Mack Brown on NIL, transfer portal: We've allowed too much freedom

North Carolina football coach Mack Brown spoke on Always College Football with Greg McElroy about the current problems caused by NIL in his opinion. The long-time head coach of 33 years in college football pointed to the combination of NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal as being put in place without any rules — leading to problems everywhere as a result of too much freedom.

Mack Brown on the Transfer Portal and NIL

“We’re going through a time where it seems like we’ve lost who we are in leadership,” started Brown. “We’re making decisions without having them thought out. And we’re making decisions without knowing what the consequences are. I’ve talked to my wife, Sally, a lot about people and outside of football and her opinions. And it was funny when NIL came up she said, ‘Well the art student can get paid for their art, and the musician can go play at a concert or bar, so why can’t athletes? That makes sense, that’s fair.

“But we have to have some guidelines, we have to have some guard rails. If we just threw it out there and people are going to take advantage of lack of rules. And that’s kind of what happened to us. And I like the players getting money — I’m not sure it’s healthy to get too much money at this stage. We are asking them to grow up fast, we’re asking them to get agents, we’re telling them that they’ve gotta learn how to pay taxes. We’re talking to them about having to make money.

“And then you add the transfer portal which puts more pressure on them because now, if I don’t like what I’ve got — you didn’t have any choice, you were gonna stay at Alabama, you were gonna make it work. Now you say ‘I’m not staying man, I’m out of here.’

“We had a player last year come in about the seventh game of the season. We meet at 6:30 in the morning, he walked by and said ‘Hey coach, how are you?’ Defensive line coach says, ‘He wants in the transfer portal coach.’ I go and talk to him, I said ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Well it’s the end of the season, I’m not playing much. I need to start looking around and let people know I need a scholarship and I’m available and I’d like to go visit some schools.’

“And I thought, we obviously have allowed too much freedom in some of those areas. And I think that’s why we’re seeing more mental health issues too Greg because we’ve got more stuff that they’re having to deal with than you and I had to deal with. And at the same time we’re giving them a lot more money.”

Brown closed his point on the state of the college football chaos by tying it back into his point that leadership will have to step up and fix things themselves instead of letting the sport adjust. Brown also expressed his belief that the problems brought about by NIL and money increasing in the sport has forced conference realignment, as schools chase money to be able to afford the players.

“I think that sometimes things have to get really, really bad before they get good again. And we’re at a point now where I think there’s enough things that need to be changed that decision makers are gonna step up and do that.

“Because there’s so much money needed now, that’s why people are looking around. They’re looking at the best possible arrangement for their university and their players. And that’s where people are saying here’s this TV money.”