Yeah, it's an article about Lord Bruce, but it's focusing on NIL at Auburn. So, I put it here. Interesting piece from On3, but the highlights part is pretty much what I thought/feared it would become.
Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl is doing his best to adapt to the way NIL has shifted the college sports landscape without abandoning what has made him successful in the past. Pearl, along with Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze, were in Washington D.C. earlier this month to lobby for NIL uniformity.
Currently, differing laws from state-to-state have made it difficult for some schools to compete when they are operating under a separate set of rules. Auburn’s NIL collective, On To Victory, has done its best to keep up.
According to On3‘s Pete Nakos, On To Victory ranks No. 12 among the country’s most ambitious NIL collectives. The collective reportedly raised more than $10 million in the first month of its 30 for 3 campaign in September and has facilitated 250 deals across 13 sports since July 2022. Still, Pearl admitted Auburn is far from where it wants to be.
“Thanks to On To Victory, we are able to compete in the NIL space, but we are not leading it,” he said in a one-on-one interview with AuburnLive. “That fact is going to create a leveler playing field in league competition. That’s the biggest difference. A few years ago, Bruce Pearl expectations, our program was elevated above everybody else’s. Sure, maybe Kentucky (matched us). Tennessee. We’re right there. NIL’s played a big, big factor in leveling the playing field.”
After taking over in the 2014-15 season, Pearl led Auburn to its first Final Four in program history by 2019. He following that up with a 25-6 record and again led the Tigers to a 28-6 finish and No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
This past season, however, Auburn saw a slight drop down in the SEC standings to finish seventh and earn a No. 9 seed. Pearl pointed to the fact that the NIL has made it easier for teams near the bottom of the conference to “get it going” by bringing in transfers and added an entirely new element to recruiting. Missouri, for example, went from 12-21 to 25-10 in a one-year span largely on the backs of talented transfers it brought in.
As things continue to change, Bruce Pearl is learning to use NIL to his advantage as well. That said, he also wants to keep some of the same practices in place that he had before without making it too much about the money.
“With NIL and the transfer portal now, there’s a shift,” he said. “It is way easier for anybody to get something going. It’s easier to do what I’ve done than to it is to keep doing what I’ve done. It’s easier to get it going than it is to keep it going. Now with NIL, we’ve got people that can get it going in a hurry. The teams at the bottom of our league are all playing really, really hard in that space. So now in recruiting, it’s not about player development as much. It’s not about winning championships. It’s not about sellout crowds, not about College GameDay, not about Neville Arena, not about our culture.
“All of the things that were the foundation for the development of our program, which aren’t gonna change under me. I’m old school. That stuff still matters. Our work ethic, the kind of guys that we bring in here, praying before our meals, loving our country, being Auburn men. That’s the foundation of our program.”
As the NIL landscape continues to evolve, Pearl and the Tigers are doing their best to keep up. They’ve already brought in a pair of transfer in guard Denver Jones and forward Chaney Johnson this offseason.
Pearl knows other teams in the league are also trying to stay on top, and it will be a competitive space regardless of what changes. However, he’s hopeful his strategy of mixing the old with the new can prove effective.
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