The Josh Innes Show - Brian Kelly's NIL Brilliance

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

I planned on discussing Bill Belichick's over/under win total for next year. But, I ended up discussing Brian Kelly's masterful work in the transfer portal. I don't know that I really love this era of college football. But, I'm warming up to it. I find myself right down the middle on NIL/Portal opinions. Also, Brian Kelly did something to help build LSU's NIL fund that was really brilliant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. All right, Jamokes, let's see here. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. All right, Jamokes, let's see here. So bowl season is underway. There were a couple of bowl games over the weekend that were lousy, and there's going to be more lousy bowl games.

But tonight is an opportunity for you to make a couple of bucks if you are somewhere where you are able to gamble. If you're not, then bet your friend on something. But just let me give you a little... Actually, let's start here. First of all, I've been looking at FanDuel in the college football section because I was curious about bowl games and just different things. I don't know if maybe they had a bowl tracker or something that allowed you to do some sort of cumulative bowl betting.

So I don't know. But I did see a tab on the college football section that says Belichick to UNC. And his over-under win total for next year for North Carolina is 7.5. So I decided to Google their schedule and see what's going on with Carolina. And again, nobody knows what these teams are going to look like literally nine months from now, which how bizarre does that sound to think that we are nine months away from college football? Like, why is this happening to me? Why do I have to wait nine months to see Brian Kelly lose the opener to Clemson, despite the fact that he's gone out and just fucked the portal real good

which by the way I'm not a huge portal guy but I will say this that if I could be a guy that recruits like a motherfucker and signs a bunch of dudes that are five-star guys which a school like LSU Bama Florida they're all gonna sign four and five-star guys just a matter of who works out but if I'm gonna be that kind of pimp, or I'm going to be a portal pimp, I'm going to be Brian Kelly and be a portal pimp. See, LSU did something, and I'm going to give them credit because a couple weeks ago, we were all in tatters and shattered over the fact that they lost Bryce Underwood because he took a lot more money to go to Michigan. Fine. But one thing Brian Kelly did say is that he was going to go out and they're going to allot those resources and they're going

to dedicate those resources to attacking a lot of dudes and getting a ton of players. And LSU has signed some beasts. And you might say, well, if they're that good, why didn't they stay at their previous school? Well, mostly because nobody stays at their previous school. That kind of goes to my point about why it doesn't matter that you sign a bunch of four and five star guys. How many of those players are going to stay at those schools that they signed with? How many are going to play four years, three years, five years, six years, whatever? I don't even know. Do you get 10 years of eligibility now? How many of those guys are going to stay at those schools?

They're not going to. The second they don't play, they're going to transfer. They're going to get in the portal, and they're going to go get paid to go elsewhere. And LSU has signed some dudes who are proven commodities, who've played at high-level college football. I'm happy with what Brian Kelly has done. Good for him. I know he gets shit on by a lot of people. I shit on him, and he deserves it because they're eight and four. He deserves to be shit on because LSU loses the opener every year

and sets themselves back. So like all the criticism he gets for those type of things are fair. And then people love to dance on his grave when he lost out on Bryce Underwood. And even when that happened, the reaction is what bothered me. Like, like as a fan, I didn't like that we were on the receiving end of getting shit on for losing the guy. But deep down, I wasn't overly concerned because I'm very skeptical of an 18-year-old dude getting paid a million and a half, two million a year, whatever he's getting paid to go to Michigan

and expected to be a savior. I mean, you see it in the NFL and it doesn't work out. How many quarterbacks get paid a billion dollars to be a savior of an organization and they gone, right? So imagine being a dude who's played at the highest level. You've played high school football in Ohio or Michigan or wherever the fuck you played high school football. Great. Now you're expected to go to Michigan and almost instantly be a savior and go out and beat Ohio State and go out and beat Penn State as a freshman? Not saying you couldn't.

