Right about four months ago, just about everybody who knows anything about college football knows this NIL or transfer portal template for the sport is unsustainable.

What is true then is true now.

That light at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train but no one is stopping it.

It would truly take something bizarre to take it down.

I’m here for it.

Tonight’s $1.35 billion lottery might present such a scenario.

If I win, I will take the $350 million and donate the billion to Temple University’s new NIL fund with just one stipulation. All the money is spent on football.

You have my word for it.

It’s right here and in writing. I bought three tickets. I have the ticket in my hand, three rows and six numbers, and would publish them here but won’t because I’m worried some Alabama fan might copy them and I’d have to share the winnings with him. If all six numbers win on one line, Temple football cannot be stopped.

I’ve always been a man of my word.

I’m in a good position only because I have no kids or living parents and nobody is here to say, “Mike, don’t do it.” I don’t even have a lawyer (but hopefully I will after 11 p.m. tonight).

All I need is a new car, a modest home in the middle of Florida and just enough money stashed away in a checking and savings account to survive a rainy day or a hurricane.

That would make me happy on a personal level.

As hardcore fan of really only one team, the Temple University football Owls, nothing would make me happier on any other level than to see a team of 55 Owls making, let’s say, $350,000 a year to kick USC’s butt in a big-time bowl game like my friends from Tulane did. Heck, if every single Temple football player is making $350,000 a year, why not beat Georgia for the national championship in a couple of years?

This the system we have now. The teams with all the resources win all the games.

One billion would buy Temple football a lot of resources. I will have my billion earmarked for just Temple football, no other Temple sports. (Sorry Temple basketball fans who constantly blame the football program for losing to teams like Wagner and Maryland Eastern-Shore. You know who you are.)

Then Temple can buy all of the good players, win the national championship and get ready to hear a lot of people from the big-time schools say, “this is why the system is all screwed up. One guy bought all of the good players.”

Duh.

Good.

Right now, one group of fans (the haves) are buying all of the players so why can’t the have-nots do the same thing?

If I don’t win, I hope some hardcore guy from a school like Akron, Kent State, Fresno State, Ohio (not State) or Buffalo pulls the same stunt I’m planning to do. If it’s Temple, it has to be either me, Winkel or Mrs. Winkel.

Then maybe the NCAA or the Power 5 or whoever the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain calling the shots says, “Err, let’s go back to the old system where everyone gets an equal chance.”

That would be the best $1 billion ever spent. In my modest three- bedroom, two-bath house in a place like The Villages or Sebring or Ocala, I will be sitting back and smiling.

Monday: The Specific Plan

Friday: District Inertia