<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3YMGyx_0w8Drile00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3YMGyx_0w8Drile00" width="1200" height="720" ><figcaption>photo credit: YouTube/Miss Understood Podcast</figcaption></figure>Playing college football in the SEC – including at Arkansas – is no longer about pride, loyalty or school spirit. It’s a job.Maybe it has been for longer than anyone cares to admit. But now, the quiet part can be said out loud.After beating his former team on Saturday, Tennessee transfer Doneiko Slaughter was asked what the win meant. He responded: “I see it as another great opportunity to feed my family, feed my guys’ family, my team’s family, just produce, perform on the field. It’s just another game honestly. Just keep go getting paid.”I ain’t hatin’. Athletes are playing the hand they’re dealt in the Transfer Portal/NIL era. But as a fan, staying invested in a team when players are shuffled in and out every season is a different experience than we’re accustomed to. For some, myself included, it’s not as much fun to root for guys on the Hill who are there to collect a paycheck.Then again, it’s hard to imagine two unranked SEC teams like Arkansas and Vandy knocking off the likes of No. 4 Tennessee and No. 1 Alabama on the same day prior to the NIL era. And at the end of the day, the thing fans care most about is winning. Last Saturday, despite a defensive domination in the first half against Tennessee, Hogs fans sat, anticipating a new way for the Hogs to rip out our hearts. There is perhaps no team in the country as adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as Arkansas football, after all. But the Hogs bucked the trend, scoring a late touchdown to win 19-14 and earn some top-25 votes in the process.Though we celebrated through the bye week, the game could have easily gone the other way. Two failed fourth-down attempts in field goal range may receive more scrutiny with a matchup against No. 8 LSU on the horizon. Place-kicking woes and an injury to starting quarterback Taylen Green loom large, including his inability to generate yards with his legs against Tennessee. He had minus-5 yards on 9 carries before eventually leaving the game. Also concerning is the loss of kicker Kyle Ramsey, who injured his groin on a 44-yard miss near the end of the first half. Four of the next six games are against ranked SEC opponents, including No. 1 Texas, and truth be told, I don’t think anybody has a clue what to expect. The games have never looked tougher, yet somehow have never seemed more winnable. In the NIL era, chaos is the constant. Everybody’s beatable. Nobody sucks. And the notion of “Team” has never seemed more ephemeral.<h2>Arkansas Football in the NIL Era</h2>Let’s talk about Green. And also money. Especially as a runner, Taylen Green has shown some real flashes. It was his trademark at Boise State, and he’s shown the same explosiveness for the Razorbacks. He seems to be liked by his coaches, teammates and fans. With another year of eligibility, it would be nice to see him develop as a passer and lead the Hogs as a senior. If not, the next starting quarterback could arrive this offseason. Or when you find your star, he could leave the following season. “It’s kind of been known as NI-Hell,” Pittman said in August. There doesn’t seem to be many football coaches enjoying the NIL/Transfer Portal era. According to research by 247Sports, more college football coaches are making the jump to the NFL than ever before. Thirty-four coaches left for NFL positions last year, marking an 88.9 percent increase over the past two years and continuing a rising trend for the second consecutive season.But like it or not, after beating the Vols and improving to 4-2, the NIL era seems to be a net positive for the Hogs. That’s because football programs like Arkansas – thanks to a few wealthy donors – have a fair amount of NIL cash to spend relative to the program’s recent success. Unfortunately, NIL can be a black hole for transparency. Private donors and the players they pay often have zero obligation to report those numbers.Most programs at the Power Four level have at least one NIL collective responsible for engaging fans, local businesses and donors to facilitate deals for athletes. For Hog Nation, that collective is Arkansas Edge, which is ranked among the best in the country (largely due to the basketball program).Most playoff-contending football programs are estimated to be collecting more than $10 million in NIL money, whereas the Hogs are likely in the neighborhood of $5 million, according to Pig Trail Nation’s Mike Irwin.<h2>Carmona Speaks Bluntly</h2>Not every program has a robust collective. Before redshirt junior Fernando Carmona transferred from San Jose State, he was essentially going door-to-door to collect NIL money.“I kind of had to personally go out and ask other businesses to give me money,” Carmona said recently on the Miss Understood Podcast. “Now I’m in Arkansas. The way it kind of works was that it was a set contract. The people have already donated the money to this big collective, and that collective distributes all the money out to the players.