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Big 12 Notes – Spring/Summer
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June 21st
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Wisconsin sues Miami over player tampering
From ESPN … The University of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday claiming that the Miami football team broke the law by tampering with a Badgers player, a first-of-its-kind legal attempt to enforce the terms of a financial contract between a football player and his school.
The lawsuit refers to the athlete in question as “Student Athlete A,” but details from the complaint line up with the offseason transfer of freshman defensive back Xavier Lucas. Lucas left Wisconsin and enrolled at Miami in January after saying the Badgers staff refused to enter his name in the transfer portal in December.
In the complaint filed Friday, Wisconsin claims that a Miami staff member and a prominent alumnus met with Lucas and his family at a relative’s home in Florida and offered him money to transfer shortly after Lucas signed a two-year contract with the Badgers in December. The lawsuit states that Miami committed tortious interference by knowingly compelling a player to break the terms of his deal with Wisconsin.
“While we reluctantly bring this case, we stand by our position that respecting and enforcing contractual obligations is essential to maintaining a level playing field,” Wisconsin said in a statement to ESPN on Friday.
According to the complaint, Wisconsin decided to file suit in hopes that “during this watershed time for college athletics, this case will advance the overall integrity of the game by holding programs legally accountable when they wrongfully interfere with contractual commitments.”
Miami representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pending case promises to be an interesting test of whether schools can use name, image and likeness deals to keep athletes from transferring even though the players aren’t technically employees. Starting July 1, schools will begin paying their athletes directly via NIL deals.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 20th
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CFP meetings end with no resolution: “Everything is still on the table”
From ESPN … Leaders of the College Football Playoff are still “mulling over” what the format should look like in 2026 and beyond, CFP executive director Rich Clark said Wednesday following the conclusion of two days of meetings in Asheville, North Carolina.
“Pretty much everything’s on the table, and they’re taking a good look at it all of it,” Clark said. “So, I wouldn’t say there’s a leading contender right now for them, but they’re taking a fresh look at it.”
Last month, at the SEC’s spring meetings in Destin, Florida, there was new support from the head football coaches for a 16-team model that would include the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large teams. That quickly gained traction and public support from other leagues, but it also surprised many leaders in the Big Ten Conference.
Many athletic directors in both leagues had been aligned in their desire to have automatic qualifiers that would guarantee both conferences four spots each in the playoff, with play-in games to determine whom the third and fourth playoff participants would be. Following the SEC’s spring meetings, many sources in the Big Ten have indicated that they wouldn’t even consider a 5+11 model unless the SEC and the ACC both go to nine conference games.
The Big Ten and the SEC have the bulk of control of the next iteration of the playoff, but the two conferences haven’t been on the same page recently in terms of what that should look like.
“They’re obligated to come to an agreement on what the format is,” Clark said.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has said repeatedly that he wanted more clarity on the selection process before determining if the league should move to a nine-game schedule, and much of this week’s meetings were spent studying metrics, including strength of schedule. Clark said the CFP brought in a mathematician from Google to help the group, which included all 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua.
“I would say a lot of it is refreshing our metrics,” Clark said. “Some of these metrics were put into place with a whole different look at the way college football was laid out and the conferences were structured.
“I wouldn’t say it’s dramatic, but it’s a refresh. We looked at some of our processes and how we do things within the selection committee meeting room. Some of the things we brought up to the table for them to consider, but just things to help us get better.”
… Continue reading story here …
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June 19th
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Louisiana to tax sports betting to give to schools to off-set revenue sharing
From On3Sports … Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a bill to raise the state’s sports betting tax. A portion of the revenue will go to the state’s colleges to help offset revenue-sharing costs upon House v. NCAA settlement implementation.
HB 639 was proposed in April and went through the state House of Representatives and Senate before heading to Landry’s desk June 10. It features a provision to raise Louisiana’s tax on sports betting from 15% to 21.5%. The law also states 25% of the dollars – an estimated $24 million – collected under the tax increase will be split equally among 11 of the state’s public universities to go toward revenue-sharing. It will take effect Aug. 1.
“Monies in the fund shall be appropriated to the Board of Regents for distribution to athletic departments at public universities that are members of conferences that compete in NCAA Division One athletics at the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision levels in Louisiana for the benefit of student athletes,” the law states.
“For the purposes of this Section, ‘benefit’ means scholarships, insurance, medical coverage, facility enhancements, litigation settlement fees, and Alston awards. Each university shall establish eligibility criteria for benefits awarded pursuant to the provisions of this Section.”
‘Without the athletes, we wouldn’t have the revenue’
At most schools, football is expected to receive 75%, followed by men’s basketball (15%), women’s basketball (5%) and the remainder of sports (5%) after Judge Claudia Wilken approved the House v. NCAA settlement earlier this month. LSU is expected to follow a similar model, The Advocate reported.
According to bill co-sponsor Neil Riser (R), the law is a way for the state to support its schools and athletics programs. The athletes and revenue go hand-in-hand, in his eyes, and Louisiana will now help play a role in making sure there’s success on both fronts.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 18th
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Illinois head coach Bret Bielema: Can’t do a 16-team playoff if SEC won’t agree to nine conference games
From ESPN … Illinois coach Bret Bielema wants to see the College Football Playoff expand to 16 teams in 2026, but only if all the major conferences, including the SEC, play nine league games per season.
Speaking Tuesday before Illini Night at Wrigley Field, Bielema said the 16-team model doesn’t necessarily need to include four automatic spots for Big Ten teams, as Ohio State coach Ryan Day advocated for earlier this month. But Bielema, who coached in the SEC at Arkansas and has spent most of his career in the Big Ten, said both leagues need to be aligned in the number of conference games. The Big Ten currently plays nine, while the SEC has remained at eight.
“I don’t think there’s any way we can do a 16-team playoff if they’re not at nine,” Bielema said.
He also referred to conversations coming out of the SEC spring meetings in Florida, where LSU coach Brian Kelly suggested in SEC-Big Ten nonleague challenge.
“We voted unanimously as Big Ten coaches to stay at nine league games and actually maybe have an SEC challenge,” Bielema said. “I was told that they voted unanimously to stay at eight and not play the Big Ten. But then some people pop off and say what they want to say because they want to look a certain way.
“I get it, but like, I think until you get to nine for everybody, I don’t think it could work.”
The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua are meeting this week in Asheville, North Carolina, to discuss the future format and other issues.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 17th
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SEC/Big Ten remain at odds over strength of schedule in deciding CFP participants
From CBS Sports … Since negotiating control over the future of the CFP format and a bigger cut of the money (29% to each conference), the Big Ten and SEC have largely been in lockstep on the major issues. Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti developed a strong working relationship — one Sankey never had with Petitti’s predecessor, Kevin Warren — and brought the two conferences closer together with historic joint meetings in Nashville and New Orleans over the last eight months.
Those shared sensibilities include momentum behind the Big Ten’s preferred revamping of the playoff to a model that would award four automatic bids each to the Big Ten and SEC, two each to the ACC and Big 12, one to the top Group of 6 team and the remainder to at-large teams. The SEC had seemingly rallied around the idea, with Sankey saying last month the conference was “interested but not committed.” That changed after significant backlash from the conference’s football coaches, leading multiple SEC sources to predict that the conference would stick with eight conference games and side with the ACC and Big 12’s preferred 5+11 model, which awards five automatic bids to conference champions and the rest to the top 11 teams.
The SEC appears open to continuing with a selection committee but one that tweaks the currently used metrics and weighs the strength of schedule more heavily than it has in the past. Such a development wouldn’t require a move to an AQ-heavy format. The key, for SEC leaders, is that they want to be rewarded for how difficult they believe it is to win in the conference.
“The human element is great, but there’s got to be some more clearly defined metrics,” Mississippi State AD Zac Selmon recently told CBS Sports. “I’ve worked in different conferences before — two different power conferences (ACC, Big 12) — and when you look at the depth from top to bottom of our league, it’s night and day compared to what other people say.”
Interestingly, the SOS metrics often favored the SEC over the committee’s rankings last season. The conference usually had the highest-ranked one-, two- and three-loss teams.
“Adding any new data points in is not going to necessarily cure what’s been a pretty dominant thought (process),” a Big Ten source said. “It’s always going to come back to this subjective mindset.”
The SEC’s regular season gauntlet memo signaled to Big Ten leaders that the conference just wants a formula that proclaims it is the best, rather than any real changes. The Big Ten is more convinced than ever that more AQs are the only way to fix the problems, not a tweaked SOS metric, according to Big Ten sources with direct knowledge of the situation. At the heart of the Big Ten’s argument, they say, is the belief that more automatic qualifiers (and a potential play-in championship weekend) would keep more program fanbases invested later into the season, which ultimately leads to better fan attendance and television ratings.
“In a model where it’s 5-11, there’s no amount of data you can pour through to figure out who’s better between the fourth-place Big Ten team, the fourth-place SEC team and the second-place Big 12 team,” said a Big Ten source. “I recognize people think there are solutions. We’ve studied it a whole lot and there’s not a whole lot that you can do to tweak it.”
… Continue reading story here …
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June 16th
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Texas State the heavy favorite to become the eighth team in the new “Pac-8”
From ESPN … In the cloak-and-dagger world of conference realignment, clues to potential moves can manifest in strange places.
One emerged last week via an X account with 313 followers promoting Texas State tailback Lincoln Pare for the Heisman Trophy.
The account included a picture, cribbed from the Instagram story of the Texas State president, of two beavers floating in the San Marcos River. And it noted the potential realignment ramifications — “Beavers in the San Marcos River” — by including a scratching chin emoji that hinted at the possibility of Texas State joining Oregon State in the Pac-12. (OSU’s nickname is, of course, the Beavers, and the San Marcos River runs through the bustling town south of Austin where Texas State resides.)
This likely would have faded into the background of the social-media-sphere if Texas State president Kelly Damphousse hadn’t reposted it on June 10. That set off a spark in the wake of a regularly scheduled Pac-12 meeting earlier in the week when Texas State’s candidacy was a focus of discussion. (The Pac-12 declined comment for this story.)
So what’s next for the Pac-12? And what ripples could buzz through the kinetic realignment landscape? Here’s what could be coming in the next wave of realignment, which is expected to occur outside of the power conferences.
What’s next for the Pac-12?
Texas State is the heavy favorite, per ESPN sources, to be issued a formal Pac-12 invitation. The league is still engaged with other schools, per sources, but Texas State has clearly emerged at the forefront of that group.
On July 1, the buyout for Texas State to leave the Sun Belt for the 2026-27 season will rise from $5 million to $10 million. This is obviously a bigger motivator for Texas State than the Pac-12, but it’s seemingly a significant enough deadline to trigger action.
For the Pac-12 to bring in a new partner in a time of financial uncertainty for the league, it would make sense to offer Texas State prior to July 1. After all, the Pac-12 needs an eighth football member for 2026, so they have their own deadline looming.
In realignment, of course, nothing is official until it’s signed. And nothing is formal until it’s completed. So with Texas State and the Pac-12, sources said the best way to explain the courtship is that the league is currently exploring making an offer in the upcoming weeks.
Texas State has loomed for months as the favorite to join the league and was prominently discussed in the Pac-12’s virtual meeting earlier this week. It has been the league’s top target for months and is expected to have voting support, as the league’s presidents are enamored with a foothold in the state and Damphousse’s leadership.
Texas State is booming as a university with an enrollment of more than 40,000, and it boasts a lot of tenets of football potential, with a rich local talent base and a rising young coach, G.J. Kinne, at the helm.
The league’s presidents won’t vote on Texas State until they are ready for the process to unfold in rapid-fire succession. That’s expected to come before July 1. Texas State turned down a verbal offer from the Mountain West last fall, which athletic director Don Coryell called “preliminary discussions with an interested conference.”
