Oct. 16-22

As of today, we are on Day 113 of the NIL Era, hailed by people across the college football landscape as a time when players would finally reap the benefits of their labors. Though the new rules introduced plenty of opportunity that hundreds of top players have gained from, it also introduced a lot of uncertainty, not the least of which came from NFL corners.

Scouts and administrators spend months, sometimes years, trying to measure the character of the draft’s top prospects. Foremost among their concerns is how the player will handle NFL millions and the extra attention that comes from being young and rich in the days of social media. 

With half the season in the rear-view mirror, we have a much better gauge of how the added pressure that came with NIL deals has affected some of the biggest names in college football, and especially quarterbacks. So far, for every Bryce Young, there have been several players who have struggled in the wake of splashy NIL partnerships and deals. Let’s take a look at our NIL Grid for some of the bigger-name players in college football who made headlines this summer, and review their play so far this fall. 

  • Spencer Rattler, QB, Oklahoma: Rattler is the poster boy for caution in the NIL area. He entered the season in the discussion for No. 1 overall next spring, but, at the season’s mid-point, he’s no longer a starter and buzz is growing about his transfer destination. Rattler signed with Steinberg Sports, which represents Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, to represent him in NIL matters. 
  • Sam Howell, QB, North Carolina: Howell’s fortunes took a big dive in a season-opening loss to Virginia Tech in which he threw three interceptions. In the meantime, he’s regained some momentum, but he’s no longer seen as a shoo-in top-five pick in April. Howell is on an exclusive deal with Everett Sports Marketing.
  • D’Eriq King, QB, Miami, and McKenzie Milton, QB, Florida State: King and Milton were among the most aggressive players once NIL became the law of the land, co-founding Dreamfield minutes after midnight on July 1. The results haven’t been as positive off the field, however. Though Milton has successfully returned from a nightmarish knee injury, his numbers have been up and down in a lost season for the Seminoles. Similarly, King’s numbers were middling before he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, and his head coach, Manny Diaz, is in jeopardy.
  • Graham Mertz, QB, Wisconsin: Mertz entered the season with loads of momentum after starting all seven games in his freshman season in Madison, but he has a 7-2 interceptions-to-TDs ratio this season as the Badgers have gone 3-3, and he’s facing calls that he should be benched. Mertz is represented in NIL matters by Inspiration Athlete. 
  • Kedon Slovis, QB, USC: Slovis had an impressive season as a true freshman for the Trojans, but didn’t step forward as many expected as a sophomore. This year has shown further regression, and with head coach Clay Helton dismissed and the team at 3-3, Slovis may need a win over Notre Dame Saturday simply to keep his job. He’s repped by Klutch Sports Group.
  • D.J. Uiagalelei, QB, Clemson: Many thought the presence of Uiagalelei might make for a seamless transition from Trevor Lawrence, but he has proven to need a little more seasoning as the Tigers have gone 4-2 and fallen out of the Top 25 for the first time since 2014. Uiagalelei is on an exclusive deal with Vayner Sports. 
  • Myles Brennan, QB, LSU: Though Brennan hasn’t publicly announced an exclusive partnership with an agency, he’s signed multiple NIL deals, landing a car lease with a local auto dealer as well as promotional deals with GameCoin, Raising Canes and Smoothie King. Brennan has yet to take the field this season after reportedly breaking his arm getting ready for a fishing trip; we’ll see if he can wrest the starting job from Max Johnson upon his return. LSU (4-3) is unranked, and head coach Ed Orgeron will not return in ’22. 

Let’s be clear: name, image and likeness deals are here to stay, and there are hundreds of reasons why a player’s performance might not match his play from the previous year. Still, we live in an era of increasing scrutiny, and how a player deals with the pressures of the modern game are definitely part of the equation when it comes to his draft status. We’ll continue to keep an eye on the players making big news off the field and comparing it to their on-field plaudits.

In the meantime, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in the business of college and pro football this week.

