Auburn’s recruiting picture could get a little brighter if Alabama ever follows Louisiana’s lead on high school NIL.
Louisiana has now put into law what had already been happening in practice for years: high school athletes can earn money from their personal brands. That move matters beyond state lines, because once one SEC state makes it official, the pressure starts building on its neighbors to keep pace.
Stone Pigman sports attorney Walter “Fritz” Metzinger, III believes that kind of competition could push Alabama and Mississippi in the same direction sooner rather than later.
"I think so," Metzinger said. "You saw that in the college ranks as well.
In a region like this, with the focus on football and in the SEC, you don't want to fall behind, and you don't want to give potential athletes a reason to go elsewhere. The context of that is a little different for high school than for college, obviously, because you have high school students that you would at least think aren't going to be moving states as easily or as frequently as, say, a college recruit looking to go to college would, but that certainly happens.
"People move out of state or move to different schools or academies as needed to better or to further their athletic careers. So I think there's a natural element of this to not wanting to fall behind and to making sure, even if there are parts of the legislature or parts of the state that have concerns about allowing this sort of thing, not falling behind in what amounts to an arms race."
Metzinger didn’t single out Alabama or Mississippi as being ahead of the other, even when asked whether Mississippi’s approach to gambling and medicinal marijuana could mean it would move faster on high school NIL. His broader point was simpler: if nearby states keep passing these kinds of laws, the incentive to match them grows.
"Gambling's a part of my practice too, and there are different kinds of factors and determinations on that. Obviously, Mississippi has the coast, which is kind of a big factor there, but no, other than that, I don't think I can really speak to the status or why Mississippi or Alabama would be closer on this, other than to broadly say that if all of your rivals and your regional rivals have their state legislators passing laws, you know it's going to create more of an incentive to keep up," Metzinger said.
For Auburn, that kind of state-level change could matter in a real way. The university itself can’t pay high school non-commits, but boosters could help arrange third-party deals if Alabama adopts a law similar to Louisiana’s. That would give both Auburn and Alabama a new tool in the in-state recruiting fight, with high school and college NIL now increasingly tied together around the state’s biggest public programs.
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