In 2017, an attorney named Thomas Mars was driving around Mississippi listening to an audiobook called “The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football.” He knew almost nothing about college football. He knew even less about how much the book’s title would soon come to define him.
Three years later, Mars has become the unlikeliest rabble-rouser in the sport. One of the few guys in the South who never bothered to watch college football on weekends has developed a potent legal practice helping players and needling…
