The present state of a wild landscape – with liberalized player movement fueled by name, image and likeness (NIL) cash – is daunting enough.
“There’s a lot going on in college football, and the NCAA has just washed their hands and they walk away,” Sanders said during a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Sports. “As long as they collect those checks, they walk away instead of saying, ‘OK, we’ve got to do something about this.’ Because if you don’t, it’s going to keep spiraling.”
Sure, there’s the $2.8 billion settlement of a class-action lawsuit by athletes against the NCAA and five major conferences being considered for final approval by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, which would allow schools to pay at least $20.5 million directly to athletes in Year 1. Yet count Sanders, heading into his third season as Colorado coach, in the camp of skeptics who contend that the settlement won’t level the playing field because NIL payments through third-party agents would still provide a huge advantage for schools with the deepest donor pockets.
Suggestions?
“There should be some kind of cap,” Sanders said, referring to NIL payments. “Our game should emulate the NFL game in every aspect. Rules. Regulations. Whatever the NFL rules, the college rules should be the same. There should be a cap and every team gets this, and you should be able to spend that.”
Such a salary cap, Sanders envisions, would adjust with different conferences and levels of competition, based on revenues.
If you’ve followed Sanders over his remarkable career, his idea for a solution is hardly surprising. Going way back, the man has been an out-of-the-box thinker. Now, as he navigates the college coaching ranks – and with quick success, taking over a program that was 1-11 in 2022 and turning it into a 9-4 campaign last season that included a bowl-game berth – he is willing to use his stature and platform to promote change.
Another idea: Compensate HBCU schools for losing players.
“If we take a kid from an HBCU, we should have to compensate that school, man,” said Sanders, with the perspective of coaching at an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), as he revitalized the program at Jackson State before moving to Colorado. “You’ve taken a kid and not given them nothing for it. That’s not fair, because they can’t compete with you in terms of the solicitation of the kid.
“It’s almost like how the Negro Leagues were dissolved. They started taking (Black players in the Major Leagues), and no one compensated the Negro Leagues. If you take them but compensate the schools, now we’ve still got breath. Now I can use that to get something else.”
Given the passion expressed with his range of ideas, maybe Coach Prime, as he’s called, is destined to someday become a commissioner.
“I’m too honest to be commissioner,” he deflected. “I’ll have said something I’m not supposed to say.”
Sanders, whose squad will stage its annual Black-and-Gold game on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2), wanted to join forces with Syracuse coach Fran Brown to bring their teams together for a spring game, similar to an NFL preseason contest. Maybe next year. The NCAA considered, then shot down the novel idea, deeming it as a “competitive advantage.”
Sanders doesn’t buy that reasoning when considering the flow with NIL payouts. Never mind that at least 12 major programs won’t have the once-popular spring games.
“The competitive advantage is the school that has hundreds of millions of dollars, and not us,” he said. “You look at who’s always in the playoffs, you can look at their budget and look at this budget. That’s the advantage, not who has the autonomy to do a spring game.”
Defending national champion Ohio State reportedly spent $42 million last season on player and coaches’ salaries. And Sanders grumbles that the $20 million that some schools spend on their freshmen classes exceeds the entire amount at other schools.
This, while the biggest storyline in college football in recent days has revolved around emerging quarterback Nico Iamaleava’s split from Tennessee after reportedly seeking to significantly increase the $2.4 million payout he was due.
Sanders, who recently signed a five-year, $54 million extension that makes him one of college football’s highest-paid coaches, chuckled when asked what he might have commanded in NIL deals during his career at Florida State in the late 1980s. He buffeted his All-America talent with his “Neon Deion” persona to increase his marketability.
No, even with the turmoil and consequences attached to the college football landscape, Sanders hardly wants the system to revert back to yesteryear.
And Sanders – who during the heyday of his Hall of Fame NFL career made a music video called “Must Be the Money” – surely supports the shift to paying college players.
“You like it, but you don’t love it,” he said. “You like it because you want these guys to be compensated. You want these guys to have a tremendous head start on life. You want these guys to understand finances, financial literacy. You want them to understand that this is game-changing money, just in case you don’t fulfill that dream of being a professional football player. You have something of a head start in life.
“But there’s so much that goes with that because you’ve got to prepare. Some of them squander it. Instantly. And it’s not healthy for some because now it’s not just the kid, but parents are involved as well. Don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of great parents out there. But it’s a different game out there right now, with some of the parents being agents, doing representation.”
A different game, Sanders will tell you, that begs for some different rules of engagement.
Follow Jarrett Bell on social media: @JarrettBell