Inside the Untold Battle: How Kentucky Wildcats and SEC Teams Are Fighting a Rising Tide of Tampering Scandals
There’s a secret shadow game unfolding beneath the bright lights and roaring crowds of SEC football—a game that’s as invisible as it is insidious. Tampering, that sly little beast, has slithered into every corner of the transfer portal and NIL landscape, shaking the very foundation of college programs from Kentucky to Louisville and beyond. Coaches aren’t just noticing the damage—they’re sounding alarms loud enough to demand action. As the SEC’s powers-that-be gather in Destin, tampering isn’t a side note; it’s the headline they can’t ignore. The complexity of tampering is maddening—often wrapped in whispers, elusive proof, and backdoor schemes that rob players of stability and programs of integrity. But here’s the kicker: without accountability for the agents and third parties weaving these tangled webs, the problem won’t just persist—it’ll accelerate. It’s a wild time in college athletics, one where immediate eligibility and lucrative NIL deals blur the lines between opportunity and exploitation, and where the clock is ticking fast on reforms that could bring some much-needed order. The SEC’s challenge? Corral this chaos before it runs the whole game off the rails.
- Tampering has become so widespread in the age of the transfer portal and NIL deals that SEC coaches are moving it to the forefront of issues that need to be addressed.
- Tampering can harm players who are misled by false promises and lose their original roster spots.
The SEC should throw its collective weight into changing that first.If they’re lucky, they find a landing place on a similar level at a similar amount. But a lot of times, their luck ran out along with the deal they thought they had.Frankly, there’s never been a better time to tamper with another school’s talented players.
Tampering is such a finesse move, it’s hard to prove even when it seems there’s smoke. Usually a third party, who may or may not have direct ties to a player, floats out the idea that a certain school is paying a certain amount of money if they’d be willing to transfer.
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops isn’t leading the charge, but he’s been impacted in much of the same way Louisville coach Jeff Brohm has.
Immediate eligibility means said player doesn’t have to sit out a year, like in the past, they just have to enter the transfer portal and, voila, they can be in a new uniform the next semester.
When SEC football coaches believe it’s time to address a problem, it becomes a national issue. And when, on the off chance they’re all united behind said cause, it leads to rule changes.Like at all.
The beauty of it all, for those who operate in these shadows of the rules, is there has been little to no recourse for their actions because they leave little to no evidence of their actions.A proposal is already in the works, pending the finalization of the House v. NCAA settlement, to have a clearinghouse for NIL deals. It would eliminate pay-for-play arrangements because every deal for more than 0 would have to be reported and vetted.
If agents are registered and have to be vetted to operate, then they could be held to a higher standard. They could face fines, suspensions and ultimately banishment for recklessly tampering. And that would clear up a large percentage of the problem for starters.These are easy changes that could help.That’s why speculation swirled when former Georgia quarterback Carson Beck transferred to Miami during the winter window within 24 hours of entering the portal reportedly for a multimillion-dollar deal between million and million. (Beck’s girlfriend attended Miami, but instead of it being a caveat to why he’d leave UGA, it added her to the conspiracy of interfering to bring him to The U.)
Don’t get lured into believing that tampering is harmless. Some players get told of the riches they’ll make if they transfer. Then once they enter the portal and are ready to sign, the offer has dried up. They can’t return to their original school because that coach has moved on to tighten up the roster. Contracts have to be part of the equation to stop tampering, too. If schools can lock players in for a set number of years, it would add to the stabilizing rosters. If a player outperformed the old contract, they could negotiate a raise for the next. As the most influential football conference gets together for its annual spring meetings in Destin, Florida, this week, tampering will be front and center as a runaway issue the league is looking to corral.And that’s what the SEC needs to focus on changing.Name, image and likeness deals — that detoured quickly from how it was originally intended as endorsement opportunities into pay-for-play — means luring a player away in many cases just comes down to making a higher financial offer.Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at [email protected], follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
Some of the tampering cases are easy to spot. When a player enters the portal with a no-contact mandate, ensuring there won’t be any cold calls from coaches, and ends up signing with the new program within days of leaving the old, that might be due to tampering.
Even in the cases in which the offer was true and a player gained a better financial deal, it’s akin to roster theft, and eventually every program will be a victim.It’s not exactly new, either; a lot of eyebrows were raised in 2022 when Pitt receiver Jordan Addison, fresh off winning the Fred Biletnikoff Award for the nation’s best receiver, abruptly transferred to USC.Players are often made aware of potential side deals by their representatives. And in many states, agents representing college athletes don’t have to be certified.
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