For Jared Wangler and Valiant Management, building continuity at Michigan is king

Jared Wangler has been a busy man this January, though seeing his alma mater hoist a national championship trophy — one he played a part in helping Michigan win — is more than enough fuel to sustain the person heading Valiant Management and much of the Wolverines’ NIL efforts.

A year removed from the “One More Year Fund” that helped retain a number of key Wolverines for the 2023 team, the mission for Valiant — which operates the Champions Circle collective — and Wangler, who played for the Wolverines from 2014-18, remains the much same: Help keep Michigan’s best players at Michigan. 

Enter the “Those Who Stay” NIL campaign, aimed at retaining current rising juniors and seniors from either the transfer portal or NFL Draft, for those eligible. And the campaign took on higher stakes over the last week, with Jim Harbaugh leaving for the NFL and the Wolverines elevating Sherrone Moore to be the head coach. 

With the current paradigm of the sport seeing so much player movement, particularly around the departure of head coaches that triggers a 30-day transfer window opening, Wangler sees the ability to simply retain talent and build continuity as an obvious competitive advantage and a more efficient spend of NIL money.

“If you look at Zak Zinter and Trevor Keegan and their production this past year, it was like having four- or five-star recruits come in, right?” Wangler said to On3. “And out of those four or five stars, 50 percent of them hit and you might have spent $2 million trying to go get four- or five-star offensive linemen. And in this case, it’s like, ‘No, maintain these guys. Invest in your current guys. Because not only do they have the talent, but they also understand the culture and understand the program.”

There are direct and indirect benefits to using the NIL warchest for continuity

So far, the “Those Who Stay” fundraising campaign — which is still ongoing — has been successful in concert with Michigan’s decision to elevate Moore. 

Many of the Wolverines’ big pieces who could’ve passed on the draft — safeties Makari Paige and Rod Moore, running back Donovan Edwards — did. Additionally, some star rising juniors like tight end Colston Loveland, cornerback Will Johnson and defensive linemen Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant have all remained with Michigan through the coaching transition. And unlike the players coming back for the 2023 season, the players Michigan retained for 2024 are not going to enter the season playing on a clear-cut national championship contender, another reason many players had returned for last season.

The ultimate goal is to raise $1,000,000 to fund NIL efforts for Michigan’s 2024 team. This is a big step up from the “One More Year Fund,” which only raised $135,000 through the crowdfunding campaign. 

However, Wangler touted it as a marketing boon for Valiant and Champions Circle, mainly in terms of engaging and educating big dollar donors. Plus, keeping athletes in the same market for three or four years has been beneficial for Michigan players truly profiting off their image, like appearing in commercials or on billboards. 

“And they develop personal relationships where it’s like, ‘Yeah, we would like to work with the Blake Corums of the world, the J.J. McCarthys of the world, the Zinters of the world, the Keegans,” Wangler said. “So it does leverage their platform at Michigan to find them even more opportunities through the commercial lens and having consistency in a market and being able to legitimately build a brand and kind of build up that goodwill amongst the Michigan fan base.”

There’s also the element of culture and expectations. Wangler didn’t shy away from the reality that shelling out NIL deals for unproven top recruits is a risky game for collectives. It’s not that such a strategy can’t net good recruits — and it did for plenty of schools — but it wasn’t a gamble the Wolverines and Wangler wanted to take.

He wasn’t deaf to the complaints from Michigan fans that the Wolverines were less inclined to dive headfirst into NIL in a similar fashion to schools like Miami or Texas A&M, but looking back three years later Wangler feels some vindication in the approach taken in Ann Arbor.

“We found success in just investing in the current roster, not looking to greener pastures to try to find the next five-star receiver or the next five-star player,” Wangler said. “But the strategy that the program and the collective has taken is ‘Let’s reward our existing players.’ And then you wanna be able to have that conversation in recruiting that ‘Our starting quarterback, our starting running back, that’s a seven figure type of opportunity to be that at Michigan.’”

And, of course, there’s the fact that Michigan went 15-0 and won the national championship in 2023 amid a 40-3 run over three seasons — though the NCAA might have a say on that official tally.

A desire to pay current players doesn’t mean the Wolverines won’t ‘go on the offensive’ for transfers

Michigan mined the transfer portal for a number of key contributors on recent teams, be it center Olusegun Oluwatimi on the 2022 squad or an array of arrivals that accentuated the 2023 team: edge rusher Josaiah Stewart, cornerback Josh Wallace, offensive linemen LaDarius Henderson and Drake Nugent or tight end AJ Barner. 

But they all fit with a similar trend to the roster retention spend: Using NIL for proven players. And in Michigan’s case in recent years, bringing in proven players for key roles or to fill a critical starting lineup spot.

Michigan has been rather mum in the transfer portal so far in the 2024 cycle, namely because of the extended postseason and coaching change. But the Wolverines already picked up linebacker Jaishawn Barham from Maryland, the No. 2 linebacker to enter the portal to date this cycle.

Once the spring window hits, Wangler knows it’s important to be ready to have the NIL house in order.

“The major focus right now is helping to raise money to maintain our current roster through this transition and then to be able to go on the offensive and build,” Wangler said.

Michigan’s success with roster retention may have spurred a new trend for using NIL, even in Columbus

Even Wangler, a dyed-in-the-wool Wolverine who’s father, John Wangler, played quarterback at Michigan, can appreciate the work done by his counterparts in Columbus to help Ohio State retain talent and add key pieces in the transfer portal this cycle.

On top of bringing in quarterback Will Howard, running back Quinshon Judkins and safety Caleb Downs — quarterback Julian Sayin will probably be a factor in years to come — Ohio State brought back nearly a dozen starters or key players. Much of Ohio State’s effort to roll a loaded roster into 2024 was aided by THE Foundation, a collective headed up by former Buckeyes quarterback Cardale Jones, which recently raised $500,000 via a crowdfunding effort.

“Last year at this time we focused on retaining all of our top guys and then there was a commitment to go out and find the missing pieces that the program needed in the portal,” Wangler said. “And that’s exactly what Ohio State did.”

The Buckeyes were beneficiaries of having a head start on the teams that were in the College Football Playoff, for instance, and didn’t undergo a coaching change, but there’s no faulting Ohio State for pouncing on every single advantage.

“They went out and they dominated this offseason through their strategy with NIL and building a roster,” Wangler said. “And you gotta tip the cap to ’em because that’s what — if you wanna be competing for national championships, you have to be able to go do that.”

And if the Buckeyes follow up Michigan’s national championship with one of their own, more and more programs might turn to pouring NIL resources into their current rosters in hopes of finding what’s so elusive in college football these days: An old, experienced, talented team.