A look at how John Cook, Huskers have integrated NIL into recruiting at an elite level | Recruiting

Just last year, you’ll remember, his Nebraska volleyball program signed a class that included the top three recruits in the entire country, a feat that would be unfathomable for any other sport at the school and, really, in almost any sport at any school in the country.

Ohio State football signed the top two in the country according to 247Sports for the 2021 class and four of the top seven, including quarterback Quinn Ewers, who had a reported $1 million name, image and likeness deal and transferred from the Buckeyes to Texas after one year in Columbus.

That’s not exactly the same environment Cook finds himself in now, but the world of volleyball recruiting has also changed dramatically since athletes were able to profit off of their NIL beginning July 1 last summer.

As the landscape has developed in Lincoln and around the country, Cook explained how NU has learned to manage the challenges, embrace the opportunities for athletes and tried to turn it into another recruiting advantage for his program.

“It’s very, very important in recruiting,” Cook told the Journal Star recently. “I think there’s a group of schools that are out there and upfront with it. There’s a group of schools that are trying to figure it out and they’re not sure what they can do or what they have, and then I think there’s smaller schools where it’s not even relevant to what they’re doing. The level we’re recruiting at and the schools we’re recruiting against, we’re going to have to ante up to compete.”

There are limitations, of course, to what schools can do with NIL in general — coaches and university employees cannot be directly involved in the process of securing deals for players — and specifically in recruiting. There aren’t many hard and fast rules regarding NIL, but one of the few is that NIL opportunities are not to be made directly in an effort to influence a recruit’s decision.

Recruits, though — some undoubtedly more than others — are factoring NIL opportunities into their decisions. So, how do you handle that as a coach?

“The route we’ve taken is, and the way our recruiting works when we can start talking to them on phone and Zoom calls and in-person when they visit — which, now they’re juniors in high school — we are in education mode. We’re teaching,” Cook said. “We’re teaching about NIL, we’re teaching about what it means to be a Nebraska volleyball player and all that comes with it. We’re talking about, with this, I don’t know if athletes are understanding this yet, but with all of this, there’s more expectations. So if you’re getting paid by these NIL deals and things are happening, they expect you to perform and do well. We’re trying to get them to understand there’s going to be more expectations and more that’s given, more is required.

“We’re trying to educate them on that so they don’t feel the pressure and feel like they’re letting a bunch of people down if they don’t play well, for example.”

And they’re helping athletes get in touch with players and companies that are directly in the NIL business.

“We’ve been very proactive in the educational component of it on how this works,” Cook said. “We’ve used examples from Lauren (Stivrins) to Lexi (Sun) to Nicklin (Hames), and we actually have them connect and give them the information where they can call ABM or call Opendorse and learn about how this place has worked.”

Each sport will have its variables, but there are some commonalities so far between volleyball and, say, football. One is that there are different levels of understanding and interest from recruit to recruit and family to family. Another is that the transfer landscape has been impacted substantially. High-level transfers that can have an immediate impact are difficult to find and, thus, valuable to programs. Add in the rapid expansion of donor collectives in the NIL world around the country, and big-time transfers have a lot of leverage. That makes the recruitment of a demonstrably productive college football player like TCU transfer Ochaun Mathis — a top Nebraska target who was in town last weekend on an official visit — or three-time All-American middle Kaitlyn Hord, a Penn State transfer who signed with Cook’s program, different than it might have been two years ago.

“Whoever we’re recruiting, whether they can make a lot of money or not or whether they think they can, we’re still going to recruit the players that fit in best here,” Cook said. “I have yet to have a recruit ask me, ‘Well, how much money do you think I can get?’ Or, ‘Well I’m getting this much here.’ We’re not in the bidding wars which I’m sure are going on in the men’s sports. I think the high school girls that we’re recruiting, I don’t think they’re watching ESPN every day. They’re doing other things, so I don’t think they’re in that world yet, but it’s probably coming down the road.

“It’s probably more with transfers because transfers are going to be able to compare and they understand more. But again, we’re educating parents and our recruits just to make sure they understand how all of this works, because a lot of them don’t have a clue how all of this works yet or have agents. Volleyball players don’t have agents yet. Is that coming down the road? Maybe.”