Urban Meyer largely equates the new landscape of NIL in college football to that of cheating.
If you have any doubts about Urban Meyer ever coaching in college football again, I think his stance on NIL will probably make that pretty difficult for him.
Meyer spoke with Outkick’s Dan Dakich about all sorts of things, including NIL. Although Meyer most recently coached with the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars, he has not led a college program since leaving the Ohio State Buckeyes in 2018. NIL was not part of the equation only five years ago. Meyer is still young enough to land a Power Five job of note, but he does view NIL as cheating.
Here is what Meyer said to Dakich about NIL and collectives while on Don’t @ Me on Thursday.
"“I’m not saying it’s all that way, but from my understanding, it’s a fancy word for cheating. When I hear that word, I kind of cringe right now and I hear the stories behind it that they’re going to go to donors and boosters and ask for a lot of money, put it in a big pot, and then decide who gets that money based on ability level. Which, I think is 1A of the rule of NIL. You can’t do that.”"
Keep in mind that Meyer is a board member of THE Foundation, an NIL collective that helps compensate Ohio State basketball and football players for their names, images and likenesses. It should be noted that while Ohio State has a great athletic department, it does not have one of the strongest collectives out there, now three years into this. They are going to have to figure this out.
Although Meyer is not a person I would turn to when discussing ethics, he is right in that NIL needs guardrails in the worst way possible.
Urban Meyer pretty much accuses all college football programs of “cheating”
I think the good thing serving Meyer in this capacity is two-fold. He is not an active coach, but he also understands fully what it takes to win at the highest level, collegiately. Being on the board of THE Foundation may have him more privy to certain information pertaining to NIL than most people who aren’t actively swimming in it. He is not the first major figurehead to preach for parity.
"“If it’s going to be the same for everyone, I think that’s better than what we have now. Because what we have now is we have some states and some schools in some states that are investing a lot more money in terms of managing their roster than others.”"
I don’t know if this means there will be a cap on what a student-athlete can make, or if there will be some sort of implementation of a salary cap. Either way, college sports needs some sort of governance in this because the NCAA is absolutely worthless. How bad is it? Well, major makers and shakers in college athletics are approaching Congress on this issue. Congress is almost as bad.
Admittedly, we are at a very weird stage in the game where it is a bunch of finger pointing, on top of an endless supply of bickering and bantering. Everybody and their brother doesn’t think their collective is doing enough, while also despising the fact that some programs are essentially doing pay-for-play with incoming freshmen, including pretty much every finger pointer. This is a mess…
I think the biggest pervasive issue in this is each state will want to do its own thing if left to its own devices. Some will be all about it, while others will view NIL as another unholy vice one could ever have. This may be why getting Congress involved could help, to get some sort of clarity on the national landscape. Then again, Congress makes the simple complicated and exists to screw it up.
Meyer is right though, in that no rules and regulations mean programs will totally cross the line.