The Ohio State football program may now be able to pay recruits directly to come and play for them

Ross Bjork was brought in to help Ohio State with NIL programs in all sports. He's an athletic director who is embracing NIL as a big part of recruiting. That includes the Ohio State football program, where collectives have already raised a ton of money for the current roster.

Collectives may not need to be a thing anymore based on a court filing. A temporary court injunction has been put in place against the NCAA prohibiting them from stopping athletes from negotiating NIL deals with schools prior to deciding to attend a school. ESPN's Pete Thamel posted this on Twitter.

This seems bad for the NCAA's powers. If this is what it seems like, then programs are going to be able to pay for players without having to go through collectives. The Ohio State football program would be one of the schools that could likely afford the best roster.

Look, I'm not a lawyer. I could be way off base with this take. But it seems like college sports are about to become professionalized. The little guy is going to have no chance to compete if this ends up happening. There will be about 10 schools that have a shot to compete in football. Maybe 20 would compete in basketball.

This injunction just came out so there's still time for things to change. The only way I see there being any sort of competitive balance is by implementing some sort of NIL salary cap limit. Otherwise, the richest schools are going to be in the Playoff every year. Championships will be bought.

We'll see if this injunction stands. It's just temporary right now so the NCAA has time to get their ducks in a row and figure out how to respond to this. The college sports landscape hinges on this ruling, in my opinion.