USC Football D-Line commit is already crushing the NIL game before college

One of USC football's two D-Line recruits in the 2023 class, Grant Buckey, has officially now already started working on his NIL journey. Buckey, a three-star prospect (all recruiting ratings and rankings in article are as of 247Sports) has gotten to work on his merch line through a site called 'Fans Meet Idols:'

This is a pretty genius move by the No. 38 recruit in the state of California for 2023. If players can now make money off of their name, image, and likeness, they of course should do that. Even better, they of course should get started on it as soon as they can. Interestingly, this wasn't even the beginning of his NIL journey:

This past Wednesday, Buckey revealed that he's offering many different services--including custom video messages (sounds like a cameo-type service), 1 on 1 video calls, mentorship sessions, appearances, coaching advice, even the chance to play video games with him 1 on 1, and more.

If Grant Buckey works out with USC football, his NIL opportunities will blow up.

Grant Buckey is aggressive off the edge and gets off of the line quickly, and it's easy to see why the USC football program was enamored with him.

Even with his quickness to jump off of the line aggressively, he still has the body control and awareness to settle back down and make tackles--according to Rivals' recruiting analyst Adam Gorney. He won't be overrunning quarterbacks and running backs in the backfield.

If he reaches a high-level at SC, he's going to be making a lot of money. He's already gotten going on his NIL endeavors and he's still not even a senior in high school yet. Besides, don't let the 'three-star' tag fool you. According to USC recruiting analyst Gerard Martinez, he's "just outside four-star range."

Buckey clearly is a smart kid, and has the chance to combine both his brains and his abilities on the football field to make himself a lot of money before he hits the NFL and/or real world.

Buckey will even have another year in high school to work on all this before he steps foot on USC's campus. Taking advantage of opportunities to make money off of his own name, image, and likeness that he deserves is a power move for SC's future 6-5, 265-pound big man.