Texas State, if the Pac-12 process unfolds as expected, would be the league’s ninth member overall and eighth football member. Part of the feeling of inevitability of the invitation is tied to necessity. The league needs to grow to eight football members in order to qualify as an FBS conference. (Gonzaga is the non-football member.) Internally at the Pac-12, Texas State has long been viewed as the best readily available option for that eighth spot.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 13th
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Report: Texas Tech to spend $55 million on athletes this year
From Sports Illustrated … There’s no question that we have entered into a new era of college athletics with NIL and revenue sharing. While paying college athletes has been part of the landscape for quite some time, it has only become legal to do so over the last few years. And while the original intent was to allow players to profit from their name, image, and likeness in more practical ways, NIL morphed into something far beyond “practical” fairly quickly.
Some college football coaches estimate that it will soon cost nearly $40 million or more to construct a roster capable of competing for championships, something that would have been unimaginable just five years ago. Although many are unhappy with the current lack of guardrails within college athletics, the reality is that schools need to find a way to compete under the current format, regardless of how crazy it may be.
The good news for the folks in Lubbock is that Texas Tech is going all in on capitalizing on the current state of college athletics, and it could completely transform the trajectory of its athletic programs.
According to a recent report by Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports, Texas Tech is set to pay out a whopping $55 million to its student athletes in 2025. That number, according to the sources who spoke with Marcello, is believed to be the highest in the nation.
Texas Tech’s multi-million dollar investment into star softball pitcher NiJaree Canady has received plenty of attention, and it’s estimated that men’s basketball standout JT Toppin landed a $4 million deal to remain in Lubbock. The Red Raiders’ estimated $20-30 million investment into the 2025 football roster is believed to be one of the highest (if not the highest) in the country.
Put simply, Texas Tech is doing everything it can to take advantage of the current state of college athletics, with the ultimate goal of delivering championships to the university.
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June 12th
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25 Top Stories of the past 25 years includes three CU stories
From The Athletic … No sport has a longer offseason than college football, and it’s nearly inarguable that the sport has as much drama off the field during that eight-month layoff — and during the regular season itself — as it does on Saturdays in the fall.
As The Athletic continues its look back at the last two-plus decades of college football, we examined 25 college football stories whose influences extended beyond the gridiron over the last 25 years, from conference expansion, NCAA power struggles, coaching hires and postseason changes to players whose star power impacted the game in ways the box score did not always measure.
17. Rocky Mountain Prime
Deion Sanders commanded the spotlight during his Hall of Fame playing career, but nothing could prepare college football for his 2023 debut as an FBS head coach in Colorado. Sanders took over a 1-11 squad, flipped the roster and became the sport’s most compelling story as the Buffaloes upset defending national runner-up TCU, then beat rivals Nebraska and Colorado State to start 3-0. Each of Sanders’ first five games drew more than 7.2 million viewers.
With multiple football programs hiring former NFL superstars like Michael Vick (Norfolk State) and Desean Jackson (Delaware State) in the ensuing years, Sanders’ emergence has helped usher in a new level of celebrity to the coaching carousel. His past exploits, charisma and cultural status have helped him connect to potential recruits and fans in a way few coaches can attain. And the five-year contract extension he signed this spring implies he’s not going anywhere.
9. Expansion chaos 2010-11
The zero-sum expansion spat between the ACC and Big East from 2003 to ’05 had little impact on the rest of college football. That was not the case in 2009 when Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany announced his league was exploring expansion on an 18-to-24-month timetable. That forced other leagues to expedite expansion plans, and the Pac-10 launched the first salvo when it pursued six Big 12 schools, including Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma.
Colorado became the first Big 12 school to jump to the Pac-10, and Nebraska left for the Big Ten a day later. The remaining schools waited on Texas, which opted to stay in the Big 12. The Pac-10 then added Utah to become a 12-team conference.
But the 10-member Big 12 was far from a happy family. The holdovers allowed Texas to form the Longhorn Network, but the financial and recruiting boost was too much for Texas A&M, so it bolted for the SEC in 2011. That earthquake started another round of aftershocks, and by the time it subsided, Missouri joined Texas A&M in the SEC and the Big 12 added TCU and West Virginia in their stead.
This round of realignment allowed an unvarnished reality to override the platitudes of college athletics: Football is king without exceptions, and brand power trumps on-field excellence.
3. The Pac-12’s demise
Long known as “The Conference of Champions,” the Pac-12 (previously the Pac-10 and Pac-8) enjoyed a proud tradition as a model academic-athletic conference. But financially it had fallen well behind its long-time partner — the Big Ten — and other power conferences. The league failed to secure distribution of its Pac-12 Network, and inept leadership turned a problem into a crisis.
A cascading departure of members followed USC and UCLA’s jump to the Big Ten, including Washington and Oregon (Big Ten), Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado (Big 12) and Stanford and California (ACC). Oregon State and Washington State remained as the Pac-12’s only members during the 2024 football season. The duo have mostly reconstituted the Pac-12, grabbing Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Utah State from the Mountain West for 2026. But it is not the same, not even close.
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June 11th
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ESPN College Football Future Power Rankings through 2026: CU in at No. 35
From ESPN … College football’s future power rankings have been reimagined as part of a changing sport. The constant roster shuffling around the sport because of the portal made three-year projections less sensible. Instead, the rankings will examine the next two seasons — in this case, the 2025 and 2026 seasons — and function more as a snapshot of the landscape.
Rather than deliver installments before the team rankings, I’m doing them all at once for the Power 4 leagues and Notre Dame. The reason: The spring portal changes things, and QB rooms or individual units can look moderately or significantly different by late May or early June. For example, think about where Tennessee would have been on the quarterback list in February and how the outlook is now.
Teams will be evaluated in the following categories:
- Returning quarterback
- Likelihood of a multiyear QB on roster
- Offensive line/defensive line outlook
- Roster management
- Star power (All-Americans, national award contenders, all-conference contenders)
- Coaching staff
Not every area has to be a strength to boost a team’s overall rating. Most teams likely cannot rely on having a multiyear starting quarterback on their roster, given the volatility of the position. But the most promising teams usually check at least a few of these boxes, especially overall roster management (high school recruiting and transfers), line-of-scrimmage play and at least some star power.
Let’s get started with the new Power 4 version of FPR, from No. 68 all the way to No. 1.
66. West Virginia Mountaineers
65. UCF Knights
64. Arizona Wildcats
62. Oklahoma State Cowboys
61. Houston Cougars
57. Cincinnati Bearcats
50. Kansas Jayhawks
38. TCU Horned Frogs
35. Colorado Buffaloes
Previous future power ranking: Not ranked
Returning quarterback: No. Shedeur Sanders produced a record-setting two-year run at Colorado, had his number retired and then became a fifth-round NFL draft pick to the Cleveland Browns.
Likelihood of a multiyear QB: Fairly likely. Liberty transfer Kaidon Salter, who led the Flames to an undefeated regular season and a Fiesta Bowl appearance in 2023, enters his final year of eligibility. But Colorado could at some point turn to decorated incoming freshman Julian “Ju Ju” Lewis, pegged as the team’s quarterback of the future.
Offensive line/defensive line outlook: The defensive line was a bright spot for much of last season, especially a pass rush that produced 37 sacks and 52 quarterback hurries. Colorado must replace B.J. Green and others but returns ends Arden Walker and Samuel Okunlola, who combined for 7.5 sacks and 13 hurries. Veteran tackle Amari McNeill is also back, and Colorado added transfers such as Jehiem Oatis (Alabama). Colorado’s offensive line remains an area to watch and once again will be transfer-heavy with Xavier Hill (Memphis), Zarian McGill (Louisiana Tech), Zy Crisler (Illinois) and others. The group returns an anchor in talented sophomore tackle Jordan Seaton, as well as guard Tyler Brown.
Roster management: Colorado not surprisingly was active in the portal, adding Salter as a potential one-year answer at quarterback, and addressing both lines of scrimmage, the secondary and linebacker. The team also sustained some potentially significant portal losses at offensive line, cornerback and running back. Colorado signed ESPN’s No. 34 class for 2025.
Star power: The Buffs lost more than most teams with Shedeur Sanders, Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and others departing. Who’s left? Seaton is back, Walker and Okunlola are both All-Big 12 candidates on the line, and Salter was Conference USA’s MVP and a Maxwell Award finalist in 2023. Hill earned first-team All-AAC honors last fall after being a second-team selection in 2023. Alejandro Mata is back as one of the nation’s more experienced kickers.
Coaching staff: Deion Sanders is back for Year 3, although the season represents Phase 2 of his tenure with his sons, Hunter and other notables leaving Boulder. He retained both of his coordinators, Pat Shurmur and on-the-rise DC Robert Livingston, and added another Pro Football Hall of Famer to the staff in running backs coach Marshall Faulk.
32. Baylor Bears
30. Utah Utes
29. Texas Tech Red Raiders
25. BYU Cougars
21. Kansas State Wildcats
19. Iowa State Cyclones
12. Arizona State Sun Devils
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June 10th
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Commissioners confident NIL rules will be enforceable: “We want oversight. We want guardrails”
From ESPN … Days after a multibillion-dollar legal settlement changed college athletics by allowing schools to directly pay their athletes, the most powerful conference commissioners are bullish on their ability to enforce NIL rules in a new system, even though specific punishments remain unclear.
Hours after the House v. NCAA settlement was approved on Friday, former MLB executive Bryan Seeley was named CEO of a new enforcement organization called the College Sports Commission. His job will be to lead the team responsible for enforcement of the new rules around revenue sharing, third-party payments to players for NIL deals, and roster limits.
One of the biggest questions, though, is what happens when those rules are broken?
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who spoke Monday on a Zoom news conference with fellow commissioners Greg Sankey (SEC), Tony Petitti (Big Ten), Brett Yormark (Big 12) and Teresa Gould (Pac-12), said they’ve all had ideas, but nothing they’re “ready to come forward with.” Ultimately, Phillips said, the rules and boundaries will be under Seeley’s purview.
“We’re in the process of developing some of those rules and structure and overall implementation of that,” Phillips said. “Now that we have Bryan on board, I think we’ll be able to move a little bit quicker. But we want to get this right. It’s one of those areas that until you have somebody leading the College Sports Commission, it’s difficult to get together with that individual and start some of that framework that will be in place.”
Yormark called it “progress over perfection,” and said that while there will be challenges, they will meet them over time.
“Our schools want rules, and we’re providing rules, and we will be governed by those rules. And if you break those rules, the ramifications will be punitive,” Yormark said.
The annual cap is expected to start at $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and increase every year during the decade-long deal. Those payments will be in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive. Starting June 7, players have to report NIL deals of $600 or more to the College Sports Commission.
LBi Software and accounting firm Deloitte will monitor salary cap management and the NIL clearinghouse, an online platform called NIL Go. Those NIL deals will be outside of the revenue directly shared by schools and will be vetted to determine if they are for a valid business purpose — not recruiting.
Sankey met with his head coaches in football and men’s and women’s basketball this past February, and he said he has asked the same question at every level — including up to the university presidents.
“If you want an unregulated, open system, just raise your hand and let me know,” Sankey said. “And universally, the answer is, ‘No, we want oversight. We want guardrails. We want structure.’ Those individuals don’t have the luxury to just say that in meeting rooms, period. They don’t have the luxury to just be anonymous sources. They have a responsibility to make what they’ve sought — what they’ve asked for — to make it work.”
… Continue reading story here …
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June 9th
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Private Equity to the rescue? $500M on the way as a new source of income for collegiate athletics
From Sports Business Journal … Private equity has finally come to college sports.
Elevate is set to announce the creation of the Collegiate Investment Initiative, a $500M initiative backed by PE firm Velocity Capital Management and the Texas Permanent School Fund, Sports Business Journal has learned.
The investment vehicle will provide a new funding source for collegiate athletics programs pursuing capital-intensive projects like facility upgrades and renovations.
