ATHENS, Ga. — A.J. Green sitting at the head of a small table, fielding questions about a bank statement. A check deposit of $1,000, where did that come from? An investigator for the NCAA wanted to know. Green admitting that it was for selling his Georgia jersey from the Independence Bowl.

Todd Gurley, wearing street clothes, watching his Georgia teammates practice, while he prepared for his own interview with the NCAA, where he would explain how he sold autographs for more than $3,200 in cash. A few days after his teammates flashed three fingers — Gurley wore No. 3 — to honor their teammate, suspended for violating NCAA rules that few agreed with anyway, and are now on their way out.

It all seems so quaint, looking back now. Or is quaint the wrong word? Georgia fans may choose others: Maddening. Outrageous. Unlucky. Two of the best athletes who came through their program, the primes of their careers, a potential Heisman Trophy season in Gurley’s case, upended by things that only a few years later will now be legal.

Oh, but they were rules at the time, and that’s why Green and Gurley were suspended. They did not deny what they did. Just like ignorance of the law is no defense, the law being bad is also no defense. But few ever argued that it should be the law.

Gurley and Green ended up just fine. They were both top 10 NFL draft picks, and have made a lot of money in the league. Could they have waited just a bit? Among those who were not asking that question at the time were their own teammates.

“I think when everybody was going through that, you’d be hard-pressed to find a player at the time who faulted those guys,” said Hutson Mason, a quarterback on both the 2010 and 2014 Georgia teams. “Even though it’s against the rules, and some would say ‘it’s a selfish decision’, if that’s someone’s opinion, whatever that’s fine. But I don’t think people can relate to that temptation. Because people don’t come from the socio-economic upbringing, or at the time when you’re a college kid and you’re broke and someone puts an offer of $3,000 or $5,000 in your face, it’s a lot harder to turn that down.”

Mason compared it to the Florida defensive back throwing his shoe last season in the loss to Florida, a decision that teammates could truly fault.

“It wasn’t one of those things,” Mason said. “I don’t think anyone looked at it, even the coaches, I think when you get in that space, that bubble of college athletics, you realize that the amateur model of college athletics is dumb.”

And now the dumb amateur model is getting that much-needed makeover. Too late for Georgia, the program perhaps burned more than any other by outdated rules.

It never seemed right that Gurley could not profit off people wanting his autograph while his school, conference and the NCAA profited off those Georgia jerseys that had his number on it. It never seemed right that Green could not profit off that jersey, the one he was given, and never mind that he sold it to a runner for an agent, because it also didn’t make sense that college athletes, especially those of Green’s caliber, couldn’t have agents. That rule has a time limit now, too.

It took too long to change. It took court cases, the state of California charging ahead on name-image-likeness, to this momentous few weeks in college football history: On Monday, the Supreme Court shook the foundation of the NCAA’s argument that athletes are amateurs. Next week those same athletes will, because of separate legislation, finally be allowed to make money off their name, image and likeness.

NIL changes could have happened long ago. That is not schools paying athletes, it’s third parties, whether it’s businesses or individual fans, paying athletes. The Supreme Court decision on Monday could lead to more far-reaching changes, depending on how things play out. If the NCAA were smart … actually, let’s just stop right there and move on.

There was another Georgia connection to all this: Monday’s decision was the first time the Supreme Court had weighed in on amateurism and the NCAA since 1984, in a case where Georgia and Oklahoma teamed up against the NCAA. That was over TV rights, and led to the current state of things, where conferences make their own media deals.

The NCAA’s reaction to Monday’s announcement was striking in how it quickly pivoted to NIL — barely one paragraph on the actual Supreme Court ruling and then on to NIL — as if NIL was something it was not forced by outside forces into implementing. As if it did not penalize the Gurleys and Greens of the world — and their teammates.

The Gurley suspension cut deep. Gurley was the Heisman front-runner when he was suspended, and Georgia still hasn’t had a Heisman winner since Herschel Walker in 1982. But Gurley’s suspension also may have cost the team an SEC East title: The Bulldogs won their first two games without him, at Missouri and Arkansas, but three days after the NCAA affirmed Gurley’s suspension was two more games — when many thought he would play against Florida — the Bulldogs looked demoralized when they were shellacked by the Gators.

“The psychological impact more than anything affected us,” Mason said. “The hardest part, from a player’s standpoint, was we were going from ‘are we going to have him or are we not going to have him? Are we going to get him back on Thursday?’ It was constantly wondering whether Todd was part of the gameplan.”

There were even hypothetical scenarios within the gameplan, according to Mason. Coaches were in the dark as much as anybody on what was going on. When the suspension was finally affirmed it wasn’t a relief, even with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel in reserve. It was a deflating moment. (That team also didn’t have Gurley for its loss against Georgia Tech in the regular-season finale, but that was after Gurley tore his ACL. In either case, it goes to show, no matter how good a freshman Chubb was, that Gurley made the Bulldogs even better.)

In 2010, Georgia began 1-4, losing three of those games without Green, then the first with him back, the Colorado game where he made his signature one-handed touchdown catch. That team had other issues, namely working in a new defensive system, so it wasn’t going to win the national championship either way. But Green’s suspension hung over the team.

“Not only were we losing, but we didn’t have our best player. But A.J. was around, so it was like this awkward elephant in the room every time you turned around,” Mason said.

Back then it was a scandal, at least outwardly. Now it probably won’t even be against the rules. In the span of just over a decade — less than that in Gurley’s case — the tide has turned in a huge way.

Mason thinks NIL will change college athletics forever and thinks it’s overdue. There are more complex debates about whether players should be compensated directly – by the schools – and unionizing. But it’s hard to find any reason that name, image and likeness shouldn’t have happened earlier. Mason remembers going into the UGA bookstore and seeing the “Gurshall” jerseys, and wondering how much money Keith Marshall and Gurley could have made on that.

No one will have to wonder anymore. It’s too late for Marshall, Gurley, Green and yesterday’s players. But at least it’s happening.

(Top photo of A.J. Green: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)