Jeremiah Smith, the Ohio State Buckeyes’ standout wide receiver put together a stunning season in 2024. He caught 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 TDs. He has become one of the popular names in college football due to his numbers.

Now, he is going viral once again due to his recent eye-popping yet puzzling NIL deal announcement with Mark Wahlberg Auto Group.

Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith Signs NIL Deal With Mark Wahlberg Auto Group As His $4M Portfolio Continues To Grow

As WR Jeremiah Smith gets ready for his second year with the Ohio State Buckeyes, he took to his Instagram to share a major announcement. He has secured a NIL deal with the Mark Wahlberg Auto Group, a local car dealership brand, owned by actor Mark Wahlberg.

Jeremiah posted a picture of himself in front of a black Mercedes, announcing that he is joining the group in a partnership. No financial details have been released just yet, but we do know that Smith’s total evaluation is somewhere around $4 million, according to On3.

This is not the first time that the WR is linked with a stunning NIL deal. He already has a great NIL portfolio, props to his earlier deals with many prestigious companies. Some of those names include The 1870 Society, Red Bull, Nintendo, Battle Sports, and more.

While Smith’s arrival had a fast impact on the Buckeyes, he was quick to play a crucial role within the team. In the upcoming season, the WR will be under much more pressure to produce at an even higher level than he did as a freshman. With the departure of Will Howard, it is his moment to step up and be more important for whoever wins the job.

BONUS BUCKEYE BUZZ: How Wide Is the Gap Between Jeremiah Smith and Ryan Williams?

As thing stand, the Buckeyes are expected to have either Lincoln Kienholz or Julian Sayin as their starting quarterback this year. No matter who gets picked, they will have one of the best WRs right now to throw to.

Analysts and fans will be closely monitoring the performance of Smith to see if he can elevate his game even further. Jeremiah’s talent along with his new NIL Deal places him as one of the integral figure for Ohio State, making him one to watch as he aims to transform potential into performance in the forthcoming season.

College Sports Network has you covered with the latest news, analysis, insights, and trending stories in college football, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, and college baseball!

Liberty head coach Dot Richardson and players KK Madrey, Rachel Roupe, Elena Escobar, and Paige Doerr met with the media Tuesday as the Lady Flames prepare to head to College Station, Texas to begin play in the College Station Regional where No. 1 overall seed Texas A&M is the host. Liberty opens up against Marist on Friday afternoon in the double elimination tournament.

Dot Richardson

KK Madrey, Rachel Roupe, Elena Escobar, Paige Doerr

CLEMSON, S.C. — Dabo Swinney’s massive office is clean and tidy, but along the walls, the shelf space is noticeably tight.  Not many coaches stick around at a job this long — 17 years — and the trophies, plaques, framed pictures and championship rings he has accumulated as Clemson’s head coach have piled up, and the collection is beginning to melt into the shadows of the nooks and crannies.

Outside these four walls, the college football world continues to evolve, challenging Swinney’s touchstones. Yet, he remains steadfast in the storm, winning the ACC last season, his eighth title in 10 years, after a slight lull that coincided with the legalization of the portal and NIL payments to players. The two-time national champion has often criticized the transfer portal, high-paying NIL deals and the slow march toward professionalization of the sport, but he is downright giddy on this day in late April. 

“I’m probably having more fun these past few years than I’ve had in a long time because I like the challenge,” Swinney told CBS Sports. “Challenge is fun. I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to lead in college football than right now.”

Fun? No better time for college football? Are we sure this is the same Dabo who famously said 10 years ago he would leave the sport if college athletics were professionalized?

“We’ve been affected, but we’re probably a three on a scale of 10,” Swinney said. “I feel bad for a lot of places and a lot of people out there, I really do. But I’m thankful and grateful for what we have here.”

What this small program with seemingly unlimited potential has accomplished in Swinney’s 17 years (and counting) is remarkable and somewhat flies in the face of what is expected at a program like Clemson. As cynics and rivals mock Clemson’s “family” atmosphere, Swinney’s long-winded, genuine and unfiltered opinions, the Tigers just keep winning with his three pillars: education, discipline and accountability. 