Jonathan Marks, Chief Business Officer of Elevate College and Global Marketplace, said the platform has already closed funding deals with two Power Four athletic departments, though he declined to share details. He expects to complete another three to six deals by the start of this year’s college football season.
“One of the needs that we’ve seen that’s gone unfulfilled is the need for project-based or bridge capital that a school might not be able to achieve within the university debt structure or via bonds,” Marks told SBJ. “We’re looking more to provide debt-type capital or credit, [and] that ultimately we can help a school monetize that investment and that return on capital more than anyone else.”
To Marks’ point, Elevate’s strategy with the initiative aims to support cash-strapped athletic departments without requiring equity commitments or short-term exit strategies typically deployed by private equity firms. Instead, these disbursements can be long-term deals secured by a percentage of future, incremental revenues.
The strategy has no hard time horizon and is “highly customizable” to fit athletic department needs, though Marks noted the fund will generally make eight-figure investments. While he acknowledged the cost of capital will be more expensive than a typical bond or credit facility, the ideal outcome is for Elevate to recoup its investment through a share of newly created, incremental revenue.
Elevate Chairman & CEO Al Guido pointed to the company’s unique positioning to introduce institutional capital to the college sports space as it’s already a service provider to nearly 70 clients across the collegiate landscape.
Marks said that Elevate will also consider conference-level funding opportunities that could be secured by revenue from league-controlled assets like jersey patches, field logos, tickets and others (Elevate has existing relationships with the ACC and Big East).
“The biggest difference from us to maybe the other private equity partners that have tried to attack the space is we’ve already had these partnerships,” Guido said. “With that knowledge, combined with capital that schools can use, I do think it’s hopefully the winning solve.”
Velocity, the sports-focused private equity firm launched by David Abrams and Arne Rees in 2021, is an existing investor in Elevate. The Texas Permanent School Fund is Velocity’s majority backer, having committed $200M late last year, and holds an ownership stake in the firm.
Those two are the only financiers behind Elevate’s new collegiate investment strategy, and Marks noted the $500M represents an initial effort, with long-term hopes to grow the Collegiate Investment Initiative into a multi-billion-dollar platform.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 6th
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**House Settlement finalized – Schools allowed to pay players directly**
From ESPN .. .Schools are now free to begin paying their athletes directly, marking the dawn of a new era in college sports brought about by a multibillion-dollar legal settlement that was formally approved Friday.
Judge Claudia Wilken approved the deal between the NCAA, its most powerful conferences and lawyers representing all Division I athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement ends three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, all of which claimed the NCAA was illegally limiting the earning power of college athletes.
Wilken’s long-awaited decision comes with less than a month remaining before schools are planning to start cutting checks to athletes on July 1. Both sides presented their arguments for approving the settlement at a hearing in early April. While college sports leaders have been making tentative plans for a major shift in how they do business, the tight turnaround time means schools and conferences will have to hustle to stand up the infrastructure needed to enforce their new rules.
The NCAA will pay nearly $2.8 billion in back damages over the next 10 years to athletes who competed in college at any time from 2016 through present day. Moving forward, each school can pay its athletes up to a certain limit. The annual cap is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and increase every year during the decade-long deal. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.
Friday’s order is a major milestone in the long push to remove outdated amateurism rules from major college sports. Since 2021, college athletes have been allowed to make money from third parties via name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. Boosters quickly organized groups called collectives that used NIL money as de facto salaries for their teams, in some cases paying millions of dollars mostly to top-rated basketball and football players. Now, that money will come straight from the athletic department.
In June 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the NCAA in a case that made it clear that college athletics should be treated less like an education-based endeavor and more like a lucrative entertainment industry. The decision unleashed a flood of fresh legal challenges to NCAA rules that have led to unprecedented turmoil.
The settlement approved this week will not put an end to the barrage of legal challenges. Questions about whether athletes should be considered employees and the current rules that dictate how long an athlete can play college sports remain unanswered.
However, NCAA president Charlie Baker and others believe the deal will help schools regain control and tamp down the sky-rocketing, largely unregulated market for paying college players through third parties.
The NCAA and its schools are hoping that federal lawmakers will now intercede to help solve the industry’s remaining legal problems. Industry leaders have asked Congress to write a new law that would prevent athletes from becoming employees and provide the NCAA with an antitrust exemption to create some caps on player pay and transfers.
Salary caps and free agency restrictions in professional sports are legal because they are negotiated as part of a collective bargaining agreement with a union. College sports leaders say many schools wouldn’t be able to afford to fund their teams if players are deemed to be employees and allowed to unionize.
The settlement gives the schools power to create new rules designed to limit the influence of boosters and collectives. Starting this summer, any endorsement deal between a booster and an athlete will be vetted to ensure it is for a “valid business purpose” rather than a recruiting incentive.
Many sources in the college sports industry have doubts about whether the limit on booster spending — aimed at protecting competitive balance — will be effective in slowing down the rapid increase in money flowing to athletes at the NCAA’s richest schools. Some believe the rule will spur new lawsuits.
The power conferences are planning to soon launch a new enforcement organization to monitor payments that come from both schools and boosters, a duty that was previously one of the main functions of the NCAA’s national office. College sports officials are hoping that the new organization will have a more streamlined and effective approach to investigating potential violations and punishing those who break the rules.
The new enforcement organization, called the College Sports Commission, has yet to name a chief executive or finalize the types of punishments it will dole out for those that break the rules. The group responsible for creating the new organization — a collection of athletic directors and conference executives — has been waiting for final approval of the settlement before publicly announcing their plans.
Wilken refused to approve the settlement in early April because several athletes objected to a term of the deal that allows the NCAA to set a limit for many players each team can carry on its roster. The limits would have potentially resulted in thousands of athletes losing their place on their team. Lawyers for both sides agreed in late April to alter the deal so that no athletes would lose their opportunity to play college sports as a direct result of the new roster limits.
… Continue reading story here …
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June 4th
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Peace in the East: Florida State/ACC officially drop lawsuits against one another
From The Athletic … The ACC’s legal infighting is officially over after Florida State, Clemson and the ACC filed to dismiss the cases against each other Tuesday.
The move formally, finally, ends more than 17 months of litigation that played out in Florida (where the Seminoles sued the ACC), South Carolina (where the Tigers sued the conference) and North Carolina (where the Charlotte-based league separately sued both schools). Both schools and the league approved the settlement’s terms in March, and Florida State’s counsel estimated the agreements would be finalized in 30 days. The whole process took almost three months, approaching a June 9 deadline in one of the Florida courts.
The initial settlement terms clarified issues if/when Florida State, Clemson or other ACC members moved to leave the conference. Schools, not the league, would get to keep their TV rights, which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars between now and 2036 (when the ACC’s ESPN contract expires). The exit fee, according to a presentation to Clemson trustees in March, would drop annually from $165 million in the 2026 fiscal year to about $75 million in 2030-31.
That’s a critical window as TV contracts with the SEC, Big Ten and College Football Playoff will expire — potentially setting the stage for another massive round of conference realignment.
The agreement reported in March also created a new way for the ACC to share revenue with its members. About 60 percent of conference payouts would be divided based on TV viewership in football and men’s basketball. That amounts to more than $15 million in extra revenue for the top earners — a significant bonus as ACC paydays lag behind those in the SEC and Big Ten. Florida State officials previously said the gap would exceed $30 million in the coming years unless things changed.
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June 3rd
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Eric Bieniemy in Top Ten of Hall of Fame candidates (out of 79 candidates)
From College Football News … The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced the names on the 2026 class ballot for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, including 79 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision.
A Hall of Famer should be obvious, and it’s not just about name recognition. A player’s popularity doesn’t mean he had an all-timer impact on the sport or was one of the true greats.
Perspective is needed, eras and systems have to be considered, NFL careers don’t matter, and there should be some test of time.
Here’s our ranking of all FBS player College Football Hall of Fame nominees based on how much they deserve to be in.
10. Antwaan Randle El, Indiana QB
2001 First Team All-American. First player in FBS history to pass for 6,000 yards and rush for 3,000 yards in career. Finished career with more rushing yards than any quarterback in FBS history.
9. Ken Dorsey, Miami QB
2002 First Team All-American who led the Canes to back-to-back BCS Championship games, winning the national title his junior season. Two-time Big East Co-Offensive Player of the Year and 2001 Maxwell Player of the Year.
8. Eric Bieniemy, Colorado RB
1990 unanimous First Team All-American and finished third in 1990 Heisman voting. Played in two national championships, leading Buffs to 1990 national title. Two-time All-Big 8, still holds eight Colorado records.
7. Peter Warrick, Florida State WR
Two-time First Team All-American who led FSU to a national championship at the 2000 Sugar Bowl. Two-time First Team All-ACC receiver finished career as the league’s all-time leading receiver. FSU’s career leader in receiving TDs.
6. Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska DT
Fourth in 2009 Heisman voting. All-American and winner of Bednarik, Lombardi, Nagurski and Outland. AP College Player of the Year.
5. Manti Te’o, Notre Dame LB
Finished second in 2012 Heisman. First player to win Maxwell, Walter Camp, Bednarik, Butkus, Lombardi, and Nagurski in the same season.
4. James Laurinaitis, Ohio State LB
Three-time First Team All-American, Two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year. 2007 Butkus and 2006 Nagurski recipient. Led Ohio State in tackles three-straight seasons.
3. Robert Griffin III, Baylor QB
2011 Heisman winner. Won the Davey O’Brien and AP Player of the Year. 2011 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, and two-time All-Big 12.
2. Mark Ingram, Alabama RB
2009 Heisman winner, BCS Championship MVP, 2009 SEC Offensive Player of the Year.
1. Cam Newton, Auburn QB
2010 Heisman winner, leading Auburn to the national title. Won the Davey O’Brien, Maxwell, and Walter Camp awards. 2010 SEC Offensive Player of the Year.
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June 2nd
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Eric Bieniemy; Chris Hudson on ballot for College Football Hall of Fame
From Football Foundation.org … The National Football Foundation (NFF) announced today the names on the 2026 Ballot under consideration for induction into the NFF College Football Hall of Fame, including 79 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 100 players and 35 coaches from the divisional ranks.
“For more than 65 years, the NFF College Football Hall of Fame has stood as the sport’s ultimate archive, honoring those whose impact on the game still echoes today,” said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. “This year’s ballot carries forward that responsibility, spotlighting individuals who not only excelled on the field but also helped define what college football means to so many.”
The ballot was emailed today to the more than 12,000 NFF members and current NFF Hall of Famers whose votes will be tabulated and submitted to the NFF’s Honors Court, which will deliberate and select the class.
The Honors Court, chaired by NFF Board Member and NFF College Football Hall of Famer Archie Griffin from Ohio State, includes an elite and geographically diverse pool of athletic administrators, NFF Hall of Famers and members of the media. Click here for the official criteria and the voting procedures, which govern election to the NFF Hall.
“Each year, the NFF Hall of Fame ballot provides our members with the meaningful opportunity to help shape the future of college football’s most prestigious honor,” said NFF Chairman Archie Manning, a 1989 NFF College Football Hall of Fame inductee from Ole Miss. “Our voters are deeply passionate and knowledgeable, and their involvement ensures that those selected represent the very best our sport has to offer. It’s a tradition rooted in excellence, and we are excited to see who will be chosen for the 2026 Class.”
The announcement of the 2026 NFF College Football Hall of Fame Class will be made in early 2026, with specific details to be announced in the future.
The 2026 NFF College Football Hall of Fame Class will be officially inducted during the 68th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on Dec. 8, 2026, at the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, and they will be honored at their respective schools with an NFF Hall of Fame On-Campus Salute, presented by Fidelity Investments, during the 2026 season.
