Some pretty crazy numbers have been thrown out there privately and that accounts for a lot of the hedging I was doing in last night's post.
What I was told Friday was that there was about $5-6 million in the football war chest last Friday.
While the number has not yet hit eight-figures, a source I trust confirmed to me that it's higher than it was Friday and put it this way: "The total amount changes with each day and conversation."
I think they have plenty of momentum here and (my opinion, but not without reason I really can't get into) I believe they will hit eight figures for football-only NIL.
As an aside: I talked to my most skeptical (and generally, most accurate) source on Friday. I posed the question, "For argument's sake, what if Vanderbilt had a Georgia-like NIL budget, which has been alleged to be $20 million or so? Could Vanderbilt win in football with those resources?"
The answer I got was a quick and unqualified, "yes." The source told me that even with the academic restrictions, Vanderbilt could get enough players in school because it would speak to commitment level, and that it lost out on such players in the past, including players who were Rhodes Scholars and had successful at big football powers (and beyond) who they could never really have a chance at because, bottom line, recruits want to win football games and can also get educations elsewhere.
When James Franklin was at Vanderbilt, David Williams gave him a ton of stuff and talked about "making this too big to fail."
If I'm Vanderbilt, that's how I'm thinking with NIL. I'd stop aiming to just be competitive and aim to be at the top of the heap with the best. And I don't know how to handicap the odds they get there because this has all happened so quickly and there are two tremendously conflicting things in play here (the thought that they'll just never get there because they're Vanderbilt and it's hard to sell vs. what's actually happened in recent weeks) but I don't think it's impossible with the right vision and persuasion.
Again, time will tell. Until then, it's talk, but in this case there has actually been action to where they have an NIL budget that would have made them competitive by last year's standards.
And so we wait and see.
What I was told Friday was that there was about $5-6 million in the football war chest last Friday.
While the number has not yet hit eight-figures, a source I trust confirmed to me that it's higher than it was Friday and put it this way: "The total amount changes with each day and conversation."
I think they have plenty of momentum here and (my opinion, but not without reason I really can't get into) I believe they will hit eight figures for football-only NIL.
As an aside: I talked to my most skeptical (and generally, most accurate) source on Friday. I posed the question, "For argument's sake, what if Vanderbilt had a Georgia-like NIL budget, which has been alleged to be $20 million or so? Could Vanderbilt win in football with those resources?"
The answer I got was a quick and unqualified, "yes." The source told me that even with the academic restrictions, Vanderbilt could get enough players in school because it would speak to commitment level, and that it lost out on such players in the past, including players who were Rhodes Scholars and had successful at big football powers (and beyond) who they could never really have a chance at because, bottom line, recruits want to win football games and can also get educations elsewhere.
When James Franklin was at Vanderbilt, David Williams gave him a ton of stuff and talked about "making this too big to fail."
If I'm Vanderbilt, that's how I'm thinking with NIL. I'd stop aiming to just be competitive and aim to be at the top of the heap with the best. And I don't know how to handicap the odds they get there because this has all happened so quickly and there are two tremendously conflicting things in play here (the thought that they'll just never get there because they're Vanderbilt and it's hard to sell vs. what's actually happened in recent weeks) but I don't think it's impossible with the right vision and persuasion.
Again, time will tell. Until then, it's talk, but in this case there has actually been action to where they have an NIL budget that would have made them competitive by last year's standards.
And so we wait and see.
