By Darrell Devaul -Senior Editor

In summer 2021, the Division 1 Board of Directors approved a new name, image, and likeness (NIL) policy, allowing NCAA student-athletes to be compensated for the NIL. This has already made a huge impact on recruiting. Student-athletes can now position themselves to make as much money as possible off their likeness and some coaches around the country think this will have a negative impact on recruiting.

What Do Coaches Have to Say

?Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin is concerned about the ramifications the new NIL policy will have on recruiting. "We don't have the same funding resources as some of these schools do for these NIL deals," Kiffin said during a news conference on Tuesday. "It's basically dealing with different salary caps. Now we have a sport that has completely different salary caps and some of these schools have, whatever, five to 10 times more than everybody else in what they can pay the players. I know nobody uses those phrases, but that is what it is."Other coaches across the country have voiced similar concerns. The belief is that schools with the most money to spend will get all the good players while schools with limited resources will get the scraps. However, take one quick glance at recruiting rankings over the past decade. The prestigious programs with a seemingly endless supply of money seem to always place towards the top.

How Are the Players Benefiting?

An example of a player benefiting greatly from this new policy is now, Texas Longhorn quarterback, Quinn Ewers. Ewers was one of the top recruits in the 2022 class. However, wanting to capitalize on NIL opportunities, Ewers was reclassified to the class of 2021 so he could begin receiving benefits sooner. Ewers isn’t the only player who has benefited from the new NIL policy. Alabama quarterback and Heisman winner Bryce Young earned nearly $1 million in NIL revenue in 2021. Under previous NIL rules, marketing money would have gone to the colleges which would give some of that money to the coaches as salary. Now, players directly benefit from their likeness.