"Absolutely crazy": $35M worth Brian Kelly goes on rant about salary caps in college football

LSU Tigers coach Brian Kelly recently expressed concern regarding the NIL system and its lack of a salary cap in college football. He compared the payment structures within the NFL and the unregulated NIL landscape in college football.

Having a staggering net worth of $35 million ( per Celebrity Net Worth), Kelly explained his position in an interview on "The Dan Le Batard Show".

LSU coach who signed a 10-year, $95 million contract with LSU in 2022, used Jayden Daniels and Malik Nabers as examples of top prospects who are looking for rookie signing bonuses, while also highlighting that seniors in high school are searching for freshman signing bonuses.

"So, look, it parallels, NIL money is broken down into the three categories that the NFL is paying out, and we're doing the same thing,” Kelly said.

“Unfortunately, we're doing it without a salary cap, and that's where it makes it just absolutely crazy because you just don’t know what the numbers are from year to year." [Timestamp - 23:51]

He pointed out that in the NFL, signing bonuses are included in the structure of rookie contracts, while free-agent bonuses and retention bonuses are also common. In contrast, the NIL system lacks a salary cap, and as a result, the numbers can be difficult to predict.

Kelly also said that players in the transfer portal are looking for free-agent bonuses, while the players on the roster, “want retention bonuses".

Could Brian Kelly's suggestion on salary cap be a solution?

Brian Kelly speaks during a news conference at Tiger Stadium.

According to Brian Kelly, a salary cap could solve the explosion of NIL.

“If we had a salary cap, I’d be OK with it,” he said. “I mean, if we all were operating under the same guidelines, at least we could know, ‘OK, this is what we’ve got.’ But that’s really the biggest issue.”

However, it is much easier to implement a salary cap in the NFL because there are only 32 teams, all in the same league and with similar resources. This is not the case in college football, where there is a significant gap between the teams, according to “ClutchPoints”.

Two-time NCAA Division II champion Brian Kelly also said that CFB is currently in a great place, but there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the future of NIL. The challenge now is to figure out how to cap this so that everyone can move forward.