seaofred92

You’re not wrong my friend. You’re not wrong.

I most certainly do not have inside information on this but am hopeful that we’ve made a very strong offer to Mathis and that whether he signs or not its a sign of our commitment going forwards. Cautiously optimistic for some reason here even with the recent Texas visits.

You still haven’t answered the question at hand: How much money does Nebraska’s NIL effort need on an annual basis in order to compete nationally? All I’m looking for is a number. If you actually read the article I linked- UF’s collective is in process of raising that $20M. So I’ll ask again- tell me the number NU needs available to them in order to compete.

Of course these deals are incentive structured as they should be. It protects the collectives and/or boosters from wasting hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars on players with no impact on the team. The entire point though is that these deals are still offering the compensation to the players and contractually obligated to pay them that should they hit the incentives laid out in the contract. You do not have the opportunity to earn the kind of money I’ve laid out in the above examples at Nebraska right now. That COULD change- but I don’t see it changing until it becomes the “norm” and NU is forced to get there. This is the question I want NU fans to answer: If Florida’s head coach has determined that they need $20M in annual NIL contribution commitments to compete for championships in the SEC, how much money do you think NU needs in annual NIL contribution commitments in order to compete at that same level?

I have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish with this but I’m going to stick with the sourced links and quotes provided and reiterate that Nebraska is not doing enough in this space to compete at a national level. I’ll ask you point blank again: If Florida needs a $20M pool for their roster to compete in the SEC how much do you think Nebraska needs in an annual pool for players in order to compete at that same level?

Lol you’re saying that someone is paying national football writers at The Athletic to artificially inflate the value of NIL deals being secured by recruits? I find that pretty hard to believe for a multitude of reasons- the most prevalent of which is that if you’re saying the deals aren’t actually that much money for the players then almost assuredly nobody is wasting even more money to pay writers to lie about it. I just posted an article where Florida head coach Billy Napier point blank said they need $20M to build a contending SEC roster. At Florida. How much do you think that number is at Nebraska?

Yup- looks like I’m totally overstating what the numbers will be for NIL deals related to the highest end recruits going forwards!

Fine start. Need 2-3 more to really feel better about having options and depth as the season wears on. I’d like for us to take a look at Justin Moore in the portal- 6’3 270 former 3* DE transferring out of UConn: Decent twitchiness and had a solid HS profile (Offers from Houston, Texas Tech, Tulane, UConn)- All State in Texas and played for Mike Singletary in high school. Good frame who I think could develop into a nice player. Plus the 3 years of eligibility is nice.

I’m not overstating anything. Tennessee literally has a deal structured for the #3 overall player and 5* QB in the class of 2023 for as much as $8M over 4 years. That seems like a pretty fair comp for Dylan Raiola who is the #1 overall player in the 2024 class: https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/sports/college/football/2022/03/17/8-million-nil-alabama-football-nick-saban/7053577001/ Quinn Ewers last year signed a deal with an OSU company worth $1M. Multiple high school recruits who are 4* players are signing deals worth over $1M per The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/news/college-football-recruiting-nil/3iigKevyrPik/. Hell a 3* DT signed a deal worth up to $500k. Multiple basketball players are signing deals worth $500k+ to either return to the same school they’re at or transfer to a new school (see deals at Miami, Kentucky, etc for reference) and they’re not anywhere near the level of player a guy like Raiola would be for Nebraska. This is where this is all headed. NU can be behind the curve yet again or they can actually be out in front and be aggressive in this space. We will have to overpay for talent. It’s the reality of being located where we are, record, and program trajectory. Yet we’re watching multiple schools who haven’t won anything in years pay athletes top dollar and you’re trying to justify NU not being in that group. Hilarious really.

Lmao great.

Can you link this? Not because I don’t believe you but because I’d love to hear/see this for myself hahah

