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SEC Sports
#PMARSHONAU: Oil money changes the landscape in SEC football
Is oil money about to take over Southeastern Conference athletics? Is how much money well-heeled boosters are willing to pay going to become the driving force in recruiting?
247sports.com
Is oil money about to take over Southeastern Conference athletics? Is how much money well-heeled boosters are willing to pay going to become the driving force in recruiting? It sure does look that way.
Texas A&M’s historic recruiting class, which now includes an astonishing eight 5-stars, has turned heads all over college football. Some say $30 million went into NIL deals for Texas A&M signees, though there is no proof of that at all.
Here’s the thing that is largely overlooked: Even in the wild, wild west that is 2022, no programs are going to be so brash as to pay money themselves. Boosters make the deals or contribute money to consortium that make the deals, not the programs. And who can really blame Texas A&M and head coach Jimbo Fisher for taking advantage of almost unlimited resources?
Texas A&M boosters, with their oil millions and even billions, are willing to pay. You can see the results. Texas, where offensive linemen have already been guaranteed $50,000 per year, will be in the SEC within a couple of years. So will Oklahoma.
What do those three have in common? Oil and the money that comes with it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not anti-oil company. My own son is a chemical engineer for Exon. But decades of recruiting rules that at least tried to even the playing field as much as possible are in shambles.
Can Alabama and Georgia, the dominant forces in the SEC at the moment, keep up? Can Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, LSU and others? It is going to be very difficult.
An 18-year-old prospect from modest circumstances might have dreamed all his life of playing football for one school. But how can he turn down generational money for his family? He can’t.
In the NFL, there is a collectively bargained salary cap that is designed to even the playing field. There is no such thing in college. Thus, a high school quarterback is offered millions of dollars before he plays a snap in college or the guarantee that he ever will.
It’s crazy.
There are so many pitfalls. What happens when a player loses his starting job and sues the coach and the university for the potential loss of income? How do you avoid locker room issues when a player who turns out not to be what he was thought to be is making big money and players playing ahead of him are not?
The NCAA seems helpless beyond pleading with Congress for help. Congress’ idea of help is a bill that has been introduced that would essentially wipe out recruiting rules or at least the ability to investigate violations in any real way. Lawsuits are in the pipeline that would wipe out scholarship limits and more.
There is plenty of blame to go around, but don’t put that blame on Fisher or any other coach. They did not create this mess.
