Mississippi State Athletics has raised over $500,000 in NIL deals

The departure of John Cohen has somehow boosted the NIL donations. Mississippi State Athletics has gained over 1,000 new subscribers and over $500,000 in yearly donations.

On Monday morning, it was announced that Mississippi State’s athletic director, John Cohen, would be accepting the same role at Auburn University. Three days later, the Bulldog Initiative (Mississippi State’s NIL initiative) kinda blew up.

College football is ever-changing nowadays with the college football playoff, expansion of the college football playoff, the transfer portal, and of course, the name, image and likeness becoming one of the hottest topics surrounding the sport.

Teams started to really take advantage of the name, image and likeness during the recruiting trail. Teams like Texas A&M and Alabama were at the forefront of setting the standard of NIL deals for their players and using NIL deals as a topic during the recruiting process.

Mississippi State president, Mark Keenum, has always done an excellent job at hiring athletic directors. Keenum brought in Greg Byrne, Scott Stricklin, and John Cohen, all of which have gone on to lead bigger SEC athletic programs.

Many athletic directors across the SEC are sending videos out via social media asking for fans to contribute to the schools’ NIL deals. I am not so sure that Mississippi State athletics had the right guy in the position to do what other athletic directors and coaches are doing.

John Cohen always seemed like the type of guy that may not change his ways no matter how fast the culture was changing. That began to prove itself true whenever the Mississippi State fanbase began to donate towards the Bulldog Initiative.

Is John Cohen leaving Mississippi State the reason that the Bulldog Initiative blew up? Maybe or maybe not, but what we do know is this might set the next Mississippi State athletic director up for major success.