Happy Monday, everyone. Approval of the House settlement by a federal judge was the big news of the weekend, and Greg Byrne weighed in on the ramifications.
The old way wasn’t “fair” to football and men’s basketball players, who didn’t have a choice as the money they generated was spent elsewhere, but the House case brings into question whether broad-based participation, let alone success, is even possible?
Ohio State, for example, fields 33 varsity teams. Boston College has 29. Stanford 36. Do some of them need to move to club-program status?
Or put it this way: If this is a “challenge” even in Tuscaloosa, imagine what everyone else is facing.
“How do you keep your department healthy long-term so you can keep offering opportunities?” Byrne said. “In the past, we tried to be all things to all people. Every coach is going to want revenue share for their athletes, and I don’t blame them.
“But if the goal is to have as many programs as you can,” he continued, “you are going to have to be strategic.”
As mentioned many times, this has always been the question. What’s more important: that the players in revenue sports get a cut of the revenue, or that non-rev sports stay funded, particularly women’s sports? The vast majority of athletic departments, even in the major leagues, show a slim profit if any after all expenses are paid in all sports.
One thing is for certain: quarterbacks will continue to get paid.
One thing is clear: The price of an elite quarterback is not dropping. In this year’s college football transfer portal, jaw-dropping quarterback numbers included a $3 million offer from Duke for Darian Mensah. Georgia’s Carson Beck transferred to Miami and stands to make more than $4 million. Missouri agreed to terms on a $1.5 million deal with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula in December, too.
Numbers have skyrocketed in recruiting top quarterbacks, too. Michigan flipped On3 No. 1 recruit Bryce Underwood from LSU last fall for a multi-year deal valued around $12 million. Elite starting quarterbacks will still command $2 to $4 million annually.
Most of these deals were front-loaded by third-party NIL collectives in previous months, so they will not have to go through the NIL Go clearinghouse run by Deloitte. The multi-million dollar packages for quarterbacks come together through a wealth of resources, including revenue sharing and NIL collectives.
“Hell no, the price for a quarterback isn’t changing,” another SEC source chimed in. “It’s the same as this spring. We’ll have rev share and above cap money — third-party money — nothing has really changed or will.”
A bad storm came through Tuscaloosa this weekend and, while nothing resembling the 2011 tornado, it took a piece of history that the tornado did not.
When a summer storm hit Tuscaloosa on Saturday, it damaged a landmark, instantly familiar to Alabama football fans. The national championship wall at Rama Jama’s, a restaurant that has been open in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium since 1996, fell down during the severe weather.
The restaurant announced the loss on Facebook.
“Today’s storm took down a (piece) of Tuscaloosa history,” the post read. “We lost our national championship wall today.”
Very sad.
SI decided to preview FSU already.
Florida State started last season ranked No. 10 in the AP Poll, spiraling straight out of the rankings by mid-September. Alabama peaked at No. 1, eventually losing road games to Vanderbilt, Tennessee and an Oklahoma team that would’ve missed a bowl game if that result had gone the other way.
The Crimson Tide aims to make it back to the playoff this year. Its last appearance was when the program got selected over the then-unbeaten Seminoles in the 2023 season. To say that Florida State desperately needs to rebound come fall is an understatement, but there is the added dimension of bad memories on the home team’s part.
Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT on August 30. The game is set to be televised on ABC. The expanded playoff places a premium on conference titles with automatic bids in play, but the immediate trajectory for both teams and their coaches will still be impacted by the outcome of the contest.
Yahoo has Tuscaloosa as the second best gameday atmosphere in the SEC, behind Red Stick.
If you’re a neutral observer to whatever game is taking place that Saturday, almost no college in town in America will provide as much fun before kickoff as Tuscaloosa. Roaming down University Avenue before Alabama kicks off an evening game, head inside Bryant-Denny Stadium and prepare to be overwhelmed. It’s a nightclub in all the best and none of the worst ways.
James Franklin is out here doing the propaganda.
“The majority of people that have strong opinions have an agenda and are biased based on what’s good for them. Right? I think the reason the Big Ten and the SEC feel like there’s an argument for more (automatic bids) is because of a lot of the things that I’ve also brought up in the past, the discrepancies or things that are not even or balanced in the sport. Our conferences are built differently, everybody shouldn’t get the same vote. (The Big Ten has) more teams in our conference now and have a greater level of competition week-in and week-out, why should it be balanced?
I think that’s the discussion everybody is kind of having if that makes sense. That’s the challenge, and that’s where, to me, the most important thing that can happen is all the commissioners getting together or a commissioner of college football getting everybody together and saying: ‘Look, everybody’s going to be the same. Everybody’s going to play the same number of conference games, we’re all going to play the same number of games, we’re all going to play a conference championship game or not.’ … That would help the Playoff committee at the end of the year make decisions.”
Last, Alabama did not make this long list of teams generating buzz this offseason.
LSU
Brian Kelly faces tremendous pressure as LSU enters win-now mode in 2025. He has yet to meet the lofty expectations set for him at the beginning of his tenure, yet the anticipation for this season is as palpable as it was in any of the disappointing campaigns that opened his reign atop the Tigers program. On paper, Kelly shored up his defense with the No. 1 transfer class in college football. Garrett Nussmeier is back with the potential to become next year’s top NFL Draft pick, too. The hope in Baton Rouge is that all of the pieces finally come together. (+125)
Texas Longhorns
Arch Manning. Enough said? The Texas quarterback is the definition of buzz, as he was among the most highly publicized recruits in college football history and displayed loads of upside in his spot starts as a redshirt freshman. Manning is the face of the Longhorns program, and he has not even embarked on his full-time starting career. The talent around him is abundant, too, especially after Steve Sarkisian constructed the first No. 1-ranked recruiting class in Texas history. Consecutive playoff berths and a tantalizing batch of up-and-comers make the Longhorns a popular national championship pick. (-350)
It’s fair to say that the Tide are flying under the radar coming into this season. Hopefully they can embrace that and stay focused on the goals.
That’s about it for today. Have a great week.
Roll Tide.
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