Of the 5.78 million individuals who have played college football since Princeton first battled Rutgers on Nov. 6, 1869, only 1,111 players have earned induction into the NFF College Football Hall of Fame, or less than two one-hundredths of a percent (.02%) of those who have played the game during the past 155 seasons. From the coaching ranks, 237 individuals have achieved NFF Hall of Fame distinction.
Prominent Big 12 and Pac-12 nominees …
Kenjon Barner, Oregon-Running Back-2012 consensus First Team All-American and finalist for the Doak Walker Award…First Team All-Pac-12 selection helped Ducks to four BCS berths, including a 2011 BCS National Championship appearance…Ranks third in Oregon history in career AP yards (5,848) and rushing TDs (41).
Aaron Beasley, West Virginia-Defensive Back-1995 consensus First Team All-American led the nation in INTs (10) in 1994…Two-time First Team All-Big East selection who led WVU to an undefeated regular season and a 1993 Big East title…19 career INTs and holds two of the top five single-season PBU performances in Mountaineer history.
Eric Bieniemy, Colorado-Running Back-1990 unanimous First Team All-American and finished third in 1990 Heisman voting…Played in two national championships, leading Buffs to 1990 national title…Two-time All-Big Eight pick, still holding eight CU records.
Dez Bryant, Oklahoma State-Wide Receiver-2008 consensus First Team All-American and finalist for the Biletnikoff Award…2008 Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year who earned First Team All-Big 12 honors as both a receiver and return specialist the same season…Led the conference in scoring (126 points), receiving ypg (113.8) and punt return average (17.9) during prolific sophomore season.
Rocky Calmus, Oklahoma-Linebacker-Two-time consensus First Team All-American and 2001 Butkus Award winner…OU’s all-time leader in TFL (59) helped Sooners to the BCS National Championship at the 2001 Orange Bowl…2000 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and four-time All-Big 12 performer posted 431 career tackles.
Mark Carrier, USC-Defensive Back-Two-time First Team All-American (1988-89), earning unanimous honors in 1989…1989 Jim Thorpe Award winner as the nation’s top defensive back…Two-time First Team All-Conference selection…Led the Pac-10 in interceptions in 1989 with seven.
Robert Griffin III, Baylor-Quarterback-2011 consensus First Team All-American and winner of the Heisman Trophy, Davey O’Brien and Manning awards…2011 AP Player of the Year led the nation in points responsibility (22.15 ppg) and ranked second in total offense (384.0 ypg)…2011 Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and two-time All-Big 12 performer broke or tied 54 Baylor records and led the Bears to their first bowl victory (2011 Alamo) in 19 years.
Byron Hanspard, Texas Tech-Running Back-1996 unanimous First Team All-American and recipient of the Doak Walker Award…Tech’s all-time leader in rushing (4,219) who tied NCAA record by reaching 1,000-yard mark by fifth game of 1996 season…Three-time All-Big 12 selection, helping Red Raiders to first Cotton Bowl since 1938.
Josh Heupel, Oklahoma-Quarterback-2000 consensus First Team All-American and Walter Camp Player of the Year…2000 Heisman Trophy runner-up who led the Sooners to a national title at the 2001 Orange Bowl…2000 Big 12 Player of the Year who left OU with virtually every school passing record despite only playing two seasons.
Chris Hudson, Colorado-Defensive Back-1994 consensus First Team All-American and Thorpe Award recipient… Three-time First Team All-Big Eight selection who helped the Buffs to the 1991 conference title…Finished career with 141 tackles 15 INTs (including two returned for a TD) and 20 PBUs.
DeSean Jackson, California-Return Specialist/Wide Receiver-Two-time First Team All-American (as a specialist), earning consensus honors in 2006, and Randy Moss Award winner as the nation’s top kick returner…Earned First Team All-Pac-10 honors as a receiver and punt returner in 2006…Cal’s career leader in punt return average (16.7) and punt return TDs (6).
Ryan Leaf, Washington State-Quarterback-1997 First Team All-American who finished third in Heisman Trophy voting…1997 Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year led Cougars to the first league title in school history (1997) and first Rose Bowl berth in 67 years…Two-time All-Pac-10 performer set four WSU career records, including TD passes (59).
John Lee, UCLA-Placekicker-Two-time First Team All-American, earning consensus honors in 1985…Boasted the NCAA’s highest career field goal percentage among players with at least 55 attempts (.859)…Two-time First Team All-Pac-10 selection who helped UCLA to three league titles and finished his career as the Bruins’ all-time scoring leader (390).
Marshawn Lynch, California-Running Back-2006 First Team All-American who led Cal to a share of the 2006 Pac-10 title…2006 Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year led the league in rushing (1,356), all-purpose yards (1,785) and TDs (15) that season…Two-time bowl game MVP (2005 Las Vegas, 2006 Holiday) and Cal’s all-time leader in 100-yard rushing games (17).
Terence Newman, Kansas State-Defensive Back-2002 unanimous First Team All-American and winner of the Thorpe Award…2002 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, also earning First Team All-Big 12 honors as a specialist after leading the league in kickoff return yards (28.5 avg.)…2002 team captain and MVP was just the second Wildcat in history to score on both a kickoff and punt return in the same season (2002).
Ken Norton Jr., UCLA-Linebacker-1987 First Team All-American, leading Bruins to four consecutive bowl wins… Member of the 1985 conference championship team… Led team in tackles in 1986 (106) and in 1987 (125) and ranks sixth in school history with 339 career tackles.
Ron Rivera, California-Linebacker-1983 consensus First Team All-American…Lombardi Award finalist in 1983 and named East-West Shrine Game Most Valuable Player…Selected as Pac-10 Co-Defensive Player of the Year in 1983…Led team in tackles from 1981-83.
Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska-Defensive Tackle-2009 unanimous First Team All-American and winner of the Bednarik, Lombardi, Nagurski and Outland trophies…2009 AP College Player of the Year became the first defensive lineman in 15 seasons to be named a finalist for the Heisman Trophy (4th in 2009)…2009 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and Big 12 Defensive Lineman of the Year tied the Nebraska record for single-game TFL (7 vs. Texas) in the 2009 Big 12 title game.
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May 30th
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ESPN: Delaware (v. CU September 6th) “could be pretty decent out of the FBS gate”
From ESPN … It’s good to have a purpose in life. Conference USA’s purpose is to serve as the official FBS welcome mat.
With the additions of Delaware and Missouri State, there are now 136 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. CUSA has at one point or another housed nearly a quarter of them. Of the 10 programs to move up from FCS since 2014, eight joined CUSA upon their arrival.
Delaware Blue Hens
Head coach: Ryan Carty (fourth year, 26-11 overall)
2025 projection: 110th in SP+ (113th offense, 105th defense), 5.5 average wins, 3.8 conference wins
And now, the newbies. Neither Delaware nor Missouri State is eligible for the CUSA title game (and would only be bowl eligible with six-plus wins if there aren’t enough bowl-eligible teams elsewhere), but both could be pretty decent out of the FBS gate.
That’s especially true for Delaware. Though ineligible for the FCS playoffs last season, the Blue Hens went 9-2 and ranked fifth in FCS SP+, equivalent to about 100th (between Sam Houston and Louisiana Tech) in FBS. They were good despite three quarterbacks logging major minutes — two of them, senior Zach Marker and junior Nick Minicucci, return — and despite quite a few then-sophomores playing major roles. The offense’s two best playmakers (RB Marcus Yarns and WR Phil Lutz) are gone, but RB Jo’Nathan Silver is proven, and six returnees (including Silver) caught double-digit passes. The line, led by left tackle Anwar O’neal and left guard Patrick Shupp, certainly passes the FBS size test.
The defense was as good as the offense last season and returns 17 of the 22 players with double-digit tackles, though star end Melkart Abou-Jaoude transferred to North Carolina. Size up front might be an issue — tackle Dominick Brogna is the only player who was listed at more than 280 pounds last season — but the secondary is big and physical, and safety KT Seay should immediately be one of the best in the conference.
Ryan Carty was KC Keeler’s offensive coordinator when Sam Houston won the FCS national title in spring 2021, and he immediately reestablished Delaware as a top-15ish FCS program when he took over in 2022. He’s letting it ride in 2025, having brought in only a few transfers (most of them redshirt freshmen or sophomores), and his first FBS team is a projected favorite in five games and only a slight underdog in four others. I’d be surprised if this weren’t a pretty fun and competitive season for the Hens.
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May 28th
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Indiana bringing back a bison as a mascot
From the IndyStar … For Christmas last winter, Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson’s children gifted him something nearly no one else would understand.
A clapperboard — the black-and-white apparatus snapped together to signify the start of filming on a movie set — with the words “Operation Bigfoot” written on the production line.
The clapperboard sits on Dolson’s desk. Sharp-eyed viewers will have spotted it in the background of a video posted to IU’s social media channels Tuesday.
Because that was the day Operation Bigfoot went off, and Indiana brought back the bison as its official mascot.
The idea of a mascot has steadily gained traction with Indiana fans in recent years.
For a little more than a century, Indiana’s athletic teams have gone by “Hoosiers,” a term meant to refer to a native of the state whose origins have long been debated and almost certainly cannot be historically proven. While “Hoosiers” embodies a certain cultural resonance for IU fans, it’s hard to assign a physical manifestation to a word with no universally agreed-upon meaning.
Decades ago, for just a few years, drawing on the animal figuring prominently on the state seal, IU tried a bison mascot. It was introduced in 1965 and abandoned by the end of that decade.
But it never really went away. Nick’s English Hut pound jars still feature a bison image. Fans produced AI-generated graphics depicting an IU bison on social media. “Bring back the bison” became a rallying cry stretching from podcasts like the popular CrimsonCast, to independent retail, including popular Indianapolis-based company Homefield Apparel.
Athletics officials felt that groundswell, which came to a head in December when IU Student Government passed a bill reinstating the bison as the university’s official mascot. From that point forward, the department was in.
… Continue reading story here …
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May 27th
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New CFP option? A 5+11 model (five conference champions + 11 at-large bids)
From ESPN … In a significant pivot from the highly-publicized push for automatic qualifiers in the next iteration of the College Football Playoff, the SEC on Tuesday took a heightened interest in a 16-team model that would include the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large bids.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he talked with the league football coaches at length about the alternative model.
“They talked about — I’ll call it a 5+11 model — and our own ability to earn those berths,” Sankey said at the conclusion of the second day of spring meetings. “… at the coaching level, the question is, why wouldn’t that be fine? Why wouldn’t we do that? We talked about 16 with them. So, good conversation, not a destination, but the first time I’ve had the ability to go really in-depth with ideas with them.”
Sankey and the other FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua need to determine the playoff format for 2026 and beyond by Dec. 1. It’s a deadline Sankey said isn’t ideal for the league’s timing to determine if it wants to stay with eight conference games or change to nine.
There’s a disconnect between the league’s athletic directors and coaches, which appeared Tuesday in public comments. Florida AD Scott Stricklin and Texas A&M’s Trev Alberts were both adamant about wanting automatic qualifiers, which would go along with the league adopting a nine-game league schedule.
But coaches like Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin said they’d prefer a model with the 16 best teams. Georgia’s Kirby Smart said he wanted a model that would include the most SEC teams possible, pointing to the SEC’s other sports and their ability to flood the postseason because of strength of schedule.
In the meeting room, sources told ESPN, it appeared that the athletic directors were focused on nine SEC games and a model with four automatic qualifiers. The coaches voiced strongly that they wanted a model with five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-larges, with a preference to stay at an eight-game league schedule.
The coaching perspective hints at potential roadblocks for potential playoff expansion, as there’s sentiment that other leagues wouldn’t want the playoff to grow if the SEC didn’t go to a nine-game conference schedule.
When asked Tuesday how confident he was that the CFP management committee could come to an agreement on the future format by the Dec. 1 deadline, Sankey referred to a recent conversation he had with former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer. Sankey said he takes comfort in the fact past commissioners were able to disagree and “always figure a way out.”
