Ole Miss donors have bought in to NIL. Miss. State is coming around

• There’s an NIL gap between Miss. State and other SEC schools right now, but that gap is shrinking.

Two years ago when John Cohen, a highly successful college baseball player and coach at Mississippi State, left the athletics director’s position at his alma mater for the same job at SEC rival Auburn, one of Cohen’s concerns was Name, Image and Likeness.

How would Mississippi State compete in the bold new world?

Now NIL is critical in how the Bulldogs get off the mat from a 2-10 season and build a program under second-year coach Jeff Lebby.

Charlie Winfield believes State is doing just fine even if the Bulldogs were slow out of the gate in response to the game’s changing landscape.

The college football product has become one in which a freshman quarterback who showed great promise, one who could possibly become a centerpiece for growth, left Mississippi State for LSU.

In spite of the loss of Michael Van Buren the Bulldogs have the fifth-ranked transfer portal class, according to 247 Sports.

Both of Mississippi’s SEC schools are navigating the new waters.

Ole Miss reached the cusp of the College Football Playoff with a roster filled with transfers.

Ole Miss isn’t in rebuilding mode now; it’s in reloading mode, a perpetual mode as players are prone to leave at any time for any reason following last spring’s settlement of a civil lawsuit against the NCAA by a coalition of states and the Department of Justice.

The Rebels currently have the No. 2-ranked transfer portal class.

Finding their legs

For State, big fund-raising gains were made after the hiring of Zac Selmon, Cohen’s replacement, and momentum has continued to build.

“We are in significantly better shape than we were even a year ago,” said Winfield, who heads The Bulldog Initiative, State’s NIL collective.

In recent months the group has received contributions of $8 million, $3 million and $1.75 million in addition to its growing grassroots support.

Messaging from the athletics department has been key, Winfield said.

The Bulldog Initiative has been able to take in big money by increasing confidence among donors who have been in the fold for a long time.

“They’ve developed more and more trust in what we’re doing. People who had been significant donors now have become even more so,” Winfield said.

State has restructured how people support The Bulldog Initiative through The Bulldog Club, the school’s traditional fund-raising arm. The State Excellence Fund has “helped simplify things for our donors while advancing our mission,” Winfield said.

Donors who transition to The State Excellence Fund will receive double Bulldog Club priority points for contributions made prior to the end of the year.

In mid-November Ole Miss, which will face Duke in the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2, was not only on the inside of the College Football Playoff rankings, it could have positioned itself for a home game had things broken right.

But things broke horribly in Gainesville against Florida, and the Rebels were never able to overcome their third loss of the season.

Ole Miss put itself in the CFP mix with its best defense of the modern era, perhaps all time.

Was that defense a one-off? If it’s repeated, it will have to be with different transfer portal players.

Key people on same page at Ole Miss

Walker Jones, the head of The Grove Collective, believes the symmetry in place will give the Rebels a chance to position themselves for the playoff again.

At Ole Miss, the plan starts with the coaches.

They communicate to The Grove Collective what they need in terms of roster retention and acquisition and how those players will fit into the coaches’ plan for success.

Then the Collective sets about finding the resources and implementing the plan to help build that roster. In the early years of NIL, Ole Miss people have bought in, and it’s an approach that has worked much more often than not.

“If you ask our coaches, I think they would tell you they get what they need to be competitive at the top of the conference,” Jones said.

The top of the conference and the top of the country go hand-in-hand.

Athletics Director Keith Carter and Chancellor Glenn Boyce are completely on board with the plan and the modern-day method of roster building. They have to be, Jones says.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” he said.

Every recruit is different, and the landscape changes fast. Success requires flexibility. For now, The Grove Collective doesn’t begin its role in the pursuit of high-value transfers with a set cap on the number of players or on available funds.

“Our process starts with conversations with our coaches. Once we get on the same page, my job is to get the resources to deliver on that plan,” Jones said. “We’ve been able to deliver at a very competitive rate.”

There’s an NIL gap between State and other SEC schools right now, but Winfield sees that gap shrinking.

Winfield: ‘Not backing off anybody’

Increased support for The Bulldog Collective has Lebby and his staff in the necessary conversations with key transfers.

If someone chooses not to sign with Mississippi State, NIL won’t be the root cause.

“We are well-equipped to do what we have to do,” Winfield said. “We still have to be smart, but at the same time, we don’t have to back off anybody.”

Ten years ago, Mississippi State reeled off three-straight wins against top 10 opponents and became the first team in the history of the Associated Press Top 25 to go from unranked to No. 1 in five weeks.

The memories are fresh, and they’re fuel for the spike in NIL contributions.

“People understand the need for Mississippi State to improve in football. The primary motivating factor behind all this is a desire to help us do what we have to do to improve in a hurry,” Winfield said.