An NIL Owner's Manual Would Be Nice For Napier And Golden

Trey Dean and Billy Napier - Orange and Blue Game

An owner’s manual would be a nice thing to have about now for Billy Napier and Todd Golden. They’re dealing with NIL on a daily basis and it’s like sitting in the cockpit of a plane trying to figure out how to get it off the ground after an introductory lesson or two. While most coaches agree it’s great that players have a chance to cash in and make some money – Florida safety Trey Dean, for example, used some of his NIL money to buy his mama a Jeep – the lack of a defined set of rules makes it next to impossible to know what’s right, what’s wrong and how to deal with it properly.

Napier, who has taken a very pro-active NIL approach since taking over as Florida’s football coach last December, would like to compare what’s going on with NFL free agency except the NFL has rules, regulations and contracts. Those things don’t exist in college football, largely because the NCAA just tossed it out there with few, if any, guidelines.

Prior to speaking to a Gator Club meeting at the Touchdown Terrace at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Thursday evening, Napier offered this explanation for how he’s navigating through these shark-infested waters:

“I find, I think we're finding ourselves in, much like an NFL team during free agency. I mean there's a lot of scenarios here that are very comparable, right? And I'm really, to be honest with you, there's no manual for this in college football. I mean I've been studying the National Football League, because I think there are some things to learn. Now, every player on our team that hasn't transferred before is a free agent every year, truth be known. So that's the one thing that we lack that the National Football League has, right? There is free agency, but there is no salary cap and there is no contractual obligation, right? So there are things that we can learn from the NFL, but there are a lot of things that don't apply as well.”

Combine NIL with the transfer portal and recruiting takes on a whole new meaning. Not only are coaches dealing with kids who are shopping their services and selling to the highest bidder, but they have to re-recruit players on their current roster. Recently, Miami point guard Isaiah Wong went into the transfer portal and said the only way he would return to the Hurricanes, who made the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament back in March, would be to get an NIL deal equal to or better than the one Kansas State transfer Nijel Pack got, estimated at $750,000.

Golden arrives in Gainesville

“It was really when the whole Miami story broke that it really got hot in our world of recruiting,” Golden said prior to the Gator Club meeting. “It hasn’t been a very big part of the discussions we’ve had with recruits, but we definitely anticipate over the next three to six to nine months that it’s going to be very important and very present. I’ll just say I’m excited to get down to the SEC Meetings next week and hear what the commissioner and the rest of the coaches have to say about it.”

There has always been a shady side to recruiting where coaches get calls from someone’s “uncle” or AAU coach or 7-on-7 coach trying to broker a back-room deal for a kid who is being recruited, but with the advent of NIL, players are using a representative to shop their services. Golden says it adds “another layer in terms of recruiting and sifting through what’s important for the student-athlete and the people supporting them through the process.”

In the past, Golden and Napier would typically deal with the athlete, his parents and perhaps the high school or AAU coach. Now, players like Baylor Scheireman, who transferred from South Dakota State to Creighton, have agents. Most, however, use someone who isn’t exactly a professional.

It all adds up to players using someone else to broker NIL deals to get them to sign or transfers.

“I do think that players, because there is an opportunity to have representation for NIL, you've seen that trend, and I think there’s some wisdom to that but I also think that there's a lot more to these decisions than NIL,” Napier said. “I think that going forward, the third party, there's a lot of gray area here relative to representation: What I can say, what I can't say, what the third party can do, what they can't do. Right now we're living in a land with no laws, if that makes sense.”

It doesn’t make sense and that’s the problem.

Supposedly, NIL collectives, corporations and individuals/boosters aren’t allowed to recruit high school kids for a certain school. That had everything to do with Nick Saban – and before him Lane Kiffin – calling out Texas A&M for its 2022 recruiting class, which some experts call generational. Back in February, Kiffin asked out loud if the Aggies were going to be charged a luxury tax amid rumors that upwards of $30 million in NIL deals helped Jimbo Fisher land the nation’s No. 1 class. At a meeting in Birmingham a week ago, Saban went so far as to say the Aggies “bought every player on their team. Made a deal for name, image and likeness.”

When Kiffin called out the Aggies, Fisher responded angrily but his angry words were news for about a couple of days. Maybe it was because it was Kiffin, who some in the media don’t take seriously. When Saban called Fisher out, Jimbo responded with words like “narcissist” and “despicable” to describe Saban. Fisher also said Saban thinks he’s God.

None of that happens if there are rules in place to deal with NIL. Currently there are none. Napier looks to how the NFL handles free agency, which is essentially what we have now, for guidelines but he doesn’t have the structure the NFL has. Golden can’t wait for someone in charge to give him some direction because where he is now with NIL is going to be changing. What seems to apply today isn’t going to be what applies months from now, not unless someone steps in with a set of rules that everyone can agree to and abide by.

In the meantime, coaches like Napier hope their players who benefit from NIL will use their money wisely like Trey Dean did when he took care of his mother. Dean has already earned his University of Florida degree. This will be his fifth year with the team as he is taking advantage of the NCAA rule that allows athletes who participated during the COVID year (2020-21 academic year) to have an extra year of eligibility. Dean came back, got an NIL deal, and now he’s using it to help someone he loves.

“Trey's one of the hardest-working guys we have on the team,” Napier said. “Unbelievable effort in all areas of his life. Certainly comes from a great family. Cares significantly about his parents, and certainly NIL in these days, if you create value for yourself, you work hard and you put yourself in position where you can earn a wage, it creates opportunities like that. So I'm hopeful that we'll have more players that continue to improve, that work hard, that represent themselves the right way to get NIL opportunities."