NCAA's new 5-for-5 rule will rob Peter to pay Paul — and hand recruits NIL jackpot

It has been hailed as the great save for college football, an elimination of free player movement and an eventual leveling out of exorbitant private NIL deals. 

And if you believe five years to play five seasons with a proposed one free transfer is the great financial governor from the NCAA, you may want to revisit the recent past. 

Or as the great Winston Churchill once said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to pay out the wazoo in future NIL deals.

For players who haven’t taken a snap of college football.

Welcome back to life before NIL, where rosters were built organically through high school recruiting. Now guess who gets the cash?

Like every overreaction from the NCAA in the NIL era — instead of just simply collectively bargaining with players — this, too, has its own lovely death spiral. If 5-for-5 passes, roster building immediately shifts back to high school recruiting. 

It’s a numbers game. With only one free transfer per player as President Trump pitched in his executive order (see: one bite at the private NIL apple), rosters would once again be built organically. Players aren’t leaving annually, with their greatest potential financial gain earned after spending a year or two (or three) with a program. 

Despite what universities hope and pray for, that doesn’t mean the end of spending. Private NIL money isn’t drying up, it’s just moving to a different group of players. 

A group that has no business earning it. 

This what happens when you rob Peter to pay Paul. Or to put it in 21st century context: When you clamp down on player movement to slow spending, and then realize you still have to spend to build a roster. 

And you’re not spending on the known, you’re spending in the largest crapshoot of all: high school recruiting. Spending more money, that is, than you’ve ever imagined on all high school recruits.

Not just a handful of recruits like the good ol’ days, when Jeremy Pruitt and his wife were stuffing cash in Chick-Fil-A bags.

Again, it’s a numbers game. Less player movement means more emphasis on high school recruiting. More younger players on a roster — and more players signed at high-dollar value who may not even contribute. 

But players that must be signed to build and develop a team. 

To explain it in NFL parlance — since college football leaders refuse to adopt the most successful NFL ideal and collectively bargain — college football rosters will be full of dead money. Without the salary cap.

Currently, the biggest dead money area on a team is quarterback. Especially if you’re among the elite blue bloods of the sport. 

You pay millions for a transfer portal starter, and millions more for a five-star recruit. The past four teams to reach the College Football Playoff national championship game had high-dollar transfer starters — three with high-dollar high school recruits as backups. 

Now transfer that idea to other big-money positional recruits: offensive linemen, edge rushers, wide receivers. The buildout is more expensive than you think.

Yet someone, somewhere has sold 5-for-5 as the magic bullet for athletic departments desperate to regain control of booster contributions. In their dream scenario, less player movement equals less player leverage, which leads to less demand in the market, which leads to private NIL deals slowly receding from ridiculous levels.

Which, in a perfect world, leads to athletic departments clawing back booster money that has been spent on private NIL deals. An utterly preposterous idea, but one at the forefront of those in the 5-for-5 world.

Will less player movement level out private NIL deals? Possibly, but it could also increase high-value deals with current college players because there are only so many spots for so many players. The money will be spent, it’s just a matter of where and how and who earns it.

Do you want to spend it on experienced players who have proven value in college football, or high school players and their unknown ceilings? Prior to the NIL era, programs paid a small number of elite high school recruits under the table.

In a 5-for-5 world, a majority of high school recruits will be paid significantly more than they’re currently earning in the private NIL world. It’s basic economics: need equals spend.   

5-for-5 also suffocates the out-of-nowhere magic we’ve seen in the NIL era. From TCU to Indiana, from to Ole Miss to Arizona State and all points between, there was program gold for those who worked the free movement transfer portal better than others.

But in a 5-for-5 scenario, the days of 50 or 60 or 70 new players on a roster every season are long gone. The quick change is no more. 

All because of the great boogeyman collective bargaining. 

“I have no idea why we’re so afraid of collectively bargaining with players,” Tennessee athletic director Danny White said in May. “It’s the least complicated, safest way forward.”

Or the exact opposite of every other decision made in the NIL era. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.