Arkansas and NIL Woes

#2
#2
knox73 said:

This is interesting in that Arkansas is struggling so much with NIL resources. Articles like this sure don't help recruiting.
Click to expand...
NIL. It's been good for Tennessee, but is it really good for college football? I am not against the concept of players getting monetary reward for playing, but dang, it's the wild west. Even NFL has salary caps, and they can force some parity by letting the bad teams get first pick on the next draft. In college, the rich get richer. If you did that in college, Nico would have ended up at Vandy. Just saying. I can see an equilibrium being reached somewhere down the road where it's down to around 20 teams that can compete and the others will be canon fodder for those teams.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tbwhhs
#3
#3
I thought Arkansas had access to Walmart family money - surprising that this cannot fund a reasonable NIL collective.
 
  • Like
Reactions: walkenvol
#5
#5
VolFreakJosh said:
Pittman isn’t HC material.

That has something to do with their struggles.
Click to expand...

I had great hopes for Pittman. Seems like an actual decent dude.

This article highlights the undercurrent of problems that Arkansas is going to face going forward. They are a decent sized fish in a small pond surrounded by sharks. The Wisconsin model of recruiting 3 stars and building them up may serve Arkansas well. Never gonna give you a playoff team but should keep you are the periphery of being ranked-which is about the best Arky can hope for in the year 2023.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tbh, VolDave53, davethevol and 2 others
#6
#6
VAVol85 said:
I thought Arkansas had access to Walmart family money - surprising that this cannot fund a reasonable NIL collective.
Click to expand...
Large corporations for the most part aren’t going to invest their money in 18 year old kids - Walmart invests in some facilities but Arkansas is mainly focused on basketball in NIL (and to some extent baseball). The Walmart heirs just don’t care about sports like they do art and bike trails.

Arkansas actually has a pretty good roster overall in football honestly - it’s just the past two years there has been one position group that has been absolutely awful (secondary last year, OL this year) that ruins everything else about the team. It’s why there have been so many close losses.

Players like KJ Jefferson are making around $1 million so there is some NIL but it’s just hard to spread it around 85 players enough to really make a substantial impact and have a complete team. Kent Smith is a known troll/clickbait writer but he isn’t wrong here. With that said, the transfer portal can be a great equalizer if you can evaluate it properly and flip a roster much more quickly. There are so many players from all levels of college football in the portal that you can find good players that don’t necessarily require a lot of NIL.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tbh and VolNExile
#7
#7
Hard to believe how good they were under Petrino and now not so much.
 
#9
#9
Arkansas is a 2nd-tier program now, maybe 3rd-tier. When they played in the Southwest, they just had Texas and Texas A&M to worry about. Most of the rest of the league is populated with lower-tier Texas schools. Now that they are in the SEC, they just can't compete.

Petrino actually worked wonders there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Raebo and Pennheel
#12
#12
ptcarter said:
NIL. It's been good for Tennessee, but is it really good for college football? I am not against the concept of players getting monetary reward for playing, but dang, it's the wild west. Even NFL has salary caps, and they can force some parity by letting the bad teams get first pick on the next draft. In college, the rich get richer. If you did that in college, Nico would have ended up at Vandy. Just saying. I can see an equilibrium being reached somewhere down the road where it's down to around 20 teams that can compete and the others will be canon fodder for those teams.
Click to expand...
College has never had any mechanisms to help teams who haven't played well in previous seasons - the introduction of NIL is no different. College sports historically have had very low levels of parity.

Having 20 or so teams who could theoretically compete for/win a title and the rest being cannon fodder is basically what CFB has now, and has had for years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pennheel
#13
#13
I get that we are benefitting from NIL, but I didn’t envision it being like this. I thought it would logically be limited to players being able to make money doing commercials, royalties for jerseys sold with their name on the back, autograph signing, etc. Genie is out of the bottle now. Will be really difficult to reel that back in, ever.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tbh and Voljayton
#15
#15
Vol737 said:
I get that we are benefitting from NIL, but I didn’t envision it being like this. I thought it would logically be limited to players being able to make money doing commercials, royalties for jerseys sold with their name on the back, autograph signing, etc. Genie is out of the bottle now. Will be really difficult to reel that back in, ever.
Click to expand...
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. NIL was never intended to be used as a recruiting inducement. But because the NCAA could **** up a one-car funeral, they put zero regulations in place and now it’s the Wild West.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LouderVol, Raebo, Voljayton and 2 others
#18
#18
Vol737 said:
Yep. NIL and Super Conferences….the end of college football as we knew it.
Click to expand...
Yeah I feel bad for Washington state and Oregon state. Fairly loyal fan bases. Have some decent teams on occasion. Yet because not tied to sexy TV markets left for dead by their peers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tbh and Vol737
#20
#20
volbound1700 said:
Arkansas is a 2nd-tier program now, maybe 3rd-tier. When they played in the Southwest, they just had Texas and Texas A&M to worry about. Most of the rest of the league is populated with lower-tier Texas schools. Now that they are in the SEC, they just can't compete.

Petrino actually worked wonders there.
Click to expand...
I might go with this more if Arkansas wasn’t constantly losing to teams like Liberty, BYU, San Jose State, Toledo, etc. That doesn’t really have to do with playing an SEC schedule. It really started after Petrino…there was a period when Arkansas was winning 10-11 games and/or the SEC West several times from 2006-2011. Even Houston Nutt won the division a couple of times.

I obviously don’t expect Arkansas to ever be Alabama but I do think if Ole Miss can be 7-1 and a top 15 team right now then Arkansas definitely can too since they recruit virtually the same.
 
#21
#21
gohogs14 said:
I might go with this more if Arkansas wasn’t constantly losing to teams like Liberty, BYU, San Jose State, Toledo, etc. That doesn’t really have to do with playing an SEC schedule. It really started after Petrino…there was a period when Arkansas was winning 10-11 games and/or the SEC West several times from 2006-2011. Even Houston Nutt won the division a couple of times.

I obviously don’t expect Arkansas to ever be Alabama but I do think if Ole Miss can be 7-1 and a top 15 team right now then Arkansas definitely can too since they recruit virtually the same.
Click to expand...

I agree that they could be better but they are going to be hard pressed to win SEC West with Saban around. Granted SEC West is gone next year.
 
#22
#22
It's always surprised me that the Walton family hasn't tossed some NIL money to Arkansas. I believe a couple of Sam's kids went there.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top