Had the opportunity to sit down with a friend today that I had not seen or spoken to in several months. He is an avid Tennessee fan, alumnus & donates significant dollars. He was telling me about a meet and greet he attended with some of the Spyre Sports Group folks. He was told that Tennessee would sign between 4 and 6 Five Star players in this year’s signing class. There may be some truth to this based on reports of some 5* guys trending to the VOLS. I will be curious to see how this prediction plays out.
Thoughts?????
Great news if that's even a good possibility. Some of our fans bristle over mentions of Spyre but UT is playing within the rules as they now stand. That's exactly what we should do. Cheating has been tolerated for generations and now people suddenly get uncomfortable with open business arrangements?
I didn't like NIL to start with. I still have some worries. But given a choice between a guy being able to sell his own NIL OR paying players directly for playing a "amateur" sport for scholarship... I'll take the first every time.
The main thing I like about NIL is the potential you mentioned. For the longest time, a handful of teams got the best recruits each year and the same or a slightly different group were the only ones with a legit shot at winning the BCS. Whereas that group may have been 5 or so before... now it will be any program with supporters willing to buy cookies from a particular bakery or have their car serviced at a particular dealership because they support certain athletes.
Play within the rules and take every advantage you can. For years, the "winners" have played outside the rules and taken every advantage they could with the NCAA looking the other way unless it had no choice.