OXFORD, Miss. — On Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours before Ole Miss kicked off against Kentucky in a duel of SEC unbeatens, the school’s most powerful boosters packed into a meeting room for a significant announcement about their approach to name, image and likeness (NIL).
Donors weren’t the only ones who gathered here. This standing room-only crowd included nearly every head coach of each sport on campus, as well as several athletic department administrators and two dozen athletes, all jammed into a room in an on-campus facility to celebrate the reorganization of its NIL collective.
Or, in other words, they announced their intention to, in a more organized fashion, pay players—something legalized last July and yet a jarring scene here Friday that speaks to the new era of college football.
