The time for debating the merits of this new era in college athletics is long gone.
Support the new direction or not is essentially irrelevant to athletic departments across the country.
The new question is, are you willing to adjust to survive?
âIf you donât adapt, you will die,â ULâs director of athletics Dr. Bryan Maggard insists. âIf we donât embrace it, we wonât be successful.â
Thereâs been plenty of discussion over the new forces of the transfer portal and NIL in college sports, but it goes even deeper than that these days.
Many of the new methods for college departments to legally buy their athletes only include the Power Four conferences. Nevertheless, mid-major programs like UL still must develop plans to remain viable contenders in their respective leagues.
âUltimately, what we want to do is we want to separate ourselves from the group of five for the Sun Belt Conference,â Maggard said.
So Maggard has led the charge to formulate a plan of combat.
Perhaps the most significant new issue is the NCAA going from scholarships to roster limits.
For example, college baseball programs will be able to hand out as many as 34 scholarships to fill out a roster as opposed to the 11.7 scholarship restrictions that governed all programs. For softball, programs can now have 25 scholarships instead of just 12.
So while power leagues will likely all fund 34 scholarships for baseball and 25 for softball, mid-major programs that plan to compete in those sports will be scratching and clawing to fund maybe 15 or 18 or 20 to stay as viable as possible.
âCurrently working with campus leadership right now to see what we can do to go beyond that 11.7 for baseball and 12 for softball,â Maggard said. âThose talks are ongoing, but our campus leadership understands the importance and value of our diamond sports.â
At the center of ULâs new approach is an initiative called âWin with Tenâ under the umbrella of the universityâs Krewe Allons collective.
The concept is to get as many UL fans as possible to contribute $10 a month.
âWhat weâre asking our fans to do is to go the website (kreweallons.com), chose the sport youâd like to support and lock on the $10 monthly contribution,â Maggard said. âPut that on a recurring credit card and then forget about it â no different than we do with our ESPN-Plus accounts or Netflix or DisneyPlus.â
Maggard added there are one-time additional gift options on the site as well, but âitâs really important that we get the masses. This is a campaign for the masses â not the individuals, so we can grow our collective.â
The sports are the ticket-selling sports of football, menâs basketball, baseball and softball.
According to the departmentâs projections, the initial goals are to âget roughly 2,000 supporter for football and 1,000 supporters for the other three ticketed sportsâ to get the ball rolling.
âI always tell people, how do you eat an elephant?â he said. âOne bite at a time.â
Maggard reiterated each sport will continue their individual fundraising events â such as golf tournaments â âbut this is a base that each coach can count on.â
The purpose is for each sport to be able to recruit and retain athletes to remain contenders for Sun Belt titles.
âIf we donât, we wonât,â Maggard said. âWithout this, we wonât compete for championships and the level weâre accustomed to at the University of Louisiana.
âAlso, if we donât embrace this, we will not be able to retain quality coaches. Quality coaches arenât in the business to lose.â
The Cajuns clearly learned that lesson the hard way with softball coach Gerry Glasco recently left the program to take over Texas Tech, which immediately nabbed the top pitcher in the portal for $1.2 million a year.
Maggard suggested these funds will be more for recruiting for some sports and more about retaining the top players already in Lafayette for others.
âIt might be more important for the sport of basketball on the recruiting front, so coach (Bob) Marlin can do out and get some good players,â Maggard said. âIn football, with classes as big as they are and the talent to recruit in this state, it might be more about retaining. Itâs just kind of a balance. Itâs about both recruiting and retaining.â
In addition to the new âWin with Tenâ program, Maggard said continuing to upgrade facilities is another huge step in UL attempting to recruit well.
âWe have a beautiful football stadium coming down the pike here soon,â he said. âWeâre currently raising money for a baseball clubhouse and weâre raising money for a softball stadium renovations, because we know brick and mortar still matters. You have to have a nice place to recruit student-athletes to.â
Thereâs also a lesser-known program now supported by the NCAA called student-athlete academic enhancement funding where âitâs permissible to give student-athletes some additional funds â cash funds â to help offset some of the costs associated with their academics. Weâre going to work a three or four-year plan to help our coaches to recruit a little bit better.â
Through all of these steps, though, Maggard said ULâs plans wonât include actual pay for play elements.
âOur student-athletes will absolutely have to perform deliverables to earn compensation for name, image and likenessâ â ranging from social media endorsements to billboards to appearances at social functions.
The other new development mid-majors will soon be combating starting on Aug. 1, 2025 is athletic departments will be able to share up to $20 million with the athletes.
âThatâs the one that make you wonder, âHow do we compete?â Maggard said, referring to the need for new approaches. âThat is absolutely pay for play. Itâs intended to be that. Schools will have the opportunity to opt into that. We wonât. We donât have an extra $20 million.
âI donât know any other group of five problem that does, but we know the power 4 programs will. My counterparts in those programs, many of them are scratching their heads right now, because they donât have an extra $20 million.â
Once that begins, high school and college athletes will now be signing complicated contracts just like pro players.
âIâve seem templates from my colleagues at the Power Four level getting ready to be implemented,â Maggard said. âOne was for a four-star defensive back and the offer was a two-year contract worth $175,000 per year for two years ⦠and year two was incentive laden.â
For those wondering where itâll all end, Maggard said the NCAA is developing a third party NIL oversight committee to âtry to establish market value, so the athletes arenât being paid these ridiculous amounts through the collectives.â
Maggard also said many fans donât realize thereâs a $2.7 billion backpay class-action lawsuit that was settled when former Arizona State swimmer Grant House and Oregon basketball player Sedona Price sued for barring them from NIL benefits prior to 2021.
As a result, athletes from 2016-19 who choose to opt in will receive settlements.
Itâll be $270 million dished out each year for 10 years. Maggard said the formula isnât official yet but the most recent draft had 75% going to football, 15% to menâs basketball, 5% to womenâs hops and all the remaining sports dividing the 5% left.