… Continue reading story here …
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May 26th
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Michigan State issued Notice of Allegations over Mel Tucker
From CBS Sports … Michigan State is nearing resolution in an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that occurred under former coach Mel Tucker. The university was sent a notice of allegations on April 29 related to violations it self-reported in August 2023, according to the Division I Infractions dashboard. The NCAA has not released details about the case.
Michigan State athletic department spokesperson Matt Larson confirmed to Spartan Tailgate that the university is aware a notice of allegations has been issued but it has not yet received the document. Larson also confirmed the notice stems from an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that took place under Tucker — an inquiry first publicly acknowledged by university president Kevin Guskiewicz during an April meeting with the Detroit News.
“Michigan State athletics has cooperated with the NCAA to review a potential matter concerning the football program under the former staff and will continue to do so for the duration of the process,” Larson told Spartan Tailgate at the time. “NCAA rules do not permit the university to provide any additional details at this time.”
It remains unclear whether the alleged violations rise to Level I or Level II infraction — the NCAA’s most serious classifications. Michigan State has 90 days to formally respond to the notice of allegations.
Michigan State remains without a permanent athletic director following the recent departure of Alan Haller, who parted ways with the university earlier this month. In the interim, longtime men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo and deputy AD Jennifer Smith are sharing leadership duties as co-interim athletic directors.
Tucker was fired for cause in September 2023 after activist Brenda Tracy accused him of sexual harassment stemming from her work with the program beginning in 2021. The NCAA case marks another blemish on Tucker’s turbulent tenure at Michigan State, where the Spartans went 20-14 over a little more than three seasons. Eleven of those wins came during a breakout 2021 campaign that ended with a Peach Bowl victory and a top-10 national ranking.
Tucker signed a 10-year, $95 million extension after that season that briefly made him one of the highest-paid coaches in college football. But after being fired for cause, he forfeited nearly $80 million in guaranteed salary.
… Continue reading story here …
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Stewart Mandel: Latest SEC/Big Ten models for CFP expansion “getting more nonsensical”
From The Athletic … You’ve probably been busy the past three months going to work, paying bills, living your life. You probably haven’t been following every incremental development in the ongoing negotiations over the future format of the College Football Playoff beginning in 2026. So, allow me to catch you up.
In February, the leaders of the Big Ten and SEC held a joint meeting in New Orleans where they earnestly discussed what could be described as a coup. They would flex their muscle to expand the CFP to 14 teams and guarantee themselves four berths each, regardless of where their teams are ranked. The ACC and Big 12 would each get two, the Group of 5 conferences one.
Word got out, and the news was met with intense backlash from a public accustomed to postseason tournaments being based on the results of the season in question. Folks across the sport figured they’d eventually back down.
Well, three months later, that has not happened. The format currently being discussed is somehow more nonsensical than that one. As The Athletic’s Ralph Russo reported Wednesday, the commissioners have now skipped past 14 teams to 16, still with those slanted automatic berths. And not even a clean, simple bracket where No. 1 plays No. 16, No. 2 plays No. 15, etc.
“More likely, the CFP would look to start a week earlier, on what has traditionally been Army-Navy weekend,” writes Russo, “with the four lowest seeds (13 through 16) playing their way into the second weekend’s six-game bracket.”
Only in college football, where conference commissioners who serve at the behest of their league’s members also get to craft the postseason for the entire sport, could people muck up a perfectly good product this badly. It took a full season for the public to figure out how the first 12-team CFP worked. The format will change again in Year 2 with this week’s (smart) move to a straight seeding model this fall rather than reserving the top four seeds for conference champions. And now they’re talking about changing it even more drastically, a year after that.
No one asked for a First Four of college football. Will the games be played in Dayton? Those matchups last season (under the straight seeding model adopted Thursday) would have been No. 13 seed Miami (10-2) vs. No. 16 seed Clemson (10-3) and No. 14 seed Ole Miss (9-3) vs. No. 15 seed South Carolina (9-3). Games like this used to be known as the Outback Bowl.
And to shoehorn two play-in games into an ostensibly symmetrical 16-team field, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds would get a double-bye into the quarterfinals. Imagine if the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs didn’t play their first postseason game until the third weekend of the NFL playoffs. This would be that, but their hiatus would be even longer because the gap between Army-Navy and New Year’s can be as long as three weeks.
… Continue reading story here …
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May 23rd
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BYU starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff accused of rape in civil suit
From ESPN … A Utah woman has alleged that BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff raped, strangled and bit her, and that she was encouraged by Provo police not to do anything after reporting it, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Utah state court.
The woman, identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe A.G., alleges the assault took place at Retzlaff’s home in November 2023.
“A year and half after the rape and strangulation, Jane Doe A.G. continues to experience extreme post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma symptoms as she works to process what happened and move on,” the lawsuit states.
Retzlaff’s attorney, Mark Baute, said in a statement that his client is “factually innocent.”
“We look forward to proving that innocence,” Baute said. “Jake’s focus this year will be on football. We don’t try cases in the media, we will respect the process and establish Jake’s innocence through the judicial system.”
BYU said in a statement that it became aware of the lawsuit involving Retzlaff on Wednesday.
“The university takes any allegation very seriously, following all processes and guidelines mandated by Title IX,” the school said. “Due to federal and university privacy laws and practices for students, the university will not be able to provide additional comment.”
The Provo Police Department released a statement Wednesday night, saying it received a call from a woman on Nov. 27, 2023, and she gave a similar account to what is alleged in the lawsuit.
“Because the civil suit does not identify the victim, we cannot be certain our police report is the same incident referenced by the plaintiff, but it does seem likely given the information we have,” the statement said.
Police there said the woman who called the department was “given several opportunities to identify her abuser” but declined to, and as a result, the case was closed. Evidence collected, the department said, was examined and led to “no actionable investigative leads.” The woman also did not respond to police when it attempted to follow up with her to offer any subsequent services.
… Continue reading story here …
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May 22nd
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College Football to move to a straight seeding model this fall
From ESPN … The 12-team College Football Playoff will move to a straight seeding model this fall, rewarding the selection committee’s top four teams with the top four seeds and a first-round bye, the CFP announced Thursday.
The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who constitute the CFP’s management committee, reached the unanimous agreement necessary to make the change during a call Thursday afternoon.
“We all have a responsibility to serve our constituents while also being mindful as to what’s best for college football,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told ESPN. “Today’s decision was done in the best interest of the sport. It may not always benefit the ACC, but it was the right decision and that’s a responsibility I take very seriously.”
This past season, the four highest-ranked conference champions earned the top four seeds — regardless of where they were ranked. Now, independent Notre Dame is eligible to earn a first-round bye if the Irish are ranked in the top four. All four teams that earned a first-round bye in the inaugural 12-team CFP lost their first game.
The five highest-ranked conference champions will still be guaranteed spots in the 12-team field.
“After evaluating the first year of the 12-team Playoff, the CFP management committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP, said in a statement. “This change will continue to allow guaranteed access to the Playoff by rewarding teams for winning their conference championship, but it will also allow us to construct a postseason bracket that recognizes the best performance on the field during the entire regular season.”
The group agreed to maintain the $8 million financial commitment to the four highest-ranked conference champions — $4 million for reaching the playoff and $4 million for reaching the quarterfinals.
“That was the commissioners’ way of — at least for this year — holding to the commitment that they have made financially to those teams, those conference champions in particular, that would have been paid those amounts under the former system that we used last year,” Clark told ESPN.
… Continue reading story here …
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May 21st
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Ranking Power Four head coaches: Coach Prime makes a big move to No. 7 in Big 12 (No. 33 nationally)
From CBS Sports … No matter how much changes in college football, there’s one thing that remains the same: We love ranking things. This sport can’t even have a playoff without a set of rankings to determine who is in the field.
During the season, multiple polls rank teams even though those rankings have no say in anything! It doesn’t matter, we just love to rank stuff.
That includes college football coaches, as we’ve done for years here at CBS Sports. While the names we rank may change frequently, our desire to stack all these coaches against one another doesn’t. Nor does our philosophy when it comes to each individual voter putting together their ballot.
The one rule is that the only coaches you can rank are the Power Four coaches and that you have to rank every one of them. Everything else is up to the voter. Do our writers value recruiting chops or schematics? The ability to develop three-stars into four-star or higher production, or just amass the talent and let them figure it out on the field?
There are no wrong answers here — only results, and here they are. Our CBS Sports and 247Sports experts have weighed in on the Power Four coaches who finished outside our top 25 for 2025.
From the Big 12 …
66. Arizona … Brent Brennan: The team Brennan inherited from Jedd Fisch was seen as a contender in the Big 12 last season. They returned a QB coming off a great season in Noah Fifita and a first-round talent at WR in Tetairoa McMillan. Despite this, the Wildcats stumbled to 4-8 and 2-7 record in the Big 12. Worse, they lost their Big 12 games by an average of 27.3 points, disproving the theory that every game in the Big 12 is close on a weekly basis. 2024 rank: 56 (-10), High: 62, Low: 68
62. Scott Frost … UCF: Frost returns to UCF hoping to rekindle the magic from his last stint in Orlando, the one that led to his ill-fated return to his alma mater, Nebraska, where he went 16-31 and 10-26 in the Big Ten. No-so-fun-fact if you’re a UCF fan: Frost has now been a head coach for seven seasons (including the 2022 season he didn’t finish), and the 13-0 season at UCF in 2017 is the only time his team finished with a winning record. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 53, Low: 66
60. Scott Satterfield … Cincinnati: There was a wide array of opinions on Satterfield among our panelists this season. One of our voters had him as high as 30, while nobody else had him better than 56. After a 3-9 debut at Cincinnati in 2023, the Bearcats improved to 5-7 last year, but they’re still only 4-14 in the Big 12 under Satterfield. 2024 rank: 59 (-1), High: 30, Low: 66
48. Joey McGuire … Texas Tech: There was a fairly wide range of votes cast for the Texas Tech coach, which is understandable. He’s never had a losing season at Tech and is coming off an 8-5 record, so you can’t rank him too low. But he’s never won more than eight games in a season, either, so even if you’re a fan, you can’t rank him too high. In the end, this feels about right, but if Tech’s transfer class hits this season, we might see McGuire rocket up the board. 2024 rank: 44 (-4), High: 35, Low: 52
42. Rich Rodriguez … West Virgnia: Welcome back to the rankings, RichRod! Rodriguez returns to West Virginia, where he enjoyed his greatest success after leading Jacksonville State to a 27-10 record the last three seasons. That includes an 18-8 mark in their first two seasons as an FBS program. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 28, Low: 57
41. Willie Fritz … Houston: This one hurt me the most. While I wasn’t the lowest voter on Fritz, I was lower than I wanted to be. He’s long been one of my favorite coaches, but after a 4-8 debut at Houston that featured one of the most anemic offenses in the country, I couldn’t justify putting him as high as my heart wanted. It seems my fellow voters mostly agreed with my assessment. 2024 rank: 26 (-15), High: 17, Low: 58
38. Dave Aranda … Baylor: Aranda is the yo-yo of coaches in these rankings, but that’s what happens when you go from 2-7 to 12-2 and then from 3-9 to 8-5. He’s been at Baylor for five seasons, and only two have ended with winning records overall and in Big 12 play. In the end, he’s 31-30, but there are reasonably high expectations in 2025. For Aranda’s sake, let’s hope the results don’t follow the previous pattern. 2024 rank: 55 (+17), High: 26, Low: 48
35. Sonny Dykes … TCU: Dykes is a tough call when putting together my bracket. The man did lead TCU to a title game not too long ago, but even at the time it felt a bit fluky, and TCU has since found its level. I can only speak for myself, but I’m not convinced the program is in better hands now under Dykes than it was under Gary Patterson, and that affects my ballot (45th). 2024 rank: 22 (-13), High: 21, Low: 45
34. Mike Gundy … Oklahoma State: There were a wide range of votes cast for Gundy this year, and I suppose it depends on how you view things. You can’t dismiss everything Gundy has accomplished during his time in Stillwater, but you also have to question if he’s the right man for Oklahoma State today. The sport is evolving, and Gundy has shown some stubbornness in evolving alongside it. Was last year’s 3-9 mark a one-off or the beginning of the end? 2024 rank: 15th (-19), High: 16, Low: 51
33. Deion Sanders … Colorado: Only one coach climbed higher than the 28 spots Coach Prime leaped this season, and this jump shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the on-field results didn’t match the off-field hype in 2023, Sanders’ Colorado team improved to 9-4 and was in the hunt for a conference title until the end of the season. Oh, and Travis Hunter won the Heisman. Now, we sit back and see how things will go with Hunter and Shedeur Sanders off to the NFL. I won’t be surprised by any outcome, honestly. The team could crater, or it could win the Big 12. 2024 rank: 61 (+28), High: 23, Low: 43
26. Kalani Sitake …BYU: Nobody saw BYU’s 2024 season coming. Not after a first season in the Big 12 that saw it go 2-7 in the conference. But the Cougars rebounded in a major way, finishing last season 11-2, even if there was a bittersweet aftertaste following a 9-0 start. Now, they’re seen as a challenger in the conference and a threat to reach the College Football Playoff. 2024 rank: 49 (+23), High: 18, Low: 52
… Five not listed (so will be in the Top 25, announced later) … Arizona State: Kenny Dillingham; Utah: Kyle Whittingham; Iowa State: Matt Campbell; Kansas State: Chris Klieman; Kansas: Lance Leipold …
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May 20th
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ESPN rates Big 12 quarterbacks: Kaidon Salter/Julian Lewis a “Tier 9” QB room
From ESPN … There’s plenty of star power in the 2025 quarterback class. Carson Beck, Cade Klubnik and Drew Allar return. Kevin Jennings, Maddux Madsen and Sam Leavitt led playoff teams and are back for more. Oh, and there’s some guy named Manning who’ll finally get his shot to start at Texas.
