Texas A&M Football Caught Paying 5 Star Recruits!

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hungan1

hungan1

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If Texas A&M is indeed paying players obscene money, NIL just made it legal to buy players. In Texas A&M's case, a rumored $25 million-dollar LLC was set up for that purpose. Are Bagmen still boogeymen, or are they blatantly out in the open?

Forget about the nice rides that Alabama football players could afford or the players' family members getting nice-paying jobs.

This is just about to get uglier. Are we witnessing the beginnings of the unintended consequences of NIL.?

 
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Have we heard of any NIL violations anywhere? That just makes me feel like everyone is cheating and there is no enforcement.
 

This is traveling on the road to College Football perdition.

Aaah! The Midas Touch of money! NIL was thought to be a blessing, but it is more like a curse.
 


btowngopher said:
Have we heard of any NIL violations anywhere? That just makes me feel like everyone is cheating and there is no enforcement.
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Why? It is not cheating when they repeatedly say that they are not cheating. "Trust us. It is not what this appears to be." They simply detassled the NCAA Police. No one is going to answer the phone about your complaints.

I suppose college football activists can paint dollar signs on the faces of paid football players in a championship game.

By the way, are sports networks the closest thing to an NCAA enforcement police? They will push for more playoff expansion in order to make more money.

Never mind that it will probably ruin the traditional bowls. Do they want to add more cheap bowls for added advertisement revenues? They probably could care less whether they are well-attended or not.

They play on dates and times when the Babyboomers are in bed. Why? We are half-dead to them LOL!
 
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A college football team will reach a $100M player payroll within this decade.

This was an obvious, obvious outcome of NIL that myself and many others have been preaching since the rule was passed. There are going to be a bunch of do-nothing arrangements funded by boosters and even corporations where players get paid 6 and 7 figures a year.

The arms race is currently in the sticks and stones phase, but wait until it goes to hyper missiles. In theory, a souped up college football scene paying players a ton could challenge and overtake the NFL. What if the colleges were paying players a ton and they suddenly ended eligibility limits? Voila, you have a 120 team pro league in almost every state that could put the NFL's primacy in deep doo doo.
 


fmlizard said:
A college football team will reach a $100M player payroll within this decade.

This was an obvious, obvious outcome of NIL that myself and many others have been preaching since the rule was passed. There are going to be a bunch of do-nothing arrangements funded by boosters and even corporations where players get paid 6 and 7 figures a year.

The arms race is currently in the sticks and stones phase, but wait until it goes to hyper missiles. In theory, a souped up college football scene paying players a ton could challenge and overtake the NFL. What if the colleges were paying players a ton and they suddenly ended eligibility limits? Voila, you have a 120 team pro league in almost every state that could put the NFL's primacy in deep doo doo.
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At least the NFL has limits on how much each team can spend, guaranteeing some sort if parity. In this scenario, no limits and the richest rule, even more than they do now.
Not sure what the answer is but no way this ends well for college football in general and our lovable rodents in particular
 



The next level of cheating on the horizon is possibly tampering and poaching players from other teams. The temptation is too great.

Forget about a four-year degree. You are not there to play skool.

You can even forget about playing in the NFL if someone is going to buy your services for 100 million dollars. Heeehah! You just won the lottery! o_O:cool03:
 


fmlizard said:
A college football team will reach a $100M player payroll within this decade.

This was an obvious, obvious outcome of NIL that myself and many others have been preaching since the rule was passed. There are going to be a bunch of do-nothing arrangements funded by boosters and even corporations where players get paid 6 and 7 figures a year.

The arms race is currently in the sticks and stones phase, but wait until it goes to hyper missiles. In theory, a souped up college football scene paying players a ton could challenge and overtake the NFL. What if the colleges were paying players a ton and they suddenly ended eligibility limits? Voila, you have a 120 team pro league in almost every state that could put the NFL's primacy in deep doo doo.
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They can afford powerful lawyers, judges, and legislators (even astronauts?) that will put the successful defense of the North Carolina basket weaving classes to shame. The road to amateur college sports perdition is here.
 

i thought this was okay now? They opened the door, this is what happens.
 



at some point there's going to be some random school like Louisiana Monroe or Utah State that gets a rich and motivated alum to build a national title team

Jeff Bezos could pick any FBS school and make it win a natty in the next 5-6 years. If I were him I would pick UAB and kick the crap out of Bama for shutting down their program.
 

fmlizard said:
A college football team will reach a $100M player payroll within this decade.

This was an obvious, obvious outcome of NIL that myself and many others have been preaching since the rule was passed. There are going to be a bunch of do-nothing arrangements funded by boosters and even corporations where players get paid 6 and 7 figures a year.

