NIL expert weighs in on Gamecocks' efforts

Name, image, and likeness has been live in college athletics for over two years now, shaking up the landscape for administrators, coaches, and fans, including for the South Carolina Gamecocks.

While there have been plenty of shifts and changes in NIL during that time, one thing has remained constant: it’s now a necessary component of big-time recruiting.

“You can’t compete in the SEC right now without having a strong NIL program, unless you’re like in Alabama or Georgia. Nick Saban is recruiting top athletes and Kirby Smart can say, hey, we just won back-to-back national titles,” said On3’s Pete Nakos on The Garnet Trust Hour on 107.5 The Game. “I mean, that’s the reality we’re living in right now until there’s some sort of congressional reform, which I don’t think is coming at all.”

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In the course of his duties covering NIL for On3, Nakos speaks regularly to college administrators and collective operators.

That includes Jeremy Smith, who heads up operations for Garnet Trust, the official NIL collective of the University of South Carolina.

“He’s been really open to some new ideas,” Nakos said. “I think that he’s doing everything he can and his board is doing everything they can to find new streams of revenue so it’s not always on the donor and the fan to step up.”

In the summer of 2021, states were racing to get a law for NIL on the books. Then, it was a race to suspend or repeal those state laws once it was discovered that schools were simply doing their own thing.

Now, some states are being crafty. NIL is now in place for many high schoolers around the country, and Missouri passed a law that gives high schoolers that sign with an in-state program the ability to capitalize.

“The last thing any program at any level wants to be at is playing the catch-up game, and especially at the elite level (SEC) that South Carolina’s at,” said Nakos. “So yeah, any advantage you can get off the field legally, right, through a state law, for example, I mean, yeah, it makes all the difference.”

Locally, there has been plenty of discussion as to where the Gamecocks fall on the NIL front compared to their peers in the SEC.

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Nakos pointed out that soon, Texas and Oklahoma, two blue blood programs with strong NIL backing, are also entering the league.

While Nakos did not want to directly address where USC stacks up in the conference from a NIL perspective, he feels that the Gamecocks could move up in the pecking order.

“I would say that they’re in the middle and could easily get in the top half,” he said.

Nakos was asked during his appearance on the radio program to unpack what he believes makes a school competitive on this front. What does he mean by a strong NIL program?

“A college football team needs to be backed by a strong NIL collective that offers contracts to the entire team and is paying a pretty competitive rate compared to the rest of the college football,” said Nakos. “I’m talking about a collective that can tap into a donor base whenever necessary and I’m referring to a collective that doesn’t lose sleep at night about an athlete leaving their school for the transfer portal because the athlete’s not making enough money.”

The transfer portal will be key for Shane Beamer’s Gamecocks this offseason, as the staff will be looking to bolster the roster with help in several areas and to retain other key players. December, then, will be a critical month in Columbia and in other places.

“We’re entering a really crucial 10-week span,” Nakos said. “I definitely think that that NIL and the transfer portal was a huge theme last year and it’s going to continue to remain a really popular theme. I’d say a large percent of the time when the athletes are on campus they’re going to want to have the coach walk them through what the NIL program looks at school X or school Y. I think that at least having an attractive program is a huge plus. It’s like having a good facility right now But it’s probably a couple spots ahead.”

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