JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Name, image, and likeness.

It has taken athletics across the amateur level by storm nationally, creating an avenue for players to make money from their NIL, particularly in football.

College football, most notably at the NCAA Division I level, has been forever changed because of it, with one SEC coach calling the state of CFB “sick.”

“We’re trying to sound warning bells. There’s a warning that the system that we are in really is sick right now, and college football is sick,” Missouri head football coach Eli Drinkwitz said about NIL on Monday, December 16, ahead of his team’s appearance in the Gator Bowl. “There’s showing signs of this cracking moving forward… Tampering is at the highest levels – there is no such thing as tampering, because there’s no one that’s been punished for tampering. Everybody on my roster is being called.”

In Mississippi, Ole Miss has benefited from its strong NIL movement, the Grove Collective, which is a large reason why the football program is hosting a College Football playoff game in the school’s first-ever appearance.

But how is NIL affecting high school student-athletes in Mississippi?

Thirty-six states in the country are allowing high school student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness.

Mississippi is not one of them.

“NIL is not for high school students,” Rickey Neaves, the Executive Director of the Mississippi High School Activities Association, said. ”They’re much too young to be taking on that responsibility and handling that large sum of money. So, a high school student and our association need to concentrate on number one, being a young person and enjoying school, enjoying the high school experience, and just being a young man or a young lady. And then the rest of it will take care of itself later on. They’re going to have to work and be responsible later on in life, and long enough. So let them be young while they can.”

According to Yahoo Sports, Fazion Brandon, a five-star recruit playing high school football in North Carolina, is allegedly making $1.2 million in NIL money, who signed several highly publicized contracts since his lawsuit.

Tristen Keys, the highest-rated Mississippi recruit in the class of 2026 and a senior at Hattiesburg High School who signed to play CFB at Tennessee, has an NIL valuation of over $500k, according to On3 Sports.

While not naming the said student-athletes, Neaves confirmed that several Mississippi athletes have been approached every year with a large sum of money with NIL deals since its emergence.

$1.2 and $1.4 million to be exact.

These individuals likely played football in the state, with Mississippi consistently ranking in the top five, and even the best in the country in producing four and five-star talent on the gridiron, multiple reports show.

In fact, 12 high school student-athletes are ranked in ESPN’s Top 300 recruits in the nation, with 5 of them being ranked in the top 100.

That amount of money is hard to turn down for anyone, let alone a high school athlete with the opportunity to achieve dreams at the tip of their finger.

Neaves said turning this opportunity down has impacted a select few of student-athletes in the state.

However, there are ways around signing an NIL contract that can’t be accepted until they graduate and are enrolled in a university.

“They can sign an NIL contract. [But] they or their parents cannot receive any money or any goods that can be escrowed, as we call it, into a bank account for when they do graduate,” Neaves stated. “They cannot use their school logo, their school colors. It does not keep them from using their own name, their own image, and their own likeness, but all of that other belongs either to their school or even to the association, so they can’t use that.”

“We do encourage parents to look into that,” he continued. “I had a deal with a couple of student-athletes last year, and my advice to them was, you can’t tell a young man when they’re 17, 18 years old to turn down $1.2 million. What you can tell them is to be very careful, have that money escrowed and waiting on you once you use your eligibility or once you have graduated, and then build your own name, your own legacy, and build off of that.”

No local student-athletes, according to Neaves, have left the state to pursue NIL deals that are eligible to profit from while in high school.

While the NIL movement hasn’t made its way to high school athletics in the Magnolia State, Neaves suggests another entity is directly affecting high school athletics here.

The transfer portal.

It has changed the landscape of amateur athletics forever, with major colleges able to pay millions in NIL contracts for transfers arguably older and more ready-made for a football program – or any other athletics program, for that matter – to win immediately.

While there are no formal, large-scale academic studies that provide a precise, specific percentage of high schoolers affected, this in turn undoubtedly results in fewer roster spots and scholarship offers for talented high school recruits.

