Back before recruiting rankings became essentially a sport within a sport and before conferences realigned like continents on top of restless tectonic plates — before NIL — college sports seemed relatively simple.
Of course, the way college football crowned a national champion (or really, failed to do so, relinquishing that task to sports writers) was anything but simple. But the game itself was such, and the landscape was familiar.
But then came the meteor showers that laid waste to institutional dinosaurs.
First was the Supreme Court’s 1984 antitrust ruling against the NCAA, which previously had dictated which Division 1 teams would play on TV and when. Coupled with the rise of cable TV, the ruling led to the smorgasbord of games now available each week, on multiple days of the week and on multiple networks (but now, mostly ESPN).
The next meteor set those tectonic plates in motion. By the late ῾80s, two conferences soon to emerge as the alphas, the SEC and the Big 10, each began thinking about expanding their footprints. And in the case of the former, setting up a conference championship game. Otherwise known as a license to print money.
A new era of enlarged conferences was underway once the new-look, 12-team SEC (which included Arkansas) launched its championship game in ’92. Now, in the playoff age, the shine of the league title game may be wearing off, at least on the Power 5 level. But only just a little.
Then in 1998 came the insidious Bowl Championship Series (BCS), under which flawed computer programs determined the two most highly rated teams to meet in a 1-vs-2, one-game playoff. It beat the AP and other polls determining the national champ, but not by much. Awash in graft and controversy, the BCS became unsustainable.
Its death knell was the publication of the 2010 book, “Death to the BCS,” from sports reporters Dan Wetzel, Jeff Passan and Josh Peter. The book exposed the cartel-like operation behind the BCS, the graft at its heart and the ludicrous notion advanced by its hustlers that players at the top level of college football couldn’t physically handle a playoff, that a potential 15-game schedule was too tough a grind. This despite players at every other level, from high school up, handling the grind of a playoff just fine.
By 2013, many of the same officials and college administrators who had previously mocked the idea of a college football playoff had become staunch defenders of one, as the tea leaves began indicating that’s where the money was soon to flow. Meanwhile, conferences continued to shift, the highest level of D1 grew to more than 130 teams, and 40-plus bowl games began to litter the December TV guide.
The biggest meteor, however, had yet to fall. And that’s where we get to Name, Image and Likeness.
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That NIL is justified is a given. For decades, the NCAA and member schools made millions, literally, off the names, images and likenesses of college players, who weren’t even afforded the opportunity to sell an autograph without risking their amateur status. A group of players finally sued and ultimately won a decision in which SCOTUS once again eviscerated the NCAA’s business practice.
Of course, left unregulated, NIL quickly emerged into a bidding system for recruits.
Trey Biddy, publisher of HawgSports.com and the Orville Henry of Razorback digital media, has been front row as recruiting evolved into a high-stakes money game. He sees two primary problems with an unregulated NIL: It represents a way to “wash” pay-for-play money, and there are no repercussions for tampering.
“I think players should be paid what they’re worth, but the problem is that’s not exactly what’s happening,” he told AMP. “At a lot of programs, players are being paid through donor-led NIL collectives, which have businesses paying the collective on one side to be part of it with fans and boosters donating money to it on the other side. Then a player is asked to make a social media post about one of those businesses and is paid handsomely through the collective.
“It just kind of just feels like a way to wash the money and pay for play. To me, that’s way different than a business directly saying, ‘We would like you to appear in an advertisement for our restaurant.’ They might as well just pay the players salaries and be done with the rigamarole. This is just a work-around to that, anyway, but it’s way more chaotic. There are some real NIL deals, too.”
Tampering is another problem, he said, with coaches from some schools poaching active players from other rosters.
“They suggest [the targeted player] get into the transfer portal and they’ll get them a certain amount of [NIL] money to come play for them,” he said. “NIL was not supposed to be a part of the high school recruiting process either, but it is. Recruits are being promised money to go to school and play football. Again, I’m all for these guys being able to make money off their name, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be rules.