First off- just because they are not legally allowed to have a formal relationship (i.e. member of or employee of) with the collectives doesn’t mean that the schools aren’t directly communicating with the collectives on almost a daily basis between compliance, coaches, administrators, etc. You think Frost and company don’t know the inner workings of the deals for Thompson, Mathis, etc? Every NIL deal signed has to be reported to compliance. You think all of those guys and deals just showed up here magically on their own? I mean the guy that runs ABM is literally one of Frost’s best friends. Second- it’s pretty easy to know we have a finite number of dollars available for all of our booster and athletic administration related activities. The big time donors will always in some capacity continue to donate to the school- it’s a massive write off for them on their annual income if they do it right and gets them access and perks across all sports. But it’s NU’s job now and in the future to have an understanding of what that finite dollar amount truly is and what their appetite for issuing new debt will be versus taking away funds from potential NIL deals. Instead of raising $100M privately could NU have issued additional debt in the lowest interest rate environment ever and allowed those donors to allocate the other $50M differently? Could we have borrowed against future earnings in some capacity? Moving forward with the building itself isn’t the problem. But raising 2/3 of the money privately when those funds are needed elsewhere almost certainly is. That being said- we were not ready for how NIL was going to actually be used. We were well prepared for the marketplace based corporate sponsorships like Runza and Muchachos. We were NOT ready to jump in from day 1 with the pay for play type deals and it’s pretty obvious- not sure how you can view it any differently. We’re coloring within the lines and not operating at all in any grey area. I don’t even think NU has to be Texas A&M as it relates to NIL- Tennessee is a great model to follow. And yet we’re going to lose multiple important roster pieces to other schools when we have obvious and glaring needs. If the money isn’t there for us to be offering multiple kids $1M+ then that’s fine- but all I ever heard when NIL was coming was about how NU was going to be one of the best schools for it and that’s proven to be extremely false. And maybe actually allow for the general public to contribute funds like Tennessee and TAMU and a million other collectives do- especially with NU’s fanbase that’s another few $M raised annually.

Is “getting back” to you winning games against Purdue and Minnesota or is it competing for league titles? Because I do agree with you the talent level required to beat average football teams has been here for numerous years. Can’t say the same about competing for league titles- which is my version of “getting back”. By the way- NU just finished 41st in the 2022 247 Team Composite Rankings and we currently have one singular interior defensive lineman worth a damn on the roster. Not a great sign for the future.

NU needs to add 4 interior linemen across varying degrees of eligibility timelines plus at least one (preferably two) rush ends/OLBs. That seems fairly difficult at this stage but we will see what happens.

Btw- I will GLADLY eat crow if I’m wrong here and we step up with a last minute deal that puts us out in front. Just do not see that happening at this time.

This x1000. We have a talent accumulation and retention problem across the roster. The quickest way to solve any issues we have is by ponying up and paying kids. Can’t believe there are people that either aren’t in favor of this or don’t see the importance of it. NU absolutely has to not just compete in this space but be one of the top 5 players in it if we ever want to do anything remotely resembling national relevance again. Simply being on par with other schools is not enough considering the massive disadvantages we have working against us (record, geography, declining brand and relevance, lack of local talent).

The unfortunate situation is because of how the rule is written with schools not being able to direct funds to athletes, it matters not one iota how much cash the AD has on their balance sheet. If anything the university soliciting donor funds for their own projects like the stadium renovations and new football facility directly impacts how much money can go into our NIL pool from our top end donors. The school is in essence competing against ABM/NIL for dollars. I agree with you this is the exact thing we’ve been waiting for. Tennessee is doing exactly what NU should be doing. A guy like Dylan Raiola should have a $5-$10M deal on the table at NU. Instead we’re talking about losing him to OSU, Mathis to Texas, etc. NU does not have the athletic culture or want to go really compete in NIL in terms of “pay for play” IMO. We will do things the “right” way because that’s who Nebraska is and we’ll wind up being able to not afford the top end players and continue the mediocrity

NIL for him is certainly better here because he’s not backing up Quinn Ewers.

I’ll tell you the only way Nebraska gets back- Our fans and donors pool together about $40M to distribute annually for 5 years to the top players in each class. Otherwise we’re absolutely screwed.

What?! He didn’t jump at the chance to make $20 a month from pipeline burrito sales?! I can’t believe that!

Yeah I just can’t even fathom that we literally had two former Nebraska players at the forefront of this and NU doesn’t have a collective the size of Tennessee or TAMU or Miami. We’re JUST NOW opening up general fan donations to this on top of what the boosters are pooling together. And apparently there’s “no money” after we just went through one of the biggest bull markets in history. We can’t even put a good enough deal together to get a legacy kid in Dylan Raiola- Meanwhile Tennessee is paying 5* QBs with no connection to the school from California $8M while also planning for a total stadium renovation on top of it. TAMU signs 8 top 100 defensive lineman in ONE CLASS and we’re taking visits from a DT that had a half a sack in 4 years lmao Gerrod Lambrecht (and his boy HCSF) are complete and total clowns.

10000%. And we’re going to have to pay a premium because we’re Nebraska. Meanwhile we’re bragging about kids making $50 tweeting out an ad for Runza. Wonder when we will start taking this seriously- hopefully when the next coach is in.