When it comes to Name, Image and Likeness, the University of Minnesota is impoverished. Head football coach P.J. Fleck said so himself!
In the current era of college football, NIL is not necessarily the only thing— but it has a direct correlation to success. Programs with greater NIL wealth are able to offer larger NIL packages to recruits, players in the transfer portal, and players on their own rosters.
Roster retention might be the most important element to Name, Image and Likeness. As has been the case in multiple instances over the last two+ years, programs with more money are able to offer big financial incentive to stars at other programs to transfer.
Fleck is especially concerned with his true freshman running back. Darius Taylor, a three-star recruit, has burst onto the scene in the Gophers’ first four games. He has run for 532 yards and four touchdowns on 87 carries— with about 65% (!!) of those yards coming after contact.
Taylor has been awesome so far. He is on pace to shatter the University of Minnesota record for most rushing yards by a freshman, set by Darrell Thompson in 1986, and most rushing touchdowns by a freshman, set by Laurence Maroney in 2003.
Taylor’s stock is rising. So is his worth.
Minnesota can’t keep up with NIL demands.
If Minnesota can’t offer him the number he deserves in terms of NIL compensation during the offseason, there is nothing stopping a wealthier program from offering Taylor a blank check to transfer. Fleck is worried, because he has already seen it happen with other players in the past.
[That’s what happens when you’re] playing a true freshman tailback. But we also have players that were here, that are now gone, playing at another school, that should be here playing right now. Because, again, NIL. We didn’t pay them. We didn’t pay them enough. That is the fact of life and we all laugh at it but that is a fact.
— P.J. Fleck, via Gopher Football Weekly
Fleck normally pretty hesitant to discuss anything NIL. For him to get as candid as he did about Taylor, and the state of college football as a whole, means that there is significant concern.
Minnesota experienced that exact scenario with Bucky Irving. The four-star running back in the Class of 2021 was a huge get for Fleck and the Gophers.
After Mo Ibrahim ruptured his achilles in Week 1, Irving was thrust into the starting role as a freshman and had a big year. Then Oregon called after the season.
The Ducks offered him a massive NIL package to transfer. It was a no-brainer for Irving to take hundreds of thousands of dollars more to play for Oregon, so he left Minnesota.
P.J. Fleck is concerned.
Fleck has seen it all before. He lost his breakout star running back because Minnesota couldn’t pay him.
In turn, Fleck hopes that Gophers fans will contact the school’s official NIL collective, Dinkytown Athletes, and start to boost the funds. His plea was about as desperate as they come, but Fleck included a unique comparison between the relationship of Minor League and Major League Baseball.
If Minnesota doesn’t raise enough NIL funds, it will become a minor league team for bigger programs like Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama, Georgia, USC, Texas, etc.
If we wanna keep players, all these guys we have, they won’t be here next year [if we don’t get more NIL money to pay them]. Just making sure everybody understands. [That] our fans [understand]. [Our best players] won’t be here. So we’ll be a Triple-A ball club for somebody else. That is the reality and the truth of the situation. So please, contact Dinkytown Athletes.
— P.J. Fleck, via Gopher Football Weekly
Fleck is not the first college football coach to beg his fanbase for more NIL money. He won’t be the last.
However, the picture Fleck painted of his program’s NIL support is rather grim. Minnesota is NIL broke.