Three-Point Stance: Fickell vs. Rhule, UTSA, Congress and NIL
Rivals national recruiting analyst Greg Smith shares his thoughts on a budding recruiting rivalry between Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell and Nebraska coach Matt Rhule. Smith also weighs in on UTSA coach Jett Traylor trying to prevent his players getting poached from other programs and whether Congress should get involved with NIL rules and regulations.
MORE THREE-POINT STANCE: Title contenders, potential No. 1 prospects, NIL
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1. Recruiting rivalry between Fickell, Rhule heating up.
Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell and Nebraska coach Matt Rhule are going to be linked during their tenures at the respective schools. The programs already have a little rivalry going. Wisconsin was largely built in the same style as Nebraska, with former Husker Barry Alvarez running the show for many years.
Fickell was linked to the Nebraska job this offseason, so the comparisons will remain. Don’t look now, but there is a fun race brewing in the Big Ten West for the recruiting crown.
MORE BIG TEN WEST: Sleeper commitments in 2024
I’m not sure if people have noticed nationally yet, but Fickell’s first full class in Madison is off to a blazing start. Wisconsin’s class currently sits at No. 12 in the country. There are eight four-star players in the 2024 recruiting class for the Badgers right now. That ties the most the program has had in any class (2021) and is the highest mark since 2014. Fickell is upgrading the talent in Madison, and he is doing so quickly.
Rhule has Nebraska sitting at No. 20 in the team rankings. The Huskers have five four-stars in the class right now which is pretty average. But it’s notable the run that the program has been on this summer. The commitment list had eight players heading into June but gained 16 during June and early July. This was capped off recently with Nebraska landing a verbal pledge from the No. 1 player in Hawaii, four-star Preston Taumua.
Both teams still have high-value targets on the board for this cycle, so these numbers will change. If the early returns are any sign these two programs will recruit well under the new coaches.
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2. UTSA coach Jeff Traylor's unique player poaching solution.
UTSA is a very successful program, having won back-to-back conference championships. That success comes at a cost. Assistant coaches are getting poached left and right from coach Jeff Traylor’s program. Two years ago the team lost its offensive and defensive coordinators. Last offseason the co-offensive coordinators bolted.
Today’s college football world is different. It’s become more common for players of these programs to get poached by teams in the Power Five. Traylor explained his strategy for dealing with this at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention on Monday.
"I'm not just going to roll over and let them have my kids," Traylor said. "I'm going to say, 'Hey Sam, my kid came in here and screen-shotted you hitting him up. He's on my roster right now. What are you doing, Sam?' '"
This approach helped him keep seven of the eight players that were allegedly being poached by other schools. The one player that the team lost was wide receiver Zahkari Franklin. He transferred to Ole Miss after racking up 94 catches for 1,136 yards and 15 scores.
If more lower-tier coaches are this transparent and start naming names of coaches stealing players we might get some reform in the college football transfer rules. Good for Traylor for protecting what he’s built at UTSA.
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3. Congress shouldn't get involved with NIL.
Whenever something new is introduced in college football unintended consequences pop up. We’ve seen that with several things recently. That includes the transfer portal, Early Signing Period and, of course, NIL.
There is an emerging rallying cry from some power brokers in college football, saying we need federal regulation to save the threat to the college sports model that NIL presents. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was the latest to voice that opinion during SEC Media Days.
Congress hasn’t shown much stomach for wanting to get involved, and to that I say "good."
This is all largely a problem of the NCAA’s doing. Of course, the state laws were not going to be uniform around NIL. It was obvious that schools would use boosters to try landing the top recruits in the country. The NCAA and commissioners should have come together ahead of time to figure out a way to compensate athletes. Instead they waited and don't like the system. They were forced into the system we have now. Which is confusing and messy.
The NCAA spent decades trying to stop any progress in this area of the sport. College athletics has been a big business for a long time. Had it been run that way maybe they wouldn’t be looking to Congress to bail them out with a Hail Mary.