LSU's Kelly: College athletics in jeopardy, need federal help with NIL

LSU head coach Brian Kelly believes that college football has reached a critical point when it comes to handling name, image, and likeness.

"College athletics is at a crossroads if this doesn't get fixed," Kelly told ESPN's Alex Scarborough.

"Look, I think, more than anything else, they hear it now - that college sports is in jeopardy," he added.

Kelly was among a contingent of coaches and administrators from the SEC that travelled to Washington earlier this month to make the case for federal assistance in regulating how college athletes can make money off NIL. Conference commissioner Greg Sankey and Alabama head coach Nick Saban were among the group that went to the nation's capital.

"We needed to do something," Kelly said during the D.C. trip. "There needed to be some publicity behind it. There needed to be at least an education at the committee level where they had more than just what California is trying to do."

The 61-year-old coach questioned the proposal of a bill in California, the College Athlete Protection Act, where major money-generating collegiate teams would create a fund that'd pay players a share of their team's annual revenue. A portion of the fund would be held in a trust for players until they graduate.

Kelly believes that if every state acts in its own self-interest, as opposed to the health of collegiate athletics, the whole system won't end up working.

LSU's coach also believes that the legislators he spoke with were receptive to the message and concerns of the SEC contingent. Meanwhile, Kelly is focused on the current NIL structure and how it threatens programs that don't produce revenue and have well-funded donors.

While there are multiple bills that have been put up for discussion, there doesn't seem to any momentum towards a vote on a NIL bill any time soon. However, Kelly remains optimistic that the bill will gain bipartisan support when it's put to a vote.

"We'll know by August," he said. "If there's nothing on the floor or in committee by the end of July, then we'll know that they can't produce something."