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During a interview this week with Lou Holtz, former college football coach Urban Meyer said the current NIL system is the same as “cheating” because of how it’s being used.
“I think NIL, and I sat in those committees for many, many years, I think it’s great,” Meyer said on The Lou Holtz Podcast. “I think if it’s capitalism, for example, if a great player like Marvin Harrison Jr. and some car dealership in town wants to hire him, they want to put his name on a billboard and pay him money, sign autographs, he wants to put something on an Instagram or they sell that. But that’s not what’s happened, coach. What’s happened is it’s cheating.”
Urban Meyer is far from the first critic of the current NIL system for paying college athletes. College football coaches like Nick Saban, Brian Kelly, Lane Kiffin and others have voiced their concerns with a system that certainly appears to be broken.
“There’s these things called collectives, where they go out and get money from donors and they get this big, giant mass of money and they pay players. And that’s not what the intent is. That name and likeness is, that’s America,” Urban Meyer continued. “America is built on name and likeness.
“If you have Lou Holtz or Urban Meyer or Marvin Harrison Jr., CJ Stroud. They want to go use their name and help sell cars, help a business, that’s great. But to have a 17-year-old demand money for a visit, to pay these players a lot of money to go visit a charity for 20 minutes, and they write a check for $50,000. That’s cheating. That’s not what this is all about. So I’m very disappointed in where it went.
“I think the purpose or the reason for doing it is right,” Meyer explained. “A player should be able to do that. And especially, think about this, coach, these other sports. If you’re a woman basketball player like the great girl from Iowa and they want to put her on a billboard and pay her, they should be able to do that. But that’s not what happened. What’s happened is the arms race of collecting money from donors and the donors are simply paying players. And that’s what I understand is happening, and I don’t like that.”
Lou Holtz then added, “I think all of the things SMU went on probation for in ’86 is now legal.”
Are they wrong?