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Urban Meyer thinks the NCAA’s use of name, image and likeness rules that allow players to earn money is a way for teams to cheat the system.
In an interview on Don’t at Me with Dan Dakich (h/t Mark Harris of OutKick.com), Meyer said his understanding of the rules makes it sound like “collective” is “a fancy word for cheating.”
“When I hear that word I kind of cringe right now and I hear the stories behind it that they’re going to go to donors and boosters and ask for a lot of money, put them in a big pot and then decide who gets that money based on ability level,” he added. “Which, I think it’s 1A of the rule of NIL—you can’t do that.”
Even with NIL rules, there hasn’t been a noticeable change in which schools land the top recruits. The 2023 football recruiting rankings from 247Sports has Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio State in the top five.
Kentucky, Duke, USC, Connecticut and Michigan State currently have the top five recruiting classes in basketball, per 247Sports.
There have been instances of wealthy boosters using their money to funnel money to top college athletes in a way that gets around the spirit of the NIL rules.
In April 2022, Barry Jackson Jr. of the Miami Herald noted Miami-based billionaire John Ruiz Jr. had deals with 111 different student-athletes worth at least $10 million at the University of Miami to promote two of his companies because he wants the Hurricanes to win.
Per a May 2022 story from Eric Prisbell of On3.com, Ruiz ranked third among the most ambitious NIL collectives in the country.
No. 1 was Spyre Sports in Tennessee, with president and co-founder Hunter Baddour telling The Athletic’s David Ubben their goal is to raise “$25 million annually” for NIL deals.
Sports Illustrated‘s Ross Dellenger reported in January the NCAA was looking to crack down on potential NIL violations by allowing investigators to “use circumstantial evidence (like a tip or news story) instead of on-record sourcing to presume a school violated NCAA rules.”
This was in response to an alleged $13 million NIL deal promised to 2023 quarterback recruit Jaden Rashada if he committed to the University of Florida, per Mark Long of the Associated Press.
When the deal fell through, Rashada was granted his release from a scholarship to Florida. He committed to Arizona State in February.
The NCAA is still waiting for Congress to make a determination on potential federal legislation of NIL rules. The governing body for college athletics has deferred to individual states to set NIL policies since July 1, 2021.
It’s become a slippery slope for the NCAA and college athletics in general, but it’s better than the old system that prevented athletes from making any money while schools would rake in all of the cash because of what the players were doing.