Mack Brown blasts NIL tampering: 'People were absolutely paying cash to get players off your team'

Few coaches in the country have been as vocal about the issues around NIL as North Carolina’s Mack Brown. He has consistently pointed out issues with it, especially considering how the Tar Heels have had to deal with tampering, and, at the 2023 ACC Football Kickoff, he used his platform to do so again.

Brown addressed NIL and tampering while sitting down for an ACC Network interview today in Charlotte. He said he couldn’t imagine things being much worse than what he experienced with it over the first two years considering how blatant other programs were and how much work that his program was having to do to retain their players.

“I don’t think it could get any worse. It was awful the first two years. People were just absolutely paying cash to get guys off your team. That’s not what we’re doing,” said Brown. “You don’t need to recruit a guy and then have to recruit him twice. I’m having to say in recruiting, ‘Let’s recruit guys that, when they play really good, they’re not going to leave us’. That’s a huge part of this.”

However, at this point, Brown did say that he feels that the space is getting better considering the education that’s being provided. It’s a great pro for the players but, for teams, Brown just hopes more continues to be done to make recruiting as even as it can be across the country.

“We’re not there but I do think we’re getting better. We’re learning more about NIL, the kids are learning more. There’s some great things,” said Brown. “It’s the best time to be a college athlete right now of all time. Now what we’ve got to do is put some guidelines in and get a consistent standard across the country so it won’t hurt our sport.”

“Right now, we’ve got about 16 teams that are getting better players than everybody else. We need it to go back to where there is some equity in recruiting across the board,” Brown said.

Uniformity on a national level has been at the top of wish lists across the country for college coaches when it comes to name, image, and likeness. That will only help more in an area where Brown feels as though things are maybe starting to move in the right direction.

Brown evaluates recent recruiting, balance of NIL

Mack Brown has been outspoken about NIL, the problems it has presented and how his Tar Heels team has reacted to the changes in the landscape. He recently talked about how it has impacted his approach in the recruiting world.

“With NIL and the changes that it’s made in the recruiting landscape, we have to do a better job of evaluating, number one, who fits here than ever before,” Brown said. “Because if they’re going to take money before they come here? Even if they commit to us and they would take illegal money in December? We shouldn’t sign them or we shouldn’t commit them because that’s just a waste of our time. If they’re going to be a great player when they get here and they’re going to take money to leave, why bring them in? You’re developing somebody and you’re losing them after a year or two years. It’s really, really important that we find the proper people academically that fit our school. The proper families that want to be here and families that are going to go by the rules.”

North Carolina’s collective, Heels4Life, launched in February 2022.

The executive director of the collective is Graham Boone, who is a former sports agent. His client list included Hall of Famers Tim Duncan and Ray Allen.

“I’m so proud,” Brown said. “We have a great NIL program. I’m for NIL so I don’t want it to sound like it’s a negative. But people who cheated before NIL are still cheating. If somebody’s gonna take money and if you offer someone money before they sign with you? It’s an inducement like it was two, three years ago. You cannot do that. You can simply tell them the starting running back on our team is making this much money. So there’s an opportunity for you to make that money. You can’t give them the money. We’re gonna go by the rules here so that’s not happening.”