College football has turned into the wild west, and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart just pulled back the curtain on one of the most out-of-control developments yet.
Speaking ahead of what could be a historic April for college athletics, Smart shared that there are people—yes, actual agents—setting up Zoom calls to “present” college athletes who aren’t even in the portal yet. You read that right: players are being shopped around well before they ever even enter the portal.
“There’s stuff going on right now, guys, in college football—there’s people reaching out to have a Zoom call and present all the players they represent that are on teams, including our teams,” Smart said via On3. “And they want to invite people to the Zooms so they can watch and see who’s going in the portal or shopping who’s in the portal before the portal. ‘Do you want to get on a Zoom and look at all these players?’ What if some of them are mine?”
That’s not just bending the rules—that’s full-blown tampering, and it's happening right out in the open.
What makes this even more alarming is how accepted this type of “shopping around” behavior has become. There are agents—not team reps, not school administrators—acting as middlemen, trying to cash in by dangling athletes in front of coaches and programs before they've even hit the portal. It's crazy.
In his comments, Smart urged everyone in college athletics to take a deep breath before things spiral even further—especially with the looming April 7 hearing in the House v. NCAA case, which could introduce a $20.5 million cap on revenue sharing with players.
But even that might not be enough to rein in what’s happening right now.
Smart emphasized that what’s going on isn’t necessarily “illegal”—it’s just wildly manipulative and totally unregulated.
“There’s a lot of people doing, they’re not illegal things. They’re just manipulative money things to try to, ‘move this, move that so I can free up this,’” Smart explained. “Agents are literally trying to take advantage of that every minute they can. They want to get all they can for their client. But at the end of the day, it may backfire.”
It’s not just about what’s happening now—it’s what happens next. Smart warned that the current model may be setting players up for a rude awakening once the reality of a revenue cap settles in, and he's right. No matter what happens with the cap, there's eventually going to be a massive market correction.
“Then, what’s going to happen when those people expect the same money the next year and it’s not there because you’re in a cap?” he asked. “There’s going to be a correction eventually... I don’t know if the kids win in this model that we currently have, if they win long-term. Like, long-term, when we have to cut sports and cut other things, are the kids going to be the winners of this? I don’t know.”
While the NIL era was supposed to empower student-athletes, the growing presence of agents and behind-the-scenes dealings has become just too much.