Allegedly, all three of the guys that we lost had NIL money as a factor. It's confirmed for Walker per some professionals, and it explains why he kept ND on the hook for so long. Rumored that it was a factor for Moore and that's one of the main reasons he didn't come back in the fold, and some dude on ISD that I can't vouch for said NIL money from Rick Caruso was a factor for CJ.
In general -- it's important to remember that for a lot of these kids $100k is life changing money depending their family situation. It's the difference between being totally destitute or their parents being able to easily come to games and put food on the table. ND is uniquely positioned such that "pay for play" may not be a huge factor for many of their recruits, but it's naive to think that it won't be an issue moving forward for 1) retaining top performing young players who other schools will try to poach through tampering 2) signing players who like multiple options equally and one of them is putting significant money on the table.
The payroll at Texas A&M and Texas heading into next year is in the millions. ND's is effectively $0. "Immediate eligibility" needs to be scrapped yesterday, and sooner-rather-than-later they need to figure out how to actually regulate NIL money.
