Mack Brown explains how the state of college sports has 'settled down' with portal, NIL

At one point, North Carolina football coach Mack Brown described the transfer portal and NIL as “out of control.”

However, Brown now believes some changes have been made for the better and college sports is settling down.

The College Football Hall of Famer recently spoke about how things have improved and how the NCAA is cracking down on schools paying to sign recruits.

“I think it’s settling down. I think it got out of control completely and there were a lot of news reports – some probably accurate and some not [about that],” Brown said. “Last year there were a lot more parents and kids asking for money than there are this year.”

Brown added that the North Carolina staff recently met with a lead member of the NCAA enforcement team.

Brown came away from that meeting feeling better about the future of college sports.

“We talked as a staff to one of the lead enforcement people for the NCAA the other day for about an hour and a half, and he told us that you cannot be promised money before you get to a school – that there’s no difference than somebody giving you $200,000 five years ago, than someone offering you $200,000 to come,” Brown said.

“They’re going to start making kids ineligible that accept that money. So that’s a game changer. And I told them the faster they can do that, the more that word gets out, the better it’s going to be.”

Athletes are allowed to sign NIL deals once they are in school, but they’re not supposed to commit to a school because they are promised a certain amount of money during the recruiting process.

Brown, who has been at UNC since 2019, believes the NCAA is going to start doing a better job of making sure the rules in place are followed.

“There is no question that if a school offers a kid money, what’s the difference between offering him money five years ago and offering him money now? It’s still an inducement. So I think that the NCAA’s learning more about how to manage NIL, the families are learning that a lot of the coaches that have offered them the money, that’s illegal and they could lose their eligibility,” Brown said. “They’re also learning that some of the collectives that have offered them the money, when they get to school that money’s not there. And if it is there it’s less than they were told. So we have not had a person in recruiting so far this year talk to us about NIL. And that’s different than it was last year.”

Brown is 30-22 during his four seasons at North Carolina, including leading UNC to the ACC Coastal Division title last year.