The arms race is currently in the sticks and stones phase, but wait until it goes to hyper missiles. In theory, a souped up college football scene paying players a ton could challenge and overtake the NFL. What if the colleges were paying players a ton and they suddenly ended eligibility limits? Voila, you have a 120 team pro league in almost every state that could put the NFL's primacy in deep doo doo.
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That’s actually a really interesting take and more akin to what some college football looked like 100 years ago
 


hungan1 said:
If Texas A&M is indeed paying players obscene money, NIL just made it legal to buy players. In Texas A&M's case, a rumored $25 million-dollar LLC was set up for that purpose. Are Bagmen still boogeymen, or are they blatantly out in the open?

Forget about the nice rides that Alabama football players could afford or the players' family members getting nice-patina jobs.

This is just about to get uglier. Are we witnessing the beginnings of the unintended consequences of NIL.?

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Well I’m much more apt to believe it from a journalist and not a guy on YouTube where the model is that you get paid by the number of subscribers you have, so that in effect means your content needs to be captivating to be effective.
 

This is the free market in a nutshell, isn't it?

No salary caps. No draft. No tampering rules. Just pure, beautiful, unfettered freedom. The best players will go to the highest bidder.

After all, if a billionaire booster wants to spend his or her money buying players for his or her alma mater, who am I to want put bogus rules or elitist laws in the way? Who gave anyone the authority to say "no"?

The government is the problem, right? "Freedom" is the solution. Or so I've been told.
 


with eastern michigan offering caleb williams $1M, i think we're already there

keep thinking Ballmer might be the one to step up and fund his school's football team to make it a national champ - Harvard. He can certainly afford $100M per year
 


In my opinion, there are only a handful of teams with alumni rich and rabid enough to put together programs like Texas A&M. It's basically the same group of teams referred to as "helmet schools".

It is making me reevaluate my definition of the perfect season for the Gophers. I used to believe (maybe naively) that if all the stars aligned the Gophers could win the West, win the Big Ten Championship and get in to the playoff with a chance to shock the world. I fear that the talent gap will get so large between the helmet schools and the also-rans that such a scenario will no longer be possible. We may win the west, but beating OSU, Mich or PSU against a roster full of highly paid 4 and 5 stars will be next to impossible. And there is no way they will win three games in a row against semi-pro teams to win a natty.
 

This is what I was worried would happen. If it truly manifests, I’ll stop watching. A non salary capped league will a few teams win it every year and the rest just be painful to watch. The U won’t be in the group who ponies up to contend. We’ve proven time and again we’re not that type of city/athletic department/fan base
 

HopHead said:
In my opinion, there are only a handful of teams with alumni rich and rabid enough to put together programs like Texas A&M. It's basically the same group of teams referred to as "helmet schools".

It is making me reevaluate my definition of the perfect season for the Gophers. I used to believe (maybe naively) that if all the stars aligned the Gophers could win the West, win the Big Ten Championship and get in to the playoff with a chance to shock the world. I fear that the talent gap will get so large between the helmet schools and the also-rans that such a scenario will no longer be possible. We may win the west, but beating OSU, Mich or PSU against a roster full of highly paid 4 and 5 stars will be next to impossible. And there is no way they will win three games in a row against semi-pro teams to win a natty.
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I think it will be interesting to see who the haves become in this setting. Is the Midwest football rabid enough to loosen the pocketbooks? OSU I’d buy. PSU and Michigan I think it starts to get more questionable (divided states, other surrounding teams that’s draw interest/money). This is what we all wanted when clamoring to pay players right?
 


HopHead said:
I fear that the talent gap will get so large between the helmet schools and the also-rans that such a scenario will no longer be possible. We may win the west, but beating OSU, Mich or PSU against a roster full of highly paid 4 and 5 stars will be next to impossible. And there is no way they will win three games in a row against semi-pro teams to win a natty.
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I'm confused. Those teams were already pulling rosters full of highly rated 4* and 5* prospects before NIL was a thing. If anything, some of the talent may be dispersed more as players might look at other schools if there is money to be made that they wouldn't have looked at before.

I just don't get the hand wringing like there has been some massive shift in the college football landscape. Playing field wasn't level before NIL and that hasn't really changed with it. It just brought into the open some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes already at those places and we are getting the chance to see the stupid money rich boosters are willing to toss around more out in the open.
 

As I have written before the pay to play in college sports has been practiced by some teams for many decades ; and not just the SEC.
These practices are now right out in the open.
Wait until sports betting on college sports starts to involve points shaving by payers and inside info about injuries from the trainers, all funded by bribes.
There is no going back and how things work out will be interesting.
Without subpoena powers the NCAA remains a paper tiger.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I'm confused. Those teams were already pulling rosters full of highly rated 4* and 5* prospects before NIL was a thing. If anything, some of the talent may be dispersed more as players might look at other schools if there is money to be made that they wouldn't have looked at before.

I just don't get the hand wringing like there has been some massive shift in the college football landscape. Playing field wasn't level before NIL and that hasn't really changed with it. It just brought into the open some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes already at those places and we are getting the chance to see the stupid money rich boosters are willing to toss around more out in the open.
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I agree with this. There will be a point of diminishing returns on money invested. A team can pay to get the 5 stars but paying more doesn't get you 8 stars. There is still a finite talent pool and the same few teams were already getting the top guys. This does open a path for teams who were down the pecking order to join the elites by paying for it.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I'm confused. Those teams were already pulling rosters full of highly rated 4* and 5* prospects before NIL was a thing. If anything, some of the talent may be dispersed more as players might look at other schools if there is money to be made that they wouldn't have looked at before.