“This is a capitalist society, but you can’t just tell your buddy stock secrets about your company. There are still rules to the game. As it stands, college football is the least-regulated organized sport in the world, from pee-wee football to high school football to the NFL.”
The wild West that resulted from an unregulated NIL landscape has soured the game for many, from fans to coaches and administrators. The landscape is made even wilder by the transfer portal, which gives players multiple mulligans.
On paper, the portal represents the right thing to do. But a cynic might suggest the NCAA, bottom lip frozen in pout mode, simply said, “Sure. You want all these things. Then fine. You got ῾em,” while offering no structure, no framework around which to work. And maybe that shouldn’t be the NCAA’s job, anyway.
Ultimately, colleges, and we’re primarily talking about those schools in the Power 5 conferences, are going to have to police themselves.
In the meantime, even coaches at blueblood programs who benefit from an unregulated NIL are speaking out against it. Last year, Alabama coach Nick Saban spoke to a group of high school coaches about NIL. One quote regarding an unnamed recruit made the rounds on social media.
“One of them wanted $500,000 and for us to get his girlfriend into law school at Alabama and pay for it,” Saban told the coaches. “I showed him the door.”
Can’t blame a kid (or his girlfriend) for trying.
Saban previously told reporters, “There are a lot of people using [NIL] as inducements to go to their school by making promises they may or may not be able to keep in terms of what players are doing. This creates a competitive balance issue between the haves and the have-nots — and we are one of the haves.”
Unregulated, NIL has turned paying for players from an under-the-table covert operation into an above-the-table auction.
Of course, colleges have always paid for players. Under the table, at least. The story goes that in the late 1970s, Texas A&M gave prize recruit Eric Dickerson a Trans Am after he committed to play ball in College Station. Dickinson took the car all right — all the way up to Highland Park and SMU where Mustangs coach Ron Meyer is said to have referred to the car as the “Trans A&M.”
Meanwhile, the famed Pony Express, anchored by the future All-American and NFL Hall-of-Famer, placed SMU back on the football map for a time in the ῾80s. But the program’s blank check approach to recruits eventually earned it the NCAA’s so-called death penalty.
Much about the underbelly of college football has remained the same. After all, it is a business and these days, it’s big business. For the 2020-21 fiscal year — a year greatly impacted by the pandemic, mind you — the SEC still paid out an average of $54.6 million to each school from proceeds of its TV deals with CBS and ESPN.
The late, great Orville Henry, dean of Arkansas sportswriters, saw first-hand and chronicled college football’s rise from pastime to obsession to religion. Over the course of more than six decades, he was a sportswriter and then legendary sports editor for the old Arkansas Gazette. Following the absorption of the Gazette into the Arkansas Democrat and the birth of the Democrat-Gazette, Henry remained a noted columnist, in his final years for Donrey Media.
He was a living, breathing encyclopedia of UA sports, the foremost authority on all things Razorback. His Monday post-game analyses following a Saturday game were must-reads and often approached 60 column inches. (For those weaned on the internet, that’s a lot of pages to scroll.) From Frank Broyles’ ear to Orville’s pen, it was said.
On July 13, 1998, Henry wrote of what the recruiting landscape was like before college football evolved into a billion-dollar business.
“In the purported good ol’ days, it’s a wonder that the worthiest of senior athletes among high school football players ever earned their diplomas.
“If they were good enough on the gridirons, custom dictated that they skip much of their final semesters to take part in a few days or more of spring practices at one or more of their possible destinations in college on the following September 1.
“The old timers tell of joining two, three or four others in a jalopy and making the rounds to Arkansas, LSU, Alabama and many of that stripe, as well as to Hendrix, Centenary, State Teachers (UCA), Ouachita and Henderson.
“(Their school work? It was a given in those days that some athletes would be more or less waved through. There may be exceptions, but that can’t happen much anymore.)
“College coaches would start spring practice in January and wind up in May. Thus, whenever a youngster (or a so-called tramp athlete) showed up, he could suit up that very day and test himself and prove himself, or not, against that school’s squad.