“In January they gave me a set contract that takes me all the way to December,” he explained. “And then after the season and after this year, they’ll renegotiate and then we’ll do it all again. So it’s all a one-year contract.”For some fans, that’s taken a little shine off college football.“Every year I feel like I’m watching a different team,” Redditor u/plasticmanufacturing commented. “No consistency makes it feel like I’m not watching the Razorbacks, but just random players with Razorback skins … It could have been done such that players get paid without that feeling of perpetual free-agentism.”Many fans said they want to see talent develop over a few years, but accept that the reality of college athletics is far different. Nobody’s outraged by in-state talent making a “business decision” as Archie Goodwin did in 2012 or KJ Hill in 2015.We get it. But we don’t like it. And that seems to be common knowledge among players.“I don’t think anybody gives a shit anymore,” Carmona said when asked about loyalty to a coach or a team. “And that’s why people are upset, which is fair.“I came into college football in a golden era where there’s not really many rules in place for this NIL, which is good for the players, but not really so good for the fans. I love Arkansas and it’s not really about the money, it’s about my performance and where I’m at.”To be clear, there are plenty of players in this and previous portal classes that do appear to really care, including Carmona, who has twice been named SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week so far in 2024. But his comments give a little insight into the reality of players navigating NIL, the transfer portal and traditional notions of team, loyalty and personal value. <h2>Life with NIL</h2>The window for making money as a football player is very short.KJ Jefferson, for instance, is estimated to make more than $400k in NIL at Central Florida. But his stock isn’t looking great even on this current UCF roster after getting benched on Saturday, let alone at the next level. For every Shadeur Sanders or Arch Manning that enjoy multi-million dollar NIL deals and red carpet walks to the NFL, there are hundreds of players at or below the bubble trying to maximize their earnings now.One-year players are what we get. So be it. What we really care about is those players playing their asses off while they’re here. On the whole, they have. Drew Sanders, who played just one season at Arkansas, emerged as arguably the best player of the Pittman era. The Hogs also brought in major contributors like Jadon Haselwood, Feleipe Franks and Dwight McGlothern, all of whom made immediate impacts. The point is, the length of a player’s tenure within a program doesn’t have much to do with how hard they play.In his final season as a Razorback, Jefferson seemed to lose the spark that had propelled the team in the previous two seasons. It’s easy to wonder if he was eyeing greener pastures. It’s anybody’s guess about how long NIL and the transfer portal will remain as it is, but one thing is for sure – change is coming. The future of NIL and college athletics is as unpredictable as the bounce of a football. For now, NIL seems to have leveled the playing field between the top programs and the rest of the teams in their conferences. Ultimately, the product on the field will determine how we feel about this era of college football. If the Hogs are competitive and the players play hard, we’ll keep watching.***Watch Fernando Carmona’s full interview starting at 2:00 here:<img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0qAaW3_0w8Drile00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0qAaW3_0w8Drile00" width="480" height="360" ><div style="position:relative;width:100%; height:0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kmVUYNz1eWA?list=PLe-9lGhx3pBEheDnV1aDjcve93Zyj-Fd1" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" style="width:100%; height:100%;top:0; left:0; position:absolute"></iframe></div>***<img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=13uIbd_0w8Drile00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=13uIbd_0w8Drile00" width="480" height="360" ><div style="position:relative;width:100%; height:0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2asxdxXYNpU?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" style="width:100%; height:100%;top:0; left:0; position:absolute"></iframe></div>More coverage of Arkansas football from BoAS… </div></body>

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Fernando Carmona’s Bombshell Comment on Team Loyalty Deserves Context

Playing college football in the SEC – including at Arkansas – is no longer about pride, loyalty or school spirit. It’s a job. Maybe it has been for longer than anyone cares to admit. But now, the quiet part can be said out loud. After beating his...