“I know the fit here,” Swinney said. “We’re looking for people who align with who we are and what we’re about.”

The formula has worked, and it may have Clemson on the cusp of an incredible rebound as Swinney approaches 20 years on the job. After a three-year downturn in production and wins, Clemson is primed to begin next fall ranked in the top five, with some voters expected to slot the Tigers at No. 1. Clemson returns the nation’s most productive roster that won the ACC and reached the College Football Playoff last season, a rebound from a 2023 season that saw the lowest win total in 13 years.

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Tom Fornelli

“We still have the pain of two years ago in us,” said Cade Klubnik, who heads into his third year as the starting quarterback. “We keep living off of that every day.”

The Tigers are in this position because they never wavered from Swinney’s “old-school” thinking. They don’t depend on transfer portal stars (five signees in four years). They don’t pay freshmen millions of dollars in NIL contracts. “We’re never going to outbid anybody for a freshman,” Swinney said. They don’t throw a wide net on the recruiting trail like most programs that offer hundreds of scholarships to players. The Tigers have offered only 70 scholarships this year, by far the lowest total in the country.

“A lot of times people have the skill set, but they don’t have the mindset or the heart to match the skill set,” he said. “That, to me, is the secret sauce, and that’s what we’ve done better than anything is connecting those things.”

Swinney isn’t necessarily reluctant to change. After all, he did relent and sign three players from the portal in the offseason. The NIL program here is healthy, too, though upperclassmen are paid much more than their younger teammates.  “Reward performance as opposed to potential,” he said.

Again, not every player values development over a fast payday, so Swinney is selective in who he recruits.

“Who cares about money?” said Klubnik. “Just love the process, love the game, and if you’re good at your job, they’ll repay you for that. But you’ve got to love the job, you can’t just love everything else. That’s what it comes down to.”

The math checks out. For all the criticism and cynicism outside Clemson, Swinney has managed to win despite the analytics and recruiting rankings — 13th nationally on average — by identifying talent that fits his “family” atmosphere. More importantly, he keeps players on campus and develops them over the span of three to four years in an era when more than 20% of rosters are filled with players from the portal.

“If 2 plus 2 equals 4 at Clemson, we ain’t winning,” Swinney loves to say. “2 plus 2 has got to equal 10 here. The only way that happens is if you get it yoked together. You’ve gotta have alignment, true belief and appreciation for each other.”

Klubnik is undoubtedly an example. Pressure mounted on Swinney to bench DJ Uiagalelei in 2022, but he stuck with the veteran while Klubnik, a five-star quarterback, remained silent even as his time off the bench proved more productive than Uiagalelei’s inconsistent performances. Sensing frustration, programs attempted to coax Klubnik to enter the transfer portal.

“I didn’t even entertain it,” he said. “I put my nose in the dirt, sacrificed a lot, gave up a lot, cut out everything else and just went to work. That was it. I took a big step.”

When Klubnik finally got his shot in 2023, the Tigers won nine games, the lowest total in 13 years. His passer rating ranked 10th in the ACC, second-to-last among full-time starting quarterbacks in the league. Clemson won nine games — a high watermark for most programs, but not at Clemson, which advanced to the CFP six straight times and won it twice before a three-year lull.

“This time last year, everybody wanted me to fire him and go get a hot shot out of the portal,” Swinney said. “Now they say he’s a first-rounder and Heisman guy. It’s amazing.”

No doubt, Klubnik improved last season, just as highly touted receivers Antonio Williams, Bryant Wesco, Jr. and T.J. Moore broke through as freshmen and sophomores, erasing several seasons of frustration with since-departed upperclassmen. Klubnik threw 36 touchdowns, second only to Miami’s Cam Ward in the ACC, and was picked off only six times.

