It didn’t take Jackie Sherrill long Wednesday to answer how many of his former players would have really taken advantage of the new name, image and likeness stuff.
“About 30 or 40,” he said with a chuckle.
Then he started ticking off names.
“Tony Dorsett, Dan Marino, Hugh Green, Mark May, Ray Childress, Kevin Murray,” Sherrill said, then paused. “I’m not even getting close to all of them.”
Sherrill played the recruiting game as well as anybody when he was coaching Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and Mississippi State. He’s coached a handful of Hall of Famers and has watched the NIL developments with more than a passing interest.
Most interestingly, though, it’s the tip of the iceberg that may see the NCAA melt away. Sherrill first predicted that was going to happen as far back as 2008 to me.
“The NCAA is on it’s way out,” Sherrill said. “The Power 5 is going to break away, form their own organization and control things how they want to control them.”
What nobody is talking about in this initial wave of confusion is there’s absolutely no control by anyone. The kangaroo court in Indianapolis is powerless to do anything about it, either. The schools may be in trouble once the lawyers get involved … because the NCAA doesn’t want it in court.
“They (the NCAA) won’t win a case,” Sherrill said. “They would spend more in court. I believe I’m correct that there has never been a lawsuit by the student-athlete where the student-athlete did not win. If the kids take it to court, the NCAA won’t win.”
Nobody knows what’s going to happen with the different states having laws that are all over the map. There will be challenges from everywhere and for guys who make their living coaching, it’s an area nearly all know nothing about.
“If you’re smart as a coach, you would recommend the players be treated as a group so it’s fair or at least close for everybody,” Sherrill said. “From the outside looking in there are a lot of ways to help players. You can’t use it in recruiting, but that doesn’t keep anybody from doing.”
In other words, the players will find out whether the school tells them or not. In today’s world of social media and communication in terms of seconds as opposed to minutes, hours or days, the word will get around.
“Say a group of car dealers go into a pact and one pays the offensive line, another the wide receivers and another the linebackers,” Sherrill said. “That way every player receives something. Obviously there are going to be players that make more than others, but everybody needs to get something.”
It’s already happening.
In Miami a gym owner is coming up with $500 for every scholarship football player (up to 90 total).
That opens creative doors … if business owners want to spend that kind of money. More importantly, they will have to see a return on spending that kind of money.
Unless they seriously want their team to win a lot of games.
All of which means we don’t know where this is headed or where it’s going to end. The guess is it’s going to get more interesting when lawyers get involved.
And the chaos may never end.
“It won’t,” Sherrill said Wednesday afternoon.