But after the past few years in which blue bloods routinely chased veterans in the transfer portal, we’re about to enter a season in which Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Alabama and Ole Miss expect to start guys with little or no experience as QB1.
After COVID-19 rules allowed players to stick around for five, six or even seven years in college, 2025 represents the unofficial end point of the bonus year — unless you’re Diego Pavia, who might play until he’s eligible to collect social security.
Meanwhile, some of last season’s most disappointing QB stories — Miller Moss, Conner Weigman, Jackson Arnold — will get a chance to rewrite their script with new teams this season.
It all shapes up to be one of the more intriguing seasons at the game’s most important position.
But luckily, we’ve done the heavy lifting of sifting through the depth charts of all 136 FBS teams, digging deep into the stats, and consulted our Magic Eight Ball to rank every QB situation in the country by tiers.
From the Big 12 …
Tier 2: Pretty darned good:
– Arizona State (Sam Leavitt, Jeff Sims)
– Baylor (Sawyer Robertson, Walker White)
– Iowa State (Rocco Becht, Connor Moberly)
Tier 3: Buckle up:
– Kansas (Jalon Daniels, Cole Ballard)
– TCU (Josh Hoover, Ken Seals)
– Texas Tech (Behren Morton, Mitch Griffis)
Tier 6: Second time’s the charm:
– Kansas State (Avery Johnson, Jacob Knuth)
Tier 7: Consistently consistent:
– BYU (Jake Retzlaff, Bear Bachmeier)
– Cincinnati (Brendan Sorsby, Brady Lichtenberg)
Tier 8a: Fresh starts: veteran edition:
– Houston (Conner Weigman, Zeon Chriss)
Tier 9: Welcome to the big leagues:
– Colorado (Kaidon Salter, Julian Lewis)
– Utah (Devon Dampier, Brendan Zurbrugg, Isaac Wilson, Nate Johnson)
Tier 10: One more try:
– Arizona (Noah Fifita, Braedyn Locke)
Tier 11: Room for improvement:
– West Virginia (Nicco Marchiol, Jaylen Henderson, Max Brown)
Tier 12: What’s in the box?:
– Oklahoma State (Hauss Hejny, Zane Flores)
Tier 15a: We used to be somebody: top recruit edition:
– UCF (Tayven Jackson, Jacurri Brown, Davi Belfort, Cam Fancher)
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May 19th
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Could the Big 12 be a two-bid CFP conference in 2025?
From CBS Sports … What if I told you the Big 12 could get two teams in this season’s College Football Playoff without the charitable offer of two auto bids from the Big Ten and SEC? I know, it sounds odd given the national view of the conference, but I’m here to tell you it’s more likely than you think.
The Big 12 is a fascinating case study in college football fandom. It’s everything a lot of fans tell you they want from college football. There’s no “big brand bias” in the league because now that Texas and Oklahoma are gone, there are no big brands in the league to be biased toward. It’s also a league of tremendous parity.
If you look at projected win totals for the Big 12 in 2025, no team in the league has a projected win total higher than 8.5 or lower than 5.5. You can’t find anything remotely close to that congestion in a Group of Five league let alone the other Power Four leagues.
The congestion has a downside, though. If you head to your local sportsbook and scroll down the list of national title futures, you’ll see at least 20 schools before you come across a single Big 12 school — and one of them is SMU!
I won’t pretend there aren’t good reasons for this. If you want to win the national title, you need great players, and any look at recent NFL Drafts will tell you that when it comes to talent, the Big 12 lags a bit behind the Big Ten and SEC. However, I’m not here to explain how the Big 12 can win a national title; I’m here to tell you how it could get multiple teams into the College Football Playoff.
How Big 12 can earn more College Football Playoff bids
QB depth is key
The first part of it is simple. Quarterback remains the most important position in the sport, and the Big 12 has an argument that it’s the deepest league in the country at the position. There are 16 teams in the league and 10 have a returning starter. That includes the starters at seven of the top nine teams in last year’s Big 12 standings. Among the four teams that finished 7-2 in league play, only Colorado (Shedeur Sanders) lost its starter. Arizona State (Sam Leavitt), BYU (Jake Retzlaff) and Iowa State (Rocco Becht) are all running it back.
Questions abound in other conferences
Last year, the SEC only got three teams into the field. If both the SEC and Big Ten get four in this season, that leaves four spots and only one at-large spot (the ACC champ, Big 12 champ, and G5 champ take the other three). The Big 12 could still get that at-large, but it would need Notre Dame to have an unexpectedly awful season and for the ACC not to have a strong second team. The ACC section of that hypothetical seems more likely, but there’s another factor worth considering.
How confident are you the Big Ten will get four teams in? Don’t forget Indiana was one of the Big Ten’s four teams last season, and few people saw it coming. Heading into 2025, how many Big Ten teams are you confident about reaching the playoff? Outside of Oregon, Ohio State and Penn State, who are you willing to really get behind? Sure, Michigan could recover, but Illinois and Indiana are seen as the next likely candidates. No offense to those two, but nobody who pays attention to college football would be shocked if Illinois and Indiana fail to reach the playoff.
Performance in nonconference games
The Big 12 would do itself a tremendous favor by performing well in nonconference games. The league only went 5-8 in 13 regular season games against the ACC, Big Ten and SEC. When it comes to comparing resumes for at-large spots, that simply isn’t good enough. Fair or not, the perception of the Big 12 is the perception and will be until the league changes that, and the only way to do so is on the field.
That means winning high-profile games against the likes of Auburn, Georgia Tech, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon and SMU.
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May 15th
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CBS 100 Day Countdown: CU now judged by results “like everyone else”
From CBS Sports … Every year, dating back to 2014, we here at CBS Sports have taken the opportunity to celebrate the impending arrival of college football with a comprehensive list of stories, predictions, burning questions, names and games to note for the upcoming season. This 100-Day Countdown is as much a part of our year as media days or the start of fall camp; we’ve wrapped up spring practice but not quite gotten into the business of putting pen to paper when it comes to our final projections for what’s to come in the season ahead.
May is a time for meandering, discussion and debate as we consider what’s ahead in a 2025 college football season that will no doubt be loaded with results that prove us wrong and performances that make the sport feel right. In 100 days we will have college football, and even if there are only a handful of FBS games on the Week Zero slate, the schedule includes a conference game between conference title hopefuls in a foreign country — Kansas State vs. Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland. When you consider those factors, it’s hard not to be romantic about this big, dumb sport that we love so much.
So, we’re back at it with 100 names, games and talking points to set the stage for the season ahead as we sit 100 days away from Week Zero in the 2025 college football season.
Prominent storylines
4. The post-Travis Hunter, Shedeur Sanders era at Colorado
Speaking of week-by-week check-ins, two straight years of the Deion Sanders Colorado football experience have brought unprecedented attention to the Buffs and levels of real success not foreseen for a program that was 1-11 as recently as 2022. Travis Hunter’s run to a Heisman Trophy, Colorado finishing in a four-way tie for first place in the Big 12 standings and much more of 2024’s breakthrough normalized having one of football’s biggest stars wearing the headset on the sideline at the power conference level. The individual successes of Hunter and Shedeur Sanders drew some of the attention away from Coach Prime, and our discussions pivoted to football instead of focusing on what had been viewed as unorthodox methods of flipping the roster through the transfer portal.
Two notable things have happened since Sanders first told a meeting room full of players that he was “bringing his Louis” that have changed how we view that transition now. The first, and most important, is that his methods produced results in the form of nine wins and a top-25 finish last season. But also because of the changing portal and NIL rules, we have now seen similar roster overhauls in the wake of coaching changes. First-year coaches at Purdue, West Virginia, UCF and North Carolina will have transfer portal classes that, according to 247Sports, range between 39 and 53 players with Barry Odom (53) and Rich Rodriguez (52) each taking at least 50 transfers.
That first Colorado portal class was a never-before-seen outlier, but given the recent trends, the Buffs portal-heavy approach is not a differentiator. Colorado has also boosted its high school recruiting prowess since Sanders arrived, giving evidence that this is a staff looking to build the future and not just for the upcoming fall. Now, Colorado is judged by results, like everyone else, but without a Travis Hunter Heisman push or Shedeur Sanders NFL Draft storylines, the attention will fall back to the superstar head coach. Colorado is 10th on the odds board to win the Big 12 (+2700) and have a preseason win total of 6.5, so another first place finish might not be the expectation, but this should again be a winning season for Coach Prime.
8. Parity will NOT rule the day in the Big 12: We have a running bit on the Cover 3 Podcast discussing the Big 12 and its upside-down nature, where no team should be favored by more than a touchdown against any other team and literally any set of results is believable because the league is a “random number generator.” That certainly held up last season as three of the four teams that finished tied for first in the Big 12 league standings were picked 11th (Colorado), 13th (BYU) and 16th (Arizona State, the eventual champion) in the preseason media poll. The inverse also held true as four of the top five teams in the preseason media poll — Utah, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Arizona — failed to even make a bowl game in 2024.
But, I think 2025 will be a break from that trend, with not only some clear tiers to the league but the preseason favorites actually holding up their end of expectations in terms of being at the top of the conference. Arizona State, Kansas State and Texas Tech are currently the betting co-favorites to win the Big 12, and while teams like TCU, Iowa State, Kansas, Baylor and Utah will all provide stiff competition, I do think the winner of the conference comes from that trio. Arizona State might have been a little bit ahead of schedule with its Year 2 success under Kenny Dillingham, but arriving early does not mean the Sun Devils have to leave the company of contenders anytime soon, Texas Tech has loaded up the roster in the transfer portal, and Kansas State was a couple of head-scratching upset losses away from fulfilling its expectations last season. If Avery Johnson and the Wildcats can clean up some of those costly errors, it won’t take much to be a contender not just for a Big 12 title but being an at-large selection to the College Football Playoff.