Clemson defeated SMU with a walk-off field goal in the ACC title game, handing the Mustangs their first and only loss against an ACC opponent. The Tigers advanced to play Texas in the CFP, losing 38-24 in the first round. Klubnik, an Austin, Texas, native, returned home after the game to spend time with family and disconnect from football. There was just one problem: Austin was abuzz about the Longhorns’ trip to the CFP’s quarterfinals, and everywhere he turned in town was a burnt orange reminder of the loss.

“I didn’t really want to go home. I was pissed,” Klubnik said. “I’m an ultra competitor. I hate to lose more than anything.”

Swinney knows the feeling but also what can transpire after a team falls short of its goals. He points to Clemson’s first playoff appearance in 2015, when the undefeated Tigers advanced to the championship game, only to lose a thrilling shootout against Alabama. Clemson returned the favor a year later, winning the program’s first national title since 1981. The Tigers won it again two years later.

“Your core players, your best players, your leaders, have all felt it. They’ve smelled it,” Swinney said. “They didn’t quite get to the top, but they got to see it and that experience is palpable. It’s one thing to think you’re good enough, it’s another thing to know that you are. If anything, they know they’re good enough.”

Sixteen starters return on offense and defense, which means anything less than an ACC title — the Tigers are currently favorites to win the league (+155), according to DraftKings Sportsbook — and appearance in the CFP will be marked as a failure by critics who have labeled Swinney an easy target in this new era. Those naysayers have decided to tie the program’s slight slide over the last four years to Swinney’s reluctance to lean into the portal. The Tigers have won an average of 11.9 games in the previous 10 years but have lost three or more games in each of the last four years. The dip has coincided with the advent of NIL and the portal.

“Even these past few years, I just kinda laugh at it,” Swinney said. “All these narratives and all these things, and all we do is we won eight ACC titles in 10 years and been to the playoffs seven times in the past 10 years.”

The fast-talking, long-winded good ol’ boy from Alabama always has a lengthy list of stats, facts and figures on the ready to prove a point. No active coach has produced more first-round picks in the NFL Draft (18) than he has, he reminds a reporter. The Tigers’ graduation success rate (99%) last year was the sport’s highest in 20 years. Clemson is also the second-winningest program over the previous 16 years behind only Alabama.

First-round NFL Draft picks under Dabo Swinney

“The more complicated and chaotic, the more you lean on your core values, the more you lean on your fundamentals, and you go back to the basics,” Swinney said. “That’s what we’ve done here. We’ve got a special place with special kids. I know people write a lot of narratives. Everybody can have their own opinions, but they can’t have their own facts, and the facts are well documented.”

As for the portal? Well, Swinney doesn’t depend on it because he doesn’t need it. As some teams lose 30-plus transfers in the offseason, Clemson thrives. Only eight players departed this year. 

“There’s a line between conviction and stubbornness, but he’s adaptable and changeable to the times that are required,” Clemson athletics director Graham Neff said. “He threads that needle better than any coach I’ve seen.”

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Chip Patterson

Swinney’s staff has remained steady most years as well. He quickly points out that every coordinator he has hired has won at least one championship. However, he made the difficult decision to fire defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin in the offseason, replacing him with Penn State’s Tom Allen, after the Tigers struggled on run defense and gave up too many explosive plays despite winning an ACC title.

“He’s morally grounded and his priorities are different,” said senior left tackle Tristan Leigh. “He doesn’t look at us like we’re football machines. I hear the same things at 22 that I heard from coach when I was 16. He preaches holistic development and he stands on it. That’s what makes him different.”

The 55-year-old Swinney, who walked on as a receiver at Alabama in 1989, has been at Clemson for 23 years. He spent six years as an assistant before he was promoted from receivers coach to head coach when Tommy Bowden resigned in the middle of the 2008 season. Swinney’s vision hasn’t changed much since then, and he sees no reason to slow down with Clemson on the rise again. 

