Three Thoughts is a new feature GoldandBlack.com will run every Monday morning in-season.

On Friday afternoon, Boilermaker quarterback Aidan O'Connell was the headliner at "The Battle at Birck," leveraging his quasi-celebrity standing as part of a golf event. It was another entry to a summer in which the young man was pulled in all sorts of directions, some of It being NIL-driven and some just the nature of being a really, really good college football player, particularly true for quarterbacks.

In the past, players like Drew Brees and Rondale Moore didn't get paid for it, but they spent off-seasons carrying the full-time jobs of being Drew Brees and Rondale Moore.

It can be a lot to handle, and one of the enduring truths of the NIL Era on top of all the long-standing demands of stardom will be that these young peoples' maturity and professionalism will be put to the test, even as they mature and before they're professionals.