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ESPN’s 100 storylines 100 days out from the season includes CU headlines
From ESPN … One hundred days from now, the college football season will officially begin. Week 0 will kick off on Aug. 23 with an international edition of Farmageddon as Big 12 hopefuls Iowa State and Kansas State meet in Dublin.
While we’re counting down days until the season starts, it’s never too early to look at storylines, players and coaches who should define 2025. We’ll even make some wild predictions.
This year, we’ll see six-time Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick make his college football coaching debut at North Carolina and star QB Nico Iamaleava debut at UCLA after a dramatic transfer portal exit from Tennessee.
We’ll see former Georgia QB Carson Beck at Miami (if he’s healthy) and Arch Manning-mania officially kicks off at the Horseshoe when SEC favorite Texas travels to face Ohio State, the reigning College Football Playoff national champions.
Our ESPN college football reporters have put together 10 lists of 10 things to know (100 in total!) ahead of the college football season.
10 must-know storylines
4. Deion without Hunter and Shedeur at Colorado: The Colorado Buffaloes proved a lot of the skeptics wrong last year by posting a nine-win season and losing out on a chance to play in the Big 12 title game due to a tiebreaker. It was a remarkable improvement over the previous season, when Colorado finished in last place in the Pac-12. But for Deion Sanders, here’s where the real test probably begins. Even with a generational talent in Travis Hunter and a dynamic quarterback with his son, Shedeur Sanders, the Buffaloes were still just 13-12 over the past two seasons. They masked a lot of issues. Without them, the team’s on-field identity will inevitably evolve. And with that, we’ll also likely get a better understanding of how committed Coach Prime is to the job long term.
10 coaches to watch
5. Deion Sanders, Colorado: The spotlight has been on Sanders since he arrived in Boulder, and Year 3 will be no different. What will be new: He no longer will be coaching his sons Shedeur Sanders and Shilo Sanders, or 2024 Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter. Phase 2 of Coach Prime at CU will feature a team trying to build on a nine-win season and challenge for the Big 12 title. A quarterback competition featuring Liberty transfer Kaidon Salter, decorated incoming freshman Julian Lewis and holdover Ryan Staub adds intrigue.
10 potential first-time CFP teams
7. Texas Tech: This might come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the program, but coach Joey McGuire has landed one of the top transfer portal classes in the country, and the overall financial backing of the program has been significant in recent years. The Red Raiders reportedly spent more than $10 million to sign 17 players, with a focus on both lines. If they can avoid upsets and earn a winning record against Arizona State, K-State and BYU, the Red Raiders can be a surprise Big 12 — and CFP — contender.
6. Kansas State: If the Wildcats beat Iowa State in their season opener in Dublin, Ireland, they’ll take the early lead as the Big 12’s best playoff hope. The return of quarterback Avery Johnson is significant, as the dual-threat player racked up 3,317 yards of offense and 32 touchdowns. Expectations are even higher in his second season as the starter.
5. BYU: The Cougars were another fringe playoff contender last year, and will have to win on the road to take the next step. They have tough trips to Colorado, Iowa State and Texas Tech, but they return top talent in quarterback Jake Retzlaff, running back LJ Martin, and receivers Chase Roberts and Keelan Marion.
4. Iowa State: In another wide-open Big 12 race, the Cyclones return enough talent to win the school’s first conference title in 113 years. Iowa State is coming off its first 11-win season, and quarterback Rocco Becht is back, along with top tailbacks Carson Hansen and Abu Sama III. Home games against BYU and Arizona State gave it the edge here.
10 freshmen to watch
6. Julian Lewis, QB, Colorado: Lewis, a long-time USC pledge, ended a lengthy recruiting saga with his flip to coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes last November. A 39-game starter in high school, Lewis enters a quarterback battle in 2025 with Liberty transfer Kaidon Salter. Given Salter’s experience and Lewis’ age after reclassifying from the 2026 cycle, Lewis might need to be patient in Year 1, but his time will come at Colorado.
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May 14th
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Report: Big 12/ACC may be willing to give up first round CFP byes to conference champions
From CBS Sports … The College Football Playoff’s power brokers are nearing consensus to change the seeding process next season and eliminate first-round byes for conference champions, sources told CBS Sports.
The “straight seeding” proposal has gained support from the ACC and Big 12 in recent weeks, sources said. On Wednesday, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said for the first time that the format “may be the right thing for us to consider.” CFP administrators must approve the proposal, which could happen within the next month, sources said. The proposal requires unanimous approval from the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame to be enacted for the 2025-26 season.
The Big Ten and SEC openly supported a shift to straight seeding during a meeting between conference athletic directors and administrators in March.
The CFP expanded to 12 teams for the 2024 season, with the top four conference champions receiving first-round byes. Starting in 2025, straight seeding would eliminate those automatic byes and instead reward the top four teams in the CFP selection committee’s final rankings.
The 12-team format’s contract expires at the end of the upcoming season. Discussions about expanding the field to 14 or 16 teams — with multiple automatic qualifiers reserved for the four power conferences — have been ongoing for months. Administrators are hopeful a format will be approved by the time CFP officials meet June 18.
… Continue reading story here …
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May 13th
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NCAA President open to Presidential commission: “I’m up for anything that can help us get somewhere”
From ESPN … NCAA president Charlie Baker said Monday he was “up for anything” when asked about a President Donald Trump-proposed commission on collegiate athletics.
Reports surfaced last week that Trump was going to create the commission.
While his conversations at ACC meetings with league football coaches, men’s and women’s basketball coaches, athletic directors and other school officials focused on governance and the pending House settlement, Baker was asked during an informal media availability for his thoughts on the presidential commission.
“I think the fact that there’s an interest on the executive side on this, I think it speaks to the fact that everybody is paying a lot of attention right now to what’s going on in college sports,” Baker said.
“I’m up for anything that can help us get somewhere.”
… Continue reading story here …
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May 12th
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ESPN: CU has the No. 12 Top Newcomer Class in the nation
… Not bad for a program which has the fan base wringing its hands over how poorly the coaching staff has done in bringing in talent this off-season …
From ESPN … While annual College Football Playoff contenders like Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State are ace recruiters, elite recruiting isn’t the only path to becoming a top program.
The transfer portal has changed how programs build rosters. Some schools go all-in every offseason to overhaul their rosters through the portal, while others use the portal to add depth to a position or target major transfers who could take a team from great to national champion.
And now that spring football and the spring transfer portal period are over, we can look at the best groups of newcomers. When looking at modern roster development, it’s important to consider the combination of recruiting class and success in the portal.
This ranking is the top 25 groups of newcomers — recruits and transfers combined — based on who could see the most impactful immediate returns for 2025.
From the Big 12 (only two teams) …
5. Texas Tech Red Raiders
Top impact recruits: WR Leyton Stone, WR Michael Dever, WR Bryson Jones
The Red Raiders signed a solid class, but transfers are expected to make the majority of the immediate impact. They also bring back good production at wide receiver, but in a high-powered passing attack with an experienced quarterback in Behren Morton, there’s always opportunity for young players to jump in and contribute. Although he didn’t enroll early, Jones, a four-star, is the highest-ranked receiver in the recruiting class and could work his way into the rotation.
Top transfers: DE David Bailey, DE Romello Height, DL Lee Hunter, DL Skyler Gill-Howard, WR Reggie Virgil, TE Terrance Carter, OT Will Jados, OL Howard Sampson
Few teams were more active and successful in the portal this offseason than Texas Tech, which finished with ESPN’s top-ranked transfer portal class. Much of that activity focused on improving a defense that ranked near the bottom nationally in several categories.
Adding Bailey from Stanford was a big addition. He already has 14.5 career sacks. Along with Height, Hunter and Gill-Howard, they can revitalize Texas Tech’s defensive front.
Virgil and Carter, who caught 48 passes last season for Louisiana, should pair nicely with returning targets Coy Eakin and Caleb Douglas, who combined for more than 100 catches. To help better protect Morton, Texas Tech landed several potential offensive line starters, with Jados and Sampson poised to man tackle spots.
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12. Colorado Buffaloes
Top impact recruits: QB Julian Lewis, DE London Merritt, WR Quentin Gibson, WR Quanell X. Farrakhan Jr.
Lewis, a five-star recruit, is one of the most heralded quarterbacks in the ESPN recruiting era. He headlines Colorado’s recruiting class and arrives with all the tools to set records in Boulder. Lewis could work his way into the mix as the season progresses.
Farrakhan might see the field before any other freshman, as either a returner or rotating outside receiver. He brings big-play speed, great hands and good football instincts to the Buffs. Gibson is small in stature but is coming off a monster senior season when he had more than 2,000 receiving yards with 36 touchdowns. At 5-foot-9, 155 pounds, his lack of physical stature could limit his initial role, but he’s another electric option in the return game and an offensive weapon if coordinator Pat Shurmur can create ways to get him the ball in space.
Top transfers: QB Kaidon Salter, OT Xavier Hill, WR Joseph Williams, WR Sincere Brown, OL Zylon Crisler, OL Akinola Ogunbiyi
Salter arrives from Liberty as a more dynamic runner than his predecessor, Shedeur Sanders, especially when making plays outside the pocket. He’s not that far behind Sanders’ accuracy, either. Salter’s presence allows the five-star Lewis to develop patiently in his first year without immediate pressure.
The offensive line has undergone a near-complete overhaul, though it’s too early to say whether it will be better than last year’s group. At 6-foot-4, 318 pounds, Hill, a Memphis transfer, has impressive mobility for his massive size and can play either guard or tackle. Brown was a key spring addition who caught 61 passes for 1,028 yards and 12 scores at Campbell last year. His production will translate to the Big 12 and, at the very least, in the red zone, where the 6-foot-5 receiver has great ball skills.
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33 Replies to “Big 12 Notes”
In reading the articles today, these comments come to mind:
(1) On Louisiana sports betting revenue legislation, Colorado should consider putting something on the ballot for in-state college athletics via tapping into Lottery and Gambling revenue. With the State and Local budget woes, I do not think a new tax would pass, however perhaps a reallocation of some taxes already in place may have a chance. It is not just about CU, rather it is about shoring college athletics throughout our state as well as producing Olympians as well. It may not be the most popular thing, but it does make some sense for the state to commit something athletics across the board.
I know GOCO gets a lion’s share of the Lottery revenue and we have done excellent with Open Space, however here in Boulder County and in others, it seems the focus is moving away from acquiring more open space in favor of maintenance/management, so perhaps there are funds available even while maintaining a portion for future acquisitions.
Open Space is great in theory, however if not actively used or managed, mitigating the fire/flood danger is an abject nightmare. Just ask the neighborhoods next to CU’s undeveloped East Campus–they love the undeveloped CU east, except when we are talking about fires and floods. A fire within the last 3 years was a serious danger those neighborhoods.
(2) On the Beilema article addressing scheduling equalization, for those interested I left a long reply under the “What is Yormark thinking” thread on 6/8. It discusses equaling out the scheduling for the P-4 and options for the G-5 to give teams/conferences more opportunities to overcome preseason bias. The B-12 had a great season last year, however compared to the preseason predictions, except for K-State the predicted strong teams flopped and the predicted weak teams were on the top. This flipping of the B12 upside down really kept a B12 team from moving into the Top15. For instance if Utah had a great season as predicted, they could have maybe been ranked as high as 5-6, undefeated K-State too.
Like Beilema, I advocated for equal number of conference games (8-9) and floated the idea of an inter-conference challenge week. One game for the P-4/Two games for the G-5. Overall, I think the P-4 + ND needs to play 10 P-4 games; then a good system for the G-5 to ferret out their best teams and maximize excitement for their leagues. The inter-conference challenges would be helpful in deciding who is the best 3rd or 4th conference addition to any 16 game playoff, as the committee would have quality wins to look closely at.
