The 6-foot-3, 231-pound quarterback is joining his old USF coach Alex Golesh on The Plains and has one year of eligibility remaining after delivering one of the best seasons in college football.
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He threw for 3,158 yards and 28 TDs with just seven interceptions while also running for 1,008 yards and 14 TDs. His combined 42 TDs were tied with Indiana’s Heisman-winning QB Fernando Mendoza as the most in college football.
Brown has been with the Bulls for all four seasons of his career and actually threw for more yards during a standout sophomore campaign (3,292 yards and 26 TDs, with 809 rushing yards and another 11 TDs on the ground) after just pulling spot duty during his freshman season. His junior year in 2024 was cut short due to a broken bone in his leg suffered in a game against Tulane in late September.
The Bulls were in the running for the American title and a spot in the College Football Playoff before a late-season slide that featured losses on the road to Memphis and Navy knocked them out of the picture.
Brown will join a Tigers team with a new head coach in Golesh, who is very familiar with the QB’s game after leading USF for the past three seasons. The Bulls went 23-15 over those three seasons.
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The duo will now hope to find some success in the SEC, where the Tigers have been struggling for most of the past decade. The team went 5-7 this season and fired coach Hugh Freeze on Nov. 2 after a 3-3 start.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the NFL playoffs! Fourteen teams remain alive, and that means 49 possible Super Bowl combinations are still possible. Using our patented combination of analytics, star power, watchability, history, off-field narratives and good old-fashioned gut feelings, we’ve ranked every possible combination, from “it’s our last gasp at football” to instant classic. And away we go:
49. Jaguars vs. Panthers. You can’t fool us, NFL. This is just an old Thursday Night Football game in fancier clothes. Regular season: Jaguars won 26-10, Week 1.
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48. Texans vs. Packers. There’s always a chance the ads could be good.
47. Jaguars vs. Eagles. Are we biased against the Jaguars’ ability to deliver a good Super Bowl? Yes. Has the franchise’s entire history justified this bias? Also yes.
46. Chargers vs. Panthers. There are those who say an 8-9 team shouldn’t make the playoffs. Those people would be forced to eat their words if the Panthers make the Super Bowl. Those people probably shouldn’t worry too much about that happening.
45. Chargers vs. Eagles. We’re not quite sick of the Eagles the way we were of the Chiefs, but another Super Bowl of tush-pushin’ might do it. Regular season: Chargers won 22-19, Week 14.
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44. Texans vs. Panthers. Matchup of the top two 2023 draft picks. They grow up so fast.
43. Jaguars vs. Packers. America needs to see Trevor Lawrence hoisting a Lombardi Trophy, if only because it would inspire an entire generation of young men to grow long, luxurious locks.
Trevor Lawrence arrived in the NFL with as much hype as any quarterback in recent memory … and also the best hair the league has ever seen. (Photo by Mike Carlson/Getty Images)
(Mike Carlson via Getty Images)
42. Steelers vs. Panthers. Steel Panther is an outstanding faux-80s heavy metal band, but it’s a safe bet they won’t be asked to play a Super Bowl halftime show anytime soon.
41. Texans vs. 49ers. The Texans are one of only four teams that’s never made a Super Bowl. This would be a hell of an introduction, against one of the teams that’s made the most. Regular season: Texans won 26-15, Week 8.
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40. Bills vs. Panthers. Look, Buffalo, if you can’t get it done against the Panthers, you ain’t ever getting it done. Regular season: Bills won 40-9, Week 8.
39. Texans vs. Seahawks. In their regular-season Week 7 matchup, the Seahawks won, 27-19, Week 7. But the Texans would lose only one more game all season.
38. Patriots vs. 49ers. Couple blue bloods going at it — New England has the most Super Bowl appearances with 11, while San Francisco is tied with Pittsburgh, Dallas and Denver with 8.
37. Bills vs. Eagles. Back in the regular season, the Eagles won 13-12 in Week 17 when Josh Allen couldn’t convert a last-second two-point conversion. Would this go-around be any better?
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36. Chargers vs. 49ers. Did you know that former 49er Trey Lance is on the Chargers? Think they want him back? This is a Super Bowl XXIX rematch (49ers won 49-26).
35. Texans vs. Eagles. With the Eagles’ struggling offense and the Texans’ dominant defense, this might be the Super Bowl where a team produces negative offensive yards.
34. Chargers vs. Rams. I wish John Madden were still alive, if only because I’d love to hear what he would do with the name “Ladd McConkey.”
