How a NIL opt-out could change college football, plus Napheesa Collier’s explosion

In many sports, certain dates during the season become their own spectacle off the field. The MLB was the first to introduce the transfer deadline and still has a big opportunity for transfers on September 1st. The NBA has almost perfected its own transfer deadline.

There has never been anything like this in college football – until this year. Welcome to Opt-out Week, brought to you by your local NIL sponsor. Or not presented?

In any case, this is about the point in the season when coaches begin redshirting players who have appeared in four games, the maximum number of appearances in a redshirt year. But nowadays, it is no longer the only coaches who make this decision. And the poster child for Opt-out Week is a quarterback from … UNLV. Quick background story:

Sluka is not the only one taking a step back this week. Yesterday it was announced that USC defensive lineman Bear Alexander, a former five-star recruit, will also take a redshirt year.

Players redshirting themselves isn’t exactly new—Antonio Morales wrote a good explanation for it two years ago—but it’s mostly been for players like Alexander who weren’t getting much playing time and didn’t want to waste their eligibility sitting on the bench.

Leaving the company due to a NIL dispute is nothing new, but NIL as a reason for leaving while a possible playoff entry? That is newand could be the start of a new trend within the trend. Imagine a college player waiting for outstanding payments or even newfound value after four games and shoving the transfer portal in a program’s face.

The whole thing is very chaotic and cries out for some kind of regulation. Maybe these players should – oh horror – become employees. I asked Antonio for further help:

Do you think there is a chance for reconciliation between Sluka and UNLV?

Antonio: You always try to say never, especially considering how volatile the NIL and transfer portal situations are, but after seeing how public this has become, it’s hard to imagine any sort of reconciliation here. UNLV has leaked its version of events. Sluka’s NIL rep has given his side of the story, as has the UNLV collective, who wished him well in his future endeavors. The fact that both sides are very publicly challenging each other’s statements makes me believe that both are truly ready to move on.

Do you think we will see more of this in the unregulated NIL era?

Yes. In reality, that’s probably happened more times than we see, but programs have managed to keep it behind the scenes. I think back to Oregon receiver Gary Bryant Jr., who essentially got the ball rolling when he played for USC two years ago. He was one of the first to take advantage, and then we saw more and more doing the same. It’s pretty easy to believe there’s going to be a player who isn’t happy with his NIL situation, who is better than Sluka, who has more leverage than Sluka, whose program really doesn’t want to lose him, who will have the opportunity to stage a college version of a holdout.

Opt-out week, baby. Go ahead and mark your calendar for next year.