In 2023, an analysis done by Gene’s Page shows that SEC programs’ high school signees dipped nearly 11-percent between 2019 and 2021 as the portal gained prominence.

The FootballScoop stated in an article that in 2021, around 400 fewer players across the country signed FBS scholarships compared to the two cycles prior, and the trend has continued.

Neaves proposes that high school athletes in the state are impacted today.

“We need to look at what that is doing to our high school athletes,“ he warned. ”Right now, we have some outstanding high school athletes, both male and female, who are not getting the opportunity to go on to the next level because these people are still hanging around. They’re gaining some of the six and seven-year college athletes, and that’s not letting today’s seniors in the room. One of these days, NIL money is going to run out, and you have, you have juniors and seniors in college that are staying in college because they’re making more money off their NIL than they would make out of working.”

Is there a future for NIL in Mississippi high school sports?

For the possibility of NIL to maneuver its way into Mississippi high school sports, it would first have to start above the MHSAA.

Neaves doubled down that it is not in the picture within the rules of the association, but that “the legislature could pass a bylaw that says student athletes of high school age can do this.”

“If that ever happened, we would have to stay within the rules ourselves. So, we would have to allow it,“ he said. ”I personally hope that does not happen because I think we have the best option for both worlds here. The student athlete can still have [NIL deals] waiting on them when they get out of school at any time in their life, when they are more adapted to [the] use of it and can benefit from it even more.”

It does remain a possibility, however.

More states are trending towards allowing high schoolers to make NIL money.

On November 25, Ohio became the latest state to join the NIL movement.

While it is technically out of Neaves’ control, he does encourage that high school sports remain the same in Mississippi.

“You never know in today’s world what’s going to be coming down the pipe, but I think you have to always look ahead and see what pitfalls are out there.”

“Let’s be realistic. Is a 16 or 17-year-old mature enough to handle a million dollars? No. I know when I was that age, I would have blown it and probably ruined my whole career while doing it. Now, that’s not what everybody would do, but if that happens to one person, that’s one too many.”

Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please click here to report it and include the headline of the story in your email.

Copyright 2025 WLBT. All rights reserved.

© Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

College football has been skidding down a slippery slope since the start of the NIL Era, and the line between that level and the pros gets blurrier with every year that passes. Now, we’ve been treated to our latest shift on that front courtesy of Arch Manning’s decision to take a pay cut ahead of his second season as the starter for Texas.

Next summer will mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that essentially forced the NCAA to abandon its longstanding efforts to prevent students from cashing in on their name, image, and likeness.

It was a fairly inevitable development and one that was poised to have a dramatic impact on the landscape of college sports. While most fans agreed that student-athletes deserved to make some money, the ways in which they’re now able to do so have slowly but surely eroded the spirit of collegiate athletics as the concept of amateurism becomes a memory of the past.

That evolution has been marked by a number of tangible signposts, and the latest stake has been pounded into the ground courtesy of Arch Manning.

Arch Manning is taking a pay cut to allow Texas to use more of its House settlement funds on other talent

Earlier this week, we were treated to the latest piece of evidence that college football is basically a pro sport when USC went out of its way to announce running back Waymond Jordan had re-signed with the program after deciding to return to the Trojans for a second season.

We’ve reached a point where every player is effectively a free agent when their season comes to an end due to the transfer portal, and schools now have even more money they can use to try to poach and retain talent in the wake of the House settlement that will allow athletic departments to redistribute up to $20.5 million in revenue to athletes during the current academic year.

According to Texas Insider, the University of Texas is setting aside around $14 million for its football program next season. Arch Manning will undoubtedly receive a significant chunk of that sum, but the outlet spoke with sources who say the quarterback will accept “a reduced compensation” from the Longhorns so they can spend more money on other players in pursuit of a national championship.

