Tang said. “These young men are promised things going in and when they get there when it’s not delivered or they don’t see the ability — if there’s a lack of trust in one area, it spreads to all areas, okay. And so it wasn’t an NIL movement it was a trust movement and he just didn’t feel like they could do what they said they were gonna do and I think Coach Pope would be willing to that also.”

Pope never refuted this. Why. Because if it was false, Mark pope would’ve been calling him out. That’s just the type of guy Mark is but he couldn’t because it was true. No way another coach goes where Tang did without believing what he was saying was true.

He went out on a limb to protect and stand up for his player.