Catching Up: Ted Sundquist, 59, spent 16 years with the Denver Broncos, growing from a former coach interested in learning scouting to the GM when he left in 2008. We caught up with him this week.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I still live in Parker, Colo., a suburb of Denver, close to our facility (the team) built in Inglewood. We built this (house) while I was with the Broncos, and we have been here for about 21 years now. Shortly after I left the Broncos in ‘08, I interviewed with some teams, and it’s timing and connections and everything‘s gotta line up to get a job with a team. I’ve stayed in and around the game, spent a year at the (United Football League), helping out Rick Mueller with the Omaha franchise. Then I had a blog for a couple years, and I’ve done TV work locally and nationally, but the point is it all led me to an idea I had while with the Broncos, and that was (regarding) the difficulty of getting young players at any position, but particularly quarterbacks, enough reps on the field. In the Air Force, we used hyper-realistic training for fighter pilots and created these hours behind the stick, so when they get in the aircraft, they’ve also got that training for how they’re going to respond. So I took that premise to build something similar for football, Sports Virtual Training Systems, and the product is called the QB Sim. It’s a simulator for football players, especially QBs, and puts them in a virtual reality, immersive 3D environment. That’s what we’re doing, taking advantage of the virtual reality technology, and I’ve been working to build that in Colorado. We’re in Texas Tech, UCLA and Oklahoma, have a fan experience at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, and we’ve demonstrated and done activations at two Super Bowls. We’ve also spent this year doing activations for Air Force recruiting, allowing for a fan to throw a pass with an oncoming rush, and that kind of thing. By and large, my focus has been on training.” 

  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “Well, just in general, with regards to scouting and its affiliation with football, I do miss it quite a bit, and what I miss the most is the opportunity you can give young men. Any time you draft a guy to come to the Broncos, as I was (doing) back then, I knew they were coming to a class organization and it was gonna be a great opportunity for them. Life’s like that, how you can help people live their dreams. I thought I would be in coaching and coached at the Air Force Academy, my alma mater, which made it even more special. When I separated from the Air Force, I thought I would go into coaching, but scouting kinda presented itself. Two guys really helped me back then, (former Broncos executives) Jerry Fry and Jack Elway. They were the only two in the office. Back then it wasn’t a digital world and the office was kinda sparse when it comes to in-house scouts, and they helped transition me from coaching to scouting. I miss the people and I miss stories like that. They gave me an opportunity I wasn’t even expecting, and I was able to give a lot of other people opportunities.” 

  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “Yeah, I try to. I think if there’s any reason to be involved with social media, that’s one of them right there. It’s given me a chance to stay in touch with not only scouts I worked with when I was with the Broncos, but guys across the league. I tried to be very involved in committees at the league level as well as with National Football Scouting, and I got to know a lot of those guys, like (Lions executive) John Dorsey and (Bucs GM) Jason Licht, and Rick and (former NFL GM) Randy Mueller, and a lot of folks I had an opportunity to interact with. I try to follow them in their football careers. Scouting is a tight community, and we’re all competitive, maybe not as much as coaches, because (we’re) not going up against each other. You’re just gathering the information. It was fun, a lot of fun.”

  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “For a while, I was doing high school games on television locally in Denver, so I went to games every weekend, and I really enjoyed that, getting back to the roots of it. High school football in Colorado is not as big as it is in Texas or California, but it still means a lot to the kids, and to be able to do live games for the Altitude Network was a lot of fun. Also, Air Force is just down the road, so I try to get to every game I can get to there. Pro games, not quite so much. I haven’t been to a Denver game since I left there, probably on purpose, but by and large my interest kinda flows to and through the college and high school ranks.” 

  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “The funny thing is that, as the years have passed by, with my last year in Denver in 2008, a lot of guys that I remember scouting are putting on gold jackets or announcing on TV. I remember when (then-Chargers QB) Drew Brees broke his collarbone against us, and . . . got shipped off because he was injured and they thought he was too small, and he (turned out to be) one of the all-time greats, and he also does a great job on TV. . . . (Former NFL running back) Jerome Bettis, I remember scouting him. I was the lead scout at Air Force, and we had beaten (Notre Dame) a couple years in a row, then (Notre Dame head coach) Lou (Holtz) decided, ‘enough of this,’ and he gave the ball to Bettis like 50 times against us, and nobody could tackle him. It’s these older guys that have already come and gone and made a name for themselves. It makes me smile to go back and say, ‘I remember sitting in the draft room.’ (Former NFL linebacker) Derrick Brooks was at Florida State, and we were at the combine and I was one of the combine scouts, basically a den mother at the Indianapolis combine, and I’ve got a group of 15 LBs, and Derrick is like, ‘I don’t know if I should run the 40. My agent is telling me I shouldn’t, and I looked at Derrick, and I said, ‘you’ve never backed down from anything, and now you want to tell me you don’t want to run a 40? Derrick, come on.’ He said, ‘you’re right.’ He ran a 40, had a great time, and now the guy’s got a gold jacket on. It’s the funny little remembrances like that that I really appreciate now. The guys I watch today, the game’s changed quite a big, and I grew up an idol of Earl Campbell. Just stick your head down and run them over, and that game is long gone. It’s interesting to watch and see who catches your eye. I tend to gravitate more toward offensive linemen. I’m amazed at the size and athleticism of these guys today. I’ll gravitate toward watching these offensive linemen at 330-340 pounds and can move like a cat.”

