TCU’s Patterson: ‘Keep Pace with NIL Deals or Risk Losing Players’

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is already considered to be the best play to get noticed by professional scouts if you’re a collegiate football player. With its lucrative TV deals and access with top sponsorship partners, keeping up with the Power 5 Conference will be a challenge for other programs in terms of NIL opportunities.

And we thought the SEC poaching Big 12 mainstays Oklahoma and Texas was a power move.

According to a recent report from 247Sports.com, TCU’s Gary Patterson thinks schools will have to keep pace with these high-priced NIL deals or risk losing current players and potential recruits.

Below is an excerpt from the 247Sports.com story.

Patterson, speaking at NIL open house on TCU’s campus last week, spoke on potential challenges that come with retaining top talent on his roster as NIL opportunities for players vary from school to school. In an interview with The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Patterson expressed concern of highly-resourced programs, particularly SEC schools, using NIL opportunities to both win recruiting battles and perhaps even lure players via the transfer portal.

“There are five SEC schools calling (a player) and telling him ‘Here’s what we’ll give you if you come here and not stay at TCU,'” Patterson told the Star-Telegram. “At the end of the day, that’s just real life. If we don’t do anything about it, within a year we lose him. The rules have changed. There’s no wrong anymore.”

Patterson went on to hypothesize that he could “lose 20-35 guys on scholarships by January” — Patterson believes that players will inevitably disclose their NIL opportunities to players at other schools — when discussing the need for TCU players to have extensive NIL opportunities.

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“It takes more to stay where we’re at than it took to get here,” Patterson added. “We’ve done a lot to get here, but if you want to play at a very high level, what you have to understand is we’re going to have to do some things to make sure that we stay and keep growing.

“At the end of the day, what does that entail? We’re going to have to learn, but we’re going to learn it a lot faster than what everybody right now is willing to do.”

To read the full article from 247Sports.com, click here.