Taking a leadership role from that perspective will be even more important in 2022. The importance of communication is the biggest thing Young learned after a highly successful first season as a starter in Tuscaloosa. I think that just helps me operate and be most efficient with my time and day.'

Back to my freshman year here, I would do similar things, eat similar things, just kind of have the same routine. It's not a different lifestyle I'm living or anything like that. 'I'm at the facility or at home 99% of the time. 'I have the same day-to-day routine,' said Young. Despite all the outside factors, keeping his focus on school and football has been relatively smooth. However, the Preseason All-American credits the team of advisors assembled around him for preventing obligations from getting out of control. Former Oklahoma great Brian Bosworth, who stars as the 'sheriff' of Fansville, pokes fun at Young by asking exasperatedly into his walkie talkie, 'How many NIL deals does Bryce Young have?' The numbers are assuredly higher now for Young with a national ad campaign under his belt. Young garnered national headlines in 2021 after Alabama coach Nick Saban told the Texas High School Coaches Association that the quarterback earned nearly seven figures in NIL endorsements before ever starting a game. However, Young emerged as the most well-known name in college football following his brilliant second-year campaign and was quickly signed. The contract was one of the first national advertising campaigns for a college athlete under NIL laws, if not the first. It kind of goes about the current dynamics in college football right now.'ĭr Pepper got in on the name, image and likeness trend early last season by signing Clemson QB DJ Uiagalelei to an endorsement deal in August 2021 to star in the commercials. 'They had the idea and ran the character by me. 'It's like adding a new member of the family and changing the family dynamics,' Young told CBS Sports.

In many ways, the character arc is emblematic of what's already happening in major college football. In the campaign, Young enters Fansville through the transfer portal and quickly replaces one of the existing sons of the central family, becoming a favorite of the parent figures in the process. Now, Young will grace televisions across the country this fall as a new character on Dr Pepper's 'Fansville' ad campaigns, serving as a symbol for the sport's quickly changing, more player-friendly landscape. Alabama quarterback Bryce Young quickly ascended college football's ranks as the face of the sport after becoming the first Crimson Tide signal-caller to win the Heisman Trophy in 2021.

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