James Franklin: NIL Can Beat a 'Perfect' Recruiting Pitch
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Penn State coach James Franklin leaves little to chance where recruiting is concerned. Yet even he suggests that the best recruiting strategies can't compete with a lucrative Name, Image and Likeness pitch.
"Last year [when] NIL was implemented, it was in its infancy stages," Franklin said during Penn State's spring drills. "We saw a little bit [of impact] but not a lot. It's such a factor now that you could do everything right and do everything perfect and out-recruit everybody but you can lose a guy because of the NIL opportunities.
"So it's hard for me to compare and contrast [recruiting years] because that's just such a new dynamic that we're going to have to be aggressive and bold with as well."
Franklin recently joined the chorus of coaches discussing, and often challenging, NIL's effect on recruiting. Alabama's Nick Saban, Clemson's Dabo Swinney and USC's Lincoln Riley are among the coaches saying that NIL has reshaped recruiting, and not necessarily for the better. Saban suggested that NIL effectively legalized buying players.
"I don’t think what we’re doing right now is a sustainable model," Saban said told the Associated Press. "The concept of name, image and likeness was for players to be able to use their name, image and likeness to create opportunities for themselves. That’s what it was. So last year on our team, our guys probably made as much or more than anybody in the country.
“But that creates a situation where you can basically buy players. You can do it in recruiting. I mean, if that’s what we want college football to be, I don’t know."
In reviewing several contracts that recruits have signed with NIL collectives, The Athletic found multiple seven-figure deals. One of the deals was exclusive, meaning that the collective retains sole access to the recruit's NIL rights. An anonymous coach tells The Athletic that his program lost a recruit on Signing Day to a $300,000 NIL deal offered by a collective representing another program.
Franklin saw that scenario coming and has been urging Penn State to take a "bold and aggressive" stance toward NIL opportunities for more than a year. The athletic department has partnered with several outside companies to educate and engage athletes with NIL opportunities, and two NIL collectives have formed independently of Penn State. One of those, Success With Honor, raised more than $120,000 in subscription revenue through its first week in operation. Success With Honor will host several meet-and-greet events in State College on Blue-White weekend
Still, Penn State finds itself playing catch-up in the NIL space. For instance, a University of Texas collective has committed $10 million to Longhorn athletes. A collective formed to support University of Tennesse athletics has a goal of raising $25 million annually.
"NIL is something that we’ve been pushing hard with really since this became an opportunity in college football," Franklin said earlier this year. "It's something that I think as a university, and specifically as an athletic department, I think we're going to have to be a lot more aggressive in.
"Obviously, there are things that you can do as a university and athletic department and coaches and there are things you can't do. But this is an area that I think we're all seeing every single day is a major factor in the recruitment process, as well as the current players on your team."
Franklin asks that Penn State's new athletic director bring a "bold and aggressive" mindset to the program as well. He also wants the new athletic director to understand "what we're truly competing against" in major college football (meaning resources, staff sizes, recruiting advantages, etc.) and to help smooth some of the "bureaucratic" challenges the program faces within the university.
"I'm a guy that likes the structure and I like the consistency that we've been able to have [at Penn State]," Franklin has said. "I prefer not to have the changes that we've had, but you'd better embrace it. I think that's something that not only am I preaching to the administration and the fans and when I answer your questions, but I'm also talking to myself about that as well.
"You know, whether you totally agree with the transfer portal or whether you totally agree with NIL, the reality is you have to embrace it. I have to embrace it."
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