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Billy Napier addresses how NIL, transfer portal have impacted the recruiting process

On3-Social-Profile_GRAYby:On3 Staff Report•05/31/23
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Matt Pendleton - USA TODAY NETWORK

As the full ramifications of the NCAA throwing open the door to name, image and likeness continue to reveal themselves, college football coaches around the country have had to adjust. And NIL affects just about everything now, including recruiting from the transfer portal.

Florida coach Billy Napier broke down some of the ways that NIL has changed the game.

“I don’t think it’s much different, I think we just added a few variables, right?” Napier said. “NIL being the main one. They’re still evaluating your program, you’re still putting your program together the same ways, you just added a variable on the recruitment side.”

Under Napier’s direction Florida has been very deliberate with who it adds to the program, both from the traditional recruiting standpoint and out of the transfer portal.

Florida has certainly used the portal, but the Gators aren’t as quick to jump on players as other programs. Napier likes to make sure his staff has had a chance to do a full evaluation before offering players in the transfer portal.

And once a decision has been made, there’s still the NIL component that has to get worked out for many transfer portal prospects who have already proven themselves at the college level.

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For Napier, it’s more about how the calendar has been broken down than anything else.

“I think the portal has created two cycles of work from the evaluation and recruitment side,” Napier said. “Those are the two main workloads that have been added to our shelf.”

As far as NIL goes, Florida has a new group running point. The Gator Collective was sold and rebranded as Florida Victorious, and that group is heading up the program’s NIL efforts.

For Florida to continue to do well in recruiting and with transfer portal prospects, Napier’s well aware that Florida Victorious needs to function smoothly with clear leadership.

“Ultimately I think we’re selling the same things, we’ve just got another variable that contributes to the decision,” Napier said.