Is lack of NIL hurting Football Program
I’m just curious if the board believes that the lack of a strong NIL program will hurt the football program moving forward regardless of the fact we won the National Championship. Why are we not in on any of the big time players in the portal? Why are we not getting our doors knocked down by players? Just looking for opinions.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:43 PM ^
It could be better. Just another reason why warde should be canned.
January 20th, 2024 at 12:05 AM ^
Didnt Warde straight up shoot down an NIL collective that Harbaugh backed because he was afraid it would redirect donations to NIL instead of to the AD?
Michigan could and should do better than Warde. Too important of times to be lagging behind. OSU has certainly figured something out.
January 20th, 2024 at 7:37 AM ^
No, because it was a scummy weird non-profit scam that wanted to use UofM IP.
January 20th, 2024 at 4:18 PM ^
On the one hand, yeah, fair, it probably was a scam. I don’t know anything about it, but I believe it.
On the other hand, this is America and nothing gets done without some scummy people getting rich off the transaction. So to an extent it’s just the cost of doing business. If M wants to stay pure, that means they ain’t doing business
January 20th, 2024 at 8:21 AM ^
Research that and let us know the truth.
January 20th, 2024 at 2:11 PM ^
Exactly. Gotta be better. Your job pretty much boils down to 1. Hiring and retaining good football and hoops coaches. 2. Dealing w/ any NCAA & Big10 issues. 3. NIL/fundraising
All the event management stuff, operations, marketing, and any of the other sport programs will either be taken care of by staff regardless of any AD involvement, or it really doesn't matter much in the grand scope of things.
The man makes $1.23 million. I'm gonna withhold blaming Warde for #1 & #2, but good lord, the fact that Santa Ono was far and away a better leader this year AND makes LESS money, tells me we can do better. You want to be paid more than Jesse Minter and Santa Ono, gotta show us what that money is buying.
January 20th, 2024 at 3:15 PM ^
Harbaugh is the one that coined the "transformational not transactional" phrase and y'all are still blaming the Warde bogeyman for how NIL is done at Michigan? lol...
January 20th, 2024 at 4:17 PM ^
Whose job is best suited to rectify issues with NIL? Harbs or Warde? It's not all on Warde but he's likely one of the most important stakeholders in this. Again he is paid $1.23M so do you think it's unreasonable at that price to expect our AD to make it easier for top talent to choose Michigan?
January 20th, 2024 at 6:47 PM ^
With all due respect, is that in Warde? Who is transferring to Michigan when it’s an open question on who the head coach will be next year? Uncertainty kills commitment. Michigan took 9 transfers last year as they loaded up for a run at the title, and another window opens in the spring. Coaching questions will be answered by then.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:45 PM ^
Because the players don’t know who the head coach is going to be.
January 19th, 2024 at 11:18 PM ^
Nah. It's just money. Players aren't flocking to Miami bc of Mario Cristibal's coaching prowess.
January 20th, 2024 at 9:04 AM ^
They're certainly leaving Alabama in droves after Saban's retirement
January 20th, 2024 at 10:05 AM ^
One can only hope that they will experience a long decline - similar to the one the lived through after Bear left.
January 20th, 2024 at 10:22 AM ^
So I have always assumed that star players went to Bama because
1. Money
2. it is a talent rich region (at least according to the media) where kids can play football year round.
3. Kids want to win / Saban
The only difference now is Saban vs. DeBoer. That doesn’t seem like it should be a team decimating difference. Or is it now that everyone is offering blank checks to play? Alabama no longer has an advantage there.
January 20th, 2024 at 10:32 AM ^
Obviously no inside information but I think it's not really money. I think that when a new HC comes in it's like you're joining a new team - new schemes, new coaches across the board, etc. So why not look around and go to a place where you had relationships through recruiting + that has stability? This goes double for defensive folks given that they were Nick's guys specifically.
I also am not sure that everyone in the portal will leave. Certainly some did (Bond, Downs) but others (Proctor) might end up staying depending on how they feel about the new staff. And some (Sayin, allegedly) were more-or-less told that DeBoer didn't like them as much as Nick did.
January 20th, 2024 at 12:34 PM ^
4. Also Money
January 20th, 2024 at 12:16 AM ^
It's money. It's beyond obvious OSU is shelling out tons of cash right now. When you see teams go on talent acquisition runs like this it's because of money. Michigan hasnt made any big splashes since NIL started. Not a single obvious "We mustve gotten him a good NIL deal" type of player has been acquired.
