Should Auburn Football use UCF player marketing strategies?

UCF is revolutionizing how to market its players and earn them NIL money.

The Knights are making billboards to show off some of their players around the city.

This is really smart for UCF since when you are a 17 or 18-year-old high school recruit, those kinds of things get you excited.

UCF even put QR codes on the backs of their spring game jerseys so the fans could scan them to find their social media accounts. These kinds of things are ingenious from a marketing perspective for recruiting.

UCF’s spring game jerseys will have a QR code instead of a number on the back.

Link goes to their school bio, social media, etc. Last year, UCF put Twitter handles on the nameplates. pic.twitter.com/qcK0Gwkm7l
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) April 15, 2022

Players always want to play for the program that has the next best thing, and UCF is getting ahead of the competition with this.

Something I've noticed that UCF is doing: There are billboards around Orlando advertising individual players.

For example, there's one a mile from my house that says "Isaiah Bowser, the best running back in Florida."

Seems like something others could (and should) be doing.
— Connor O'Gara (@cjogara) May 30, 2022

If Auburn were to start putting up billboards for their players, who from Auburn's current roster would get one?

Tank Bigsby

Tank Bigsby is arguably the best player on Auburn's roster, and it would make a lot of sense to have a billboard which him on it. Bigsby would be perfect to be the face of the program, especially for offensive recruits, because they will want their face on a billboard just like Bigsby.

Derick Hall

Derick Hall is definitely the face of the defense for Auburn currently. He is a leader in the locker room and is really deserving of a billboard with his face on it. You always want to use your leaders in the locker room to brand your program, and a billboard of Hall would do that.

Owen Pappoe

Owen Pappoe is a former five-star recruit who, when healthy, has had a lot of success in an Auburn uniform. Having a billboard with his face would help in recruiting. You could show highly sought-after recruits the billboard of Pappoe, and it would go a long way to getting them to choose Auburn.

Currently, UCF is the only team doing this, and there has been no sign that Auburn is interested in following in their footsteps.

It does seem like if Auburn were to start doing these different kinds of things to brand their players and program, it would go a long way in recruiting.