I can see Kevin Bacon standing at the scene shouting, “Remain calm! All is well!”
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Not 100% certain, but those losing homes in the OBX will continue to rebuild because the gov’t (us) will cover it. Instead they should be covering it all on their own.
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I’m shocked they continue to cover it. I know Insurance is covering less in areas of Houston and high flood areas and they didn’t cover much when tornados destroyed a bunch of homes in Kentucky.
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We’re shocked too about the rebuilds. Personally, if you want to build there, fine, but you (the owner) are 100% responsible for what happens, don’t pass that crap onto the tax payers.
We’re approx 100 miles inland, and our homeowners rates have increased 100% in 3 years because of weather events. Everyone around us has the same issue we do, some lost coverage and had to look elsewhere for it.
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Lol. Now the Louisiana governor is saying he’s not letting the AD pick the coach and “will let President Trump do it before him.” We’re so far past the looking glass. Imagine letting a guy who killed the USFL pick a coach.
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Most folks have forgotten that he killed the USFL. He was the Midas Touch in reverse. The Hollies had a song about him.
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He’ll pick the highest purchaser of his meme coin from the MMA ranks as the coach. Isn’t that how he appointed his cabinet?
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Here is a very interesting article about how Texas Tech’s counsel has advised them not to sign the house settlement. Below are some relevant portions. I realize that the House settlement and the clearinghouse for NIL agreements are an attempt to bring some order and regulations to the chaos. That said, I am not a lawyer but it sure seems to me that this new system will fall apart when challenged in court, and I certainly can easily see somebody will step up and test it.
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On Wednesday, the Power 4 conferences sent an 11-page University Participation Agreement to their schools that requires them to cooperate with investigations, abide by enforcement decisions and not file lawsuits regarding athlete compensation rules that arose from this summer’s House settlement.
“(The agreement) requires the University, its representatives (which is defined too broadly), student-athletes and associated entities and individuals to comply with not only the current rules, policies, and procedures, but the University must also agree to comply with ‘any other policies and procedures that the CSC may from time to time adopt,’” he wrote. “Under this agreement, the CSC could adopt a rule or penalty that would apply retroactively to the University or its student athletes, impose severe penalties against the University or its student athletes, and the University would have contractually agreed to not take any action against CSC.”
He also raised concerns about a clause that could hold a school responsible if external parties, including state officials, take action against the CSC over an unfavorable decision.
“This clause attempts to penalize the University for appropriate actions taken by the Attorney General to protect state agencies and its citizens, which is obviously unacceptable,” he wrote.
In addition to his role as Board chairman, Campbell is a billionaire Texas Tech booster who has helped raise tens of millions of dollars for NIL deals for Red Raiders athletes. Texas Tech reportedly spent $25 million on its 10-1 football team, which is in line to earn the school’s first-ever Big 12 championship game berth. He has said athletes across all teams are receiving $55 million this school year.
The bulk of those deals came from Campbell’s since-disbanded NIL collective, Matador Club, which front-loaded its 2025-26 payments before July 1, to avoid being subject to CSC’s new NIL Go clearinghouse.
The new system, which requires athletes to submit most third-party deals for approval, was designed in large part to stamp out collectives and prevent schools from going above the $20.5 million revenue share cap that was part of the House settlement.
There is no hard deadline for schools to review and return a signed agreement to the CSC, but the organization has asked schools to respond in two weeks.
The conferences are hoping the participant agreement will put teeth in CSC enforcement of the rev-sharing and NIL rules set up by the settlement. It is unclear what repercussions there would be if schools refuse to agree to the terms.
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I heard a rumor that Alex was promised $7 million for NIL starting next season while only having $2 mil this year. Assuming this is true, how would you spend that money to try to attract the best talent? The roster limit is 15.
Players 13,14,15: Scholarship only - $0 - to whatever might remain
Players 10,11,12: $900k of total budget
Players 4,5,6,7,8,9: $2.5 mil of total budget
Players 1,2,3: $3.6 mil of total budget
Can you assemble a competitive roster with these numbers?
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Pretty good partnership by BigXII
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Say what you will about the Big XII, but its leadership is much better than the PAC12’s ever was.
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The name Byrd Ficklin comes to mind.
Excerpt from Stewart Mandel’s column today about Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU:
Ah, but good news. The long-awaited SCORE Act, subject of all those TV ads, is expected to reach the floor of the House of Representatives next week. If it comes up for vote, it is likely to pass that chamber. The bill, among other things, would give the schools an antitrust exemption to pass rules without the threat of getting sued.
