Alabama football fans have had recent fun bashing Hugh Freeze and Auburn Athletic Director John Cohen. The pair claimed that after Aug. 1, Auburn's recruiting success will blossom as many current commits flip from other schools. The flips will be the result of recruits learning from written offers that promised dollars may not be real. Freeze stated, "We’ve got great interpretations from our administration and our legal team on what the (House) settlement really means and how we should operate, and that’s what we’re doing. And if others are operating in a manner not with that, I’m hopeful that they’ll be called out on that at some point."
Alabama fans have good reason to scoff. Freeze and Auburn have a considerable history of rule-breaking. Auburn may have hit the brakes on college football's spending spree because the school's resources have been depleted. That doesn't mean that Freeze's and Cohen's comments were wrong.
Freeze and Cohen are right to suggest there should be a reckoning across college football's biggest spenders. Still, expecting clarity to happen quickly or smoothly is unrealistic. During Big 12 Media Days, multiple coaches mentioned general confusion about player compensation and the struggles of the College Sports Commission to enact enforcement measures and approve NIL deals.
Yahoo's Ross Dellenger began the title of a recent story with "We don't know the rules". Dellenger was expounding on what he had heard from Big 12 coaches. Check out some comments below.
- "We don’t know the rules. The settlement passed, but who knows what Deloitte is going to clear. Until there is clarity, you’re living in limbo."
- "You are seeing a lot of people lie and promise fake things."
After talking to multiple coaches, Dellenger concluded, "Schools are making big enough contract offers to recruits that they cannot possibly remain under college football’s new compensation cap, some coaches believe. Others are guaranteeing third-party NIL deals as part of the total compensation package to athletes, something against new revenue-share rules. A few are doling out cash from their collectives to high school players in an attempt to induce their commitment, also against new rules."
Lawyers and conference administrators are working to codify the new enforcement process. Understandably, the effort is progressing slowly. The NIL Go Clearinghouse is also lagging in approving submitted deals, with a reported 60-plus percent of deals in limbo.
Alabama Football's Kalen DeBoer has been quiet, but other SEC coaches have not
Hugh Freeze has not been the only SEC football coach to be vocal about the problems. As reported by Dellenger, Kirby Smart stated, "Some school-affiliated booster collectives are currently compensating high school players — upward of $20,000 a month — to remain committed and eventually sign with their school." Additionally, most NIL deals promised to recruits and transfers have not been approved by the clearinghouse.
Quick clarity on new rules, enforcement, and penalties was a pipe dream. It was always going to be a muddled situation that would take at least months to resolve. While Auburn will not suddenly zoom up recruiting rankings in August, Alabama football fans might once want to cut Freeze some slack. He was not wrong in claiming that programs are gaming the new system.