33. Jaguars vs. 49ers. Matchup of the No. 1 overall pick (Trevor Lawrence) with the Mister Irrelevant pick (Brock Purdy). The NFL is weird, man. Regular season: Jaguars won 26-21, Week 4.
Could Mr. Irrelevant really win a Super Bowl? (Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
(Kevin Sabitus via Getty Images)
32. Bills vs. Packers. I feel like the “Buffalo Bills lost in four straight Super Bowls” lore hasn’t quite translated down to Gen Z, which is a good thing for Buffalo. Imagine the memes if that happened today.
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31. Steelers vs. 49ers. Somehow these two teams have never played each other in a Super Bowl, despite each making it to the Big Game eight times.
30. Jaguars vs. Rams. If Matthew Stafford plays in another Super Bowl, aging dads all over the country are going to shred their shoulders trying to throw like him. Regular season: Rams won 35-7, Week 7.
29. Chargers vs. Packers. Technically proficient football, but we’ll have to work to come up with a good narrative for this one.
28. Broncos vs. Panthers. A rematch of Super Bowl 50 (Broncos won 24-10). In other words: suit up, Cam Newton, here’s your shot at redemption!
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27. Chargers vs. Seahawks. We need the Chargers in the Super Bowl just to assault Jim Harbaugh with Michigan questions the whole week.
26. Patriots vs. Panthers. A Super Bowl XXXVIII rematch (Patriots won 32-29 in a surprisingly good game that came down to an Adam Vinatieri kick). Regular season: Patriots won, 42-13, Week 4.
25. Steelers vs. Eagles. Loser leaves Pennsylvania.
24. Jaguars vs. Seahawks. It’s OK to admit you’re still waiting for the Sam Darnold blowup game this season. Regular season: Seahawks won 20-12, Week 6
23. Steelers vs. Bears. Aaron Rodgers could play against the team he owns one more time! Regular season: Bears won 31-28, Week 12.
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22. Broncos vs. 49ers. This is a Super Bowl XXIV rematch, back in the days when the 49ers did things like win Super Bowls 55-10. Ouch.
A Broncos-49ers Super Bowl would be a rematch of the biggest blowout in history when Jerry Rice and the Niners won 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV. (Photo by Rich Pilling/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
(Diamond Images via Getty Images)
21. Bills vs. Rams. Any drive that ended in anything less than a touchdown would be a failure and likely lead to a loss.
20. Steelers vs. Seahawks. Rematch of Super Bowl XL, which the Steelers won 21-10. Back in the regular season, the Seahawks easily won 31-17 in Week 2.
19. Texans vs. Bears. Watching Caleb Williams against the Texans’ defense would be fun, in a sick kind of way.
18. Patriots vs. Packers. Brett Favre won his ring in this matchup back in Super Bowl XXXI, which the Packers won 35-21. This was when nobody thought the Patriots would ever be able to put together a decent Super Bowl team.
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17. Steelers vs. Rams. A rematch of Super Bowl XIV, which the Steelers won 31-19. Terry Bradshaw was named MVP of that game despite throwing three interceptions.
16. Bills vs. Bears. A buffalo vs. a bear would be a hell of a fight, let’s be honest.
15. Broncos vs. Eagles. The Eagles want to believe they can repeat as Super Bowl champions. Going through the AFC’s No. 1 seed would be a rough way to do it. Regular season: Broncos won 21-17, Week 5.
14. Chargers vs. Bears. Seriously … what if the Bears are good?
13. Bills vs. 49ers. Another matchup of early-90s titans that seems like it should have happened but never did.
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12. Jaguars vs. Bears. This could be a battle for the future of the NFL, quarterback-wise. Anyone who can unlock Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams deserves all the credit in the world.
11. Broncos vs. Rams. Strength vs. strength — the Rams’ high-powered offense vs. the Broncos’ Rocky Mountain-solid defense.
10. Bills vs. Seahawks. The “No, No, No, No, No … YES!” Bowl of quarterback performances.
9. Broncos vs. Seahawks. A rematch of Super Bowl XLVIII, which the Seahawks won 43-8. Best remembered for a snap flying over an unprepared Peyton Manning’s head on the very first play of the game.
8. Patriots vs. Eagles. Rematch of Super Bowls XXXIX (Patriots won 24-21) and LII (Eagles won 41-33). Two words: Philly Special.
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7. Broncos vs. Packers. Rematch of Super Bowl XXXII, where the Broncos won 31-24 and John Elway got his ring at last. Aww. Regular season: Broncos won 34-26, Week 15.
