Love him or hate him, the fact of the matter is that Urban Meyer is one of the greatest college football coaches of all-time.
The three-time national champion is happily “retired” – although time will tell if he ends up making a return to the sidelines.
For him to return to coaching – at least at the college level – it would mean Meyer would have to fully adjust himself to the new world of college football where NIL and the transfer portal are almost as important as winning actual games.
It’s no secret that Meyer is an old-school, no-nonsense type of coach – which is why many people feel like we’ve seen the last of him in charge of a program.
Appearing on Lou Holtz’s podcast (Yes, he has a podcast!), Meyer spoke about how out-of-control NIL has become and how it’s (predictably) not being used as originally intended.
Meyer even labeled the whole structure of the current NIL system as “cheating.”
“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,” Meyer said on the podcast.
“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. That’s what I understand is happening, and I don’t like that.”
Reflecting on his coaching tenure that concluded in 2018, Meyer highlighted the significant changes that have occurred in college football since then, including the introduction of NIL, unlimited transferring, and conference realignment.
“If Lou Holtz or Urban Meyer or Marvin Harrison Jr., or C.J. Stroud, they want to go use their name and help sell cars, help a business, that’s great,” Meyer acknowledged.
“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 you a check for $50,000, that’s cheating.
“That’s not what this is all about. I’m very disappointed in where it went.”
Meyer made it clear that he’s in favor of players’ ability to be compensated.
However, the guardrail-less structure of the current system is not healthy, productive or sustainable for the future of college football.
Despite ongoing discussions about implementing a revenue-sharing model in college athletics, Meyer expressed dissatisfaction with the current collective approach to player compensation under the NIL framework.
“There’s these things called collectives where they go out and get money from donors and get this big, giant mass of money and they pay players,” he explained. “That’s not what the intent is.”
What are your thoughts on Meyer’s comments?
Do you agree with him that the way some programs are utilizing NIL is downright cheating?
What needs to be done to fix the issues in college football, especially when it comes to NIL and the transfer portal?
As for Meyer, have we indeed seen the last of him on the sidelines???