Former NFL QB Trent Dilfer: NIL at high school level needs 'guardrails'

Trent Dilfer has a unique perspective on the growing influences of name, image and likeness on college and high school sports.

The longtime former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst was recruited long before NIL existed. He’s led the Elite 11 quarterback showcase, mentoring some of the best high school, college and pro passers in the game. And he’s also a high school football coach at Nashville (Tenn.) Lipscomb Academy.

Dilfer said Thursday during On3’s LeverUp podcast that sees a massive change sweeping through the college game and beginning to trickle down to the high school level. More than a dozen states now offer high school athletes the opportunity to make money through NIL, with that number expected to grow rapidly in coming years.

And while Dilfer said he thinks that athletes should be able to profit off of their success, there are distinct pitfalls younger players will face.

“The golden rule of professional sports is money makes you more of what you were before you got it,” Dilfer said. “So some of these high schools kids are in really impressionable years of their life, and some of them haven’t figured out the maturity piece yet. Some of them wouldn’t know what to do, their families wouldn’t know what to do if they all of the sudden had a lot of money. I think that’s an issue both at the high school and college level.”

About a dozen of his players at Lipscomb Academy can or will play high-level college football, Dilfer estimates. There, he has built one of Tennessee’s premier football programs, churning out significant Division I talent.

Dilfer: NIL-focused transfers will hurt public high school programs

But his concerns about NIL extend beyond how it will affect private programs like his; he worries that if programs in states where high school athletes can profit it off of NIL begin recruiting elite prospects to their states, it’s public high school programs that will suffer.

“The one that scares me the most is a state passes legislation where they can all go and have the opportunity to make money,” he added. “[Then] those states open a bunch of private schools; it’s not just the other states that are affected. It’s the public schools within that state will start getting affected. I’m the son of a public school high school football coach.

… If high schools sports becomes college sports, a place to just make money, you’re losing a lot of the goodness that just public high school football programs can provide.”