In light of the below, if the state of Arkansas had its way, Keyshawn Blackstock would probably be fired from the Arkansas football team. The Razorbacks would be worse off without him, but his alleged rousing in recent days has re-ignited a centuries-long discussion about labor and the working (wo)man in the United States.
Arkansas is one of 26 states in the U.S. that is a right-to-work state. States with such laws prohibit unionized employees from negotiating contracts with employers. Certainly, Arkansas football players have not unionized (as of now the Dartmouth men’s basketball team is the only NCAA squad to have done so, and the school is fighting their organization in court), but the Natural State’s hostility to unions is long and storied. Many fans of college sports are not fans of players being paid for playing with or without unionization.
Union-busting Tactics Are Alive and Well
Blackstock, who is projected to be Arkansas’ starting right tackle this season after transferring in from Michigan State, did not practice Tuesday for the Razorbacks. Neither the team’s sports-information folks nor the coaching staff gave an official reason. But it appears Blackstock sat out of practice because of an issue with his NIL money, according to reports and our sources.
That means he either didn’t get it, didn’t get it on time or didn’t get the full amount. The 6’5”, 319-pound redshirt junior returned to practice Wednesday but took second-team reps. Then, during Thursday’s scrimmage, which was closed to the public, it appears – based on photos and videos shared by the team – he split first-team reps with Syracuse transfer Joe More. Blackstock was back on the first-team Friday.
Such quick movement down and up the depth chart suggests the former Spartans offensive lineman was punished for missing Tuesday. We will never know for sure. Arkansas’ brass won’t say anything about it and players are strongly discouraged from spilling the beans when they speak to the media, including posting on social media. That isn’t to say they don’t tell the truth. Far from it. They just don’t tend to discuss matters of sensitivity.
Arkansas Football Culture Worries Persisting?
Regardless, this news matters considering the culture issues that surrounded the Razorbacks last year. In the spring, one football walk-on spoke of such issues on the record with Best of Arkansas Sports. The NIL money thing is not new and Sam Pittman and his staff have made changes to both the coaching and roster make-up of the team in order to alleviate such agitation, a word long associated with labor disputes. It most often paints the laborer as the cause of malady, rather than the employer. Those who seek to alter the status quo generally end up seen as the villain thanks to power imbalance in places hostile to labor.
NIL allowances, with all they entail, are thorny issues, especially in college football. So much so, former Alabama coach Nick Saban, largely considered the greatest to ever don a headset on a collegiate sideline, admitted part of the reason he retired is because he simply didn’t want the headache.
Hogs Aren’t The Only Ones, At Least
In some ways, that’s good news for Arkansas. It suggests Blackstock’s alleged quarrel, which appears to be settled now, is not terribly unusual. Other schools are almost surely dealing with the consequences of the NIL, including potentially disgruntled players.
On the flip side, many other schools of Arkansas’ size, especially in the SEC, have larger NIL war chests, too. That means problems with payments, theoretically, are less likely to arise. This depends on the people running such departments and the organizations with whom players have signed those NIL deals, too, granted.
Arkansas doesn’t have a single football player ranked inside On3’s Top 100 for NIL player valuations. Player No. 100, Notre Dame tight end Mitchell Evans, is valued at $468,000. Blackstock is, what, maybe the fifth or sixth valuable player from Arkansas if you project the value a quality offensive line has on the overall offense? And if he is having problems, it isn’t a positive sign that Arkansas, which is struggling to raise funds for the endeavor anyway, can climb the ladder. If players make more elsewhere that’s one thing. If they can’t count on those smaller paychecks, or other benefits, arriving with the prescribed amount or on time, things will only get worse.
Arkansas’ Is Still An Issue, Though
What is worse, though, right now, is that for all the cleaning-of-house Arkansas did in the offseason, the issue doesn’t seem to have been totally fixed. The guys over at the Wu-Pig Podcast are absolutely right in their claims and assertions from earlier in the week. Such lingering problems are a bad sign for the season. They’re also right about taking Blackstock’s side in such a dispute. But that’s a different topic for a different day.
Take the grand issue of payments and the like out of it and just look at personnel. Arkansas’ offensive line was atrocious last year and the guy who is a near-lock to start is sitting out of practice because someone somewhere can’t get their act together, allegedly. Not only could that again facilitate a negative culture, it’s also literally removing one of the most important players from a unit that must *must* be miles better if Petrino’s offense under Taylen Green is to have a chance to shine and lift Arkansas from the doldrums of 2023.
The Best Solution
Long-term, collegiate programs need to trend the other direction. Access for and honesty toward journalists has been eroding for the last 20 years. Programs do everything they can to avoid negative press. Such a stance is wholly understandable. Unfortunately, the reason why they take that stance is often to limit public knowledge of any negative goings-on. It’s not because they’re actually making changes and fixing those negative things. Generally.
The irony in all this is this also an era of unprecedented transparency in some ways, given the way some outfits like Wu-Pig have earned the trust of so many parents of players (and players themselves) who back channel info. Or, in the case of Chris Paul Sr., front channel those complaints.
So, if an issue like this will come out anyway, how about college football programs start standing up and owning them? Coaches say they’re proponents of players using their name, image and likeness to make money. Well, their own players, that is. They say they’re proponents of allowing players to transfer. And to be clear, NIL deals largely don’t have anything to do with the coaches. They largely only serve as a medium between the department at the school and the player initially. But admitting you have a problem is the first step in getting help for that problem. And the associated NIL collective and/or boosters and companies have one.
That doesn’t seem likely, though. The powers-that-be are hellbent on altering the NIL as it now stands, with any alterations likely to give players even less power and bargaining than they currently have. In the meantime, miscommunication and earnestness will likely continue to take a back seat to rose-colored glasses, further blurring the line between reality and what the public wishes to be true.
And don’t we have a serious enough problem with all that in the so-called real world, anyway?
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Start watching at 31:00 below for more on the Keyshawn Blackstock situation:
How Will Hogs Get More NIL?
It’s hardy a secret that the size of the NIL war chest associated with the Arkansas football program is closer to the bottom of the SEC than it is to the top.
Perhaps it’s, say, No. 10 or 11 in the 16-team conference. That’s respectable, of course, and very competitive against other Power 4 schools, but nothing to write home about. Something in that range would correlate with where Arkansas traditionally finishes in the SEC pecking order when it comes to recruiting class rankings.
Looking ahead, things aren’t going to get much easier.
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May be some brightness for Arkansas football in the future:
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