Loyalty in the Portal Era: The Shaws, the Razorbacks, and What College Football Forgot
Updated: 7 hours ago
The following article is one I am deeply proud of…not because it was published, not because of any acclaim or local fame, but because it showcases a special person and grew out of a classroom project. Sure, it’s really cool that it was published by Over the Mountain Journal. And it’s really cool that it got the back cover. And it’s really cool that people said they enjoyed reading it. But, you know what’s really really really cool? People learned Karen’s story, the character behind the mother, the perpetual champion of her kids.
Initially, all I’d hoped was for my creative writing students to gain some practice interviewing and profile writing by focusing on someone they admired within our school community. We landed on Karen Shaw—partly because of her connection to Bradley, a talented defensive player for Arkansas Razorbacks, but more importantly because she embodies a quiet leadership that students notice. Karen was incredibly generous for allowing me to guide the interview alongside students and pause at moments to talk through follow-ups, tone, and what it means to really listen.
When it came time for students to write something, the work took an unexpected turn. Rather than producing traditional nonfiction profiles, many leaned into their strengths—poems, short stories, comics. Each piece had a single goal: to honor Karen with words. When the unit ended and students moved on, I realized I wasn’t quite finished with the story and felt called to write the profile. With their permission, I kept writing and shared drafts with them as the piece evolved.
What followed was a long stretch—nearly the entire season—of drafting, revising, and rethinking. Each time I thought the piece had found its ending, the story expanded: first with the uncertainty surrounding the transfer portal, then with James Franklin’s comments on College GameDay, and finally with Bradley’s scoop-and-score, which unexpectedly gave the piece its true conclusion. The article grew in real time, shaped by events I couldn’t have planned when the assignment began.
When it was published, I reflected on what drove those hours of writing, especially if publication wasn’t on my radar for most of it. I think I could tell, even then, that the experience itself—using my words to shine a light on someone—was a meaningful use of practicing the craft of writing. Reflecting upon it now, a year later, I feel as if it was a serendipitous intersection of teaching and writing.
As I was drafting that long winter, I was reading and absorbing Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. And, at times, I felt like the magic mentioned in the book was unfolding around me. The call to write this story felt more like an invitation to use my writing to share something lovely than an opportunity to publish. On more than one occasion I felt as if I was being guided, especially the few times I thought I was done writing. Something compelled me to sit on it, even for a few weeks at a time. Sure enough, after each stretch, something presented itself that unfolded the piece even more.
Loyalty in the Portal Era:
The Shaws, the Razorbacks, and What College Football Forgot
By Andrew Cotten
Every morning at Mountain Brook Junior High, Karen Shaw takes her place at the crosswalk. Rain or shine, humid or not, she shows up all the same, long before most of her colleagues arrive. It’s not the kind of job for which educators rush to sign up.
Karen could do the job quietly, with nothing more than a watchful eye, but she never does. A stranger to none and a mother to all, she offers a quick hug or a kind hello to anyone who needs it, even holding traffic for a brief exchange with parents. She greets shy seventh graders by name and picks up conversations with ninth graders she’s come to know.
As a paraprofessional, she doesn’t get enough credit, at least not in the way teachers do, but she should. She’s the kind of colleague who helps hold the building together in many ways: remembering birthdays or sharing supplies; spotting mistakes and offering solutions; showing up early and staying late. An anchor amidst the turbulence of teenagers, her determined steadiness has a way of settling the ship. COVID, construction, curriculum adoption…she was there, helping keep the faculty and staff’s feet firmly planted.
And if you know (or know of) her son Bradley Shaw and all that he did to keep the Arkansas Razorbacks afloat this past season after losing their head coach last September, you can see where the sophomore linebacker got it from. The same stability Karen brings to our school is the very quality her son carried into the Arkansas locker room navigating change, uncertainty, and the long aftermath of a coaching transition.
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For nearly two decades, the Shaws’ weekends have been a routine rotation of sporting events, long drives, and late dinners under the glow of stadium lights. Three of Bradley’s older siblings were collegiate athletes, so Bradley “was brought up in it,” Karen says. “He was a ballpark boy.”
