College football has changed a lot over the last few seasons due to the widespread transfer portal and NIL, but mainly because of NIL. Especially with former players being paid a lot of money in back pay. The ability for players to get paid was a long time in the making. However, there was always an undercurrent of players getting paid in some fashion, and former LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron even joked recently that NIL existed in the SEC before it was legal.
On a recent episode of “Bussin' With the Boys,” former LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron was on for a long-ranging interview. He talked about NIL and joked about how in the SEC, the only difference is that you can walk in through the front door with the money now, compared to the old way of doing it secretly.
Orgeron said, “They say, ‘Hey coach, you know, you’ve been out of coaching for a while and how are you going to adjust to NIL?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s a minor adjustment.’ and they said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Back then we used to walk through the back door with the cash, and now we just got to walk through the front door with the cash.’ A joke obviously.”
Taylor Lewan also asked Orgeron if there was an unwritten rule that an SEC team wouldn’t offer more money to an in-state player than that in-state school could offer. Orgeron said there was, but they were always broken.
“Rules are meant to be broken,” Orgeron said. “Because that s—t didn’t go down. They might’ve had an unwritten rule, but they were broken all the time.”
Orgeron has had two coaching jobs in the SEC, with his first at Ole Miss and his second at LSU. He has had a reputation throughout his time in college football as an elite recruiter, so Orgeron would have extensive knowledge of past dealings involving money.
When Orgeron was at Ole Miss, his most notable recruits were Michael Oher, Dexter McCluster, and Mike Wallace. Then, at LSU, he recruited Ja’Marr Chase, Joe Burrow (Transfer), Derek Stingley, Kayshon Boutte, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
The ability to recruit players is more coveted than ever due to the NIL era, and it's only a matter of time before Orgeron ends up back in coaching, whether that's on Lane Kiffin's staff at LSU or somewhere else.
