Former Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer this week told the "Lou Holtz Show" that he believes NIL in college football has essentially become a way of cheating.
"If you're a woman basketball player like the great girl from Iowa and they want to put her on a billboard and pay her, they should be able to do that," Meyer said. "But that's not what happened. What's happened is the arms race of collecting money from donors and the donors are simply paying players. That's what I understand is happening, and I don't like that."
Meyer last coached college football during the 2018 season when college players were not allowed to profit from their name image and likeness.
"If Lou Holtz or Urban Meyer or Marvin Harrison Jr., or C.J. Stroud, they want to go use their name and help sell cars, help a business, that's great," Meyer said. "But to have a 17-year-old demand money for a visit, to pay these players a lot of money to go visit a charity for 20 minutes and they write you a check for $50,000, that's cheating. That's not what this is all about. I'm very disappointed in where it went."
Meyer reiterated that he doesn't believe the true spirit of NIL is being realized.
"There's these things called collectives where they go out and get money from donors and get this big, giant mass of money and they pay players," he said. "That's not what the intent is."