“Most people don’t even get to be a head coach until they get in their 50s,” Swinney said. “Heck, I think I’m younger right now than when coach (Nick) Saban took the Alabama job, and he coached 17 years. I love what I do, I love coaching, I love teaching, I love developing and I love seeing young people change their lives.”

As the amateur model of college athletics disintegrates, a handful of unusual ideas have been floated as ways to reign in some of the chaos surrounding the explosion in name, image and likeness compensation and a transfer portal that sees thousands of athletes changing schools every season.

Whether any of the ideas end up being implemented is unknown and every school is awaiting a decision from a federal judge on whether a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement against the NCAA and the five largest conferences will take effect as early as July 1. If it does, that opens the floodgates for schools to share millions in revenue directly with their athletes amid a host of other changes.

Here is a look at some of the topics:

Athlete contracts

A formal agreement between an athlete and a school is not a new concept, but with the uptick of NIL deals the thought of pro-style contracts is becoming increasingly more common.

There are plenty of ways to get creative with contracts. Rich Stankewicz, operations director for Penn State’s NIL collective Happy Valley United, said he favors an incentive-based approach — essentially adding money for athletes who not only perform but stick around.

“I personally really like the idea of incentivizing performance in school, those kinds of things that would only be occurring in the season while they’re playing,” Stankewicz said. “If more money is paid out in those time frames, then that gives the incentive for the player to stay and see those dollars from their contract, rather than potentially collect up front and then decide the grass is greener somewhere else three months later, barely doing any school, you know, without playing at all.”

Transfers and buyouts

This topic is red hot at the moment. Entering the transfer portal comes with the risk of not landing in a better spot — or any spot — but athletes have shown every single season over the past few years that they are comfortable going anyway. Athletic departments are beginning to fight back.

Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek recently encouraged the school’s NIL collective to pursue legal action after quarterback Madden Iamaleava departed for UCLA after just five months in Fayetteville. Iamaleava allegedly collected significant money upfront and cited homesickness as his reason for following his brother to California.

This is a scenario Penn State hopes to avoid. And the importance of contract details is clear.

“Commonly, there’s nothing binding students in certain instances to the institution they’re with for the entirety of the contract,” Stankewicz said. “We’ve definitely looked into having measures in place to discourage transfers during the time of the contract. There are a bunch of different ways to do that, from buyouts to how you load the contract.”

Athletes as employees

Groundbreaking shifts in the landscape have sparked conversations about athletes becoming official employees of their universities.

It’s a controversial subject to say the least. Universities would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation and schools and conferences have insisted they will fight any such move in court (some already have).

Complexities go beyond the concept. While private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state and it’s worth noting that virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.

There is also a new administration in power now, said Michael LeRoy, a labor and employment professor at Illinois who has studied the NCAA and athlete rights.

“With the election of Donald Trump, and what that would mean for a new National Labor Relations Board, what that would mean for repopulating the courts with judges who are likely not congenial to that view, I no longer have much hope that we’ll get a ruling in the next 5-10 years that these are employees,” LeRoy said.

Despite the lack of employment status, LeRoy said, athletes should advocate for themselves and use the entertainment industry as a model. He said athletes currently are offered “take-it-or-leave-it” NIL contracts when a broader approach might have benefits.

“I think athletes should start to look at Hollywood and Broadway contracting arrangements that deal with publicity rights,” he said. “I think there’s a way to frame this collectively. The framework of collective bargaining and employment, I would say, the entertainment industry generally offers a blueprint for success.”

Playing for another school

Things are so chaotic right now that the very lines of who an athlete is playing for could get blurred.

Saying he was inspired by the NBA’s G League, University of Albany basketball coach Dwayne Killings is proposing a two-way contract for college players. Albany would welcome transfers from top-tier programs who need more seasoning and help them develop — with plenty of game time vs. sitting on the bench — before sending them back to their original program, where they’d be ready to compete.

“The best development happens on the floor, not necessarily on the scout team, given the new 15-man scholarship limits,” Killings told CBS Sports.