He might be the greatest player ever. But are you going to take a school like LSU, who a large part of their money that they have for NIL would have been allotted to that dude, and you go, no, not going to do that. So, look, I like who LSU has signed. Now, will they go out next year and win 11 games? I don't know. I hope so.

But I'm a lot happier about them today than I was a couple of weeks ago. And the portal, as much as I dislike the portal, and I think that there should be more repercussions and punishments for players who portal jump, right? Like, I've had contracts before. I'm not a huge fan of contracts, but in my contracts, it stipulates certain times I can talk to other people about jobs. If I leave, there's certain punishments.

I do think you're not teaching or I don't think you're teaching anybody about anything when you're like, hey, you can sign a commitment somewhere and then, oh, you weren't happy there, you can just leave. Like, there should be some form of punishment. Now, your argument might be, oh, what about the coaches that all get to do that? There's a punishment for the schools, generally speaking. There are buyouts. So if you want to go and hire the coach from Vanderbilt, I guarantee you Clark Lee, the coach at Vanderbilt, has a buyout. So if you're Auburn and you want to hire Clark Lee from Vanderbilt, there's going to be stipulations that say you have to pay money to the university for the buyout. I would have no

problem if you had college dudes having to learn a little bit about that and schools having to learn a little bit about that. Because right now it's the Wild West and these dudes are not learning anything about life. Now, you might say, Josh, who gives a shit? They're out there trying to get rich. And you might be right. But to me, I think you should have to learn something about commitment and decommitment because in the real world, that is a tough thing to do. What it looks like for a bunch of college kids is, well, I'm 18.

I'm going to Florida. I love being a Florida Gator. And then a year later when I couldn't see the field because I wasn't good enough, look, I'm always going to love my teammates at Florida, but now I'm off to Auburn. Let me give you the greatest example. So there's a guy named TJ Finley who was a highly sought after prospect that LSU signed five, six years ago. I forgot how many years ago, TJ Finley. Big, hulking, strong-armed kid, right? TJ Finley. He's at LSU a little bit and then TJ Finley rolls out and goes to Auburn I believe is where he transferred after that so TJ Finley

transferred to Auburn after Auburn didn. After that came and went, my man transferred to Western Kentucky, where he played last year, I believe. That's one, two, three, four schools for T.J. Finley, right? And now T.J. Finley has transferred to Tulane. That will be five schools. And there is zero punishment. There's zero repercussion. It's just on to the next one. Now, part of me is kind of jealous. Like, I wish I could sign a contract at a radio station and the next year be like, I'm going to get the fuck out of here because that's what this fucking radio station did to me. That fucking contract wasn't worth the paper it was fucking written on. Oh, we got a three-year deal for you josh oh sorry you're fired in fucking 15 months eat a dick but if i would have tried to leave with the 15 months

and said no i'm gonna leave now and i'm gonna go to chicago they tell me to go fuck myself and they probably sue me so like i get it to a degree i understand but i do think you're at a point where you're setting these people up to have a distorted view of reality which you're gonna have anyway because you're a high-end college athlete. Most people will never experience that. But there has to be some form of enduring. There has to be some form of battling. Now these guys have no desire to battle.

No one wants to stick around. People just want to leave and catch the money. Now, again, I know I'm arguing with myself here, but this is an example to me of a case or a situation where multiple cases can make sense. And I can see the arguments on both sides as a guy who is a talent. If you want to call me that I've never been in a management position. So as a talent, I'd love to be able to bounce from place to place to place without having to worry about a contract. Like when I went to St. Louis, I had to wait until like the last possible minute to even talk to other radio stations because I heart in my contract said that I had to negotiate

with them up until the last like two months of the deal or two, six weeks or whatever it was. So like they have an unfair advantage over me and it's bullshit. So I understand that. But on the other hand, if you're a big-time college athlete and a school signs you and you don't play instantly and you're like, fuck this, I'm out, what are you learning about having to compete? What are you learning about having to step up and try to take something and earn something? So I think we're setting up a bad era of dudes