I just don't get the hand wringing like there has been some massive shift in the college football landscape. Playing field wasn't level before NIL and that hasn't really changed with it. It just brought into the open some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes already at those places and we are getting the chance to see the stupid money rich boosters are willing to toss around more out in the open.
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From my standpoint, you're right on some things but its oversimplified. Those teams, if you're referring to Bama, OSU, Clemson, etc, having 4 and 5 stars is correct. The issue is the next tier after that. We battle to try pull a couple 4 stars every year. The next tier of programs, who will likely be predominantly in the South because of the boon CFB is there, will start paying the next swath more heavily (Bama, OSU and co paying the 5 stars then the group of 4 stars they want) which is going to wean talent away from the middle of the crop and concentrate it places. There's no point whatsoever for a MN to pay one 4 star guy to bring him in. you won't win more games that way and you won't generate revenue from one guy. So it's going to hurt the middle tier programs from that standpoint.
Secondarily, the high concentration of talent places is going to hurt fan interest. Why watch your team if they're going to never have a chance to win? I would foresee this really hurting the G5 and lower tier P5 teams. The P5 teams who get to revenue share will be fine in their AD, but the G5 teams are going to be left out in increasing numbers (for example, the likelihood Cinci is going to keep that level of senior talent around is going to get less and less, because guys will be offered NIL with the chance to transfer when they show they're good). It's a double edged sword in that it isn't just going to concentrate the talent coming out of high school, it's also going to hit you when they set foot on campus and we've now made it legal and unenforceable where prior you at least took the risk that you could get hit with sanctions, post season bans, etc that would dissuade you from making it so widespread to every single player.
The playing field wasn't level before, but you've tipped the scales more heavily in favor of the haves. Schools at the level of MN, Iowa, Colorado, Washington, etc who are good at many things but not consistently "great" are going to be the ones who take the biggest hit and that is going to lead to college sports becoming less fun. It will be interesting to see what comes of it all as it goes forward but it worries me about the direction. Maybe the people who gave Ewers money, saw him sit on the pine (did this play a role in him transferring as they're telling him he needs to start now?), and possibly flame out will scare them off of the big money. We'll see but I hope so.

And obviously you can tell I'm biased in writing this because I foresee this hurting the team I follow and I fully admit that. I also dislike, generally speaking, that college sports has simply moved towards making revenue rather than about representing your school, amateurism, etc. and that is not at all the fault of the players that it got there.
 

upnorthkid said:
From my standpoint, you're right on some things but its oversimplified. Those teams, if you're referring to Bama, OSU, Clemson, etc, having 4 and 5 stars is correct. The issue is the next tier after that. We battle to try pull a couple 4 stars every year. The next tier of programs, who will likely be predominantly in the South because of the boon CFB is there, will start paying the next swath more heavily (Bama, OSU and co paying the 5 stars then the group of 4 stars they want) which is going to wean talent away from the middle of the crop and concentrate it places. There's no point whatsoever for a MN to pay one 4 star guy to bring him in. you won't win more games that way and you won't generate revenue from one guy. So it's going to hurt the middle tier programs from that standpoint.
Secondarily, the high concentration of talent places is going to hurt fan interest. Why watch your team if they're going to never have a chance to win? I would foresee this really hurting the G5 and lower tier P5 teams. The P5 teams who get to revenue share will be fine in their AD, but the G5 teams are going to be left out in increasing numbers (for example, the likelihood Cinci is going to keep that level of senior talent around is going to get less and less, because guys will be offered NIL with the chance to transfer when they show they're good). It's a double edged sword in that it isn't just going to concentrate the talent coming out of high school, it's also going to hit you when they set foot on campus and we've now made it legal and unenforceable where prior you at least took the risk that you could get hit with sanctions, post season bans, etc that would dissuade you from making it so widespread to every single player.
The playing field wasn't level before, but you've tipped the scales more heavily in favor of the haves. Schools at the level of MN, Iowa, Colorado, Washington, etc who are good at many things but not consistently "great" are going to be the ones who take the biggest hit and that is going to lead to college sports becoming less fun. It will be interesting to see what comes of it all as it goes forward but it worries me about the direction. Maybe the people who gave Ewers money, saw him sit on the pine (did this play a role in him transferring as they're telling him he needs to start now?), and possibly flame out will scare them off of the big money. We'll see but I hope so.

And obviously you can tell I'm biased in writing this because I foresee this hurting the team I follow and I fully admit that. I also dislike, generally speaking, that college sports has simply moved towards making revenue rather than about representing your school, amateurism, etc. and that is not at all the fault of the players that it got there.
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+100000
 

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