Buddy Martin Blog: Name, Image, Likeness -- and Confusion? It Might Not Be A Terrible Thing for UF

Back in the day, "newspaper row" at The Hub was the media center. Today it's about TikTok. (UF Photo)

Everything you ever read or heard about college football emphasizing TEAM? Forget it. This new Name/Image/Likeness deal will change all the rules. As cataclysmic as it sounds, though, it’s not going to be a fatal blow to CFB. Clearly, however, this is not your daddy’s football anymore.

That old “all-for-one/one-for-all“ “sis-boom-bah” chant should be amended to “… and it’s all about the Benjamins.” That fits the modern name-image-likeness compensation plan that looms like the Sword of Damocles over college football. But remember, that sword could cut both ways for a school like Florida.

Sooner or later, the players had to be paid in some fashion. At least this way they’re on equal footing with other students. And they’re earning their own cash.

This is the New Day: A 12-team playoff, player mobility through the transfer portal and opportunity to make money on yourself. Why not? Everybody else is making a buck off of you! In a way, Florida is the perfect media-savvy school to market yourself as a player. After all, it’s in the University of Florida’s DNA.

A long, long time ago, about the time Bear Bryant was just arriving in Tuscaloosa, when the measure of success of Florida football was defined by the team going .500 or better and making it to the Gator Bowl, we were getting most of our news and sports from newspapers.

Despite the mediocrity of the Gator program, there was an extraordinarily heightened newspaper interest in the sport right there in black and white, as reflected in long row of at least a dozen newspaper racks out front of “The Hub” at the book store on Stadium Road. A dime or so got you the news of the day.

As I recall, newspaper row at The Hub then included publications from Tampa (2), Jacksonville (2), Orlando (2), St. Petersburg (2), Daytona Beach, Gainesville – and maybe even Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. They all had student correspondents. Most every sports editor of those papers covered many of the Gator games because there were no professional teams in Florida then and only the University of Miami rivaled the UF for ink — and then only in South Florida. At one point back in the sixties and seventies, the Gator beat had more journalists traveling to cover its football team than any college in America.

Why is this significant sixty years later? Well, it turns out that media attention could eventually play a big role in attracting future Gator stars. Not through dinosauric newspapers, even if you could find them anymore. In SOCIAL media. (Stick with me because, this gets sticky.)

If you feel like an idiot and can’t for the life if you figure out what this whole N-I-L thing is about and that it’s threatening the core values of the game you love, you’re not alone. There are more potholes in the NIL than the Major Deegan Expressway after back-to-back New York City ice storms.

Contrary to the hue and cry echoing among the CFB traditionalists, this will not destroy the game, however, which is about to launch a multi-billion dollar playoff plan. Trickle-down economics are about to kick in. We just don’t know how much yet or where it will trickle. So buckle up!

Let’s start with the good news. Some coaches will adapt, some will not and some have already chosen to pivot in their career because of the transfer portal and N-I-L. In the case of Florida, Dan Mullen has shown the propensity for embracing new trends. Who else adapted quicker and more successfully in finding talent and adding roster depth from this new resource than Mullen?

These past three seasons have revealed Mullen’s acumen for utilizing non-traditional trends and staying competitive at a championship level by leveraging those assets. Now it be interesting to see what he can leverage from the new N-I-L when it is all finally adjudicated. So far, at least 19 states have passed the legislation which can be put in place by July 1 or at a later date. How it will be monitored and adjudicated – that’s another matter.

Stop me right here, and let’s agree that we’re all dumbstruck and haven’t a clue what’s about to take place. But can we agree on this? If you gotta have a scout leading the way into unknown territory, give me a smart guy like Dan Mullen, who no doubt has already been burning the midnight oil scoping it out and is equipped with a compass, telescope, metal detector and crystal ball.

Back to the news about how it will help Florida. Take the case of Houston Clearlake 4-star cornerback commit Julian Humphrey. Humphrey is so far advanced that he’s already got a personal logo and a name for his merchandise, “Julio Island.” According to Zach Abolverdi of the Sun, Humphrey already has more than 1.3 M followers on TikTok.

No doubt one of the reason the media-savvy Humphrey chose Florida was the opportunity for peddling his wares in the Gator Nation.

Something’s already changed in Gainesville about recruiting. We’re seeing a revamped strategy and philosophy that seem to be resonating with top prospects. More four and five star prospects are tweeting and TikToking about their recent positive UF experience. And even though UF facilities are not up to expectations yet, it’s coming. We don’t know this for certain yet, but some knowledgeable observers are predicting this will be the most fruitful two-week recruiting period in Mullen’s Gator tenure.

This stat from Abolverdi: “Of the 24 official visitors in June, 10 were top-100 prospects and 17 rank in the top 150.”

Mullen’s response: “It’s their opportunity to learn about us and to see us interact.”

As that guy used to say on those Men’s Warehouse commercials: “And you’re going to like the way you look.”

After all isn’t that what Name, Image and Likeness is all about?