that are not going to be as hungry. Like, I heard Penny Hardaway on a podcast that I think you guys should listen to called Out the Mud. I've talked about it on here before. It's called the Out the Mud podcast. And it's hosted by Zach Randolph and Tony Allen, both of whom are two of my favorite players

who played for the Memphis Grizzlies during the grit and grind era. I love these guys. They're talking to Penny Hardaway, a guy who I so desperately want to be successful as the coach at Memphis State. I love these guys. They're talking to Penny Hardaway, a guy who I so desperately want to be successful as the coach at Memphis State or the University of Memphis. I love the guy. He's from Memphis. I just want him to be successful there. It's one of those things that you look at it and you're like, this needs to be successful. Kind of like when you saw

Patrick Ewing coaching Georgetown, you're like, why will this not be successful? But then you're like, it wasn't. But this is Memphis. This is Penny Hardaway is from Memphis. He grew up playing high school basketball in Memphis. I want Penny Hardaway to be successful. And I'm listening to him on this podcast and he's talking about how like dudes used to be inspired to go to college and ball out so they could go to the league and get paid. And it had a hunger. It caused them to have a hunger for the time they were in college because they knew they had to show up and ball out so they could go to the league and get paid. And it had a hunger. It caused them to have a hunger for the time they were in college because they knew they had to show up and show out to then earn the bag at the next level.

Now dudes are just going to schools, and they know they can get a bag, enough of a bag, where even if they don't make it to the pros, they can probably set themselves up if they're smart, which who knows if they are, but they can set themselves up for life financially. And a lot of these schools are tampering with dudes in the middle of the season. So kind of like going against the spirit of the NIL, you've got coaches that tamper during the season and they talk to dudes.

They're like, well, when the season's over, come on over to our place. We got a fucking spot for you. So it's still a dirty kind of nasty business but like i i think that you're losing some of that drive from dudes because their drive isn't to ball out in college and get to the next level their drive is to get paid while they're in college and i do think that impacts how coachable they are for dudes like i believe when penny hardaway says dudes are tough to coach because like at the end of the day, if I'm making a million dollars, the fuck do I care that the coach says, you know? So I get it. It's tough. And that's why I'm kind of, I know you're not

supposed to ride the fence and be middling, but I do think that like the idea of the NIL is good. The idea of the transfer portal is good. Let me tell you as a dude that roots for LSU every day, I keep seeing new shit pop up. And I'm like, oh boy, we just signed a former five-star guy from Florida? Fuck yeah, we just signed a four-star quarterback that played at Mississippi State? Great, that gets me going. I'm excited about that. That's good.

I like it. But I think there need to be more regulations in this. And I'll give you an example of a workaround here that I didn't understand until my buddy Matt explained it to me. He does radio on Baton Rouge. I'll explain this Brian Kelly workaround for the NIL that was fucking brilliant. I will do that. We'll talk about the win-loss total for North Carolina and a bowl game tonight. Speaking of Memphis, a bowl game tonight, which again, if you listen to this on Friday, you won't care, but if you listen to it on Tuesday, you'll be good. All right, let's play a couple commercials. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes

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Limited time offer. See terms at picksix.draftkings.com slash promos. All right, so listen to this. So a couple days ago, I saw that Brian Kelly was doing a million dollar donation match. So basically, LSU donors, anybody, if they raise a million dollars, Brian Kelly will match that and that money will go to NIL. And my first thought was, well, you cannot do that because a coach cannot just pay players. A coach cannot just directly feed a school's NIL. It doesn't work that way. So LSU is doing well in terms of NIL money, but they're not like a Texas or something like that. It just has infinite money, right? So they need money to help replenish it. And we can talk about it being gross,

and we can talk about whether we like the portal. There's a bunch of things we can talk about. But Brian Kelly did something, and I didn't know that this is how it worked, but I was listening to my buddy Matt, who works in Baton Rouge. He's like the inside guy on LSU. He's wonderful. And I heard him break down what Brian Kelly was actually doing. Because, again, when you hear Brian Kelly will match a million dollars in donations, we all know that you cannot do that because a coach cannot directly fund an NIL. It does not work that way.

