Miami Hurricanes Star Transfer Additions Ink Their First NIL Deals
With Name, Image, and Likeness becoming more prevalent across the collegiate landscape, different college programs and universities have their own idea about how they want to utilize NIL funds.
Some are aggressively using it to pursue high school recruits, others use it in the transfer portal, and others utilize it to keep their roster in tact so their players don't explore financial opportunities elsewhere.
The Miami Hurricanes have been at the forefront of NIL since it was legalized by the NCAA.
It's allowed many of their athletics programs to flourish, using money from boosters and the university to allocate resources for landing and keeping players.
Their two new defensive line transfers are the most recent beneficiaries.
Pete Nakos of On3 reports that Simeon Barrow and Tyler Baron have inked NIL deals with Miami's collective Canes Connection which marks their first deals of this kind since becoming Hurricanes.
The compensation was not mentioned.
Both spring additions, Barrow left Michigan State after entering the transfer portal and decided to commit to Miami over Missouri and LSU. Baron spent four years at Tennessee before transferring to Louisville this winter, however, he decided to enter the portal during the spring and will complete his final season in South Florida.
According to Nakos, 75 of the 85 scholarship football players this past summer had some sort of contract, highlighting just how much Miami utilizes NIL within their program.
"We've been at this for two years now, and we've been building this roster, building this culture, and there's been steady progress ... We've taken another jump in terms of caliber of talent, development and culture. You need to address those other things to take that next step as a program," head coach Mario Cristobal said at the ACC meetings in May.
Bringing in Barrow and Baron up front will certainly help that.
Between the two, they have combined for over 200 tackles, 45.5 of them for loss, as well as 24 total sacks during their careers.
BRAD WAKAI