Bama hasn’t been playing by the rules for a long time. They have been laying kids for years. There have been recent Alabama players to admit they got paid to go to the school, prior to NIL. So yea, that seems pretty desperate to keep the Competive edge.

Now the NIL made it harder in teams like Bama to stock talent on the each for years without playing them. It’s obvious that Bama hasn’t been the same team the last 3 years of NIL compared to the 5 years prior to NIL. The landscape became to much of a grind and it forced Saban into retirement, he said himself that the game and this year was to much of a grind now and he can’t coach the way he wants to without it taking its toll mentally and physically on him.

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Set back and play by the rules and maybe try and retain your own players.

Like Ohio State? It’s being reported they are in for $13+ million right now just to retain there team, and add only 6 portal guys. You can be desperate and be a big program also and just to retain your team is going to cost.

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Tenn had got a top collective at almost 20 mil a season

Tennessee goal with Spire sports is $25 million a year revenue. Right now Tennessee has the #1 collective in the country according to On3 and 247sports. The thing you’re not realizing, Tennessee is also a top 10 school historically and actually #10 in all time win %. Even though they have been down from 2007-2022 basically, they are still considered a Big time schools with the facilities and resources alone without adding NIL. Adding NIL has helped Hueple turn the roster over littler easier and to dig out of the shite he entered into. Tennessee isn’t approaching the portal like Ole Miss, and Colorado. Yes they looking for good players, but they also are truly look for fit, and a kid that has multiple years left. Most of the kids got in the Portal this, has 2-3+ years. He’s not looking for the “best” player for 1 year. He is using the portal to develop and build a team he can win with if the portal rules changed tomorrow. Some of these teams would be stuck, if they done an overall of the protal, and put limits on how many you could sign per year.

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Cheat using collectives

I like how you worded playing by the rules “legally. It’s not going to get better. In fact it’s getting worse as we speak. The NCAA is currently considering letting the athletic departments and schools directly pay the players. When that happens these Collectices will have an office inside the facilities and then it will be who truly has the most money. Imagine a university being able to broker the deals themselves. You have schools like Vandy that has more money than every university in the SEC. Once you start letting schools pay players directly you will have schools with endowments of $900million+ making deals and then the sky will be the limit and small schools will truly be out of the running then. Some athletics departments make more money a year than some universities do as a whole.