Ole Miss's Quinshon Judkins on NIL deal: 'We knew what we were going to do'
NASHVILLE – Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins laughed when a reporter compared a photo of him re-signing an NIL agreement with The Grove Collective last winter to a free agent signing with a professional sports franchise.
“It was very exciting that we got the deal done immediately after the season,” Judkins said Thursday at SEC Football Media Days. “We knew what we were going to do going into the end of the season. You know, you don’t want to leave your school. I didn’t want to leave Ole Miss, so it was like no question. I just got the deal, and I renegotiated my contract.”
The Grove Collective announced Judkins’ latest agreement on Twitter on Dec. 1, 2022. The Rebels’ last regular-season game was Nov. 24 against rival Mississippi State. The transfer portal window opened Dec. 5.
The collective said the contract term runs through the 2023-24 season. The terms of the deal have not been released.
Judkins rushed for 1,567 yards and 16 touchdowns as a true freshman. He arrived in Oxford as a three-star prospect who was ranked as the No. 37 running back recruit in the 2022 recruiting class, according to the On3 Industry Ranking.
Judkins earned SEC Freshman of the Year honors and the Associated Press named him SEC Newcomer of the Year. He earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors five times last season.
The Grove Collective’s announcement featured a photo of Judkins wearing a shirt featuring the collective’s logo and holding a pen with a contract on the table in front of him.
The Grove Collective made a similar announcement when Judkins initially signed with the collective in February 2022.
Judkins credited by name executive director Walker Jones and director of development Williams Evans.
“A lot of support from those guys,” Judkins said.
In March, the collective announced a promotion where the next 50 members who signed up would receive a signed Judkins poster.
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The Grove Collective’s position in NIL landscape
During his time at the podium on Thursday, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin spoke more openly than any other football coach at SEC Football Media Days about the current compensation model in college athletics, from NIL deals to potential revenue sharing or employee status.
“I used to say they should be employees, so they can have real contracts,” he said. However, Kiffin said the employment status of football players would also raise other issues.
Kiffin described many NIL deals with the disclaimer, “which really isn’t NIL for probably 99% of the kids. They’re not really getting the money for their marketing rights.”
A reporter asked Kiffin where Ole Miss’s boosters rank relative to their peers in the SEC.
“I am not about to start putting rankings out on boosters from top to bottom in the conference,” Kiffin said, laughing. “God, I want to so bad, though. The commissioner [Greg Sankey] said, ‘Remember, we’ve grown a lot and you don’t have to respond to every question to show everybody you have the answers.’ So I’m going to do that on this situation.”
The Grove Collective is one of seven founding organizations that recently launched The Collective Association (TCA) to represent the interests of collectives.
TCA’s founding members said they plan to introduce a revenue-sharing model with athletes that doesn’t include athletes becoming employees of their universities. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday that SEC Associate Commissioner for Legal Affairs William King has reached out to TCA to engage the group in conversation.