With Southern Miss football coach Will Hall gone, the school finds itself in uncharted territory by experiencing its first coaching search during the NIL era.
Despite Hall's firing, Southern Miss' To The Top Collective Executive Director Peter Boehme believes that the school has a strong foundation for its next coach, which also makes the job desirable.
"We are going to be really focused on creating an equitable budget and picking and choosing our investments," Boehme said. "I think Coach Hall did a phenomenal job of establishing our presence with his players. The communication and relationship that I've made with the players is extremely important."
Still, the collective's development and ability to establish early stability have helped grow the job's overall profile. However, the current total membership stands at around 460 members, but only 211 of those contribute on a monthly basis, leaving Boehme needing to ensure its continued growth.
"There are a lot of businesses that are still stuck on NIL," Boehme said. "I don't want anyone to feel like the collective is in the way of kids making money. We are here so they can. We're platforming an opportunity so they know there are opportunities for them to make money versus having to go out and do it on their own.
"If you want to help the team, the product, and the production of the team, then it's why the collective is here. You're going to help the overall outcome of the future."
DEVELOPING NEW STRATEGY
Boehme believes that the collective will reassess some of its strategies with a new football coach set to take over.
"We need to figure out our budget number and where we need to invest after the dust settles on the transfers," Boehme said. "It'll be figuring out what business model or budget model will be the best. Obviously, what we did didn't translate to wins, so we want to figure out if we can do better how we are spending money and where we are spending it."
During Hall's tenure, Southern Miss football tried to use an NFL-style approach with semester-by-semester contracts. Currently, the Golden Eagle football team has 45 players with some type of NIL deal with the goal of being able to pay 53 players to mimic an NFL-sized roster.
"With Coach Hall, we were able to establish that semester by semester," Boehme said. "We want to reward them for staying, first and foremost. (We want to) show them a model when you are an upperclassman that this is what we have for you if you can keep working hard. We'd like to see this grow for you."
In the upcoming offseason, Boehme will be able to better analyze the value of a roster by using a newly developed software called Basepath, which is currently employed by just under 100 collectives from around the country ranging for Power Four and Group of Five schools. This allows for Boehme to judge and decipher the fair market value for positions – which will be used in all three major sports moving forward.
"Basepath is our housing for memberships and donations, and they help with our payrolls. We do electronic payments on a monthly basis," Boehme said. "I have all of the information of people reporting based on averages and what position.
"It helps me evaluate the fair market value of a position, and it's evolving each and every day with the data and how they are able to use the transfer portal. We have all the measurables and a ranking system."
LONGTERM GOALS
Although the collective's upcoming focus will be football, there is still a great need to keep growing the To The Top Collective for basketball and baseball so that each program can have a stronger standing budget. Boehme's long-term goal is to establish more configured budgets for each sport.
For the football program, Boehme's goal is to have an annual operating budget of $1.5 million. This past year, that figure stands at roughly $400,000.
"For perspective, $1.5 million annually is Georgia's football monthly payout," Boehme said. "It would put us closer to the bottom of an SEC school or a Power Four school than (most Power Four schools) are to the top of their league."
Boehme believes that the future analysis, combined with the solid foundation that the collective has established, will be critical in helping each program recruit.
"We haven't had a month where we had something where someone didn't get paid," Boehme said. "From what I hear from the Basepath folks, that's not the case everywhere. From a trust level and a recruiting standpoint (with future recruits), we can understand and ask our current players, who are NIL guys, if they have any issues."
Unlike a NIL deal, the collective can help a school budget the money better and address individual needs for each program. Those needs can help retain future players as much as bring in new ones.
"From an individual standpoint, it's another way to be a fan," Boehme said. "It's another way to give a fan an experience that there hasn't been before. You are joining as a member, and we are going to build that over time. A lot of the players that are here now aren't going to be here forever. You are going to be a fan for forever. We want you to be a fan forever."
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