An Underrated Positive Of Coaching Changes In The NIL Era
Is NIL keeping these recruiting classes intact?
With Hugh Freeze representing the latest head on the chopping block of the coaching carousel, it's safe to say the 2025 hiring cycle has gotten even crazier in the last 24 hours.
But what has been a surprisingly tame aspect of the 2025 college football calendar has been the in-season recruiting cycle.
In recent years, the recruiting period between August and September has been a proverbial bloodbath, with flips and de-commitments coming left and right.
However, even with all the chaos surrounding the coaching vacancies at multiple top-tier programs in college football, the recruiting classes of those schools have been, by and large, fairly locked in.
While I would love to pretend that these kids are "committed to the logo" and are "1000% ready to be a Tiger/Gator," I am far from naive enough to believe that for a second.
The reality of the situation is that NIL has made it easier for programs to hold their recruiting classes intact when compared to years past.
Oh, sure, there will definitely be kids who decide to look elsewhere, be it for monetary reasons or otherwise.
But gone are the days of big-time programs firing a coach and seeing other teams raid their current recruiting classes.
It's easier for schools to lock players into place with compensation plans and deals that are more binding than just a verbal commitment these days.
This is both a positive and negative development for first-year coaches, too.
On the positive side of things, between the lack of de-commitments and the advent of the transfer portal, coaches will no longer deal with the bare-bones nature of a first-year roster like some of their predecessors did.
However, this eliminates the "excuses" that have been used for rebuilds in the past, where coaches could handwave disastrous results in their first year because of a lack of depth or a "transition class" in recruiting.
There are a lot of negatives associated with this era of transient players and playing for the highest bidder, but it looks like this hiring cycle could offer us a glimpse into brighter days and a positive direction for college football.