Didn’t they all come prior (except Bru) to NIL being available?? My point is the combo of the portal and NIL. College athletics free agency.
I'm not saying it's a good thing but like the crazy targeting rules or the new clock stopping rules or the rules treating QBs like fine china, you've got to learn to adapt as the game changes and the Vols have done very well in that aspect.
Just because we dislike NIL and the portal doesn't mean we need to just whine about it and ignore them like Dabo and watch our program suffer. And if we use the system well, expect the players to use it sometimes to their advantage.
We've done very well with both NIL and the portal. Spyre and UT have recruited well, Coach Heupel and staff have been reasonably aggressive in milking the portal, and overall UT is actually on the "upswing" since the new rules have developed.
Sure, NIL and the portal ARE destroying college football and guys like Baron may or may not be using the system for leverage for NIL, but here we are. The NCAA isn't in a position legally to fix either of those messes they created.
Neither the portal nor NIL are going to get better. The liberal transfer policy isn't changing because schools actually LIKE being able to immediately help their teams like we have done and NIL money being tossed around at Ohio State to keep Marvin Harrison Jr is said to rival NFL 1st round rookie money (around $20 million or so.)
NIL can't legally be capped or you can bet the big donors would've pressured the NCAA into capping it because it's going to cost them a bundle of money every year.
The portal is creating a LITTLE more parity as programs like TN, devastated by the Pruitt crap, can come back more quickly and a program like Liberty can, in some ways, rescue the career and life of a kid like Kaidon Salter.
For every Baron, there's a guy like Hendon Hooker who benefited greatly from the portal.