And then there is Division III, which recently approved an unusual pilot program: Athletes would play for one school but do their coursework at another school that does not sponsor varsity athletics.

The NCAA said the program, which would run during the next academic year, “will offer expanded pathways for student-athletes to pursue their academic objectives and complete their participation opportunity.”

“This program intends to address the changing, dynamic higher education environment we find ourselves in right now,” said Jim Troha, president of Juniata and chairman of the DIII President’s Council. “It recognizes existing academic programs and provides flexibility to expand participation opportunities for student-athletes.”

The program will be assessed before any decisions on whether to make it permanent or expand it.

In years past, early May was when Austin Freese’s phone would light up with calls from university athletic departments. Lately, though, it’s been unusually quiet.

Freese is the international tour coordinator for Sport Tours International, a Milwaukee-based travel company that organizes college basketball tournaments in the U.S. and oversees international trips for NCAA teams—excursions permitted by the governing body once every four years.

But as of last week, Sport Tours International had only three foreign tours booked for this coming summer, and Freese thinks he’ll be “lucky” to end up with five. That would mark a steep drop from prior years. Heading into the summer of 2020, for instance, the company had lined up 18 college trips before the COVID-19 pandemic brought them, and most everything else, to a halt.

In the years immediately following the pandemic, there was a surge in demand, fueling a wave of summer college team travel over three consecutive offseasons. But that momentum now appears to be tapering off.

Among other factors, a mix of shifting player priorities and growing financial constraints within athletic departments has contributed to the decline in foreign travel plans—particularly among Division I basketball teams. Industry insiders are now wondering whether this is more than a temporary pause.

Since college athlete NIL compensation was permitted in July 2021, athlete payments have become increasingly embedded in athletic department budgets, culminating in the revenue-sharing provisions outlined in the House v. NCAA settlement. If the settlement is approved, schools will be incentivized to reallocate funds previously earmarked for indirect benefits, like team trips, into direct payments to players.

This financial rebalancing has also altered the culture of team trips.

“The power dynamic has shifted when it comes to team travel—suddenly, the players have money,” Freese said. “It used to be that the itinerary was set, and everyone followed it. Now, much of it is optional. Players want to hit Gucci and luxury boutiques instead of touring historical sites.”

Freese declined to name specific programs that have leaned into this model, but he’s not alone in noticing the shift.

Nels Hawkinson, co-founder and executive director of Basketball Travelers Inc., said his company has coordinated a handful of what he calls “NIL trips” in recent years. These tours focus on luxury experiences rather than the educational or cultural elements that once defined international basketball travel—more Louis Vuitton, less Louvre. Hawkinson also declined to identify participating teams.

Hawkinson and his partner, Neal Holden—both former basketball coaches—launched Basketball Travelers in 1986. In addition to organizing team tours to all six livable continents, the company hosts an online schedule board and runs the men’s and women’s Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands and the World University Games.

“We have seen a lot of things,” said Hawkinson, who is now in his 40th year.

Still, the new financial pressures on athletic departments—from revenue-sharing to conference exit fees—have changed the game in profound ways. At one point, just before COVID, Hawkinson said Basketball Travelers was doing around 30 summer tours a year; last year, they did seven.

The shifting dynamics have similarly confronted the Battle 4 Atlantis, the only NCAA-sanctioned basketball multi-team event (MTE) held outside the United States. Since its founding in 2011, the men’s tournament has consistently drawn elite programs; last year’s field featured Arizona, Gonzaga, Indiana and Louisville. But the recently announced lineup for the 2025 event includes no traditional powerhouses and only one team—Saint Mary’s—that finished in the AP or Coaches Top 25 last season.

“Why spend $150,000 on a tour or a Caribbean MTE when you can give that money directly to the players?” said sports agent Daniel Poneman, who represents scores of college athletes. “Programs used to use these trips as recruiting tools, but now the most powerful tool is cash.”

The Battle 4 Atlantis now faces competition from in-season tournaments like the Las Vegas-based Players Era Festival, which distributed over $8 million in NIL monies to the participating teams of its inaugural event last year.