6. Patriots vs. Rams. Rematch of the first Super Bowl of the Tom Brady era (XXXVI, Patriots won 20-17) and the most boring (LIII, Patriots won 13-3). This one figures to be better.
5. Texans vs. Rams. Best defense vs. best offense? Yes, please. Regular season: Rams won 14-9, Week 1.
4. Patriots vs. Seahawks. Rematch of Super Bowl XLIX (Patriots won 28-24). Think the Seahawks will throw the ball at the goal line?
3. Broncos vs. Bears. A possible all-timer just because of the potential here. These two teams could meet in the next five Super Bowls.
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2. Steelers vs. Packers. Rematch of Super Bowl XLV (Packers won 31-25). Regular season: Packers won 35-25, Week 8. Oh yeah, and there might be an Aaron Rodgers story or two told about this game.
1. Patriots vs. Bears. A Super Bowl XX rematch, which the Bears won 46-10. Or should I say: Da Bears. If Chicago reaches the Super Bowl on the 40th anniversary of the famed 1985 team, we better get a Super Bowl Shuffle Remix.
Nevada-based Circa Sports had the largest payout ever for a legal sports betting contest this NFL season, with a survivor pool of 18,178 entries — with each entry costing $1,000 — and a record $18.718 million prize pool.
In the contest, contestants must select a single NFL team each week to simply win its game outright and aren’t allowed to use the same team twice in a season. Circa’s contest also has an extra week around Thanksgiving and Christmas, making the contest 20 weeks in total.
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Heading into Week 18, there were only six entries remaining — and one of them had selected Joe Burrow’s Cincinnati Bengals against Shedeur Sanders’ Cleveland Browns. With total prize pool of over $18.7 million, that means that each of the six remaining entries had an implied value of a little over $3 million.
Two of the other entries had the Minnesota Vikings (won vs. Packers), one had the Atlanta Falcons (won vs. Saints), one had the Jacksonville Jaguars (won vs. Titans) and one had the New England Patriots (vs. Dolphins).
Despite dominating the first half, the Bengals were down 14-12 at halftime thanks to not one, but two Browns defensive touchdowns — including a 97-yard interception return by Devin Bush on a tipped Burrow pass.
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After a late go-ahead 4-yard touchdown pass from Burrow to Ja’Marr Chase with 1:29 remaining in the game, Sanders led the Browns down to the Bengals’ 31-yard line with three seconds left to set up a 49-yard field goal attempt.
Cleveland kicker Andre Szmyt nailed the kick to give the Browns a shocking 20-18 win and cost one entry over $3.1 million.
Hopefully, that bettor hedged some of his exposure on Cleveland before the game, but nonetheless a tough way to finish off a great season.
NEW ORLEANS — Late Thursday night, one man meandered through Ole Miss’ celebratory locker room with something other than the recent Sugar Bowl win over Georgia on his mind.
Somewhat exasperated and a bag thrown over his shoulder as he hurried to round up players to leave the Superdome, Austin Thomas, the program’s new general manager, quipped to a couple of nearby media members, “The portal opens in a couple hours!”
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This time of year, a confluence of events creates a congested college football calendar. The back end of the coaching carousel is roaring, with schools hiring and firing assistant coaches. Roster retainment and replacement is humming as more than one-fifth of FBS players have entered the 15-day transfer portal since it opened on Friday.
And, for the last few weeks, teams have been preparing and playing in bowl or playoff games. For another few days, at least the four playoff teams will continue to operate the off-the-field business aspect of the industry while preparing for postseason games.
There’s something else, too: Because of coaching changes, assistants at playoff teams like Ole Miss and Oregon are juggling jobs elsewhere, too.
“We need to change the calendar,” former Alabama coach Nick Saban said Thursday during ESPN’s “College GameDay,” echoing the feeling from many administrators and coaches within the industry.
College football’s calendar causes headaches for players, coaches, fans, schools and basically everybody else in the industry. (Bruno Rouby/Yahoo Sports)
There’s good news: The calendar is changing — at some point.
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The NCAA Football Oversight Committee, led by Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks and Buffalo AD Mark Alnutt, is examining the college football calendar and is expected to recommend potentially significant changes to several aspects as soon as this offseason.
“We’re trying to take a step back and look at everything in totality so we’re not doing one-offs that have an impact on other parts of the calendar,” Brooks told Yahoo Sports. “We’ve got to take a 30,000-foot view and see how everything could be better.”
