Yesterday, I stopped by BA and saw a thread started by OCF about international recruiting. I made an attempt to get it back on track, and then today it's vanished from site. Perhaps there never was such a thread, and I just imagined it.

It was a pretty early trigger on the rail switch to Siberia.

I agree it was historically at BA to an early time make this move, but this has become the norm recently.

I appreciate JimLurker's attempt to right the ship, but I guess it was too little too late. The political leaning posts had already been made, and I've noticed that some of the mods have recently begun moving threads after the first vaguely political post and not waiting for an all out political discussion to emerge. I don't mind this if it's done consistently -- like an official who makes the same calls against both teams and at the end as well as the beginning of the game. However, I'm sad because I'll never get any discussion of the issue I raised now that the thread is in Siberia. I seriously thought that this might be an important recruiting strategy going forward.

My understanding of the answers to those questions:

1. They are charged the out-of-state rate.
2. Most come in on student visas. There is some stipulation on these visas that prohibit an athlete from receiving NIL money. I think it has something to do with NIL funds not being considered "earned income." These students are free to get a part-time job at McDonalds. I know that student visa require, in most instances, for the U.S. to guarantee to the student's country of origin that he or she will return after graduation. I know one instance where a student from a country in the Mideast who refused to return was forcefully deported and returned against his will.
3. I think a student who comes in on a work visa probably would be allowed to collect NIL funds. However, many countries will not allow their nationals to come to school in a foreign country on a work visa.

I would suspect that we have people on this board who know more of the intricacies of this situation than I do. But, in broad brushstrokes that's my understanding, gleaned mainly from searches on the interwebs over some period of time.

BLSS, what you say about employment of those on student visa is probably correct, and I stand corrected on that point.

On the other hand, I know many countries do require guarantees from the country their nationals are studying in that they will return after their education. This is particularly true of countries in the so-called "developing world," probably less so in most European or other more developed nations. I know a married couple in Athens who came from two different African nations -- both on student visas. They had to return to their respective nations after graduation. However, once they returned home they were both able to return a few months latter to the U.S. on a different type of visa, and now both have green cards. In this case, I think the officials in their home countries were persuaded to give them non-student visas to return because of their family situation -- they had two children born in the U.S. and both were gainfully employed at Ohio University. So, there are ways around these student visa requirements in some situations, but they do exist in many cases. Perhaps, the situations you are referring to involve students here on student visas from countries with less strict requirements.

However, I guess all of this is not relevant to the point of NIL money to those on student visa, which as you describe, I think, authoritatively, is a no-no (to use technical legal language) except, perhaps, in some rare situation where the "work" would match the field of study. That seems a stretch in most situations, but as you say not technically impossible. I suspect that most university law departments would be very hesitant to go down that path, barring very unusual particulars of the case at hand. The last thing they want is to get into a legal battle with the feds.

So, the question now returns to my original query: Would it be worth the effort for Boals and company to to invest some time and energy in trying to secure the services of a BigManz from a foreign country who would come here on a student visa? It seems to me that trying to recruit this type of player levels the playing field a little because a P4 school can't swoop in at that last moment and offer a boatload of cash that we can't match. It makes the recruiting be based more on some of the old variables -- chemistry between coach and recruit, chemistry with teammates, how much they like the campus, the local scenery, and, perhaps, whether or not their is already a community of nationals from the player's nation on campus.

I think the answer here is definitely. They should be looking under every rock they can for a big man, and it should basically be a singular recruiting focus until they find one.

That said, I am not sure I buy that we can't get US big men because of the NIL. Is there a team in the MAC that doesn't have at least one true big that's better than any (real) 5 we have on the roster? It would be one thing if we were unable to recruit against the P5; but we're getting beat by peers here.