Wow, just wow.
So am I to understand that NIL deals may need to include post-season incentives if the season extends past 12 games? What if the game goes to overtime? Do they get time and a half pay at the conclusion or do they opt out of overtime?
While I can understand that someone with NFL first round potential wants to opt out of the Pfizer Ozempic Weight Loss Bowl in Montgomery to avoid injury, but threatening a boycott of post-season play is another thing altogether. The playoff expansion and player compensation era wasnāt supposed to compromise the integrity of the sport, but here we are.
Makes you wonder if the performance in the playoff game in Columbus wasnāt impacted by this nonsense, no?
Couldn’t happen to a finer bunch of hillbillies.
On a more serious note, something has to be done to get this under control. Face it, it is now professional sports at the college level and needs to be treated as such with contracts that have binding terms and conditions on both parties.
My sister, a UT grad & lifelong fan (may God have mercy on her soul.) said she thought something was wrong with the team early in that debacle last year. She swore that was not the team she’d watched all year. I guess she was onto something. Team chemistry is essential in sports and it seems even more important in college football where everyone depends on everyone else doing their job. You’ve got to have every player be all in to compete at the highest level and clearly the Vowels were not all in. If it’s just about the money, then it ain’t about putting it on the line when it counts. UT will be better off without Nico, IMHO.
Like the old Al Wilson song from 1969, UT knew he was a snake when they took him in. They should not be surprised he bit them.
After reading the ESPN article yesterday, I thought there was more wrong than just money. Nico is NOT someone you want on your team, but maybe he was a great guy until The Vols screwed him up. The Vols can screw up the Pope if given a chance.
WHB209
I love picking on the butt chuggers, but we shouldn’t be too quick to cast stones. I’m not sure our team was fully bought in given the constant struggles to play a complete game.
That said, I trust Kirby to navigate this better than any other coach out there.
Iām guessing Kirby would be more than happy to show any player to the door with that mentality.
I saw the game. Nico should’ve opted out.
It looked like he had opted out and just forgot to not show up.
This is extremely short-sighted. You put your dream employer on notice that at the first sniff of success you will demand more money and threaten a hold out. You didn’t even wait until the offseason; you did it during a playoff run. You showed everyone you were willing to torpedo your team to get a few extra dollars for yourself. There’s no way I’d waste a draft pick on the guy.
The ones advising these kids should be publicly shamed: Greedy parents looking to cash in on their kids, agents getting absurd cuts from these NIL deals, etc. No one is looking out for the kids’ best interests because they all have their hands in the kids’ pockets, and there aren’t many 20-year-olds with the wisdom to make their own good, long-term decisions.
The closest thing they had were their coaches (who still have a conflict of interest, but many were invested in the lives of their players), but now that relationship is almost adversarial. When your daddy is telling you that you are worth more money on the open market, and you should hold Tennessee to the fire until they pay your true value… what are you supposed to do?
Sounds to me like UTjr will be better off without Nico and his representatives.
This has gotten WAY out of hand. While NIL has “leveled the playing field” in regard to teams being able to buy players that would never have considered those certain teams before, it’s also promoted the Gordon Gekko attitude of money being the primary (or only) reason a player goes to a certain school. There’s no love for the school, no loyalty to anything or anyone but themselves and I hate that. This is worse than the NFL when players can actively demand more money DURING the football season if they make a Championship game or the Playoff. Adios Nico! You suck!
This is just accelerating to what has always been the final outcome. I have maintained for several years that NIL would lead to a desire for unlimited eligibility and it seems players are seeing the benefits of having more than 4 years of earning potential.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/44675147/ex-unc-duke-football-players-file-lawsuit-eligibility
I think within 2 years we will see college football and basketball players become employees and that there will no longer be an enrollment requirement for players to play “college” football.
This would be the death of college sports.