Congratulations on 10 years of contribution to the Ohio State fandom. I've enjoyed every interaction and every piece you've done, including the Null Session. ;)

(But seriously, congrats on 10 years and keeping us all entertained.)

I remember I used to get riled up about these things but, now, if dude's taking money to get his... well, get it. It's not like a Clemson degree means dick, and Higgins is paid well below what he's worth, so he might as well hustle money out of the bluehairs in the area.

That said, I asked an acquaintance how something like this might work and have it not (necessarily) be an NCAA violation. The roundabout answer I got highlighted that we sometimes look at the wrong actors. The college football fan (and, judging from the reactions, certainly the Tennessee fan) sees an image like this and looks at the player purchasing the car. It misses the fact that the auto dealer has a strong incentive to get someone to buy a car. Thus, an auto dealer and a loan financier might be willing to overlook what is (probably?) a poor credit rating from he and his family to agree to a loan in which Higgins (in this case) could be on the hook upward (i.e. a conceivable max) of $3000 a month with an enormous interest rate on top of that.

Don't misunderstand: that is a stupid use of money but a college football player and his family could conceivably finance that. College athletes get other legit sources of revenue as well (e.g. Pell Grants).

tl;dr: when you see images like this or read stories like this, remember there's an incentive for an auto dealer (especially in a place like Upstate SC) to get someone to buy a fancy car as much as there's an incentive for a college athlete to side-hustle money out of boosters to buy a fancy car.

Oh man, I always felt sorry for him because he and I would routinely take the same classes and I knew his cousin at OSU. Good dude. Great prospect and the best LB in that class. Shame it didn't work.