Everyone in Tuscaloosa knew the retirement of Nick Saban from Alabama would open the doors for other SEC programs to step up. Likewise, nearly everyone suspected the NIL rulings in college football would forever impact how the game was played. But nobody could foresee the end of the Saban era and the impact NIL would have on the two most dominant programs for the last decade in the SEC and college football.
At Georgia, Head Coach Kirby Smart quickly tired of the NIL, the drama around payments, the unclear paths for recruiting and paying players, and last summer, seemed to hint at one of the biggest challenges in an interview with Paul Finebaum.
“I’m so tired of the talk about the NIL and the talk about the portal and all the complaining. Let’s go play football. Let’s get our team against their team and see where we stand. Let’s go play.”
The SEC Is Going To Have To Deal With Success
For decades, the concept of paying college athletes has stirred the NCAA into a frenzy, and to be sure, it occurred under the table as long as there were passionate fans. The question isn’t so much about “paying student-athletes” via NIL, but rather, how do those payments impact the product teams are putting on the field? The SEC, and especially Georgia and Alabama, due to a passionate fanbase and generations of success, may take years to iron out how to make the NIL work for them.
It’s not hard to argue the NIL drove one of the most impactful coaches in the game – Nick Saban. He saw the writing on the wall and was vehemently opposed to the idea of paying players, never pulling punches on the insanity of making millionaires of teenagers and having to gamble on whether a good prospect would become a great player.
“All the things that I believed in, for all these years, 50 years of coaching, no longer exist in college athletics. It was always about developing players, it was always about helping people be more successful in life.”
Correlation doesn’t mean causation, so it might be hard to prove the NIL gutted the SEC powerhouse teams of the last decade. On the other hand, it almost certainly drove Saban from the sport, and one need not look too far to find student-athletes like Georgia’s quarterback Carson Beck buying flashy cars while he was tied for the most interceptions in the league and Georgia struggled in game after game.
It can be argued – and will – that the 2024 season is a fluke – Alabama lost the most impactful coach it’s had since Bear Bryant, and Georgia had some bad breaks. Yet, around the country, other powerhouse programs – notably Oregon and Ohio State – continue to put a great product on the field week after week. Maybe, then, the NIL is a larger factor in the South, where college football has always reigned supreme. Current Alabama Head Coach Kalen DeBoer – who would have an uphill battle no matter what – is in a must-win game this week for the Iron Bowl against a so-so Auburn team that will play good football on Saturday.
Prospects will be watching. Advertisers will be watching. Money will be on the line, and not just as bets.
The NIL Will Average Out At Some Point
The long-term challenge of the NIL and college athletes being multi-millionaires as teenagers will end up sorting itself out, but the programs that will be on top aren’t the ones with millions of dollars to give their players. The truth is, the programs, especially in the SEC, that will benefit are the ones that can maintain player’s passion, get them to play hard no matter what their tax returns say, and build a core group that will not run for the transfer portal after every bad game.
Looking at the teams in the Top 20 right now through the lens of the NIL, the truth is, that the programs that weren’t on television every Saturday are the ones that will emerge in the years to come as more successful. After all, when was the last time SMU, Boise State, or Iowa State was the host for College Gameday? One thing is for sure, Georgia and Alabama have to figure the NIL out or they will have to fight long and hard to regain their supremacy in the SEC.
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