Auburn football: Bryan Harsin focused on NIL education for Tigers

With the new name, image, and likeness (NIL) ruling from the NCAA, Auburn football will be experiencing changes just like the rest of college football. It’s uncharted territory for most coaches and players, but as the NIL hype starts to build, first-year head coach Bryan Harsin is focused on making it the best experience for his players.

For Coach Harsin (and many coaches in CFB), there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to NIL, from taxes to locker room atmosphere. When it comes to star players making more than the rest of the team, Harsin explained it would all come down to trial and error mixed with the attitudes of the athletes in the locker room, per AL.com:

"“I think it comes back to the guys who are in that locker room, how they treat each other, and just know that there’s not going to be the same deals for everybody on the football team.“How do you explain that and show that? Well, there’s going to be examples that we’re going to be given that we’re going to have a chance to use over time to show our players, Hey, this is how they handled it. This is how they handled it. Here’s how we can handle it."

Harsin noted that in order to be an elite player one must spend a lot of time focusing on their craft, which now includes understanding the NIL from a business point of view. The coaching staff is putting forth a great deal of effort to educate players on taxes and other things related to NIL, even though it means growing and developing as coaches to better help their players navigate these waters:

"“So when something doesn’t go right, we’re going to be involved because players are going to come to us for advice, and that’s just another area that, as coaches, we have to grow and develop ourselves to really have those kind of conversations.”"

So far nearly 30 Auburn football players hold NIL endorsements, from Bo Nix and Milo’s Tea to Shaun Shivers and YOKE Gaming to T.J. Finley and PSD Underwear. As more players arrange NIL deals, the world of college football will finally have to adjust to paid players.