'No answers': Mark Stoops opens up on issues facing college football

As we enter the 2022 college football season, there are a lot of unknowns. Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops and the rest of the SEC coaches are officially in the land of the unknown.

We are one year into the NIL world and in many ways there is simply no oversight. What is NIL? What is pay-for-play? What exactly are collectives? At SEC Media Days on Wednesday, Stoops went on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and discussed the issues facing the sport candidly at the College Football Hall of Fame.

Appreciate @UKCoachStoops openly and honestly sharing his thoughts on navigating the new world of college football and compensation for athletes. Great conversation. pic.twitter.com/2Pd4DXUqLi

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) July 20, 2022

“Nobody is interested in going backwards,” Stoops said about the new NIL world. “We’re interested in doing what we can do. There’s many people that are going to push the envelope as far as they can. However, I truly believe that we’re unified in this. What we’re doing right now is not good. I believe our head coach meetings — and I hate speaking for other people — I know we’re in consensus that what’s going on in certain elements of this is not sustainable and very concerning. What’s it going to look like in the future?”

What is so concerning? Most likely it’s the blatant pay-for-play that seems to be going on throughout the sport. It has been heavily speculated that top-five recruit Nico Iamaleava is going to Tennessee after the Southern California product accepted an $8 million NIL deal. There were also reports that top-50 recruit Jaden Rashada agreed to a near $10 million NIL deal to become a cornerstone piece for new head coach Mario Cristobal. Nick Saban accused Texas A&M of paying for their No. 1 recruiting class. The list goes on and on.

It’s pretty clear that these deals that are supposedly being agreed to do not fit the NIL model that many thought would be established. That has created some concerns.

“I don’t think, that when this was going down, that this collective issue was going to be like it is,” Stoops told Finebaum. “The players that are here representing all of our institutions — they deserve to make money. The guys that are here that have helped build our brand at Kentucky benefitted from it. They should be able to benefit from it with their families and all that. I think that’s common sense.”

“But I don’t think any of us saw this enormous amount of just saying hey let’s dump money in this fund and then you can essentially just pay a player to come here that’s never played a down for your institution. I can say that every coach that I’ve talked to in the SEC is worried about that.”

Earlier this month, Stoops joined Matt Jones on “Kentucky Sports Radio” to discuss how Kentucky is handling NIL. It’s clear that the Wildcats must be more committed financially to provide opportunities for prospective student-athletes to make some money once they arrive on campus. All of this needs to happen some Kentucky can keep pace with their peers in the SEC. However, this is all a gray area. But each school must look out for itself currently.

“There’s no answers right now,” said Stoops. “So the rules are what they are and my take is I better go play by them the best I can or I’m going to get passed by.

Many in college football are calling for Congress to help them solve this issue. That seems like a pipe dream. The leaders in college football must get together and create a structure for all schools to play by. However, most folks are focused on conference expansion and how the College Football Playoff will look in the future. That is leaving those in college football to weather a unique storm without any guidelines.

“A lot of this is out of our control,” said Stoops. “And that’s kind of scary.”