Urban Meyer hits calls for NIL salary cap with reality check

The rules — or lack thereof — in college football’s NIL era have been harshly criticized by fans, media, and coaches alike, but Urban Meyer, one of the most successful CFB coaches of the 21st century, made a good point about any potential major changes, such as a salary cap.

Meyer coached in college football from 1986 to 2018, during which the sport evolved and changed a lot. But in the years since Meyer’s departure from Ohio State, things have gone into overdrive; players have begun earning money, and oftentimes lots of it, via NIL deals. Some of the agreements have reportedly netted players millions of dollars per year, with teams effectively engaging in bidding wars for unproven or questionable prospects.

But while teams, coaches, and fans have plenty of reasons to call for change, including a salary cap, Meyer isn’t quite sure the big dogs of college football are fully in on that idea either.

“Logically, you have to have some kind of guard rails, some kind of system set up,” Meyer said on ‘The Herd with Colin Cowherd’. I’m going to tell you this: I don’t think there’s any chance, though, because that would mean the upper-echelon schools would have to give up power. If you’re Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, the teams with this ridiculous amount of money, you are the power player right now in college sports.

“Imagine sitting in a room and saying, ‘OK, we’re going to back you guys down and make this more equal like the NFL.’ The NFL, you’ve got 32 teams and they are all working under the same guidelines. College football, you’ve got teams that are $20 million and you have teams that can’t do that. Why would those teams lower and raise the others? Right now, I don’t see that happening.”