In an interview with Yahoo Sports from the Sugar Bowl site last week in New Orleans, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says calendar changes should start with one idea: eliminating the December early signing period. “Put it back in February, maybe even mid-February,” Sankey said, referring to the traditional February signing day. “What we’ve done is pressured the front end of recruitment.”
Signing day is just one aspect that officials will explore in the examination of the calendar. Others include: 1. The future of Week Zero (will it become the new Week 1?); 2. The playing dates of the College Football Playoff (is there a way to return the semifinals to New Year’s Day?); 3. The date of the transfer portal (is a single spring portal gaining more momentum?); and 4. Spring and summer access periods (will the sport, finally, implement OTA-type summer training?).
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Overall, the goal of any calendar changes is to decongest December-January. Or, as Saban suggests, create a more NFL-like calendar for college football, which includes the draft (signing day) and free agency (the portal) happening after the postseason and eliminating spring practice. In that model, the assembling and development of most of a team in the offseason would shift from December-March to April-June.
“You wouldn’t have these issues with coaches changing jobs because everybody could finish the season with their team because there would be no hurry,” Saban said.
But that’s easier said than done.
The early signing date
The three-day early signing period, beginning on the first Wednesday in December, has replaced February’s traditional signing date as the primary window for athletes to strike agreements with their schools (normally, about 80% of top athletes sign in December).
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Many conferences lobbied for the early date to accelerate the recruiting process, ending recruitments sooner, building a roster fast and preventing powerhouse programs from flipping athletes later.
However, at least some folks believe that the early signing date — along with the transfer portal — has increased midseason coach firings and expedited coach hirings, as administrators work to have coaches in place ahead of these dates.
While administrators kicked around, and still are considering, a summer signing date (the Big Ten proposed a June date in years past), Sankey believes that a complete elimination of the early signing period is a way to slow the coaching firing and hiring that’s taken place earlier in the season than ever.
“Philosophically, I think everybody would say that you should start the season and complete the season with every sport with your roster and coaching staff intact, noting there could be serious life exceptions,” Sankey said. “How do you get there? Some of it is, you look at the calendar and try to move some of the upfront pressure.”
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At the annual American Football Coaches Association Convention next week, executive director Craig Bohl plans to hold several meetings to discuss the calendar as a whole, including the early signing date.
“You hear that coaches are being fired earlier because you’ve got to get your guys signed,” Bohl said.
The transfer portal
Most coaches — and all but one of the 10 FBS conferences — supported moving to the current portal structure in a change last year: from two portal periods (December and April) to a single period (January). Big Ten administrators and coaches argued for a portal in the spring, such as March and April, to more align with the academic calendar (most end in May), revenue-share cap year (ends in June) and have the postseason finish before player transactions.
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Most others supported a January portal to assemble their team and develop them during traditional spring practice. In fact, the SEC and its coaches — most publicly Georgia’s Kirby Smart — argued for this.
Well, as the portal hums amid an expanded College Football Playoff and coaching changes and semester classes begin, some believe the portal’s timing should be revisited.
“We have a transfer portal that opens on Jan. 2 because that’s what was identified by the American Football Coaches Association as the coaching community’s solution,” Sankey said. “Is the coaching community going to work to make that work or not?”
In discussions with coaches, Bohl says the shifting of the portal to January created a “much better” December. There was tampering, sure, he said, but “as challenging as the portal window is now, it’s better than where we’ve had it before.”
“Everybody has to look at it like this: College football has changed,” Washington AD Pat Chun said last summer. “We should not have transfer movement until we crown a national champion.”
Spring and summer access
The portal’s date impacts decisions on the future of spring practice.
Over the last several years, schools are pivoting away from spring games, and many coaches are holding more limited spring practices. Should they be discontinued and replaced with more summer training?
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Last year, the AFCA released a proposal to alter spring and summer access by permitting coaches to hold six OTA-style practices in the summer (mostly June). The proposal allowed for coaches to also move a portion of their spring practices to the summer.
However, some coaches are against waiting until May or June, more than five months after the completion of the regular season, to assemble their full team. And if you move the portal and eliminate spring practice, what about the players who, after the regular season, have already decided to leave in the spring? Do they continue on their current campus for another four months attending classes and working out with the team?
“Is that a good thing?” Brooks asks.
NC State coach Dave Doeren said last summer that “you don’t want to spend three months training guys who are leaving” while holding spring practice.
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Week Zero and CFP dates
For years now, administrators have toyed with the idea of turning Week Zero into the new Week 1. As it stands now, schools must be granted a waiver to compete on Week Zero (there are usually 10-15 games involving FBS teams).