So here's what Brian Kelly is doing. He's asking people to donate to TAF. TAF is the Tiger Athletic Foundation. It is a fundraising arm of LSU alumni and boosters that raise money, and that money can be used in various ways. Most of the time, it money that's used to like pay coaches contracts. It's used for athletics related shit, but it's not directly NIL. So the coach can donate a million dollars to the Tiger Athletic Foundation. When he does that and the people match that million dollars, that's $2 million. The Tiger Athletic Foundation can do whatever the Tiger Athletic Foundation wants to do with that money. And the Tiger Athletic Foundation can use that money to do what? Fund an IL. When I heard him break this down, I was like, holy shit. We can rip Brian Kelly. We can say

Brian Kelly does a lot of dumb shit. We can say Brian Kelly killed a kid that was filming his practice. We can say that Brian Kelly sucks in openers. We could say his accent is fake. There's a lot of shit we can say about Brian Kelly. We can also say, hey, good for you. You beat Bama your first year. I mean, we can talk about a lot of shit, but one thing we can also say is that that's a fucking brilliant move. You talk about putting money where your mouth is. This dude just decided, hey, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a million dollars of my own money, my family's money, and I'm essentially going to use that million dollars to pay dudes in the portal. Essentially, Brian Kelly is paying

players in the portal or in the NIL. So not necessarily in the portal. It could be for paying a high school recruit or whatever. But that's going to essentially get them $2 million extra. This is a dude that makes $10 million a year. He's been making millions of dollars his whole life. He's probably set. Doesn't seem like a dipshit spender. Doesn't seem like he has a gambling or a hooker problem or drug problem.

So he's probably got a ton of cash. And he's like, I'll make a donation. Fuck it. It's pretty fucking brilliant. That's, you know, chess instead of checkers. Now, if we could somehow, you know, get some chess being done on the field, then we're cooking. But credit to Brian Kelly for that. That's a brilliant move on his part. Nellis Hughes doing their healthy from what I'm told, they're healthy in the NIL, whatever that means. Again, I'm not the biggest fan of all this shit, but if you're going to be in this world, you got to find ways to win in this world because no one's

going to feel sorry for you and you're making $10 million a year in an extremely poor state like Louisiana. So you better find ways to fucking win games, right? That's what you got to do. So there's that. Now, oh, where are you going, Ross? Rossy, where'd you go, buddy? We're going to go. Hold on. I got to talk to him about the, I got to talk to the folks here. You've been a good boy, though. You've been a good boy. I got to take you for a stroll. Actually, you know what I'll do?

All right, Rossi. You know what? I don't want you to hate me, so let's go for a walk, right? Let's go potty. Let's go for a walk. And then what I'll do is I'll knock out another pod, possibly. Look, I love you guys. But look, the dog calls.

But I did want to talk about Belichick and the seven and a half wins. Do want to talk about tonight. Actually, I will tell you the Memphis play tonight. I'll get this out just in case I don't get Belichick in today. If I end up on a mile two, three, four mile walk with this mutt down here. I like Seth Hennigan tonight to throw for his passing yards. His passing yardage total is 262. This is his last game at Memphis. They were disappointed that they weren't a group of five type of team that could have made a run. They expected it. It didn't happen. Hennigan's

been a lifer at Memphis. He's been a dude that's been like a loyal patriot of the Memphis Tiger program. He's a baller. And I think tonight he wants to go out with a bang. And this bowl game tonight is being played in his home area, right? This bowl game, he's from Denton. So this bowl game is a Texas thing. He's going to have a bunch of family there. It's his last college football game.

He's been loyal to Memphis, wants to win. I'm going to go Seth Hennigan over passing yards tonight. Seth Hennigan over passing yards tonight. Play that if you have the option to do so. And I will try to talk with you guys again later.