NFL Draft numbers show NIL may be helping college football in one big way

NIL is far from perfect, but it might be keeping players in college longer

NIL continues to be a huge topic of debate and controversy in college football with fans split on whether it's been a positive or negative effect on the sport.

More: What is NIL in college football? Here's what you need to know

But in recent memory, which has seen so many underclassmen declare early for the NFL Draft and leave the college ranks, there's some new evidence that NIL may actually be keeping more players in school longer.

When the deadline to declare early for the 2023 NFL Draft arrived, a total of 82 players had submitted their names to turn professional.

That's a notable drop from the number a year ago: a fall of roughly 18 percent from 2022, with that number being a 22 percent drop from 2021, and this year's number is a decline of a whopping 40 percent from 2019.

In total, the NFL Draft saw a 36 percent drop in the number of early entries — undergraduates plus graduates with eligibility remaining — from the last pre-NIL season to this year. 

In 2019, we saw 135 college football players declare early for the draft, 115 went early in 2020, and 128 in 2021.

Then in the summer of 2021, NIL came into effect.

In 2022, there was a drop of early entrants, to 100, and this year's 82 figure is the first time the number dipped below 100 since 2016.

When taking all the averages into account, that means roughly three dozen players decided to stay in college football when they didn't have to, to get some more experience and potentially make their teams better.

Covid-19 may also play a role in these numbers, after the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to players who were affected by the pandemic.

But it's safe to say the ability to pocket some legal income as amateurs may have also played into those players' decisions to delay going pro.

Not that that was anyone's intention when the powers that be introduced NIL reforms, something they did only when they felt they absolutely had to.

But the advent of NIL — despite the absence of any single rule regulating it and the general mood that the system needs to change fundamentally — does appear to have had one consequence of keeping players in school longer.

We'll see if that trend continues into the future.

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