Humble_Opinion wrote: ↑December 9th, 2025, 6:06 pm
broncosliberty wrote:If Liberty truly isn’t struggling with NIL and has the ability to spend close to $10 million per year on athletes, then I think the fanbase deserves more transparency about how that money is being allocated. I would love to see a breakdown of this year’s roster and what each player received. I saw a report claiming Vasko made around $150K this past season — I don’t know if that’s accurate, but if it is, then I hope whoever is making these NIL decisions is a talent evaluator who actually knows how to assess players correctly. Because based on this season, the evaluation process clearly wasn’t working.
This raises real questions:
Who is actually competent enough on this staff to evaluate talent and determine the proper NIL value for each player? That directly affects our ability to win in the future.
If Liberty wants to position itself for a Power Conference move down the road, hitting the maximum NIL target of $20.5 million should absolutely be the goal.
According to the LU website, Brad Queen is listed as Assistant AD / Chief of Staff, and Colton Corn is the Director of Player Personnel. I would really like to know whether either of them is responsible for NIL strategy, roster evaluation, and ultimately the decision-making behind this year’s talent acquisition. If so, then they share responsibility for the lack of success this season.
Many major programs now have a General Manager position that oversees roster construction, NIL valuations, and talent strategy. Liberty should strongly consider bringing in an experienced outside hire to fill that role. We need someone who specializes in roster building, not just someone promoted internally because of familiarity.
I also continue to believe the entire defensive staff needs to be replaced next year, along with a new scheme and system. Kyle Krantz and Skylor McGee should not be returning after how poorly the defense performed. The concerning part is that, outside of Willie Korn’s departure, we haven’t heard much staffing movement yet — and that lack of urgency makes me nervous.
The fanbase does not deserve transparency on how NIL is being spent. The $150K for Vasko did not pan out. I think a message has already been sent that he's likely not going to be the starter next year, though that's mostly a guess. As far as who is in charge of LU's revenue share allocations from a talent evaluation perspective, I'm sure they have someone with experience tagged already performing this role. You likely just don't know about them, which means it very well may be a contractor(s) working on behalf of the university dealing with player agents directly. There's a whole lot of ways to go about it.
As far as swinging for the fences re: P4 levels of NIL funding... there's zero reason. At the end of the day, we're going to be much higher than our conference counterparts. The P4 conferences will be well aware of LU's ability to increase funding levels should they come calling.
Last, it's likely that HCJC has already had meetings internally to inform the staff of the changes coming. To ensure continuity, he's probably already conducting interviews for any open positions and those may be announced altogether so that it limits as much of a shakeup as possible on that side of the ball with your current players and commits. I'm not panicking yet and no one else should be.
Do all schools use outside contractors for NIL allocations? Because that seems like an enormous responsibility to place outside the university. If outside evaluators misjudge talent — like the reported $150K given to Vasko — that doesn’t just hurt the roster. Mistakes like that could legitimately cost Chadwell his job.
My fear is that our coaching staff signed off on NIL investments for players they believed were high-level contributors — but they weren’t — and as a result, we got beaten by teams with far less talent on paper and far smaller budgets. That’s a breakdown in evaluation, development, and roster management.
This is exactly why I believe Liberty needs to hire a true General Manager, like other successful programs have done. A GM should oversee:
NIL allocation strategy
Talent evaluation
Roster building
Transfer portal decisions
Long-term personnel planning
About Chadwell Making Staff Changes
You sound confident that Chadwell will make changes to his staff, but many of us — myself included — are very skeptical. Chadwell has shown a pattern of intense loyalty to his coaches, even when results clearly don’t justify it. His press conference comments about “promoting analysts already on staff” instead of hiring outside voices honestly made my concerns even worse. That approach does not fix the scheme, the culture, or the defensive problems.
If Chadwell refuses to break loyalty and improve his staff, then nothing changes.
- By olldflame