DESTIN, Fla. – Although current NIL (name, image, and likeness) rules won’t affect the way Kirby Smart and his coaches recruit players to Georgia, he has noticed a change in some of the recruits themselves.
It’s not a look he’s particularly fond of seeing.
“It is changing the narrative for the player. I make a conscious effort to ask kids when they come in to meet, what’s the most important reason. That’s certainly transitioned in recent years,” Smart said Tuesday at the SEC Spring Meetings. “Kids would say to play, kids would say the ability to win championships, kids would say proximity to home, relationship with my coach. Now, it’s how much I can make through NIL. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what it should be. I don’t know if that should be the basis for a decision or even to go to school based solely on what you make.”
The five head football coaches who spoke to the media Tuesday morning at the SEC Spring Meetings apparently agree that there needs to be some parameters.
South Carolina’s Shane Beamer, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwich, Alabama’s Nick Saban, Florida’s Billy Napier, and Smart all agreed there needs to be some clarity.
“NIL is the most important factor facing college football, whether it’s your current players or recruits. It’s a factor in every conversation,” Drinkwich said. “It’s a challenge. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. We’re all adjusting to something new.”
Saban has obviously been one of the most vocal.
The Alabama head coach was obviously very critical of Texas A&M and its head coach Jimbo Fisher, accusing the Aggies during an interview several weeks ago of using NIL to entice players to College Station.
Tuesday, Saban spoke to the media for the first time since the incident. Although he tried to downplay the incident Tuesday, Saban remained steadfast in his belief that there needs to be some transparency regarding NIL and its use.
“The point … I should have never mentioned anyone’s name or any individual institutions, but some kind of uniform NIL standard that supports some kind of equitable, national competition I think is really, really important in college athletics and college football,” Saban said. “Point two is we need some kind of transparency in the length of these deals to verify players are doing what they need to do to have the opportunity to make money on name, image, and likeness.
“I’m all for players making as much as they can make. But I also think we’ve got to have some unified, transparent way to do that.”
Fisher was not scheduled to meet with the media Tuesday, but that did not keep the other SEC coaches from being asked about the spat.
Few had much to say.
“I’m not foolish enough to get caught up in that situation,” Florida’s Billy Napier said.
Neither did Drinkwich.
“I just want to make sure I don’t say anything stupid, so I don’t get yelled at,” quipped the Mizzou head coach when asked about the Saban-Fisher fireworks. “The only public spats I’m aware of is when my kids got into it at Disney World the other day.”
Smart, who served on staffs with both Saban and Fisher, wasn’t about to get caught up in the situation.
“To be honest with you, my phone started blowing up right when Jimbo's press conference hit. I haven’t thought about it a day since. In the world that we operate in, you’re worried about what’s in front of you right now, which is the 15 recruits I’m trying to get on the phone, the conversations I’m trying to have,” Smart said. “I’m not really worried about a feud between two guys that used to sit in the same staff meeting and have similar conversations. At the end of the day, things like that happen. You should be on the headphones sometimes. You’d think that was Mickey Mouse. It's just that it happened in front of everybody. It’s not something I prefer to comment on. I’m worried about what we do at Georgia, and that’s my focus.”
Although Smart remained ambivalent on most subjects Tuesday, his feeling regarding the SEC’s stated deadline for transferring intraconference is quite clear.
Players have until Feb. 1 to announce whether they are transferring to another SEC program, May 1 for any school outside the SEC.
“I prefer the two windows the way they are. I think it’s tremendously difficult to go through 3-4 months of work in spring practice and have your roster change within the conference. It’s one thing to say OK, its May 1, he can go wherever he wants to go,” Smart said. “We’ve had some guys who go through spring and realize they don’t get the opportunity they so desire, and they want to go look at other schools. There’s hundreds of schools. To say they can’t go to the SEC, I think it’s a good thing to make the decision coming out of the season, if they want to move within the SEC.”