If UM loses Harbaugh then they better have some NIL support for the next coach. Also, some ready incase teams come trying to poach our top talent through the portal that would open.
January 20th, 2024 at 12:35 AM ^
NIL hurts but we did great in the portal last year. We aren’t playing the portal right now. We don’t have an actual coaching staff currently. It’s impossible to recruit players to a team that doesn’t know who their coach will be a week from now. FFS
January 20th, 2024 at 7:51 AM ^
We made some solid moves in grabbing contributors, specifically Oline and Dline from low level P5 schools and scouted some hidden G5 gems but we did not have any headline grabbing gets. Very lowkey and subtly good performance. No top CBs, WRs etc. We could do much better with even a decent NIL situation.
January 20th, 2024 at 11:18 AM ^
The ironic thing is that Coach Jim wants to pay players. He wants them to get their share of the revenue. That can happen through NIL, perhaps not in a wholly legitimate way but that is what other teams are doing and no one is telling them that it is wrong.
And yet we seem to be behind the curve a bit. We're paying players, but it's later in their careers and it's not as much money, from what I'm hearing...
January 19th, 2024 at 9:46 PM ^
I don’t even know how to respond to this post at this point. Short answer….yes.
January 19th, 2024 at 10:43 PM ^
Short answer was fine.
Any other words would just be salad...
January 19th, 2024 at 11:03 PM ^
This is the weekly “is NIL hurting our program” post. Which will mostly only get a variety of “yes” answers because everyone is tired of having to explain.
January 20th, 2024 at 8:34 AM ^
It's not a discussion we need to have but unfortunately seems to be a discussion that we'll have every time a rival or other blue blood gets someone of note.
January 20th, 2024 at 3:40 PM ^
Yep, after this post and others like it, there aren't any basketball threads on the front page.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:47 PM ^
What an original idea for a post. I don't think this has ever been discussed here before.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:47 PM ^
Do you think Blake Corum was begging for food scraps at the Y?
There's nothing wrong with Michigan's NIL program. If you think paying kids to come to your school is the key to a title, go root for Texas A&M.
January 19th, 2024 at 11:11 PM ^
…go root for OSU…
FIFY
January 19th, 2024 at 11:14 PM ^
Michigan's NIL is great, but other program's NIL is excellent in getting better talent. Michigan develops well, but how much longer can they sustain being a playoff team if they go from a top 15 overall team talent to a top 20, top 25, etc?
January 20th, 2024 at 9:42 AM ^
Did we not just win the national championship? Are these people fucking serious?
*If* Harbaugh leaves, the model may need to change. I don't know how you can seriously ask if anything is "hurting the football program" when we are two weeks removed from a national championship.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:49 PM ^
This has been said a million times:
We don't give out inducements. We don't promise money to recruits/transfers, just opportunities for NIL.
We lose out on people because of this. But it also leads to a winning culture and not a Miami or Texas A&M culture.
Obviously it can be done and still win: Alabama under Saban, for example. And for all the mocking of OSU we do, they've won a LOT of games.
Biggest issue right now is we don't have any idea what our coaching staff will be. Once that's settled, if it's still Harbaugh, we'll recover.
If it's Moore, we'll find out how that goes.
January 19th, 2024 at 10:02 PM ^
Only two programs have won a title in the NIL era: Georgia and Michigan. Neither of them are transfer-heavy teams, but instead choose to pick their players and develop. In Georgia's case, all of those players are 5 stars, but some of them are Stetson Bennett. A team stacked with mercenaries winning a title may happen eventually, but it hasn't happened yet.
January 19th, 2024 at 11:15 PM ^
Agreed.
NIL 4 Retention > NIL 4 Inducement
January 20th, 2024 at 12:32 AM ^
People don't seem to understand that NIL laws are on a state-by-state basis right now, and Michigan has one of the most restrictive laws, complying with the NCAA recommendations. That means, e.g., no NIL offers to recruits and no NIL offers conditional on attending a specific university until the offeree is a student.
A national NIL law is needed, but we won't get one soon because the states that worship football and don't give a damn about fair play (looking at you, Texas) want to retain the advantage of being completely unprincipled.
January 20th, 2024 at 7:52 AM ^
Interesting info that I did not know at all.
