As ZERO and the transfer portal continue to change the fabric of college football, but there is a newer trend where players opt out of the season after four games and take a redshirt – with the intention of transferring. The most recent case was UNLV quarterback Matt Slukaapparently due to lack of the promised NIL payment.

And the whole matter was the topic of discussion at the SEC coaches’ conference call on Wednesday. And neither LSU’s Brian Kelly or Georgia’s Kirby Smart I think that even without revenue sharing, there is a lot that can be done to put an end to this new phenomenon.

“With the NIL, you lose control because it becomes a third-party entity,” Kelly said. “And that’s why revenue sharing is so important, and passing this bill brings that back to the universities. And now those contracts can be worded very differently. When you’re dealing with a third party and collectives and NILs, the universities are at arm’s length. And that’s why it’s much harder to find the kind of language that’s necessary to make sure that maybe a quarterback doesn’t leave in the middle of the season or, you know, a player doesn’t opt ​​to play in a particular bowl game. Revenue sharing changes the dynamic.”

Smart, speaking immediately after Kelly, agreed.

“I can tell you that I don’t think this will be the last time, and that we’re moving into this abyss of the unknown. And I’m talking about financial responsibility, financial obligations, financial promises. Sometimes people make promises, and I know I’ve encountered this in our recruitment, that they can’t keep them and there’s no — sometimes there’s no rebuttal for the athlete,” Smart said. “Sometimes there’s no rebuttal for the athletic department or the collective or whoever is involved. And it’s sad that there isn’t just a better way to better control that. Because it’s unfortunate, and if — I’m not saying that UNLV has made promises that they can’t keep. I’m not saying that. I don’t know that situation. I want to be clear about that.”

He further pointed out that revenue sharing alone would not solve the problem, but would give schools the opportunity to include contractual wording that would protect them.

“I say that’s happening more and more and will happen more and more as we get closer to that revenue share. I feel like unless there’s a contract and a set contract where person A has to stay a certain amount of time or has to pay the contract back, we’re never going to get to where we want to be,” Smart said. “That’s probably going to happen more and more, especially as the year goes on, in November and December. Athletic departments are going to struggle to meet their commitments and I think we’re going to end up seeing really tough times in college football.”

Kelly also believes that revenue sharing and the contractual controls that schools could then implement would be the biggest step forward in solving much of this problem.

In addition, Kelly also spoke about the need for players and families to receive advice from real, certified agents.

“First of all, you should never give out your name, image and likeness exclusively,” Kelly said. “You should stick to that. And I think that’s the first thing. I think the second thing is that when we talk to the young men, we want to make sure that when we talk about agents, that they are certified. And I know that’s difficult in most cases, but a certified agent versus someone who’s doing this on the side — those should be a red flag for families and they should be very, very cautious about signing anything if they’re not a certified agent. Or if they want your name, image and likeness and those are the things I think we try to convey when we have the young men on our campus.”