Further complicating matters is new uncertainty around international students. The Trump administration’s punitive approach toward student visa-holders has introduced new risks for programs planning to take foreign players through customs.

The latest Battle 4 Atlantis event agreements—which provide schools with $25,000 for team travel and $10,000 for meals—now include expanded force majeure language covering “any law, regulation or order either prohibiting travel to or from or entry of the team into the Commonwealth of The Bahamas issued by any government or regulatory agency of the United States or the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.”

What remains unclear is whether U.S. laws or executive orders that restrict international player travel would qualify as acts of God.

Under the terms, the Battle 4 Atlantis’ host, Island Company Hotel Limited, reserves the right to cancel for any reason with a total liability capped at $50,000. Schools, however, face steeper liquidated damages if they are found to have breached the agreement by withdrawing or otherwise failing to participate—$100,000 for South Florida and $500,000 for Western Kentucky, according to copies of their game contracts obtained by Sportico.

“We are certainly monitoring the landscape and will make that determination much closer to the November date,” a WKU athletics spokesperson told Sportico, when asked about international athlete travel. “It was not a factor, though, in deciding to accept the invitation to the Battle 4 Atlantis, as we did not know how our roster makeup would turn out when we did accept that invitation.”

The 2025 Battle 4 Atlantis will also feature Colorado State, Virginia Commonwealth, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and Wichita State.

VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin, in a statement, said it was his school’s understanding that “the visa issue would not trigger a force majeure event.”

“We have a long history of participation in Atlantis and various MTEs,” McLaughlin said. “We signed this contract more than a year ago and agreed to participate years before that.”

The other participating schools, as well as representatives from the Battle 4 Atlantis, did not respond to email inquiries. A spokesperson for KemperSports, which is handling event operations for the event, declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Players Era has its sights set on global expansion.

Co-founder Seth Berger told Sportico that his group is looking to host an MTE in Abu Dhabi during the 2026–27 season. Previous attempts to bring NCAA basketball games to the Middle East have failed to gain traction, but Players Era has a foothold in the region through its partnership with EverWonder Studio, the media company backed by RedBird IMI—the joint venture between Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital and UAE-based International Media Investments.

John Anthony, executive vice president, collegiate for On Location, remains confident in the long-term future of international travel for college athletic programs.

According to Anthony, the company—which partners with over 90 athletic departments—saw a surge in overseas team trips last summer, though that momentum has slowed this year. He attributes the dip not to and long-term waning interest, but to the NCAA’s once-in-four rule, which has been on the books since the 1970s. As more programs become eligible again, Anthony expects international travel to rebound.

In fact, he believes recent shifts in college athletics are increasing demand for overseas trips, especially as schools look for opportunities to develop chemistry for teams increasingly composed of new transfers. The junkets can also help to cultivate donors. 

Last year, Anthony Travel, a travel management company now owned by On Location, organized trips for Michigan State men’s basketball to Spain and Maryland women’s basketball to Croatia. Anthony said both coaching staffs praised the tours, highlighting their value on and off the court.

Recently, Anthony visited North Carolina to announce that UNC will face TCU in the 2026 Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland. While on campus, he conducted an informal poll, asking Tar Heels football players how many had ever been to Europe—few hands went up. But when he asked how many currently had passports, more than half the team responded affirmatively.

“That number has gone up because of NIL money,” Anthony said, adding that most players likely got their passports to vacation in places like Mexico.

Shortly after his hiring in March, new Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball head coach Darian DeVries told the Indianapolis Star he was eagerly anticipating an overseas trip ahead of his debut season. In each of the past two summers, DeVries had taken his former West Virginia and Drake teams to Italy and Spain, positive experiences he hoped to replicate at IU. (When asked last week, an Indiana athletic department spokesperson said no trips had yet been booked.)