However, FBS officials are considering eliminating the waiver process, completely opening Week Zero to all schools as FCS did last year. This may lead to a few intended or unintended consequences. Schools, wanting an additional bye week, would begin playing on Week Zero much more regularly, to the point that it becomes the new season-opening weekend.
And that leads to a much bigger move: shifting the entire regular season up by a week. This could be a long-term play to arrive at that destination. Why shift the regular season up? Officials could then move up an expanded College Football Playoff that continues to finish deeper and deeper into January, both conflicting with the NFL playoff slate (an issue for TV purposes) and stretching into the spring semester.
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However, there are complications with this from two entities of which college sports hold a financial and historical relationship: television and the bowls. Would TV networks support turning Thanksgiving weekend — a smorgasbord of rivalry games from Thursday through Saturday — into conference championship game weekend?
And then there are the six CFP bowls, which hold sacred playing on New Year’s Day. Shifting up the season means semifinal play on New Year’s Day (two bowl games instead of four).
Nothing about any of this is easy. But, perhaps soon enough, the calendar will be decongested.
Only a few months ago, James Nnaji faced a career crossroads.
A Summer League audition with the New York Knicks hadn’t produced so much as an invitation to training camp, let alone his first NBA contract.
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Since the salaries top college players were making dwarfed what Nnaji could earn overseas, the Nigerian 7-footer and his agent hatched an audacious plan. They began to explore the unprecedented possibility of going from the 31st pick in the 2023 NBA Draft at 18 to entering college basketball at 21.
Granting Nnaji immediate eligibility is the most extreme example yet of the NCAA’s reluctance to fight to keep professional players out of the college game. The NCAA had previously given colleges the greenlight to recruit prospects with experience playing in the G League or top overseas professional leagues. Now the governing body is also rolling out the red carpet for someone who once guarded Victor Wembanyama in a Summer League game, someone who was once a throw-in in the trade that shipped Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks.
“It’s wild out there right now,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few told reporters last week.
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“We don’t have any rules,” Arkansas coach John Calipari lamented during a recent news conference.
“Santa Claus is delivering mid-season acquisitions,” UConn coach Dan Hurley quipped on social media. “This s— is crazy!!”
Just when many joked Arizona might want to reach out to LeBron James about playing alongside his son Bryce next season, NCAA president Charlie Baker at last drew a firm line. The NCAA will not grant college eligibility to any player who has previously signed an NBA contract, Baker clarified in a statement last Tuesday.
Why has the NCAA loosened eligibility restrictions to the point where such a commonsense statement is necessary?
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Is the risk of exposing itself to fresh legal challenges really the main reason for the NCAA’s hesitance to try to enforce stricter rules? Or might the NCAA have an ulterior motive? Could it be intentionally trying to spark public outrage in hopes of persuading Congress to finally grant antitrust protection that would reestablish the NCAA’s authority and shield it from the threat of litigation?
As Mit Winter, an experienced attorney specializing in collegiate sports law, told Yahoo Sports, “I don’t go the full conspiracy theory that the NCAA is making all these eligibility decisions for the sole reason of creating mass chaos so that Congress comes to help, but it’s definitely a side benefit of what’s going on.”
James Nnaji scored five points in his debut with Baylor in what turned out to be a loss to TCU. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
(Ron Jenkins via Getty Images)
The NCAA tries to toe a fine line
Not long after highly touted center Enes Kanter committed to Kentucky in early 2010, the NCAA received a set of documents from his former Turkish club.
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Officials at Fenerbahce were unhappy with Kanter’s abrupt departure after they had invested heavily in his development. As a result, they turned over financial records to the NCAA purportedly showing that Fenerbahce had provided the projected lottery pick payments that would jeopardize his amateur status.
On Nov. 11, 2010, the NCAA declared Kanter permanently ineligible to play college basketball for receiving benefits $33,033 above what the governing body deemed his “actual and necessary expenses.” The ruling epitomized how tightly the NCAA clung to a strict concept of amateurism before legal challenges dismantled the system.
The Supreme Court struck a deathblow to amateurism in June 2021 when it unanimously ruled that the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation for student-athletes were a violation of federal antitrust law. The landmark decision in NCAA v. Alston paved the way for the modern NIL and revenue-sharing era and left the NCAA’s model vulnerable to further legal challenges.
“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion in NCAA v. Alston. He concluded by sharply noting, “The NCAA is not above the law.”
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As the NIL market for impact basketball players at the high-major level skyrocketed north of seven figures, the best young international prospects began to take notice. Teenagers who might have chosen to develop abroad in previous eras left their high-level European club teams and jetted across the Atlantic because the salaries were as much as 10 to 15 times more lucrative.