Regarding the tax on sports gambling, in CO it amounts to about $3-4 million/month to fund water initiatives. A tax on top of that would be required (unless the corrupt legislators somehow call it a fee and bypass the TABOR law). Several states are enacting these types of taxes, some over 25%, but there is a point of diminishing returns. The sportsbooks pay the tax but get it back from the bettor somehow. And if the tax becomes too onerous the sportsbook operators may leave a highly taxed jurisdiction. Government is good at overreaching and killing the golden goose
So how are teams spending more than 20.5 million? I thought that was the “salary cap”.
The $20.5 million is for revenue sharing, with athletic departments doling out the dollars.
There is nothing in the settlement which prohibits players from “earning” NIL money.
Supposedly, any payout over $600 has to be approved as being a legitimate use of Name, Image and Likeness, but programs will either create work … or go back to the “bag man”, and skip reporting payouts altogether.
Wasn’t there also something about deals in place before July 1, the effective date of the settlement? I thought there was a window like that where teams could jam in cash that way that changes for any deals made after July 1. Could be wrong though.
Go Buffs
Deals are being made before July 1st so they don’t have to pass muster with the new overseer.
We’ll see how many deals get in under the wire.
Well I guess we just go until we don’t have anymore money.
Yep… But if Prime can win without his stars from last year and make the Buffs “must see TV” then hopefully one way or another some more money comes in; winning solves a lot of problems including realignment opportunities.
Get a few more into the NFL’s next draft and good players who want to play for the Buff’s NFL experienced coaches will come. It’s better than it was for CU because of Rick George hiring of Prime; and Boulder becoming Prime’s new home.
Rick and the community has really welcomed Prime and RG has given him the space he needs to be himself and to self promote giving Prime the home he desires.
Has anyone done any surveys asking how a fan, of a team not in the Big or SEC, would change his viewership if the super conference came into existence? Certainly fans of any team in those 2 conferences would tune in on a regular basis. I’m sure there are some obsessive compulsive tv college football addicts out there but will the average person will only watch maybe one or 2 games at most any given weekend? Will more fans use that time for their own team’s or conference games resulting in a net loss of viewership in the super conference? I’m certainly not your average fan but I’m not interested in watching any SEC game and rarely one in the Big 10…..unless of course, I hear about the cobbs getting thrashed at which time I will tune in to the rest of the game for a little schadenfreude.
Otherwise, I would rather watch A Wyoming, AF or even a CSU game or the local high school team.
Folks (and conferences) already with a lot of money seem to be bigger victims of greed these days.
They have those polls. It’s in the viewership and ratings data over the last 20yrs from bcs to cfp.
Same four top teams? Viewership declines.
Mix in tcu, asu, uw, even Michigan and viewership spiked.
It ain’t rocket surgery.
Go Buffs
BYU is a very strict religious university. I still wonder how Jim McMahon survived there, not because he was a criminal but a smartass. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan. Just wondering if the BYU admin is thumbing through the Tom Osborne playbook
Anyone else thoroughly amazed at the ranking obsession over at ESPN? Some things they have ranked more than once in the last 3 months. It seems like every web front page has more than one new ranking. Before last season Fifita and AU were the rank ranker’s pick to win the big 12. Now Fifita is ranked below tier 9.
Why don’t you “experts” rank some other things that might be interesting to some fans. Maybe the training table kitchens menus and food quality? (you have already done the press box freebies of course .)The players favorite video games? All this would ad to your already light work load….right? So take a couple months off and play golf or get a seasonal job at Disney World. Don’t they own some of your publications? If Disney has a course you could do both. Play 9 after your shift in the ticket booth or sweeping up ciggie butts. Both more productive than what you are doing now.
Maybe we should rank the pundits? Only problem is there’s only room for one at the bottom.
I just hope someone talks some sense into secspn and big fox, and they don’t try to roll w/ the automatic entries into the playoff, beyond conference champions. Or, if they feel they have to go with automatic entries, make it equal, like 3-3-3-3 and four at large bids. Stacking entries by conference is ridiculous.
Go Buffs
Today’s CBS Sports article talks about straight seeding. Mostly, I like the idea, however I would like the Conference Champions rewarded playing home games, if they do not get a bye. Under this scenario, last year: ASU, Boise State and SMU would have hosted home games in the 1st round as lower seeds. None of the 1st round games were competitive and the home team just dominated. If a lower seed wins a home game, then that is a great season send-off. Can be a great send off if the home team is a huge underdog and they play a close game.
The only Quarter-Final Game what was competitive was ASU v. Texas in the Peach Bowl. Playing at home ASU may have pulled off a shocker as they played exceedingly well, it would not have been against Texas, as they had a bye.
Personally, I like the uncertainty of playing on the road and having an underdog have a punchers chance playing at home. Even Boise with that blue turf would be good to watch at home. I think that it would be good for college football to have games played in more stadiums, as with a 12, 14 or 16 team playoff, the same group of about 10 teams (Bama, GA, Ore, Ohio State, Clemson, ND, LSU, MI, Texas, Penn St) generally have excellent shots at making the playoffs each year. Some fall short and other teams surge, but these schools are built to make a legit run each year.
That blue turf gives me a massive headache. Just finding where the ball is drives me crazy. Same issue with Sam Houston State and their orange turf and the school in Washington with their red turf.
just in case anyone missed this
https://www.si.com/nfl/nfl-fans-loved-travis-hunter-s-wholesome-moment-with-his-new-biggest-fan-01jv2d0pnp7p
Off topic, but it seems like Prime has lost some of his mojo. Better transfers are picking other schools, not CU even though we had a very good year in 2024. I know others offer more NIL $ but he was landing some top talent the 2 prior years, but now he is missing on the best kids. Nobody in this class looking as good as the old linebacker transfers, nose tackle, running backs who came. Now it is just WR and Def backs who pick us over other top programs, and we tried to fill needs at QB, lines, etc. Hoping for the best, but surprised all the hype has left CU in terms of kids wanting to be coached by Prime.
Not so fast my friend! Buffs ranked 12th nationally and 2nd in XII in overall recruiting-freshman + transfers. Prime’s mojo is just fine.
“The commission will be led by former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell”
…yeah, gotta preserve the status quo. God forbid a team like Texas Tech or ASU get anywhere near a national title.
Totally.
Go Buffs
You beat me to the punch, I didn’t ave to time to post, but I completely agree, especially with why a “Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell” is part of the equation. It should be AD’s like Rick George who have served on other committees and active participants, not some billionaire donor who is probably looking to improve his school’s place in college football.
Since very few details have been released it may be too soon to jump to any conclusions. Commissions such as these don’t have any real power to change, they primarily recommend. I see no harm in this and if it helps lead to a lasting solution all the better. The NCAA is not going to do anything unless forced.
Like Art Modell said of NFL ownership back in the day “we’re 32 republicans, who vote socialist”. Or something like that. It’s really that simple to me. No commission needed. No executive orders. Maybe some legislation to avoid anti-trust issues (don’t the major leagues have that cover somehow?).
Either way, the model is there from the major leagues. True revenue sharing. Salary caps. Collective bargaining. Healthcare. Contracts. They could easily include academic progress requirements. There’s also enough money in the system to support Olympic sports. If revenue is truly shared.
Does that mean that Ohio State, USC, Notre Dame, Alabama and such give a bit more than they get? Yes. But in the long run, it’ll be a rising tide that lifts all boats. Just look at the pros and team values over time.
Go Buffs
sign of the apocalypse
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/fan-sues-nfl-for-100-million-over-shedeur-sanders-draft-slide-citing-emotional-distress-and-trauma/
Saw it. Hoping it doesn’t get too much national attention.
Haters will assume Coach Prime & Co. are behind it.
I would not be surprised if there was a sports writer behind it. This aint going anywhere and someone actually paid an attorney to file the suit?
It was me! No, not really. But I do think it is hilarious. And no, they didn’t pay any attorney. In fact, whoever did file, apparently filed under a clause allowing them to file without paying a filing fee. So it will be summarily dismissed. Still, a pretty funny gag, really.
Go Buffs
Texas allegedly spending $35mill to $40mill? Apparently paying backups like starters? We’ll see if it works. Having Arch Manning probably won’t hurt.
At some point, there’s got to be the law of diminishing returns, I would think. At what point? Who knows?
In the meantime, maybe they’ll get serious w/ actual revenue sharing, salary caps, and all that stuff that the major leagues have to create a little more parity, competition, fun and eyeballs?
Go Buffs
I vaguely recall leach’s concept for college football structure. Here’s a good recap.
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/nfl-draft-proves-college-football-100338870.html
Basically? Draft high school players vs recruiting them.
Talk about flipping the script.
Go Buffs
I’ll say it again. College has to go full revenue share, collective bargaining, and no bs automatic cfp bids to conferences, other than conference champs.
Go Buffs
Even if all of that happens, college football will never get the NIL Jeannie back in the bottle. The financial parity and how the draft and rosters are managed and the rules keep players on teams and control movement; as long as some schools can offer more than others and players can move freely, there will be no parity like the NFL.
The B1G & SEC get twice as much TV money as schools in the other two “Power 4” conferences. Add in schools that have more NIL money from either more donors, or they have deeper pocket donors that care a lot about their programs; either way they will always have a financial advantage.
NFL players sign regional and national endorsement deals, but they can’t jump to a different team because of them; schools are able to use the deals to get the players to come to their school. So, unless transfers rules and monies paid to players are regulated the way the NFL can do it, there won’t be total parity. But, 64 or so schools can get closer if all are put into one super conference, that would be twice as many teams to manage than the NFL, so I don’t see more than that making up a “Super” conference.
If Prime can get players into the NFL and win 10 plus games a year, he could get CU back in the game, but CU still won’t see parity then. Prime is a rare example of a coach that can pull off getting CU back with the big boys. I hope that 6 or more players that have the opportunity to make an NFL make it… And, next year too with more to follow each year, that will give Prime the credibility to recruit players.
They don’t need to get the genie back in the bottle. Heck, that genie left the bottle around 1957 when teams started paying players. You know, the jobs they didn’t have to show up for, the car they didn’t have to pay for, that house to live in, the school work they didn’t have to do, and all that.
It’s just now, finally, all out in the open, and has added some zeros because the whole industry has added some zeros.
What I’m advocating for is actual revenue sharing across all schools and conferences. There’s enough money in the system to do that for all 130 D1 programs: pay the players, have collective bargaining, healthcare, and? Academic requirements as well. And also, cover all the Olympic sports, too. College football and basketball generate billions a year. Most of it for the TV networks, but a lot of it for the schools. That’s a lot of jack, jack. They will do the industry a favor by spreading it out vs. consolidating it further.
What that will take is the SEC and Big 16 (let’s call them the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers, Los Angeles whatevers; the large market teams) need to realize that without the Green Bay Packers, and Kansas City Chiefs (small market teams), they don’t really have a league. Or, in basketball terms, the Sacramento Kings, and OKC Thunder.
You don’t have to look far to see it’s better for the “industry” to have more parity (if they’re afraid to just follow the major league model). Just look at CFP and BCS viewership. More eyeballs when there’s more diverse teams in the mix. Less when it’s the same four teams year in and year out.
Will that ever happen? Who knows? But it should.
If the SEC and Big 16 keep trying to corner the market, at some point, interest will wane, and they’ll be in a self-defeating conundrum.
People like seeing the Cougs or Boise State or Tulane, or… CU break through.
So far, though, despite the SEC and Big 16 dominating the NFL draft again this year, NIL and the transfer portal have actually increased parity. They need to spread the wealth a bit further, and the sport will do that much better.
As to Deion? He’s absolutely the character who can fight against the money and win, in a lot of cases, because of who he is, and the dream he’s selling. I do not think even Nick Saban could’ve turned CU around as quickly as Deion has.
It’ll be interesting to see how the CFP format discussions go. If they do go w/ the 4-4-2-2-1-1 model, they’re moving in the wrong direction. Still.
Go Buffs