Still, Freese and others believe the prevailing jet streams have shifted directions, and that the smartest move for companies like his is to recalibrate accordingly. While Sport Tours International has lined up two Division I men’s basketball teams for this summer—IU Indy and Northern Colorado—Freese sees a more sustainable future in serving non-revenue sports and lower-division schools.

“The women are always more curious, (and) the D-III schools are more normal, more interested—they travel better,” Freese said. “The players expect to carry their own luggage.”

(This story has been updated to include John Anthony’s updated title in the ninth-to-last paragraph and to include that Anthony Travel is now owned by On Location.)

With the summer months approaching, Dabo Swinney is preparing for some big changes.

The House Settlement is expected to be finalized as soon as this week, and with that comes a new revenue-sharing model that will turn college athletics on its ear. It is expected to go into effect in July.

For the first year, that money is capped at $20.5 million, with each school being able to decide how to distribute it. Clemson plans to devote a large majority of that money to football. As much as any school in the country, something that should be a game-changer for the program.

“I think we are well-positioned,” Swinney told The Clemson Insider, who is at the ACC Spring Meetings for the 13th consecutive year at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island. “I think it is going to create some order where there has been no order. We really have had very few rules, and whatever rules there were, they either changed them or nothing happened.”

On top of that, expectations are that NIL will be more heavily regulated, with a third party being put in place to oversee all deals.

More structure should mean a more level playing field, and anyone caught skirting the rules is expected to be held accountable under the new guidelines.

“There’s been no budget, there’s been no cap,” Swinney added. “Not any type of just order. I think the rev-share is going to be a great thing for all involved, and it will create some order. And there is going to be a third-party entity created that is going to regulate and have some consequences. There is a lot that is coming with this.”

“So, the NIL won’t go away, but the NIL is going to have to meet a standard. There will be a clearinghouse for that. There are a lot of good changes coming.”

However, this new landscape presents a whole new set of challenges. Many college programs are now set up more like an NFL organization, including Clemson, with Jordan Sorrells now serving as the General Manager. Part of his job is determining who gets what, and with the Tigers having so much production from last year’s team, that was no easy task.

“The main thing is, it’s a cap,” SWinney said. “There will be some consequences to that, because you can’t sign everybody. It is what it is. For example, this year, obviously, we have very veteran tackles. We have an elite senior receiver in Antonio (Williams). We got some really good young talent that is proven. We have a quarterback back, who is a high-level guy. We got a couple of high-level corners. It’s no different than the NFL. You have premium players at premium positions, things like that.”

Swinney has always believed in rewarding production. The best players tend to play, regardless of class. And with this new model, Swinney still plans to reward production on the field. A very productive senior, who might have been a former three-star talent coming out of high school, might very well earn more than a five-star freshman coming out of high school.

“It is also going to reward more performance than potential, and that is what I believe in. I believe in performance. That is real life. I think what has happened in college football the last few years really hasn’t had anything to do with performance. That has allowed a lot of kids to get manipulated. A lot of kids to make some bad decisions. That is sad to me. We have just kind of stayed the course with what we believe in, the core of who we are, so it will be a very smooth transition for us. Because we just have a different process as far as how we evaluate.”

At the same time, working on a budget also means you can’t sign everyone. There will still be recruiting misses and players transferring out.

“You will lose some kids, like we always have. You will get some,” the head coach said. “I mean, I think we have done ok. We still got these elite players even when this chaos was going on. Because there are a lot of people out there who really align with who we are and understand the bigger picture.”

Despite moving to this new model, Swinney fully believes culture still sells. However, he also knows that in this new era, a program has to offer more, and he expects Clemson to be able to offer as much as anyone.

“We have a great model at Clemson, and all I know is nobody is going to have more money for football than Clemson,” Swinney said. “They may have more money with the TV contract, but they are not going to have more money that they can rev-share. We’ve always had the money, just couldn’t use it. You had to go raise money. That creates a lot of challenges. So, I think it is a great thing, and hopefully it gets resolved soon, and we can kind of step into the next era, if you will.”