Skilled 7-footers Zvonimir Ivisic of Croatia, Aday Mara of Spain and Motiejus Krivas of Lithuania were part of the initial wave of prized European prospects in 2023. A year later, future NBA first-round draft picks Egor Demin and Kasparas Jakučionis joined them. This year, 19-year-old German forward Hannes Steinbach is passing through Washington on his way to the NBA, as is Italian guard Dame Sarr, 19, at Duke and Greek guard Neoklis Avdalas, 19, at Virginia Tech.
“There used to be a small number of top [European] prospects that would consider the college route,” said Guillermo Bermejo, European-based director of global basketball at Gersh Sports, the agency that represents Nnaji. “It was a rarity for a player to choose that route versus staying pro and developing over here. Now the rarity is someone staying over here versus going to college. When you’re sitting down with a player and his family, the first thing that comes up is the college route, how it works and how to get there. It has been a 180-degree change.”
Last offseason, the influx of European pros entering the college game went from a trickle to a deluge. College coaches became more brazen about targeting international players with several years experience competing in the Euroleague or top professional domestic leagues.
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Virginia’s leading scorer this season is a 22-year-old Belgian forward who was a key contributor for a professional club in Spain’s top division the previous two years. Louisville’s top big man is a 22-year-old German who last season was one of the Bundesliga’s most efficient players. North Carolina starts a 22-year-old guard from Montenegro who averaged 14.9 points per game in Southeastern Europe’s top league.
The NCAA’s lenience in granting those players college eligibility tempted other programs to test the limits of the governing body’s generosity. They targeted G League players who had once passed on the college route but now were having regrets due to the money available.
In late September, Santa Clara announced the signing of guard Thierry Darlan, who spent the previous two years with the now-defunct G League Ignite, the Delaware Blue Coats and the Rip City Remix. A month later, Louisville landed guard London Johnson out of the G League. Westchester Knicks center Abdullah Ahmed signed with BYU in November and just made his midseason debut this past Saturday against Kansas State.
How are these G Leaguers and European pros eligible when Kanter and others in his position once were not? Because, since the onset of the NIL era, the NCAA has been more forgiving in its interpretation of Bylaw 12.2.2.2.1, which states that “before initial full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may compete on a professional team provided the individual does not receive more than actual and necessary expenses.”
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Without protection from antitrust laws, the NCAA doesn’t appear interested in trying to legally defend banning players who have received five-figure or six-figure salaries from professional teams. The NCAA, as Baker recently put it, “is exercising discretion in applying the actual and necessary expenses bylaw.” International pros who were paid more than what the NCAA deems actual and necessary expenses have allegedly been able to get eligible by paying back the difference.
“I think it’s a strategy to manage legal risk in this new world,” said antitrust law specialist Sabria McElroy, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “It’s becoming harder for the NCAA to defend eligibility restraints. They might have decided to allow these exemptions rather than open themselves up to more litigation challenges as they continue to hope that Congress will step in and do something.”
Recent statements from the NCAA seem to confirm as much.
In October, NCAA senior vice president Tim Buckley told Yahoo Sports that the NCAA’s ability to enforce “commonsense” eligibility and transfer rules is “currently under attack in courts across the country.”
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“This is why we’re focused on partnering with Congress,” Buckley added.
NCAA president Charlie Baker is up against the toughest challenge the organization has ever faced. (Photo by Porter Binks/Getty Images).
(Porter Binks via Getty Images)
Congress to the rescue?
Congress is indeed the one entity with the power to swoop in and restore the NCAA’s ability to make rules and enforce them, but persuading legislators to provide an antitrust exemption will not be an easy feat in this political climate. Any potential bill would have to pass a staunchly divided House of Representatives, clear the 60-vote benchmark in the Senate and secure a signature from the President.
In July, the players associations in North America’s five major professional sports released a joint statement strongly urging Congress not to provide the NCAA any legal liability shield. “Granting an antitrust exemption to the NCAA and its members,” the statement argued, “gives the green light for the organization and schools to collude and work against student athletes.”
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So far the NCAA’s bid to craft a bill with bipartisan support has gone nowhere. House leaders canceled plans to vote on the NCAA-backed SCORE Act on Dec. 3 because it lacked sufficient support.
“The SCORE Act was pulled from consideration because it simply didn’t have the votes, a clear sign that Members on both sides saw it for what it was: a gift to the NCAA and Power Two conferences at the expense of athletes,” Rep. Lori Trahan (D–Mass), a former Division I volleyball player, said in a December 3 press release.
