JACKSONVILLE, FL—At a press conference hosted at the Jacksonville Classical Academy, DeSantis blamed name, image, and likeness (NIL) endorsements and the increasing presence of the college transfer portal for Florida's decreased football presence.
“I think this whole NIL may need some guardrails and the transferring has gotten out of hand," DeSantis said Tuesday morning at a bill signing ceremony for a sweeping education package. "You know, transferring once? Fine, you shouldn’t have to sit out. But to just treat it like a free agency where you don’t know who’s going to come back each year, I think that’s diluted college sports.”
"I want to see us do well in college football again. I know Florida State had a good year until that last game. I know the Gators didn’t do as good...but, I mean, I’d like to get them all back,” DeSantis added.
Traditionally, college athletes were never paid for their sport because they were classified as "amateurs". Until 2021, when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allowed players not to be paid directly but through NIL endorsements.
According to a 247Sports survey, first-year NIL contracts can range from a few thousand dollars a month to annual payments nearing one million.
The transfer portal, meanwhile, was launched in 2018 to help athletes have more say in switching schools. However, critics of the portal say it has become "chaos", with the 2023 transfer portal seeing a whopping 456 scholarship players on Day 1, and 780 players from FBS, FCS, and Division II trying their hand as well.
In the 2023 college football season, Florida State had an undefeated season for the first time in ten years. Despite this, they were excluded from the championship playoffs, inciting national outrage.
Before FSU's loss at the Orange Bowl, DeSantis had pledged $1 million from the state budget to sue the College Football Playoff committee over the Seminoles’ snub.
Additionally, Florida State, recently joined by Clemson, sued their conference—the ACC—for charging teams $140 million for attempting to leave the conference.
“I’m signing these letters and it’s like, ‘Dear Michael, congratulations on going to the University of Georgia. Congratulations on going to Alabama.’ And I’m like, why congratulate them for leaving our state?” DeSantis said last year.
