That's the cold hard truth. The sport, and more significantly recruiting, has changed in a monumental way and it appears to be permanent. How Auburn, as well as many other blue-blood programs, respond to this change remains to be seen. But honestly? It's hard for me to see how the new NIL rules will result in anything other than the rich getting richer. And that's not good for Auburn's future.
It used to be where you'd hand Stacey Danley $300 per month and a box of steaks and he'd run through a brick wall for you for four years. Those days are gone. Kids today are much, much more educated about their economic value and what they bring to the table than they used to be. They want promises made and promises kept for the services they're offering. They want a lucrative NIL deal, they want the best opportunity to play in the NFL, and they want to win championships. They want to be visible and play on the biggest stage.
It's not so much "what's wrong with playing football for Auburn?" as it is, "Why wouldn't I go to Alabama or Georgia if offered?". If Alabama is offering, and you're one of the best prep football players coming out that year, you're going to take it. Same with Georgia. There's literally no financial reason whatsoever to not sign with those schools right now. You're going to make more money while you're playing than anywhere else, and you're going to give yourself a chance to be more visible than you would anywhere else.
And so, we have a situation where 2-3 schools have an almost complete monopoly over elite talent in the southeast. The new NIL rules only compound the situation further: kids want to get paid and the programs with the most internal resources and the most national prestige will always present the best opportunity for that.
Imagine the NFL draft. Now imagine that the 3 teams with the best record from the year before get to pick 10 players before anyone else has a chance to draft. That's the situation we're in.
So what is Auburn, historically a top 15-20 program that has always flirted with being a "King" but has never quite made that jump, supposed to do now? Where is the upward mobility going to come from? The same goes for other programs like Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Arkansas. None of those schools have recruited at an elite level over the past 4 years and we're all just eating each other alive. The rich are at the top, utterly untouchable, and for the rest of us, it's just chaotic parity. Auburn beats Ole Miss, who beats A&M, who beat Auburn, who lost to South Carolina, who trounced Florida.
The margin for error to stay relevant for programs like these is now razor-thin. One wrong move, one bad recruiting class could curse you as the next Tennessee for five years.
We've said for years that Auburn lacks strong, centralized leadership. The buck is passed on and on and on, and no one wants the buck to stop with them. What needs to happen is for the GOB's to all get on the same page, put their money together, and commit to being a winning program in this new era of college football. That's the only way this is going to work out. Otherwise, expect a lot of 6-6 seasons over the next 10 years.
It used to be where you'd hand Stacey Danley $300 per month and a box of steaks and he'd run through a brick wall for you for four years. Those days are gone. Kids today are much, much more educated about their economic value and what they bring to the table than they used to be. They want promises made and promises kept for the services they're offering. They want a lucrative NIL deal, they want the best opportunity to play in the NFL, and they want to win championships. They want to be visible and play on the biggest stage.
It's not so much "what's wrong with playing football for Auburn?" as it is, "Why wouldn't I go to Alabama or Georgia if offered?". If Alabama is offering, and you're one of the best prep football players coming out that year, you're going to take it. Same with Georgia. There's literally no financial reason whatsoever to not sign with those schools right now. You're going to make more money while you're playing than anywhere else, and you're going to give yourself a chance to be more visible than you would anywhere else.
And so, we have a situation where 2-3 schools have an almost complete monopoly over elite talent in the southeast. The new NIL rules only compound the situation further: kids want to get paid and the programs with the most internal resources and the most national prestige will always present the best opportunity for that.
Imagine the NFL draft. Now imagine that the 3 teams with the best record from the year before get to pick 10 players before anyone else has a chance to draft. That's the situation we're in.
So what is Auburn, historically a top 15-20 program that has always flirted with being a "King" but has never quite made that jump, supposed to do now? Where is the upward mobility going to come from? The same goes for other programs like Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Arkansas. None of those schools have recruited at an elite level over the past 4 years and we're all just eating each other alive. The rich are at the top, utterly untouchable, and for the rest of us, it's just chaotic parity. Auburn beats Ole Miss, who beats A&M, who beat Auburn, who lost to South Carolina, who trounced Florida.
The margin for error to stay relevant for programs like these is now razor-thin. One wrong move, one bad recruiting class could curse you as the next Tennessee for five years.
We've said for years that Auburn lacks strong, centralized leadership. The buck is passed on and on and on, and no one wants the buck to stop with them. What needs to happen is for the GOB's to all get on the same page, put their money together, and commit to being a winning program in this new era of college football. That's the only way this is going to work out. Otherwise, expect a lot of 6-6 seasons over the next 10 years.