Review the latest from other former NFL scouts and executives by accessing our Catching Up archive here. Want to hear from a former scout, or know someone who may be interested in being interviewed? Let us know.
 
NIL Know-How: Whether you passed the exam this summer (congratulations!) or will try again next summer (better luck next time!), the name, image and likeness area provides ample opportunity. The next generation of players can make plenty of money regardless of his draft status, and similarly, you don’t have to hold an NFLPA certification to work with players and make money in the game. However, there are a few things you need to know first, and we’ve got just the person to teach you. Trevor Swenson, who heads Sacramento-based Dynamic Talent, has been in the endorsement game for decades, and has plenty to share when it comes to recruiting, signing and promoting top talent. Starting Wednesday, Nov. 3, and continuing Nov. 10 and 17, Swenson will offer a class (co-hosted by ITL’s Neil Stratton) on starting an NIL business and signing players, securing deals and running the business, and an overview of the advertising world and what potential clients are looking for from your client. Cost is $150. For the price of 3-4 tanks of gas (or two, depending on your location), students will come away with a much greater understanding of the landscape. We see this as a way to make football professionals much more cognizant of how to take advantage of a growing business that has few boundaries and limitless potential. We’ll have more details as we get closer. Got questions? Let us know.

ITL New Agent Orientation Zoom Session (October): This week, we had our second breakdown of the industry for first-year contract advisors. Our topic this month was the 2022 all-star game lineup from top to bottom. For almost an hour-and-a-half, we talked about the eight games on the schedule from every angle, discussing how to get a player invited, what to do once he’s invited, what scouts expect, and all other aspects of the process. Didn’t make it? Hopefully you can next month, when we talk about the cost of being an agent from January through the draft, how training works, and other related topics. In case you have questions about the all-star games but weren’t on the call Wednesday, we hit the highlights in this week’s post at Succeed in Football. Make sure to check it out, and if you like what you see and want to join us next month, sign up here. 

The ITL Rising Contract Advisor Newsletter: We’d hoped to launch our popular series in the coming week. However, we’re still finalizing our distribution list and editing this year’s edition of the popular series. For the time being, we hope our latest New Agent Orientation Zoom Session can tide people over. Stay tuned.

Agents by Total Clients (October): This week, we took our monthly look at every contract advisor with at least 10 active clients. The results were, admittedly, a little unusual. We saw several agents’ client totals jump drastically in September – even though our totals were well after cuts – then fall just as drastically this month. We attribute it to a delay in post-cuts updates in NFLPA rolls. At any rate, as we did last month, we have presented the client totals for each of the last two months in addition to this one, just to give context. We hope you agree that it makes our list more dimensional. Check it out here.
 
Next week: After a week of digging into the new agent class to get to know the newest contract advisors, we’ve got one more item to add before we turn from representation. Next week, we’ll have Agent Changes for October. With the seeds of disappointment having been sown among several college teams this season, we’ll also introduce the Coaching Changes Grid for 2021-22 to reflect all the firings (and potential hirings). We’ll also ready the ITL Rising Contract Advisors Newsletter, and we’ll continue our Know Your Scouts feature with the Colts, Cowboys, Dolphins, Eagles and Falcons. In addition to that, well, you know: we’ll have our Succeed in Football blog, our Rep Rumblings; our YouTube page; our books; and, of course, our tweets. And whatever else we can think of. Curious and looking to see if we know what we’re talking about? Challenge accepted. But go here first.