Clemson QB D.J. Uiagalelei Having Fun With NIL, Primarily Focused on Football
Being the starting quarterback for a major college football program has always come with its own unique set of challenges.
Being the face of the program means more expectations and with that comes more pressure. Now, with college athletes being able to profit from NIL, the heat is getting turned up a little more when it comes to star players.
For Clemson's D.J. Uiagalelei, the new rules are just another part of the game. While others are out chasing six and seven-figure deals, the Tigers' first-year starting quarterback is just taking things as they come.
Uiagalelei has a marketing team that handles his affairs for him, along with his mother, as he prefers to take more of a hands-off approach.
"For me I just let my team handle it," Uiagalelei said. "I have a marketing team, I let them handle it, my mom handle it. They do all this stuff for me, I'm just there. All the relationships is through them."
Uiagalelei insists the NIL stuff isn't an area of focus for him and that he's just going to have fun with it. But the big-armed quarterback from California also known as Big Cinco is happy to see some of the rules surrounding amateurism and college athletics have started to evolve.
"It's a lot of fun, I mean super-cool," Uiagalelei said. "The time I get to do it and stuff like that, I love it, it's cool. You get to show a little different personality of yourself. I think it's cool for football players to be able to do that."
It was recently announced by Nick Saban, that Bryce Young, Alabama's new starting quarterback, has already agreed to deals worth as much a $1M. When asked how much he's had made so far, Uiagalelei had no comment. However, he has already signed on with Bojangles and it was recently announced he'd signed on with Dr. Pepper as part of its college football-themed "Fansville" campaign.
While it was clear Uiagalelei had no interest in talking specifics, he was clear about one thing. That is the fact that he is focused on being the quarterback at Clemson and leading the Tigers to success on the field of play.
"I can not speak on that," Uiagalelei said. "I'm just here playing football. I'm just trying to focus on that, that's my main goal. First to be a student, then be an athlete. I'll just let everybody else handle NIL."
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