Former NFL QB Andrew Luck: Early NIL talks with recruits indicate 'a values misalignment'

HOUSTON – Stanford football general manager Andrew Luck is familiar with the Texas high school football landscape.

The former Indianapolis Colts quarterback starred at Houston Stratford under then-head coach Eliot Allen where he became a highly touted college prospect, and eventually the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.

Luck spoke at the Texas High School Coaches Association Coaching School convention in Houston on Monday morning alongside Allen, who's now the athletic director at Bastrop ISD, and commented on how NIL has changed the high school landscape and how he navigates the recruiting field now as the leader of Stanford football.

"Certainly, NIL is part of the conversation in recruiting," Luck said. "It's not the first conversation we have in recruiting; it can't be. If it's the first conversation, then there's probably a values misalignment.

"NIL is a proxy for seriousness in many ways. It's part of the package in coming to a school."

Luck's high school recruitment came well before the era of NIL and Allen commented on how financial compensation would've altered how he handled the process back then.

"I don't know if that would be as much fun today as it was back then," Allen said. "I think it's very important for kids to to rely on their high school coach. I know that's a big push by the THSCA. That's a big push by UIL. There are so many folks out there that can, like the high school coach, genuinely care about a kid. You want to see the best for that kid. We all know that there are agents out there pushing things, and I think the more involved the high school coach is in that process, the more genuine the help and the guidance that you're going to get."

Luck also highlighted that Texas' high school NIL laws are more restrictive than other states and, when it comes to college athletics, he's hoping for something similar in terms of centralized regulation. 

Allen reiterated that Texas' fight against high school NIL expansion is something that he endorses.

"I know that the UIL has done an amazing job of trying to restrict that at the high school level, which has been helpful," Allen said. "I do feel like it's coming, there's no doubt. We're going to continue to fight it, but we do deal with it in the sense that players are being recruited. As Andrew mentioned, that's a piece of the whole recruiting process."

"We do have kids where that is a piece of their decision making. We hope that if you make a decision based truly on NIL and money, everybody in this room knows, that that's not a good thing."