It used to be that top recruits were swayed by two things: the opportunity to win national championships and a strong pipeline to the NFL.
If your favorite college football program had one of those two things, such as Iowa (which is an NFL factory) chances are you’d be competitive year after year. If your favorite program had two of those things, such as Alabama, well, look out. The best recruits in the nation will be interested in your program.
The calculus has changed as of late, though, with NIL deals making it so that top recruits can actually earn a bunch of money as even an unproven college player. Championships and player development have sort of taken a back seat to dollars and cents because of that.
That is, at least, according to Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who has won championships and has sent a ton of players to the NFL. Even UGA is starting to feel the squeeze of NIL being most important to recruits, though.
“It’s a great sell to the kids that will listen to it,” Smart said on having a direct pipeline to NFL success (h/t On3). “There is a lot of them that want to ask about NIL. They don’t want to ask about what your NFL players have done. I think it’s much more important how you develop players than how much NIL you can give them.”
Development is still important, but just keep in mind the perspective of a young football star. He many not ever make it to the NFL in order to enjoy the fruits of his labor, but he can perhaps get a million dollar NIL deal even before he steps on the field at the college level.
In that way, the here and now is trumping long-term stability and success. That’s completely antithesis to the way college football used to be, and that’s the reason coaches like Nick Saban (retired) and Jim Harbaugh (to the NFL) have left the sport.
It will be interesting to see how Smart feels about it all in a few more years as this trend only continues.
