Pitt Players Want NIL Used to Retain Teammates

Jake Kradel and Gavin Bartholomew believe the Pitt Panthers should focus on keeping their current stars at home.

PITTSBURGH -- After facing his former long-time starting quarterback, Sam Hartman and Notre Dame on the road on Senior Night, Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson had some strong words to share about how the Irish honored him prior to his final game in South Bend, questioning how they "bought him and rented him for a year," but said they loved him. His comments resonated with Pitt Panthers starters Jake Kradel and Gavin Bartholomew. 

They both have accepted that NIL deals rule college football recruiting and said in the most recent episode of their joint podcast, "In The Trenches" co-hosted by Noah Hils of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that they want the Panthers' own NIL efforts to focus on keeping the strong pillars of the current roster in the Steel City. 

"You want to retain players, good players, good players who are going to be your guys and contribute and win games, then pay them," Kradel, a starter at left guard, said. "Why let them go get, I don’t know, half a million to a million dollars somewhere else when you could buck up and pay that guy the money to stay, be a team captain, have a lot of success here at Pitt? That’s my belief. I think instead of going out and trying to find all these guys, look at your roster first, look at retaining those guys, your top guys and don’t let them go to the portal and get paid."

Bartholomew agreed, saying that haggling over NIL deals is a fact of life now for college football teams looking to land top talent. He believes it happened with Hartman and that the rest of college football, including Pitt, needs to accept that. 

"[Hartman] was there for how long and they outbid for him, really and that’s what college football is," he Panthers' starting tight end, Bartholomew said. "It’s like a bid game almost. Everyone’s just trying to get as much money as they can and whatever school can pay them the most money, that’s where they’re going to go. That’s the way it is now.” 

Kradel has exhausted his college eligibility but Bartholomew has one season left. He has offered no indication that he plans on leaving Pitt and transferring elsewhere, but given his big-play abilities in the passing game, could be included in that category of player that commands large sums of NIL money once they enter the transfer portal. 

Kradel doesn't necessarily see it as a bad thing. As a player himself, he empathizes with players who seek to get all they can from NIL deals and wants his own program to keep up with how the sport is changing. 

"I think Dave Clawson’s right. I think that’s where college football is and it’s going to be that way for the next couple of years," Kradel said. "It’s going to get - I don’t know if worse is the word, but it’s going to get more and more NIL-hungry, you know what I mean? So I think he’s 100% right.”

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