When it came time to pad up for peewee football, Bradley was no stranger to the sport and took to it immediately. Even at a young age, Bradley was bigger than the other players. His frame could have given him permission to phone it in and still physically dominate, but he didn’t: he was dedicated to bettering himself. “As others were playing,” Karen says, “Bradley was out there practicing.”
The coaches knew what to expect when Bradley joined Hoover High School’s powerhouse program—the same one his brothers proudly claim. Karen says they’d see him on the field for the first time and say, “You a Shaw,” half warning, half praise. The name carried weight, and Bradley lived up to it. In 2023, he was named 7A Region 3 All-Region First Team and selected to play in the All-American Bowl. The following year, he was awarded Class 7A Lineman of the Year by the ASWA (Hoover Sun).
When it came time for recruitment, Bradley was an elite prospect. Rankings fluctuate, but no matter the source—On3, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, 247Sports—he was consistently a top-twenty linebacker and top-200 overall. By the end of recruitment, he’d earned more than twenty-five Division I scholarship offers.
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Long before the transfer portal and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) economics reshaped college football in the last five years, recruiting operated more patiently. It was rooted in trust, relational. Coaches visited homes, sat on couches, met with players and parents, and promised development over time.
That’s the model the Shaws followed, even amid the sport’s seismic changes. “We kept in touch,” Karen says. “Some of these coaches, we’d been talking to for over a year.” Where Bradley chose to play was less about business and more about relationships, even if that meant passing up prestige, larger programs, or more lucrative NIL offers.
Bradley’s recruitment brought visits from dozens of major programs. His final three came down to Clemson, Notre Dame, and Arkansas—the latter a surprise to in-state loyal considering Alabama and Auburn have won a combined 14 division titles to Arkansas’s zero (“Championship”). And compared to Clemson’s national profile or Notre Dame’s storied legacy, Arkansas seemed quieter, less glamorous.
For Bradley, the people in charge and the promises they made were more important than the merits of the past. Recruitment was full of slogans and promises, but sincerity mattered more than salesmanship. Ultimately, Arkansas’s authenticity convinced Bradley that it “was the right fit,” and Karen agreed: “I didn’t have to worry—the coaches got him.”
Bradley’s freshman season confirmed he’d made the right decision. Coaches saw enough potential to forgo redshirting him. Seniority limited his initial playing time, but when linebacker Xavian Sorey was injured, Bradley stepped in. “His moment has come,” Defensive Coordinator Travis Williams said shortly after, “so we need him to go out there and make some plays” (247Sports). And he did. By year’s end, Bradley had 13 tackles and one sack ("Game Log"), most from the last few games, including his best yet at the Liberty Bowl (2-4).
Hopeful the next season would be better, optimism surrounded the young defensive core in the off-season, but it didn’t survive the following fall.
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After three straight non-conference losses, Arkansas fired Head Coach Sam Pittman on September 28. Within days, much of the defensive staff, including DC Travis Williams and Defensive Line coaches Deke Adams and Marcus Woodson, was gone, too. These were the same coaches who had sat in Karen Shaw’s living room, the ones who had earned the family’s trust.
Bradley’s response to the reality of losing a coach mid-season has been exactly what his upbringing predicted. In a sport now defined by quick exits, Bradley chose to stay. What’s more, he stepped up to help “keep the team together.” By encouraging teammates who were exploring the transfer portal to stay and stand by their commitment, Bradley helped stabilize an Arkansas roster that’s weathered three staff overhauls in two years.
Before the season, Defensive Coordinator Travis Williams told reporters they were hoping Bradley would “continue to grow in that leadership role” (247Sports). And he has, though Williams likely never imagined it’d be under these circumstances.
[ — ]
What happened to the Arkansas football program in October was, oddly enough, a common occurrence in an unprecedented time. Unlike years past, even the turbulent last five, this season marked two major shifts in the evolution of the coaching carousel: in-season firings spiked, as did the dismissal of high-profile coaches.
