Ohio State Football: NIL is here, evolve or get left behind

If you’re in the camp of people who are furious about all the college athletes getting paid large amounts of money now that the NIL Era is in full swing in college sports…you have no choice but to deal with it. And that’s the same for all the coaches as well–evolve or get left behind.

Who cares if Texas is setting up $1 million+ deals for Quinn Ewers to convince him to come to Texas after he left the Ohio State football program? Ewers has every right to make money for being a stud high school player.  Whether or not he will live up to the hype, and whether or not his million-dollar deals will wind up worth it, will ultimately be up to him.

Who cares if Deion Sanders & Barstool Sports set up a $1 million+ deal to flip the #1 recruit in the country from his Florida State commitment to joining Deion’s FCS Jackson State program? Travis Hunter is going to be an absolute stud. If Florida State is upset that Hunter flipped his commitment, well, they should’ve ponied up and offered him more.

The free agency era is upon us in college football. In the history of the sport, there have been so many significant changes that have altered the direction of college football as a whole. It was Notre Dame in the ’30s who mastered the forward pass.

Oklahoma in the ’50s won 3 National championships when they were the first to run a 5-2 defensive scheme instead of having 7 guys on the line. Texas in the ’60s brought the wishbone to the game and subsequently rattled off 30 straight wins, making every other school adopt that offense.

After back-to-back years of co-national champions in 1990 and 1991, the Bowl Coalition was formed in 1992, which made the top 2 teams in the country at the end of the season play each other for the National Championship. In1998 the BCS computer rankings were formed and lasted until 2013 when the College Football Playoff originated.

And that brings us to the present day. The point is, there have always been crazy changes to the sport of college football, and people just have to accept them and figure out how to adapt. That’s going to be the bottom line for each program moving forward.

Which coach and athletic department will poke their heads out as being the best at taking advantage of the NIL Era? Which alumni base is going to set up recruiting funds so that their beloved programs can lure in the best recruits on a yearly basis?

It’s the players that make college football so great. They make the universities, the universities don’t make them.  It’s long past due they start being compensated as such. And if your favorite program’s coach is complaining about the current state of college football (such as Dabo Swinney), then I hate to break it to you, but the future could be looking a little dark for you.

Speaking of Dabo, that’s been my favorite part of all this NIL uproar lately.  Ryan Day absolutely broke him after the Ohio State football team beat Clemson last year in the CFP semifinal. Ever since then, it’s been all downhill: a terrible offense, losing coordinators, and nonstop complaining about the state of football.

Sweet, sweet, music to my ears from a guy whose ego got a little too big and is now being knocked down a couple of notches. You just love to see it. Tampering? It’s not tampering if it’s legal. And let’s not act like education was ever the priority when it comes to college football.  Student-athlete is a phrase people throw around to sound like they focus on school more than football when it’s the other way around.

The Ohio State football program will have to adapt just like everyone else. The program that does it the best will be the most successful.