Rece Davis reveals ‘only answer’ to solve one of college football’s biggest issues

The issue of tampering in college football is front and center ahead of the 2025 season amid Wisconsin's lawsuit against Miami for alleged illegal contact with a former Badgers defensive back.

The landmark case is believed to be the first-of-its-kind, but tampering continues to be brought up by head coaches around the country. And although against NCAA rules, no efforts have been made to maintain compliance.

“I think the only answer to this is collective bargaining,” Davis said on the "College GameDay" podcast. “Okay, if you’re going to collective bargain, almost by definition the players have to be employees, or else with whom are you going to bargain? Who’s going to represent each side?”

The House settlement ushered in a new NIL era on Tuesday. Schools are able to allocate up to $20.5 million directly to athletes this year with that number increasing annually. In an effort to stabilize unsustainable spending, players must report all NIL deals worth over $600 to the NIL Go clearinghouse.

The move to a revenue sharing model with parameters set around outside deals is a significant shift towards a business relationship between athletes and schools. However, for collective bargaining approach to limit tampering, the NCAA would likely need for student athletes to be considered as employees.

And that's currently not the case.

“I understand both sides of this,” Davis said. “But the biggest thing about the portal and the up in arms over that is if you’re not going to call them employees. If these are not going to be pay-for-play contracts, then what business do you have telling someone where they can go to school and where they can play?”

As it stands, the transfer portal is basically a free-for-all. Especially given the NCAA's inability to enforce what little rules there are, leaving schools like Wisconsin to take the issue to court.

The suit alleges that Miami was aware that Xavier Lucas had signed a revenue share contract after the 2024 season and continued to communicate with him. Lucas went on to sign with Miami and will be fully eligible for the upcoming season.

“NIL and being compensated for it, whether you want to call it pay-for-play or not does change that a little bit in my judgement in terms of building a framework in which guys can move around,” Davis said. “So that you don’t have unrestricted free agency throughout the calendar year all the time. So, I don’t know that there’s any way out of it besides this. I do think that Wisconsin is trying to draw a line in the sand and you’re probably right, the issue is with the player but it is a much better look to go after the institution that you’re upset with as opposed to going after the player.”