‘Absolutely brilliant’: Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee praise Utah’s NIL truck lease deal

Utah’s NIL truck lease deal, revealed Wednesday, is generating a buzz throughout the college football world.

The Crimson Collective, an independent NIL organization centered around name, image and likeness opportunities for Utah student-athletes, provided every scholarship football player with a free lease on a new 2024 Dodge Ram 1500 Big Horn Night Edition truck. Each scholarship player will have the opportunity to lease a Ram truck for free from United Fleet Management, with everything covered by Crimson Collective donors — including insurance — as long as they remain on scholarship at the university.

Pat McAfee, the former Indianapolis Colts punter who now hosts a daily three-hour sports talk show on ESPN, and “College GameDay” and ESPN college football commentator Kirk Herbstreit both praised Utah’s NIL deal on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday.

“How about what Utah just did with all those trucks? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love everything about that,” McAfee said.

“That was pretty cool. I just saw that yesterday myself,” Herbstreit said.

NIL runs rampant over college football, evidenced by the fact that the father of USC quarterback Caleb Williams told GQ that due to Williams’ NIL deals, he could possibly stay at USC if he didn’t like the team with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

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“He’s got two shots at the apple. So if there’s not a good situation, the truth is he can come back to school,” Carl Williams said.

Herbstreit pointed to Utah’s truck deal and the Williams situation as positive aspects of NIL.

“I think the NIL has been great, NIL’s been fantastic. I think that there are aspects of it that a lot of us don’t quite understand. When it comes to Caleb Williams being able to weigh his decision (to go to the NFL), if that’s what he’s doing, that’s kind of cool. Utah getting trucks for all of their players, that’s amazing,” Herbstreit said.

However, there is another side of NIL. Players sometimes transfer to the school that offers them the most money through boosters, and Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith testified to Congress that “a practice of asking a school for a fee to simply visit campus has emerged; asking for $5,000 just to visit has become common. During visits, discussions now emerge regarding how much a student-athlete can expect from NIL.”

“The idea of Alabama or some of the big boys saying, ‘Hey, Southern Miss, we need a left tackle, we’ll take that sophomore All-American, we’ll take him from you and Miami of Ohio, sorry about that, that receiver, we’ll take him,’” Herbstreit said. “Poaching players off of smaller programs makes no sense to me, bribing high school players with NIL money makes no sense to me.”

Utah is trying to avoid that scenario playing out, a Utah player transferring for more money, with the Crimson Collective.

The Crimson Collective sent out a social media post following the truck announcement that reads, “Now that we have your attention, this is just the start. We need support from our fans more than ever. Every dollar makes a difference in keeping our great players on our turf and in our community.”

The NIL group has raised $3.25 million of a goal to raise $6 million by December.