New York Giants wide receiver Jalin Hyatt didn’t join Outkick Hot Mic on radio row at Super Bowl LVIII with the intentions of defending the Tennessee Vols amid the NCAA’s investigation into UT’s NIL dealings — he admittedly hasn’t followed the situation closely. But a couple of comments that Hyatt made about his NIL dealings with Tennessee show how the Vols weren’t blatantly breaking NCAA pay-for-play rules.
Hyatt admitted that NIL money was a factor in his decision to leave Tennessee for the NFL after the 2022 season. And part of the reason he didn’t return to Tennessee was because he never received a definitive NIL number from UT. Instead of giving Hyatt an up-front number to return (which would’ve been pay-for-play), Tennessee wanted to work out those numbers after he returned to school.
“Another thing we had to do when I was talking to University of Tennessee about coming back was the numbers,” explained Hyatt. “You know, what numbers are we looking at? What can it look like? And the problem was, it’s not like they couldn’t throw me a number that I wanted. It was a thing of they wanted to wait. They wanted to say, ‘ Oh, you can come back and then let’s deal with the numbers ‘. Like no, that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Because then how can I compare it to the league (NFL) when you’re telling me ‘ok, you got to come back before we can even decide to see what numbers we can talk about.'”