalty, and rivalries that once felt sacred begin to feel replaceable. Tebow did not dismiss NIL outright; he said the challenge is keeping player opportunity from swallowing team loyalty.

“I do not want to lose it because I think it matters so much. You get it in Texas. You get that. It matters. I’m so grateful we have Texas playing Texas A&M again. Like that needs to be all the time. Every year, regardless, Florida needs to play Florida State. I almost threw up when I said their name, but Florida needs to play Georgia. Tennessee needs to play Alabama,” said Tebow.

“Some of it just does not mean more, like sometimes those games is the biggest part of that season for the fan base, for the players to be able, and some don’t even really realize it now but one day when you look back, and you’re like man we went undefeated against Texas or undefeated against Oklahoma the Red River rivalry whatever that game is for whatever that team,” Tebow continued.

That is why Tebow keeps circling back to rivalry games. In his mind, these are not just dates on a schedule; they are the moments that give college football its memory, its noise, and its meaning. Tebow still nearly chokes when he says Florida State. Fans and players once called FSU anything but their name; even Urban Meyer and Tebow pulled back on trash talk most of the time, but in rivalry games, they never held back. That is how much these games meant.

NIL has fractured team chemistry, and players now chase individual deals over shared goals. The chemistry between the teams is fading away, and it all comes down to playing for the guy next to you and with them. A sport that is all about a team, but the essence of the team is lost.

This offseason, players like Jordan Seaton reportedly moved for millions, as teams opened bigger checkbooks to outbid one another. Lucky for Tebow, he was in college football before the NIL era because Florida, under Meyer, wouldn’t have survived the modern era.

Would the Florida Gators under Urban Meyer have survived the NIL era?

It is clear as day that the bond of the former Gator players wouldn’t have been the same in this NIL era. The 2006 Gator squad came together and left together, except Percy, who departed early for the NFL.

“I think a lot of times what makes a team really special isn’t that you put on the same jersey. I think what makes the same team is when you have shared suffering, shared vision, and you’re willing to do that together, to go through a grind, the suffering together.”

Tim Tebow and former linebacker Brandon Spikes have kept their brotherhood alive for more than two decades, still pulling each other’s leg. Tebow was a soft-spoken, religious QB; Spikes was a spunky trash-talker. They only stayed so close because they shared the same mentality about the game, not because money was the target.

That is the kind of college football Tebow is trying to protect: a game where names mattered, yes, but so did the uniform, the rivalry, and the people beside you.