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Before the introduction of NIL, college boosters had to get creative with their methods of paying players illegally. To avoid penalty from the NCAA office, the money needed to switch hands with no trace back to the program.
Some schools were better at it than others.
For example, Jeremy Pruitt’s staff simply gave recruits wads of cash in McDonald’s bags after visits to Tennessee’s campus. The brazen nature of those transactions eventually caught up to him as he was fired for cause by the Vols. But at other programs, they keep things a bit more under wraps.
Former UTEP QB Jordan Palmer recently talked about some creative ways boosters used to get payments to college athletes. While you may think he doesn’t have knowledge on the subject due to his playing at a smaller school, think again. This is the brother of USC Heisman winner Carson Palmer. Jordan also played in the NFL between 2008 and 2014.
He’s definitely heard from folks close by. On Monday, he posted a video to his TikTok page discussing how these secretive transfers were made prior to NIL.
@jordanpalmer Ways they used to pay college players before NIL ⬆️ Portal officially opens up today. There are going to be a lot of hot takes around the “good of the game”. I’m glad this stuff is out in the open, and we can start to get a market established. #nil #transfer #collegefootball #transferwindow #collegefootballnews #transferportal #nilnews
One involves payment through online poker. He states that boosters would set up a table with one athlete, then purposely lose to ensure said athlete won the pot.
“This is how they used to do it before NIL. I’ve heard stories about guys going into online poker rooms, and everybody at the table would raise, raise, raise, raise, raise, then here comes the river, and fold, fold, fold, fold, fold.”
Genius.
I mean, yes, everything is traceable in terms of the internet, but who is immediately thinking of online poker as a way of paying players? With the anonymity of online gaming, it wouldn’t be too difficult to set up a burner account with a fake email and funnel money to a certain person.
Cash changes hands through a third party, giving no direct link to boosters. Palmer discussed a few other pre-NIL tactics, one of which might give you hesitancy in trusting some of these “Bible Beater” head coaches at major program.
“Another one is, like, parents start landscaping company. City awards landscaping company a city contract. Parents don’t own lawnmower.
“I’ve heard bad ones, too, about the church in the hometown. That offering basket goes around and all of a sudden there’s big checks in there… There’s just gnarly stories out there, at least now [with NIL], it’s just out in the open.”
With the introduction of NIL, these payments no longer have to stay low key. While that may solve one issue, it’s opened up other problems with tampering and player transfers. Soon, we’ll learn about the creative ways boosters are arranging these NIL deals in order to lure notable players from outside programs.
Related: Texas A&M allegedly spent an unfathomable amount of NIL money on No. 1 recruiting class