The ancient covenant between elite high school talent and the programs that recruited them is quietly dissolving in college football, replaced by a marketplace logic that prizes proven performance over potential. Where young quarterbacks once arrived on campus as heirs apparent, they now enter a competitive labor market shaped by the transfer portal — a mechanism that allows experienced college players to move freely between programs. The most ambitious programs, under relentless pressure to win immediately, have found it more efficient to acquire quarterbacks who have already proven themselve