Bobby Burton
Posted 29 minutes ago
Recruiting has always been an interesting topic to me.
It could be getting more interesting these days, not less.
The advent of an effective salary cap could - if everyone plays by the same rules - make recruiting more strategic and nuanced than ever before.
Previously, it was the same goal for every team:
Load up as much as you can every year, fill your needs, and move on to the next cycle.
Now, it is much more of a multi-year look. If you sign a high-priced wide receiver or two in year one, it may be difficult to justify doing so the next. Or if you have a big-time player coming off the books and graduating to the NFL at a certain position, it all of a sudden frees up money for an incoming spot at that position.
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But I don’t think everyone will be dealing with the same amount of money over the long haul. Nor should that be the goal if you’re a Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, etc.
Instead, the goal for any major team will be to increase the pot of NIL money players can receive by increasing a program’s third-party NIL.
So legitimate third-party NIL is recruiting’s next battleground.
From my first-hand conversation yesterday, leadership of the Texas athletic department is well aware of and focused on just that.