Most of the this staff had reputations of being good recruiters. The fact that this class ranks 13 is troubling. It’s more troubling to know that in reality, this class will rank 15th against their peers in a couple years.
I think it’s clear that basketball is playing the NIL game very well. I’ve heard very little about Illinois football and NIL. These results make me wonder if we have the $$ in football to compete or not. If we do, I guess it’s another indication of how far we have to go as a program. I agree that BB and this staff is our best chance to succeed. Hopefully a good showing this season will turn some heads our direction.
I think we are clearly and always have been a basketball first school (even when football is good in those random years).
So combine that with the fact that basketball needs less NIL money overall to grab impact players, simply because we don’t need as many bodies, and it makes sense.
I know you posted about Texas Tech, and I think they’re doing it right with their 25k for 100 slots, but there’s no way I could ever see us putting 2.5 mil annually into football like that, unless it was mostly funded by one person who just really, really cared (like if Robert won mega millions or something). And clearly, to be competitive, that’s the type of money you need to bring to the table every year, at a minimum.