The broad scope of the SCORE Act has torpedoed the NCAA’s bid to secure congressional support, according to Jeffrey Kessler, one of the world’s leading sports law and antitrust attorneys. If the SCORE Act passed, it would provide antitrust protection to the NCAA when establishing eligibility rules, limiting player transfers and restricting NIL earnings. It would also declare that college athletes aren’t employees and that individual states can’t pass laws conflicting with the SCORE Act.
“It’s a complete overreach,” Kessler told Yahoo Sports. “They want everything, so they’re going to get nothing.”
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Are the NCAA’s recent player eligibility decisions a premeditated attempt to stoke anger and entice Congress to intervene?
“I’m not sure I completely buy the idea that it’s all a congressional lobbying play,” said Boise State professor Sam Ehrlich, an expert on the application of antitrust law to college sports. “That’s just one heck of a swing, and given how things have fared for them on Capitol Hill over the past five-plus years, it seems like a really bad gamble.”
But might the NCAA perceive the uproar as a welcome side benefit to its strategy to limit legal risk?
“I think they view it as helping them in Congress getting a law passed,” Winter said. “They’re saying look at what these courts are doing to our eligibility rules. We can’t keep pro athletes out of college sports anymore because of what the courts have done. Congress, we really need an antitrust exemption.”
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To Ehrlich, the theory that holds more weight is the idea that the NCAA is setting up the legal argument that there is no distinction anymore between professional and college basketball.
Athletes who file antitrust lawsuits must establish that the NCAA dominates a particular market before arguing that the NCAA is improperly restricting it. That argument becomes trickier if the NCAA can present college basketball as one option within the broader professional basketball market.
“The whole premise of these antitrust lawsuits is that the NCAA is a cartel, that the NCAA is dominating the market for amateur sports,” Ehrlich said. “If the NCAA leans into the current environment and says we’re not actually this distinct amateur sports entity anymore and we’re one of many leagues these players can play in, it gets a lot harder to show that the NCAA is restricting entrance into this broader market.”
The upside for the NCAA is it potentially maintains a legal argument to draw certain lines of governance.
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The downside to the NCAA’s apparent unwillingness to fight to keep international and domestic pros out of college basketball is that the organization now faces an uphill battle trying to legally defend the other lines it has already drawn.
If a player who received a six-figure salary in Spain can gain college eligibility, why can’t a player who made a cameo appearance in the NBA on a two-way deal? Or if Nnaji can enter the NBA Draft, be selected in the second round and play college basketball, why can’t a former college player who went through the draft process, didn’t get selected as early as he wanted and now wants to come back?
“Once you allow one exemption it becomes much harder to draw other lines, to stop players who have signed NBA contracts and things like that,” McElroy said.
Other attorneys echoed that stance.
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“If they’re going to say that signing an NBA contract is the line where you can’t come back, I think it’s going to be hard to defend that based on everything else that’s happening,” Winter said.
It’s a safe bet that some ambitious college coach will approach a fringe NBA player in his early 20s, offer him a seven-figure deal to play college basketball and then leave it up to the courts to assess the legality of NCAA rules forbidding that.
In fact those conversations are already happening.
College coaches have expressed interest to Bermejo in multiple European players on two-way deals.
“That’s just one more example of how they’re getting creative,” Bermejo said. “They want the best players and they’re open to possibilities they would have never thought about before.”
NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps will resign from his position at the end of January. Phelps, who has been with NASCAR since 2005, announced his resignation in a statement Tuesday.
Phelps’ statement read:
“As a lifelong race fan, it gives me immense pride to have served as NASCAR’s first Commissioner and to lead our great sport through so many incredible challenges, opportunities and first over my 20 years.
“Our sport is built on the passion of our fans, the dedication of our teams and partners, and the commitment of our wonderful employees. It has been an honor to help synthesize the enthusiasm of long-standing NASCAR stakeholders with that of new entrants in our ecosystem, such as media partners, auto manufacturers, track operators, and incredible racing talent.
“As I embark on new pursuits in sports and other industries, I want to thank the many colleagues, friends and especially the fans that have played such an important and motivational role in my career. Words cannot fully convey the deep appreciation I have for this life-changing experience, for the trust of the France family, and for having a place in NASCAR’s amazing history.”
NACAR said Tuesday that Phelps “made the personal decision to step away from the company.” The company did not announce additional leadership changes and said it does not plan to hire a new commissioner. Phelps’ responsibilities will be delegated to other NASCAR executives.
