Aeneas Hawkins couldn’t catch a break. His phone was buzzing nonstop with calls and texts from coaches and players. He’d experienced the grind of winter workouts and preseason training camp at Penn State, but the week of Dec. 9 was something different. Such is the life of an agent in the opening days of the transfer portal window.
Just five years ago, the potential presence of an agent in college athletics was unthinkable. But the times have changed. The NCAA’s amateurism model is dead, and in its place is a professional mold that mimics the business of the NFL. Now, agents like Hawkins are a necessity in guiding players and coaches through a novel and ever-changing landscape.
It’s all about connecting players with opportunities, financial or otherwise, that will best suit their futures.
“Obviously, we want kids to be in a position to make good money. But the most important thing as I see it is how can we get them in the best football situation?,” Hawkins told StateCollege.com. “How can we make sure that they finish the degree that they’ve already started? How do we help them reach their goals?”
Hawkins has seen it all. He played defensive tackle for the Nittany Lions for three seasons, during which he was introduced to the modern era of college football when the NCAA implemented an interim policy on name, image and likeness (NIL) in 2021. He retired the following year and founded his own NIL agency, Limitless, alongside Sean Clifford.
Hawkins now serves as Young Money APAA Sports’ director of NIL college football operations and media relations. The field he witnessed the birth of has now grown toward adolescence. It’s no longer just branding and sponsorship deals that stir the NIL pot. With the impending House v. NCAA settlement set to be approved in April, revenue sharing is on its way.
“When NIL first started it was the brands. What company can we work with? I was a part of that era, dealing with restaurants and brands, trying to get money,” Hawkins said. “That was really the biggest breadwinner for most college kids. Unless they were big on social media, it was the money they could get from collectives.
“Now it’s that plus the brands plus revenue sharing. It just opens up what schools are able to offer guys. It changes what it means to be competitive with the offers they make.”
The offers have been staggering. Michigan reportedly signed five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood to a four-year, $10.5 million deal. NIKE co-founder and CEO Phil Knight reportedly offered to ‘help’ five-star cornerback Na’eem Offord make his own shoe by signing with Oregon. And former Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula will reportedly make $1.5 million at Missouri.
Hawkins’ main focus is connecting athletes with schools that will best fit their football situation. But money, obviously, remains a major player. And as the college landscape continues to fit into its shoes in a professional model, that will only continue.
“People are shocked when they see these big, massive numbers,” Hawkins said. “But this is the first year of the revenue share model, so these funds are getting deeper, and this game is continuing to rapidly change and expand.”
The national letter of intent program has already been eliminated. In its place is a financial aid agreement between program and player. It’s a contract of sorts put in place to prepare both parties for the age of revenue sharing, an era in which teams will begin paying their athletes more than $20 million annually as soon as next fall.
How exactly that money will be allocated between starting quarterback and backup punter can vary from school to school, Hawkins said. But one thing is certain: revenue sharing won’t be the only source of income for most of these athletes, who will also have collectives, like Penn State’s Happy Valley United, at their disposal.
“A lot of times the discussions of the rev share and the collective are kind of lumped into each other. Like, you’re having a discussion around the same time,” Hawkins said. “There are even schools that, when they make that offer, they may give you the big overarching number when you combine the collective and the revenue share.”
The big overarching number may be new to college football, but the NFL knows all about it. It’s what drives the offseason, creating almost more excitement and attention than the season itself. The transfer portal has become free agency, and teams across the country are starting to recognize it as such by hiring staff members with a knack for contract negotiations.
These programs are hiring general managers, and the Nittany Lions are likely to follow suit in the coming months. Stanford hired former Cardinal and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck to that role in December. Bill Belichik, upon becoming the head coach at North Carolina, appointed longtime NFL executive Michael Lombardi as his program’s general manager.
It’s especially important for programs in the College Football Playoff, many deemed as the most competitive in the sport, to have someone focused on the business side of things while the season is underway. The coaching staff can only do so much while balancing game preparation with transfer and high school recruiting.
“Having somebody in place like a GM, I think makes too much sense,” Hawkins said. “Especially if you’re Power Four, you have to do the portal at a high level to be competitive, as we’ve seen for several years. If you don’t do it at a high level right now, you’ll end up paying the price. How do you balance that while you’re still playing? I think that’s where it really comes in handy, having a GM.”
The NCAA has seemingly taken a back seat as the collegiate landscape figures itself out in a world James Franklin once referred to as the “wild, wild west.”
The way teams are offering athletes has changed; there are now performance-based incentives. The amount teams are offering has increased significantly. And until the NCAA steps in, and “has some type of conversation” or “has some type of rule put in place,” Hawkins said, the current system will only continue to grow.
There’s no turning back to the model of amateurism. And there’s hardly any debate now that student athletes deserve to be compensated. The current model is hectic and new and overwhelming and exciting and scary. It shows the growing pains of a new business of sport and the promising development of hardworking athletes rewarded for their services.
Hawkins, who has been in the players’ shoes, knows that some agents are “only interested in lining their own pockets.” But he’s not. Hawkins wants for players what he wanted at Penn State. He’s a beacon of light in a dark and confusing landscape, and a sign that the modern era of college football isn’t completely corrupted. He’s here to see student athletes thrive.
“Having seen all sides of it, having been in the NIL space, now working on the agency side of things and doing these deals, I can see that this is not as simple as it looks,” Hawkins said. “As just the 19-year old who wanted to get paid, it’s a lot.
“My whole thing has always been that, even if you do go to the NFL, you’re not going to be there for long. You got three years max, typically, and pretty much every time, those guys are going broke and they’re left with nothing. So I’m a huge proponent of this. I think that it’s a tricky space, and that’s why it’s important to have a good team around you.”
