NIL Ramps Up College Football Recruiting
ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — NIL money has added a new variable to the long-held practice of college coaches trying to flip recruits who have given verbal commitments to other schools.
The NCAA rules providing college athletes the ability to earn revenue from their name, image and likeness provide new artillery for recruiting wars. When the recruiting spotlight is on a top recruit, millions of dollars are on the line.
Some coaches worry about the potential abuse of NIL when recruiting high school athletes and also when trying to lure players from other schools through the transfer portal.
“I mean, that’s just part of, again, a truly flawed system,” Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin said Wednesday. “They’re not just tampering but they go and offer money and numbers. So you got young kids go, ‘Wait. I can go make that much money somewhere else if I go in the portal and leave?’”
Florida coach Billy Napier said NIL is “a part of an evolution of our game.”
“We continue to generate a lot of revenue,” Napier said Wednesday. “So it is becoming business-like. This is the first job for a lot of these players in terms of their career. So I think for me, it’s just, you know, we have to adapt and evolve.”
One of the most closely watched recruits is quarterback Bryce Underwood. He is rated by 247Sports Composite as the nation’s No. 1 recruit. Underwood, from Belleville (Michigan) High School, committed to Louisiana State early this year and returned to Baton Rouge on Saturday night to watch Alabama beat LSU 42-13.
