LSU's Coach Kelly Believes NIL Needs a Salary Cap

Brian Kelly wants everyone 'operating under the same guidelines'

NIL issues have been prevalent amongst headlines in recent weeks. After the college basketball season ended - with the transfer portal seeing plenty of action before the NCAA Tournament was over - players are moving to new schools due to the amount of money they're being offered across the country.

It's tough to judge a college kid for wanting to make more money, but the NIL landscape can certainly use an overhaul. At the very least, everyone needs to get on the same page.

LSU football head coach Brian Kelly spoke on the LeBatardShow about the changes he'd make.

“Well if we had a salary cap I'd be okay with it, but there's no salary cap,” Kelly said during an appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show. "I mean that's the issue really, I mean if we all were operating under the same guidelines, at least we could you know, know ‘okay this is what we've got,' but that's really the biggest issue."

Kelly's suggestion of a salary cap is interesting and while it could work in certain scenarios, it still leads to issues.

The issue here would be salary capping small schools with programs like LSU. For example, LSU likely has an NIL collective that exceeds anything 99% of mid-majors can compete with.

If the salary cap was $500,000 for a basketball program, LSU would have $500,000 no issue. However, a smaller school like St. Peter's in New Jersey likely doesn't have nearly enough to fund a $500,000 collective.

It's an interesting idea and if all schools were able to afford one, perhaps it could work. However, bigger schools would still have all the power.

At the end of the day, NIL was meant to help the student-athletes. Sure, it's been a bit overboard at times and the transfer portal doesn't help that, but NIL is still going to good use for the kids.

They deserve this money and should be compensated properly for it.