Jim Tressel was a very successful head coach for the Ohio State football team before the Urban Meyer era began, but his career with the Buckeyes ended because of scandals surrounding payers being paid. One of those players was Maurice Clarett. Clarett said that he received money and cars to play at Ohio State, and he said that Tressel knew about it. Obviously, with NIL, we are seeing that happen in college football today. Both Tressel and Clarett recently reunited on the It's All About The Team podcast to discuss the current state of NIL.
NIL has obviously brought a lot of good to college athletics. Those players are bringing in a ton of revenue for their schools, and they weren't getting any of it. Still, a lot of people think that there are some things need to be fixed.
Former Ohio State football player Maurice Clarett is happy to see that NIL has started, but one thing he would like to see is more infrastructure.
“The other part in addition to this, I wish that there was more infrastructure rather than these ‘hey let me come in and talk to you for a second' for kids running into all this money,” Clarett said. “That's going to happen, kids are going to mess up some money, they're going to have emotional and frivolous purchases, but when I go around I understand the amount of money and what they can do with it, and knowing that this thing is so short lived you wish that there was more infrastructure for that.”
Now that NIL is a thing, Clarett understands that this is a business. Things are different now than they were when he played at Ohio State.
“I'm just happy that they started down the path, I'm happy that the NCAA has started down a path of like saying ‘hey man we finally have to deal with this' but, I knew that this this was going to happen once the decision got made for the case in Virginia and the case in Tennessee,” Clarett said. “So now for people who don't know how these things get engineered, when I seen that they were suing the NCAA because these schools now want to market directly to these kids to bring them on the campus and to give them money, they start to realize that this stuff helps enrollment this stuff helps sell tickets and that this is a business.”
All in all, Clarett doesn't see a problem with what is happening.
“With these State schools they go to these legislators they said ‘hey man look this stuff can help our school, this stuff can help revenue, and these kids are a part of that,'” Clarett added. “And to me there's nothing wrong with that, if the kid is a part of that, if the kid is part of the personality, if the kid is part of what generates money, like just pay the kid and compensate them correctly.”
Jim Tressel shares his thoughts
Former Ohio State football head coach Jim Tressel also shared his thoughts, and he is upset that nothing was done for 50 years despite knowing where revenue was headed.
“I’m saddest about the fact that for 50 years we certainly saw the trajectory of the revenue, that wasn’t a secret,” Tressel said. “And the fact that we didn’t do anything for 50 years is disappointing, but usually when you let things slip for 50 years chaos ensues.”
NIL is a massive part of college sports today, and Ohio State is one school that is doing a great job with it. It's going to be interesting to see how things continue to evolve in the coming years.
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