My, how times have changed from my days in high school in the 1990s. If someone from your hometown got a sports scholarship somewhere, they were a hometown hero. Now, it’s about the guy from your hometown and their agent ($$).
Programs developing reputations in world of NIL
The big NIL spenders, according to high school prospects, are becoming clearly defined. The usual suspects like USC, Oregon, Texas A&M and LSU dominate the high-end offers, new programs are trying to enter the arms race.
UCLA, Cal and North Carolina were frequently cited as “most open” regarding NIL discussions with recruits. For UCLA and Cal, NIL is a tool to ignite fanbases under first-year coaches; for UNC, it’s about providing Bill Belichick the resources to improve the program’s fortunes in year two. Their pitch is simple: “This is your minimum offer, this is what it could grow to, and if you perform, we’ll reset the table.”
Conversely, Georgia was the program most frequently cited for offering substantially less than some of its peers. Kirby Smart‘s program sells NFL development as a long-term financial play that outweighs an upfront NIL check. (emphasis added)
The article also cites that high school kids are now seeing that their NIL valuation is $300,000 and they start upselling from there, asking for a million or more.
Whatever happened to the good ole days of getting a Trans Am and your family a fat stack of Benjamins in a McDonald’s back, huh?
Anyway, I can hear Kirby’s recruiting pitch now. “I’ll offer you the minimum, but by the time you leave you’ll be asking for the supermax at the draft. Max we can give is 2 million a year, max a NFL team can offer is limitless. One of these things isn’t like the other, and if you don’t believe me, I can put you on the phone with Roquan, Jordan, Ladd, Brock, Jalen…just ask. They’ll tell ya, the NFL scouts will tell ya, you’re gonna be rich someday, but it ain’t gonna be right now. You can make millions for a few years at the other place, but you’ll be working for $50,000 a year three years later as a staffer at a company somewhere, and you’ll watch the guys who came here playing on Sundays wishing “why didn’t I go to Georgia”. I’ll take care of ya, but you’re gonna have to fight for it. I’m not paying you more than the guy in front of you who has been going through five years of hell on earth we call Bloody Tuesdays and SEC games and you wouldn’t want that, either. Take it or leave it, it’s my way, and you gotta trust me on this.”
Woof. I’d buy that for a dollar.
Good for them. I’ll still take my chances with guys at a discount regardless of star rating who take less up front and allow Kirby to focus NIL on proven players who he wants to retain.
Kirby has made it clear … if all you want to talk about is the size of the check, he doesn’t want you.
We’ll see if it works.
Those days are” gone like a freight train”!!!
We must not blame the children. Grown ass adults making stupid decisions and driven by their own greed starting at the very top of “amateur” sports have driven this. And yes, that’s Kirby’s pitch but we can’t ask the closest greedy adults surrounding a 16-17 yr old kid to make the right decision. So we’re going to be developing more 3*s than stockpiling 5*s. We’ll make the playoffs but fall victim to that one exceptional kid who can carry a team through a season. Cinderellas everywhere. Hooray. Vegas and Disney got what they’ve wanted.
Thing about greed as old as Aesop’s fables…it comes back to bite you.
Hard to win big with one guy. Not very many Cam Newton’s hanging around at 23 and there hasn’t been a 34 well since 34. And I would say its highly questionable that the 1980 team survives this tournament format.
Complimentary football teams tend to win football championships.
I think Kirby’s approach is the best approach to be consistently in the mix.
Whether we win the tournament or not I would suspect that we’re qualifying at a higher rate than anyone else is with an investing in prima donnas approach.
Trinidad Chambliss “Cam Newton’d” Georgia in their last game, but I see your point.
If two companies are offering you the same job and you go with the one offering double the salary is it because you’re greedy or do you just have common sense?
Speaking from experience, the higher offer doesn’t always work out if the people around you aren’t as good as the guys you left. Didn’t take long to figure out why the money was higher, and I corrected it by going back to the company I left.
Fair point, every situation is different, but it wasn’t immoral or greedy for you to choose the higher salary. I’m also guessing it wasn’t a massive salary increase like the kids who are getting bought away from Georgia for additional millions of dollars.
Your experience also doesn’t include a short 4-5 year window of earning potential with no guarantee of future earnings after that.
There has got to be some sort of regulation. It has to start at the high school level because the transition of talent levels from high school football to college is significant and more than one 5 star has struggled making the transition. To pay unproven talent top shelf money over players already entrenched into a system just invites problems.
Thanks a lot NCAA for not dealing with this issue years ago and instead opening Pandora’s box and walking away.
The math doesn’t work. For every Roquan or Ladd that comes to Georgia there are 20 if not 30 other kids who go through the same development and don’t make it to the NFL. Kirby’s development is second to none, but the smart money is the money they’re offering now because you might have a season ending injury on your first day of practice, or you may be the next Trenton Thompson.
If I had a 5 star son you better believe we’ll be gator chomping in Gainesville if the Gators are offering double the money. A part of my soul might die, but then I’ll remember that it’s just football and UGA makes season ticket holders supplement Tennessee State’s program just so we can get tickets to the good games. In other words, there’s no real loyalty. Politicians sell us out to the highest bidder everyday, college football is just a distraction from our decaying society. Take the money while you can kids.
The question at the end of the day for Kirby is:
How much better are the kids he’s losing? And how much better is his team because he does things this way?
Its not like the teams with the first picks and all the money in the world wind up in the super bowl.
How and where you invest is more important than loading up on a star qb.
If our overall roster outlay is competitive with those other teams, most of the time we’re gonna whip those teams asses.
I think our roster is plenty good enough to win titles. I don’t think we have a championship staff, but that’s a different discussion.
It does hurt me a little to see all the top GHSA kids leaving the state, but Georgia still has one of the most talented rosters in the country.
Who has a better staff?
Texas, Ohio State, Indiana, LSU, I could go on and on. You won’t agree, but any playoff contender with an OC that didn’t fail his way onto the support staff of his alma mater would probably be on this list. I also think losing Muschamp and keeping Schumann is a significant downgrade.
As much as I hate to say it, I would advise my child to take the money, especially if it comes from a quality institution. No one knows the future. And, if it turns out they are really good, they can transfer! Only thing for certain is I will never wear orange!
If UGA is last in NIL we will eventually just be last.
Kirbys gonna ride the wave of all those kids he put in the NFL from when we went back to back, but that was a different era and they mostly all came in as 5 stars. It’s not like he was developing turds into pro talent. The 5 stars that go to other schools are headed to the NFL as well. We need to get with the times or watch our star fade.