There always has been. However it was significantly higher prior to the scholarship reduction. This is like reversing the scholarship reduction, but on steroids.Again, when has there ever not been a huge concentration of talent in the top 15 or so schools?
Playing time, culture, all those things were a tough, but not impossible sell for a pretty solid recruit to go to a non-traditional power, but that was when there was financial parity. Now that financial parity is gone. Just the schools in FCS that offer full cost of attendance in very short order blew past those that offered tuition. We're talking a pretty small difference financially. NIL essentially eliminates scholarship limits and any semblance of financial parity.
Look, if someone is a college football fan but views it as playoff or meaningless probably sees this as probably not changing much. But since we are ISU fans, that probably is not our view. And because we don't have that binary view of CFB, we need to see where this pushes us on the continuum between "really hard to compete with bluebloods, but we can belong on the field in some seasons" to "completely ******* hopeless." I don't think we are to the latter, but NIL gives us a good shove toward that end of the spectrum in my opinion. I hope I'm wrong.