James Franklin, one of the winningest coaches in the FBS, was terminated as Penn State’s head coach on October 12. Shortly after, he went on College GameDay and reflected on the repercussions of swift or rash dismissals: “I don’t think people realize how many people this affects.” He wasn’t talking about standings or schemes; he was talking about families like the Shaws who get lost in the shuffle when the carousel spins.
NIL and the transfer portal were necessary changes: players deserved autonomy and compensation. But the chaos that followed arrived faster than the human side of the sport could adapt. Instability has become normalized. Coaches must win immediately or be replaced. Players must perform instantly or be passed over—or leave.
What does a university owe a family when the coach who courted them is dismissed? Does that departure erase the trust they’d developed? Should players remain loyal to programs that may no longer resemble the ones to which they chose? And if a player chooses to stay, does that loyalty risk leaving them at a disadvantage?
Bradley understood the choices in front of him. And he chose to stay—not out of comfort, but out of conviction. Karen has always told her son, “When you don’t have it, you make your own way.” With a team in flux and a season wobbling, Bradley made his own way, and just as Williams had hoped, “he made a big play.”
Early in the second quarter against Missouri, quarterback Beau Pribula mishandled the ball near midfield. Bradley reacted instantly, scooping up the fumble and returning it 32 yards for a touchdown—his first collegiate score (Game Highlights). It broke a tie and briefly shifted momentum in a rivalry game during a season defined by loss after loss.
The scoop-and-score wasn’t just Bradley’s defensive highlight; it was a metaphor for commitment. The fumble didn’t create the moment—it revealed it. The habits Bradley formed long before Arkansas—practicing when others played, staying when leaving was easier—had already prepared him. When the ball came free, he was ready because he’d never stopped preparing.
The day after Bradley scored, Arkansas announced its new head coach: Ryan Silverfield. Before Bradley’s new coach met with the players or even evaluated a single drill, the first true snapshot he saw was No. 7 scoop up a ball most players would simply fall on and outrun an SEC offense…all the way into the end zone. You can’t buy that kind of introduction. You can’t transfer your way into that moment. It happened because he stayed.
In the NIL era, players are allowed and encouraged to chase big brands, big markets, big stages—Bradley’s biggest moment wasn’t negotiated, and it wasn’t some spotlight from a marketing deal. It was earned in the most old-fashioned way possible: by being where he said he’d be and doing what he said he’d do.
It’s impossible to know whether a transfer could have boosted Bradley’s national profile or his NFL stock. But it’s equally impossible to ignore that the play of his season—maybe of his career so far—only existed because he stayed rooted in Arkansas’s chaos instead of running from it.
We talk about the long game in football—the slow work, the development, the trust. But the long game isn’t slow anymore, and the trust, once built slowly, feels obsolete in a system where rosters can reset in weeks, and coaches can vanish mid-season. The fact is—the sport has changed and will continue to change: the carousel will spin, the portal will open and close like a valve, and numbers and names will find new jerseys by the next game. But, somewhere back in Alabama, a mother believes the old truths still matter. There’s something remarkable about that kind of assurance. The confidence of a mother who knows she’s done her part. It’s not ignorance. It’s faith that traits like loyalty and leadership, patience and presence still mean something, even in a sport that seems to forget.
Who knows what next season will bring for the Razorbacks. But, Bradley will be there, lined up on the strong side, loyal to the team, possibly to a fault.
Works Cited
19 Oct. 2025.
“Bradley Shaw College Football Player Game Log.” ESPN, 2024,
l/year/2024. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
Glasscock, Tyler. “Arkansas’ Bradley Shaw Next Man Up at Linebacker.” HawgSports, 247Sports, 20 Aug. 2025,
ore-linebacker-252743271/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
“James Franklin on His Firing and the State of College Football.” College GameDay, uploaded by ESPN, 12 Oct.
2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcHuRVkwSSI. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
“Missouri Tigers at Arkansas Razorbacks | Game Highlights | 2025 SEC Football.” YouTube, 1 Dec. 2025,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Zk_Qmwd14. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025.
Shaw, Karen. Interview. Conducted by Andrew Cotten, 10 Oct. 2025, Mountain Brook Junior High, Room B211.
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