How Do Oklahoma 5-Stars Jackson Arnold and Peyton Bowen Feel About NIL? Their Answer May Surprise You

Both the Sooners' new quarterback and new safety described what role NIL played in their own recruitment, and how important it was to them.

ORLANDO — Jackson Arnold and Peyton Bowen — Oklahoma’s two highest-profile recruits in the 2023 class — say potential revenue from Name, Image and Likeness opportunities did not drive their recruitment.

Arnold, a 5-star quarterback, even hinted that NIL might be doing harm to the game as well as good.

Arnold and Bowen — former teammates at Guyer High School in Denton, TX, future teammates at Oklahoma, and current teammates on Team Speed at the Under Armour Next All-America Game next week — opened up this week on how they felt about NIL.

“I know a lot of people focus on NIL as, I guess their main thing in looking for schools,” Arnold said, “and you know, I think nowadays, I think it’s kind of — not ruining college football in a way, but kind of ruining some peoples’ decisions just because they’re focusing on the school that might give you the most money, but they won’t develop you; the coaches aren’t that connected with you; maybe the class isn’t even that close together.”

Bowen, a 5-star safety, said rumors of a big payday by Oregon were overblown. To him, NIL money was important, but Oregon didn’t offer any major NIL avenues that other schools didn’t offer.

“I wasn’t just some special player,” Bowen said. “It was just gonna be the same things.”

When he flipped on National Signing Day from Notre Dame to Oregon and then from Oregon to Oklahoma a day later, he said he was merely following his heart, and not a “bag” of cash.

“When I think about NIL,” Bowen said, “I think about trying to market myself as early as possible so I can try to get my money so if anything happens, it puts myself in a better position. But NIL was and is a priority, but it’s not like the biggest thing. Like, if I play good, I’m gonna get NIL anyway. So it wasn’t really that big a thing.”

Guyer coach Reed Heim told AllSooners that although Arnold has been committed to OU for almost a year and Bowen woke up last Wednesday still undecided, the recruiting process as a whole took an emotion toll on both. Still, their ability to focus and push through and achieve their goal, Heim said, was really no surprise.

“They're really good kids,” Heim said. “Like, do the right thing, yes sir, no sir, always wanted to make sure that they are good leaders and do right by the team.

“Sometimes, with all the hoopla that’s just followed them both around for so long, it really can start to get to ‘em. But I'm always appreciative that you can still get onto them and coach ‘em hard and they want to do right by you. And I think that's something that's gonna serve them really, really well — not only at the next level, but just in life generally.”

Arnold isn’t blind to the NIL opportunities that soon will be coming his way. There are three (soon to be four) statues outside Memorial Stadium dedicated to OU quarterbacks. Mom and Pop Norman merchants and billion dollar global corporations will want to attach themselves to that kind of branding.

But Arnold also knows three of the Sooners’ four Heisman winners — and one Heisman runner-up in Jalen Hurts — plied their collegiate passing at Oklahoma into millions of NFL dollars. That’s where the real money lies.

“When I was looking at schools,” Arnold said, “I just knew I wanted to be at a place where I was comfortable, where I knew that I was going to a good situation where I could potentially play early and where I was gonna get developed, and I thought Oklahoma was the best spot for me.”

Bowen is perfectly fine with what he called “a difference” in NIL opportunities for himself and NIL opportunities for Arnold. He even gave his teammate kind of a hard time about it.

“I kind of think about it like this,” Bowen said. “For Jackson, a quarterback is 10 times more marketable than any defensive player. That’s just that simple.”