January 20th, 2024 at 11:05 AM ^
This is the most relevant answer in the entire thread.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:51 PM ^
The last time Michigan lost to a team with more talent was Georgia in 2021
January 19th, 2024 at 10:36 PM ^
Two things are true. It’s hurting us. And we just won the motherforking national championship.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:52 PM ^
I dunno, Michigan is already under two investigations with the NCAA. It seems like it would be a bad time to start inducing players (which is still not allowed) to play for M during this period.
OSU is desperate and throwing money at the issue and who knows if it will work. I kind of hope it implodes hilariously and then the NCAA investigations start. We'll see how it plays out.
In short, I don't know if lack of NIL is the issue so much as dumb NCAA rules and bad timing for poking that particular bear (if M is even inclined to get on the pay for play train).
January 19th, 2024 at 11:06 PM ^
And the NCAA finally seems to be investigating teams using NIL inducements - see Florida and Florida State, so deciding to start now when the NCAA already seems to have it out for Michigan is not a good idea.
As long as you can bring in players that will develop into stars by their junior/senior season, NIL funds are better used getting them to come back than chasing unproven recruits (see Michigan - NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!)
January 19th, 2024 at 9:52 PM ^
It is now. NCAA seems to be cracking down on the way in which it hurts us most -- inducing recruits to sign. We've made very good use of NIL to retain players and extend their college years. If that's the direction this is to go, and with adequate funding, we will be OK. If this remains mostly a legal bagman, we will continue to be in trouble.
January 19th, 2024 at 10:11 PM ^
There are 132 programs that wish they could “be in trouble” like Michigan is.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:54 PM ^
Downs had Ohio State second in his recruitment, and Sayin was a big fan of BOB. Ohio State has capitalized on Saban retiring. The guys going to OSU were never coming to Michigan. Those are the guys that go to USC, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Miami, Georgia, and Texas. It used to also be Bama too, we’ll see going forward if that’s the case. Michigan will never do NIL the way these programs do, and fans really shouldn’t want them to. There’s doing better and then there’s what those programs do.
The answer you’re looking for is yes to a degree. But Michigan also just a national championship. They’ll never be the team to sign 5-10 5 stars every class. Michigan can replicate that success by recruiting and developing elite lineman on both sides of the ball and having someone like JJ at QB.
Honestly I think a JR year Davis can be that at the college level and as long as the lines continue as they have been, Michigan will compete again in a few years. Michigan will never be the team to throw money at recruits the way some programs do and honestly it’s for the better. It creates problems most of the time. But they can certainly do a better job with NIL and utilize it more to their advantage. Michigan won’t ever sign the Dante Moore or Bryce Underwood, but a guy like Davis or Carter Smith they will. As we have seen. Those guys can win national championships. Carter will end up ranked almost where JJ was and he has the ability to be a winner with some development and he’ll get that behind Davis.
Those are the kind of guys you want. They’re not focused on the money, but obviously they’ll earn the right to make money at the college level as they should. That’s when Michigan needs to be better and get guys decent sponsorships and endorsements that make them good money while they’re delivering for the team.
January 19th, 2024 at 9:57 PM ^
Is water wet??
January 19th, 2024 at 9:59 PM ^
If Harbaugh was staying I believe we could continue to win no matter what but without an NFL super bowl level coach idk.
We will see just how bad our NIL is if/when Harbaugh leaves as there will be 30 days of free agency/tampering bidding war for our players especially our defense players.
Look at Bama players they were giving Saban a discount, he leaves, boom.
I'm terrified because I look at our basketball program which has gone from a top 10 program to the worst team in the B1G in a few years and the response seems to be extremely lethargic. Saving money seems to be the most important aspect and it can't be.
I do think there's a chance that Moore is a much better recruiter than Harbaugh as he's younger and he's not going to sit across from a guy and be completely weird like Harbaugh was with St Brown. Plus you do get a recruiting bump with a new coach, usually so we'll see.
January 19th, 2024 at 10:02 PM ^
I really don't care. My NATIONAL CHAMPS hat hasn't even arrived in the mail yet and dudes are already crapping their pants over next season.
Ohio State has bought highly-touted players every offseason for over two decades. It did nothing to stop Michigan from slapping them around for the last three years and winning the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP with a 15-0 record, something those crying pussies down in America's sewer have never done.
For the next seven months, the last college football game to be played will be a THREE TOUCHDOWN MICHIGAN VICTORY to win the National Championship. Back off the ledge and enjoy it! We should be taking this victory and rubbing it in, not worrying about what's going to happen when it's sixty degrees warmer than it is now.