Walter Nolen signs with Ole Miss-driven NIL entity The Grove Collective

Walter Nolen has officially signed his first NIL deal since transferring to Ole Miss.

The former top-ranked recruit in the 2022 class and No. 2 player in the On3 Industry Transfer Portal Rankings signed his contract with the Rebel-focused NIL entity The Grove Collective. After taking visits to Oregon and Oxford in December, the defensive lineman committed to the Rebels.

Now he has put pen to paper and signed an NIL deal with the leading Ole Miss collective. As part of the announcement, The Grove Collective will be raffling off the first-ever signed Ole Miss-Walter Nolen footballs.

Nolen played in 12 games this past season for the Aggies, tallying 37 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss and four sacks. It was a significant pickup for Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding, who revamped the defense through the portal. Ole Miss also added EDGE Princely Umanmielen and linebacker
Chris Paul Jr.

Lane Kiffin’s program finished at No. 3 in On3’s Team Transfer Portal Index, trailing just Louisville and Colorado. Nolen’s transfer to Ole Miss allowed the 6-foot-4, 290-pound defensive lineman to play closer to home. A Mississippi native, Nolen spent his junior year of high school in Memphis before playing in Knoxville as a senior.

Ole Miss’ The Grove Collective leader in NIL space

When Walker Jones took over as executive director of The Grove Collective in September 2022, he had some heavy lifting to do. Ole Miss was playing catch-up in NIL, a position no collective wants to be in. 

By late November 2022, the collective topped the $10 million mark in fundraising. It remains one of the top reported totals in the NIL collective market. While Jones hammered home the importance of donors contributing to The Grove, he made sure the collective was locating revenue outside of the fan base through deals with local and national brands.

When On3 released its top 20 ambitious NIL collective rankings at the end of June 2023, The Grove clocked in at No. 9 on the list. At the time the collective had contracts with 165 athletes with at least one player from each varsity sport.

“Their school has really gotten behind Walker and his team,” a source told On3 at the time.

Before the start of the 2023 season, the collective ran a seven-day NIL fundraising campaign. The organization raised more than $3 million in roughly 10 days. Adding more than $3 million to the bank account made a strong statement before Ole Miss even started its football season.

The Grove Collective’s success has surely made an impact on the roster. The collective launched another major fundraising campaign last week, titled the “March to Victory Bracket Challenge.” Powered by the sporting goods manufacturer Realtree, the month-long initiative aims to raise $10 million and surpass 10,000 Grove Collective members by the end of March.

Raising NIL dollars has never been as necessary. A federal judge recently granted a preliminary injunction in the Eastern District of Tennessee allowing collectives to openly negotiate deals with high school and portal recruits. The NCAA has halted all NIL investigations involving collectives, too.

Walter Nolen’s signing is another clear sign The Grove Collective is operating near the top of the college football landscape.