I don't really care much about Ojo's recruitment or him going to Tech. As Bobby said, it does seem we "dodged a bullet". I do care about the lack of transparency and learning more about the NIL landscape, so I find any scrap of info about these NIL deals interesting. Bobby alluded to some of this during OTF this morning, but I wanted to post a few excerpts from The Athletic's story on the Ojo deal.
Basically, Tech's deal is based on a promise that the cap will increase over the next 4 years or that it won't be enforced. I feel almost bad for Ojo and his family being taken by this agent.
Texas Tech’s latest recruiting coup: How big is deal for 5-star offensive tackle?
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The Red Raiders landed a commitment on Friday from five-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo, the No. 1 recruit in Texas and a top 10 national recruit in the 2026 class, after the parties agreed to a three-year, $2.3 million revenue-sharing contract, two school sources confirmed to The Athletic on Saturday.
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ESPN reported on Friday that Ojo was receiving a three-year deal worth $5.1 million, according to his agent, Derrick Shelby of Prestige Management. Shelby confirmed those figures to The Athletic on Saturday, but three Texas Tech sources refuted that number, with two confirming that Ojo is scheduled to receive an annual compensation of $775,000 per year for three years from Tech’s revenue-sharing pool. Ojo’s deal, according to a Tech source, includes a verbal agreement that can escalate the total value of the contract into the $5 million range if there were a large jump in the revenue sharing cap for schools or if there is minimal regulation of schools’ adhering to the cap, in much the way there has been minimal regulation of NIL since its institution in 2021. Shelby declined to share a copy of the contract with The Athletic but stood by the initially reported numbers.
As Bobby mentioned this morning, they also outline the tentative nature of all these deals being offered by USC, Tech et al.
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The news of Ojo’s commitment and contract agreement represents the continued changing tides of college recruiting. After the approval of the House v. NCAA settlement and implementation of revenue sharing, colleges can allocate up to roughly $20.5 million to pay athletes across their sponsored sports. Schools could begin directly paying players on their current roster on July 1. They can verbally negotiate deals with future recruits and send official written scholarship offers and revenue-sharing contract offers beginning Aug. 1 of the recruit’s senior year of high school, but those contracts cannot be signed until each respective sport’s signing period begins, which is Dec. 3 for the FBS.
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Basically, any commitment given in July should be taken with a grain of salt. Let's see what these NIL deals look like in December when they're in writing. 🤘