It's a new world in college athletics since the House v NCAA settlement that officially ushered in the era of revenue sharing and paying players. At the Big 12 Football Media Days this week, many coaches were asked about what this new world looks like.
The common theme? Things are better now, but only by default. Many coaches are still unclear on what exactly the landscape of college athletics will look like in this new era, and Kenny Dillingham was especially blunt in an interview with Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.
"We don’t know the rules. The settlement passed, but who knows what Deloitte is going to clear. Until there is clarity, you’re living in limbo.
You are seeing a lot of people lie and promise fake things."
With the advent of universities now being allowed to directly pay players, there is still a lot of uncertainty on what the rules actually are. While there is a sort of spending cap in place, nobody seems to know exactly what it is or how it will be enforced.
As a result, or perhaps in spite of it, teams have supposedly been offering dollar amounts to players that can't possibly be permissible under such a cap. Dillingham, who coaches at his alma mater and has often expressed a desire to lead Arizona State for the rest of his career, outlined the issues other programs are displaying right now.
"Most places are so win now and most coaches aren’t at a place they want to stay at. Either you’re at the top, and it’s win now or as long as you can. Or you’re at a place where it’s win now and you can leave and get out. The front-loading allowed coaches to win now to take another job.
But at the end of the day, all these people who front-loaded, eventually, you’re gonna have to tell players they have to take less. You may have set a standard for what people should be paid. Your starters may expect a certain amount of money when in reality they cannot functionally earn that amount of money if you want to build a team."
With professional services giant Deloitte put in charge of managing NIL deals and revenue share payment processes, Dillingham foresees problems coming soon for teams that are writing checks Deloitte won't cash.
"I don’t know how Deloitte is going to act, but I know there are some future challenges where people don’t get the money that they were told they’d get."
Dillingham, for the record, has publicly maintained that he does not believe in paying players right out of high school but instead wants players to come to Arizona State and earn their paychecks in Tempe.
It sounds as if the problems he's outlining are not a concern for him and his program personally, but Dillingham is displeased with the misleading offers his competitors are putting out there. Surely there will be added clarity to how all of this works in the coming months.