NIL remains at the forefront

During his team’s time on the podium Wednesday, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was asked what changes, if any, he’d make to the current NIL landscape.

“There’s got to be a lid on it, right?” Narduzzi said. “I think everybody wants to play under the same rules. The National Football League, they have a salary cap. I think you want to have some type of salary cap. This is what you are allowed to spend, but you can’t have universities that maybe have 75,000 students, those guys are all former alumni at some point. When you have 16,000 … it’s going to matter.”

While many had mixed reactions toward Narduzzi’s comments, he was far from the only coach to weigh in on the topic of NIL. North Carolina coach and College Football Hall of Famer Mack Brown voiced his displeasure with how some programs are using NIL opportunities to tamper in recruitment and through the transfer portal.

“I don’t think it could get any worse,” Brown told ACC Network. “It was awful the first two years. People were just absolutely paying cash to get guys off your team. That’s not what we’re doing. You don’t need to recruit a guy and then have to recruit him twice. I’m having to say in recruiting, ‘Let’s recruit guys that, when they play really good, they’re not going to leave us.’ That’s a huge part of this.”

Phillips took time during his forum Tuesday to highlight areas of NIL that he believes require federal legislation. His four areas of focus were pay-for-play, NIL involvement in recruiting, illegitimate opportunities and illegitimate representation for athletes.