Deion Sanders Rips on NIL in College Football: 'It Don't Make Sense'

“I wish it was a cap. The top of the line player makes *this* and if you’re not that type of guy you know you are not going to make that. That’s what the NFL does,” Sanders said. “The problem is you got a guy that is not that darn good, but he could go to another school and that gives him a half a million dollars and you can’t compete with that. It don’t make sense.”

Sanders brought up how there are schools out there that can pay much more money for players than others. It puts coaches that aren’t backed by that type of NIL funding at a major disadvantage.

In the end, most of the teams that get to the finish line during the season in the College Football Playoff are the teams that have the capability to pay the most money. 

“All you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent, and you’ll understand darn well why they’re in the playoffs. It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25-30 million to a darn freshman class,” Sanders said. “We want to say stuff, but we’re trying to be professional, but you are going to see the same teams darn near at the end, and somebody who sneaks up in there, but the team that pays more is going to be in.”

Deion Sanders Taking A Shot at Ohio State Buckeyes? 

Was Sanders throwing a shot at a team like the Ohio State Buckeyes? Ohio State won the National Championship last season and according to their athletic director Ross Bjork, spent “around $20 million” on their players last season. 

With NIL being so new in the world of collegiate athletics, it has been difficult to regulate and set rules. Additionally, there is no commissioner of college football. Instead, each conference has their own commissioner, which further complicates things when trying to put rules in place for the sport as a whole.

The reality is, a conference like the Big 12 doesn’t have the NIL opportunity like the schools in the SEC and Big Ten. This issue of not being able to pay the same amount of money for players in recruiting or the transfer portal as the SEC and Big Ten will continue for coaches in the Big 12 conference until something changes.