Imagine how much of the sport’s current foolishness they could curb. Perhaps they could put a cap on how much guaranteed money a school can include in a coach’s contract, so they don’t get stuck paying $40, $50 or $60 million to fire a coach. Or, they could institute a portal window of sorts for coaches to take new jobs, say from Feb. 1-March 1, after the season but before spring practice. You know, common sense stuff like that.
But of course, they won’t do any of that. The law is solely intended to put the clamps on out-of-control NIL spending and unlimited transfers. Like if, God forbid, a player ever tried to leave one SEC school for another in the middle of the season for some absurd number like, oh, $12 million a year.
The timing of Kiffin’s move makes a mockery of a sport that’s become way too easy to mock lately. The College Football Playoff should not be an opt-in for the coaches of the teams. Ole Miss shouldn’t be put in the position of having to choose between keeping a lame-duck head coach or promoting his defensive coordinator on the eve of one of the biggest games in school history.
But get used to it. Kiffin won’t be the last. Especially once the powers-that-be devise their next solution to a nonexistent problem by doubling the size of the Playoff field.
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That’s an excellent start.
With Kiffin (and others) the insanity was simply an escalation in an already insane environment, fueled by the brain altering chemicals involved in competition.
Like BYU playing a kid $7M to play basketball for one year, or perhaps even worse, taking advantage of a new ruling to pull a player out of the G-league.
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I think it only right to be cynical of the NCAA’s objectives and what might happen if college football gets an antitrust exemption. I would see that language in the bill to be the most imporant for them.
The NCAA and its schools have are still fighting to keep the antediluvian term “Student-Athlete” alive. Also, they certainly want to avoid the ability of the players to be designated as employees and having them earn the right to collectively bargain and have full healthcare/workers comp.
It seems to me and to be the NCAA’s goal that a return to a free education being the only compensation a player receives where they are banned from any other income, is not even in the ballpark of achievable without an anti-trust exemption.
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Not NIL related, but a good take on the college football calendar and some other things.
https://x.com/sportsemilyw/status/1995612937286005017/video/1
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I felt the same way on the G-league player but read that almost all of the foreign players who join college teams have played in some level of professional league where they were paid before coming to the States. If a kid is in the G-league and not on a two way contract that allows him to play on both the NBA team and the G-league affiliate, I think he should probably be allowed to play in college just like Euros are. His eligibility should start when his G-league career begins and if he plays for 4 years, no college eligibility.
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So, now we have 2 seriously enriched NIL teams in the CFB who previously were middle of the pack conference teams, or in Indiana’s case, a laughing stock.
I don’t know how much Indiana paid in NIL, but I remember they had 10+ transfers-in last year who had been all-conference at their previous schools. Cignetti is a good coach with a crew of good coaches, but what they’ve done doesn’t happen without a lot of money injected into the program.
Billionaire Cody Campell at Texas Tech kicked in $28M for this year’s NIL (second only to Texas in NIL funding) to go along with whatever split they decided to give football for salaries out of the $22 million for TV revenue sharing.
The US now has over 1,100 Billionaires. Who knows how many of them really care about college athletics, but the number is clearly more than one, with many more mere multi-millionaires who do care passionately about their schools. With the sly way players are poached - independent intermediaries who reach out with “hypothetical” ideas about making money - it’s not unreasonable to think based on Indiana and Texas Tech getting to the playoffs… the arms race will be on.
For example, Phil Knight can write one check and have Oregon bypass whatever money Indiana spent. The Crumbl cookie powers certainly have money, but it’s in the “nouveaux rich” category.
NIL is on the verge of bubbling up and disrupting the NFL in a serious way. The NFL draft people are really good at figuring out who is ready and serious about joining the NFL, but even then from a players’ perspective it’s a fierce competition with no guarantees. NFL careers are the shortest in pro sports, I believe… injuries.
An NIL arms race will likely result in at least a handful of players who appear to be headed to the NFL but pull out at the last moment because they can make more money in college. This will boil up to the owners… who have political connections.
One way or another, the college NIL situation is not sustainable, IMO.
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The SCORE act is intended to address these and other issues. Was pulled for a vote scheduled for last Wednesday amid Mike Johnson’s leadership “turbulence”, but cleared a procedural vote.
Clearly the angst about what is happening to college sports is widespread.
Among the ideas, a new College Sports Commission.
- limit transfers
- Oversee the NIL circus
Etc
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