Two roads diverged on Montlake and in the world of college football, and it appears that Washington has chosen their path as to how to attack the new world of name, image, and likeness. There seem to be two roads in the current unregulated world of NIL, the bag-dropping road, or the road to set players up for long-term financial deals.
The Huskies have chosen to pursue securing deals for current players first, and have decided to let the results speak for themselves. Redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Huard has a deal with trading card companies Leaf and Onyx, sophomore wide receiver Jalen McMillan has an endorsement from McDonalds, and true freshman edge rusher Lance Holtzclaw made a deal with the sports drink Body Armor. It’s currently the responsibility of the players to announce the deals they may have signed, so there are almost certainly others that haven’t been reported yet. While this might be the better road to success long term, as regulations around NIL are certainly coming at some point, will it help in recruiting in the short, or even the long term?
One unnamed five-star recruit is reportedly receiving $8 million from a booster program by the end of his junior season, and rumor has it another received somewhere between $1.2 and $1.5 million just to sign with the school. Will the boosters feel the monetary hit if the players don’t pan out? Probably not. But if they do, that just opens the floodgates for that school to become a juggernaut. When three-star recruits are reportedly receiving $500,000 for their commitment, the system needs a change.
But the issue is, nobody knows when that change is coming, so it feels like in the short term, schools have to adapt or die. Every big-name school has boosters with the money to show up with a coffee cup or a McDonalds bag to secure a recruit, and one thing’s certain, in this billion-dollar industry, the players deserve a cut, a scholarship simply doesn’t cut it.
The question becomes, with the road Washington’s athletic department has chosen, kudos to my colleague Christian Caple at The Athletic for writing a fantastic article detailing that path, how much will that impact the current staff’s ability to recruit?
Guaranteed money upfront looks a lot better to most 17-year-old high school seniors compared to a plan to sign a deal with a company like Nordstrom or Amazon. With the setup Washington has on the NIL front, with lots of big donors and Fortune 500 companies in the area, they have the ability to do both. There’s a lot of risk involved with giving money to an unproven high school prospect, but the beauty of the football program since Chris Petersen took over is their development. The Huskies have placed more players in the NFL than anyone in the Pac-12, and while this is a brand new coaching staff, if they can prove in 2022 that they’re just as good at developing talent, there should be no reason that boosters and the athletic department can’t provide more of a financial boost.
The good news for Husky fans is, whenever the regulations are put in place by whatever governing body decides to implement them, is that Montlake Futures seems to be one of the best NIL programs in the country for long-term financial success. But the problem is, if they can’t attract some big-time talent before those regulations are implemented, will the on-field product be sustainable?
Kalen DeBoer and his staff seem to have a lot of potential with what they can do on the field, but recruiting is the big question after coming from Fresno State. He’s going to put an innovative offense on the field, and if he can recruit at the same level Petersen did in his last few seasons at Washington, the Huskies should be considered a favorite in the Pac-12 year in and year out.
Fans should keep a close eye on what other deals are announced by Husky student-athletes over the spring and summer, because if someone like star edge rusher and possible first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft Zion Tupuola-Fetui announces a few deals with big-time local or national companies, that could be a message of what’s to come. This is the road less traveled when it comes to NIL, the beaten path is tried and true, but could this new road truly provide more long-term options for student-athletes?