“That exposure took the place of today’s high school game films that require so much of a college staff’s time the year round.”
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Today’s coaches watch as much film, perhaps even more, of players who’ve entered the transfer portal than they do of prep recruits. With a portal player, you’re getting a known quantity. High school recruits, even blue chippers, are much more likely to hit or miss.
Biddy thinks the portal, combined with NIL, was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Also complicating matters for today’s coaches is the transfer window that opens at the end of the regular season.
“One of the biggest things that needs to change is probably the timing of the 45-day transfer window that starts on Dec. 5,” he noted. “There’s just too much going on with high school recruiting and preparing for bowl games. For undergrads, I think it just makes more sense to wait until the spring. You just don’t get to go through spring ball.
“I think that’s a welcome side effect that might deter some student-athletes from entering the portal right after the season ends. The only other solution I can think of is going to 395 days and adding a 13th month called Transferember. I’m not an astrophysicist, but I don’t think it works that way.”
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Some sort of revisions will come, to NIL and to the portal, whether through the NCAA or the very real possibility that the Power 5 schools break away from the NCAA for football and govern themselves. But until then, where does that leave Arkansas? Can Arkansas compete in this new era of NIL?
Terry Prentice, a senior associate athletics director who oversees the UA’s NIL efforts, doesn’t believe a cap is coming. But he told AMP that conversations are underway about providing more clarity to existing NCAA policy and the enforcement of rules regarding recruiting and NIL.
In the meantime, Arkansas can continue to play its strongest hand.
“Although our state population is on the lower end as it relates to our competition, we take pride in the passion and support of the Razorbacks, particularly in our business community,” he said. “NIL support has joined academic support, career development, coaching and development, facilities, etc., as a factor in where a recruit decides to attend. In order for our programs to continue to attract high-end talent, we need strong support around NIL and know we need to continue to educate all who can help our student-athletes.”
Biddy thinks NIL could be a bigger factor for Arkansas and help level the playing field with programs like Alabama, which have become NFL factories, schools where even the backups get drafted.
“The only reason Arkansas is behind some of the blueblood programs out there is proximity to talent,” he said. “It’s not a stigma with Arkansas, and it’s certainly not facilities and fan support. It’s the overall lack of talent in the 250-mile radius around the school. Arkansas is the second-smallest state in the SEC next to Mississippi, though Mississippi way outperforms Arkansas in talent production per capita.
“Players in the portal have already been through the hype of recruiting. They want a place they can play football — and get paid — and generally are more concerned with finding that fit rather than finding another place super close to home. Some are, but more aren’t.”
The Arkansas program has everything it needs to succeed. The one thing it doesn’t possess is what Biddy called a “short drive from home” for players. But NIL and the portal provide opportunity, especially for schools like Arkansas.
“This can absolutely level the playing field for Arkansas,” Biddy said. “Look at last year. While Arkansas wasn’t a great team, it certainly wasn’t because of the eight scholarship transfer additions. Every one of those guys was a serious player for the Hogs. And how do you think they would have performed last season without Drew Sanders, Dwight McGlothern, Latavious Brini, Terry Hampton, Landon Jackson, Jordan Domineck, Jadon Haselwood and Matt Landers?
“They went eight for eight on those guys. What do you think their clip will be from the high school class in 2022? Historically, it has been about 50/50. I think it’ll be better now than in the past because you will be more selective with which high school guys you bring into the program.”
Like their prep counterparts, many portal “prizes” come with a price attached. NIL rightfully gave athletes the chance to profit off themselves, but it also turned college recruiting into even more of a shopping spree.
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham told reporters last year that the top 25 would soon reflect the biggest “pots of money” used to entice recruits, whether of the prep or portal variety.
“That’s just how it is,” he said. “That’s where it’s heading, and there’s no debate about it unless they change the rules. I don’t think they can backpedal now with the can of worms they’ve opened.”
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