Manning certainly isn’t hurting for cash, as he reportedly received at least $3.5 million this season thanks to NIL deals with companies including Red Bull, Uber, and Warby Parker.

It’s a commendable move for a QB who will be looking to improve after largely failing to meet the admittedly lofty expectations surrounding him during a campaign where the Longhorns went 9-3, but it’s also one that shows the sport has firmly reached the point of no return.

There are plenty of examples of a star in pro sports taking less money in order to help the overall roster. But it isn’t something that’s hit college football yet … until now, thanks to Arch Manning. Manning has asked to take a reduced portion of the Longhorns’ direct payout pool.

Manning’s aim at taking less NIL funds is to help improve the roster around him. Just like Patrick Mahomes, who regularly gives up millions to help the Kansas City Chief’s roster. Tom Brady did it with New England. Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Jalen Brunson, Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger have all helped the rosters around them by taking less.

Much like the NBA in the 2010s, once the actual season ends for college football, the real drama begins off the field. Since the conclusion of the regular season, many players have already announced whether they’ll enter the transfer portal or re-sign NIL and rev-share deals with their current teams.

There is no real contract system set up for college athletics the way there is in professional sports, where deals can be signed for four or five years, binding both sides. In college football, every player is basically a free agent every offseason and has the power to re-negotiate their deal or enter the transfer portal if they can’t agree to terms with their school. However, perhaps the most famous athlete in all of college sports is now deciding to reduce his salary, not increase it, as he plans to return for 2026.

That would be Texas quarterback Arch Manning. According to Sporting News and On3, Manning entered the 2025 college football season as, reportedly, the highest-paid player in the entire sport. On3’s NIL valuation database had Manning as the highest-valued player in the country heading into the year, and despite some dips in play, Manning still remains No. 1 in On3’s NIL100 rating the top 100 highest-valued college athletes. His current value is listed at $5.3 million.

But according to a report that came out Friday morning, Manning actually will accept less money from Texas’ direct revenue share next season in an attempt to help the team better equip themselves for a 2026 national championship run after disappointing their CFP expectations in 2025. It’s important to note that Manning’s endorsement deals, nor money from any NIL collective, are impacted by this.

“Sources tell Inside Texas that star quarterback has agreed to a reduced compensation amount from Texas’ House settlement revenue sharing pool in 2026,” On3 ‘s Justin Wells published on Friday. “This ostensibly doesn’t affect his compensation from fair market NIL, commonly referred to by Texas administrators as ‘real NIL.’ Manning has partnerships with Warby Parker, Waymo, Vuori, and Red Bull and is one of the most high-profile college athletes regardless of sport.”

This move here is noble by Manning but also makes most sense for the team. As Wells mentioned above, Manning is heavily partnered with national brands and is the unique college athlete who brings his own marketability to the table, outside of his performance. This is a guy that can generate millions of dollars from endorsements and public partnerships — what Texas admins consider “real NIL.”

Essentially, Texas can guarantee Manning less raw money via the rev-share route but still assure him that he’ll get his money through other NIL means. Then, the Longhorns can take that guaranteed rev-share money and use it on high-level players who may not have the same name recognition or personal brand as Manning.

More on College Football HQ

OXFORD, Miss. — The Rebel Walk’s Kam Wicker and Zach Moreth sat down this week with Ole Miss Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics Keith Carter for an episode of The Rebel Talk, covering a wide range of topics relevant to Rebel fans.

Carter discussed the evolving landscape of college athletics, including NIL, revenue sharing, and the College Football Playoff, offering insight into where Ole Miss fits in a rapidly changing environment.

The Rebels’ athletics director also provided additional details on Ole Miss’ recent Request for Proposals (RFP), which seeks a development team to lead a transformative, multi-asset public-private partnership aimed at reshaping the areas surrounding Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and the campus edge.

In addition to the business of college athletics, Carter shared a more personal side, giving the hosts a glimpse into how he spends what little free time he has away from the office.

WATCH the full episode below:

Related