The NIL era has changed college football forever. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate, but in reality there are both positives and negatives from NIL taking over college football.
Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart recently spoke with the media, and he detailed one reason why he thinks NIL is a bad thing for college football.
"You could end up with some haves and have-nots out there and ultimately a team could drive prices and go buy a championship, like you’re talking about with super teams," Smart shared via ugawire.usatoday.com.
Kirby Smart believes teams will buy championships with NIL
One of the best things about the "old" version of college football, the version before hundreds of players transferred every offseason chasing better NIL deals, was being able to watch players grow up within one program. Watching a true freshman come in and struggle during their first season before ultimately becoming one of the best players on the team as an upperclassmen was always a joy to watch.
But that happens less and less now in today's college football world, and NIL is to blame. This is what Smart is describing in the above quote as he detailed how there are programs who have a lot of NIL money and programs that do not. So it's quite obvious that the teams with a lot of money are going to do much better than the teams who do not.
Georgia is one of the programs that has a lot of money, but that isn't really what bothers Smart. The thing that Smart is afraid of is a program going out and buying a championship. Instead of developing their own players, Smart thinks a school will just go out and buy all the best players across the country and win a championship that way.
Sure that will still count as a championship just as much as any other title, but it does feel a little less impressive. So hopefully changes will come to how NIL is structure so teams are unable to buy championships and have to resort to developing their own recruits like the good ole days.