It would have to be for more money than what that guy reported. It raised 100,000. Signing bonus for Mr Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, was 77,000 dollars. He signed a 4 yr contract for 3.7 million Brock Purdy signed a 4 year, $3,737,008 contract with the San Francisco 49ers, including a $77,008 signing bonus, $77,008 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $934,252. In 2023, Purdy will earn a base salary of $870,000, while carrying a cap hit of $889,252 and a dead cap value of $57,756. A middle of the road 5th rounder got a guaranteed 300,000 plus their contract if they make the team, base salary of 870,000
I agree with your post. There's little doubt that some alumni and kids of the alumni get turned off by not being able to get into their legacy school, but isn't this really an issue that most, if not all, major land grant state universities are dealing with? UF has moved up more academically than most of the major state universities, but UGA and FSU have gotten MUCH harder to get into and more competitive too. Most of the state universities nationwide have capped admissions and growth, and they've all gotten more difficult to get into. This is a huge factor in the rise of secondary universities like UCF (72K) and FIU (59K) becoming bigger than UF (53K). FSU is only the 7th largest in the state now. Getting into UF and FSU is MUCH harder than it was when I attended. The kids who don't get into UF and FSU end up at UCF, FIU, USF and other smaller secondary universities. UGA and GT are seeing a similar trend. Georgia State, Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State have all seen dramatic enrollment increases in the past few decades and should soon be larger than UGA and GT. This is a big part of the surge of the athletic programs of secondary schools nationwide over the past 10-20 years. Another important factor here that needs to be considered is that the big state universities like UF are bringing in more kids from out of state and outside the country. Kids who have no ties to the state or school and probably don't care much about athletics. When they graduate, most will go back to where they came from. That's a factor that I believe hit Georgia Tech's athletics programs a couple decades earlier than most schools. In the long run, this trend will probably continue to help the secondary and smaller conference sports programs continue to grow faster than the major state school athletics programs, but that's just a guess. The "blueblood" state schools have and will continue to have a larger base of wealthy alumni, and will likely always have a core base of loyal fans statewide that the secondary "metro" schools may never have. But these secondary schools have the ability to grow much larger than the state universities. With lower admission standards, they can continue to take more athletes the major universities can't. I can easily see those secondary schools passing by the major state universities in athletic competition in the next couple of decades. It's just my opinion, but I actually think that may be part of the reason the SEC and Big-10 in particular may desire to pull out of the NCAA and into a different "classification" of college athletics. They know that the "blueblood" state universities are going to have a tougher and tougher time staying on top and competing in the coming decades. I don't know that it will keep their athletics programs from getting passed up in time, but it will help keep them much more relevant.
I'm not really buying that there is enough NIL to keep guys in college. I'm not buying that FSU kept Verse in college. He just saw the reality of his position in the draft. Although he had good stats (from an SEC viewpoint), in the ACC he would have been the 3rd highest for sacks at Louisville if he played for them.
To follow this up, I posted somewhere that there have been 33 national champions in the past 102 years. The teams you listed are on the list multiple times. Top recruits go to top schools, NIL just puts another arrow in the quiver for these programs. It won't kill the sport.
Nearly 1800 players jumped into the portal machine, only 49% have found a new team. 2023 College Football Transfer Portal