In a 2023 text exchange with NASCAR VP Brian Herbst, Phelps called Childress a “stupid redneck” who “needs to be taken out back and flogged.” Phelps also referred to Childress as a “total ass-clown” in the exchange. Those comments came while NASCAR was working on a new charter agreement with Childress.
That text exchange came to light in November as part of the 23XI/FRM vs. NASCAR antitrust lawsuit. Phelps came under scrutiny after those remarks were revealed, with Childress saying he was seeking legal action and Bass Pro Shops CEO Johnny Morris implying Phelps should be removed from his position. Bass Pro Shops has been a partner with the sport for years.
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In December, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports and NASCAR announced a settlement, ending the lawsuit.
Phelps’ resignation ends his 20-year run with NASCAR. He originally joined the company in 2005 as its vice president of corporate marketing. Phelps worked his way up through the organization over the years, eventually being named its president in 2018.
In March of 2025, Phelps was promoted into the role of commissioner. He lasted less than a year in that position.
The Dallas Cowboys have fired defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, the team announced on Tuesday. After finishing 7-9-1 and missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year, the Cowboys will be looking to hire their fourth defensive coordinator in four seasons.
After hiring former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer as head coach, the Cowboys brought in Eberflus to replace Mike Zimmer. Eberflus was tasked with fixing a defense that ranked 31st in points allowed, 28th in yards allowed and 29th in rushing yards allowed.
The Cowboys’ defense continued to struggle this season after the changes. On 105.3 The Fan, Cowboys EVP Stephen Jones said the team lacked an identity on defense.
“We got to get an identity on the defensive side of the football. I don’t think we ever established what we were as a defense. We really weren’t a team that created turnovers. We didn’t get the ball. We gave up a lot of explosive (plays). At times it felt like we were (stopping) the run. But we just got a lot of work to do on that side of the ball. I think everybody knows that. We’ll go all in.”
“Bottom line, we need an identity on the defensive side of the ball. I don’t think we established that this year. Whether it’s Coach (Matt) Eberflus or whoever it is, we have to create an identity.
“I think everybody would say that Coach (Brian) Schottenheimer has a ton of energy, he’s very authentic and has an identity. We’ve got to play to that in all three phases. I think we did in one phase (offense) this year. I don’t know that we established that in the other two phases (defense, special teams).”
Dallas gave up 30.1 points per game, the most in the NFL, and finished 30th in yards allowed per game at 377 yards. The Cowboys’ defense also did not create turnovers or get to the passer consistently, which had been a trademark under former defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.
Before becoming the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator last offseason, Eberflus was the head coach of the Chicago Bears and previously served as the defensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts after a stint as the Cowboys’ linebacker coach. He went 14–32 during his time as the Bears’ head coach.
Welcome back to the world’s most accurate power rankings, where we have sorted all 30 NBA teams into so perfect an order that you could not possibly quibble with the list, for fear of being mocked yourselves.
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who started the season on pace to break the league’s all-time record for wins in a regular season, have played .500 basketball for almost a sixth of the season. Fortunately for them, their biggest challengers in the Western Conference — the Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets — are all on shaky ground, battling injuries to their All-Star centers.
(Taylar Sievert/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
We have reached the season’s doldrums, when injuries compound and a general malaise threatens to sort the contenders from the pretenders. Survival to the All-Star break is paramount. Don’t let go of the rope.
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The Detroit Pistons certainly have not. They remain atop the East, handing the New York Knicks — yet another contender on thin ice — a fourth straight loss. The Boston Celtics (18-5 since mid-November) are coming, and their superstar, Jayson Tatum, will presumably provide a bit of reinforcement at some point.
However you see it, our championship view is increasingly becoming a landscape, rather than a portrait of the mighty Thunder, even if they remain the heavy betting favorites to win at BetMGM. Let’s get to the rankings.
Previous rank: 28
Coach Rick Carlisle’s message to Bennedict Mathurin is a message to all of his Pacers: “There’s great opportunity here. And we have to work at helping him adjust to his level of responsibility. This is a lot. … It’s work. You don’t just show up and get your numbers every night. Teams are ultra-prepared. Everyone’s got the same information. And it’s tough.”
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Previous rank: 29
Coach Doug Christie is trying to hold his team to a high standard, only they are playing to a low one. What gives? “What you can do is you can say, ‘This is the standard of Sacramento Kings basketball,’” said Christie, “and you continue to play to that standard until you get a locker room full of guys that play the right way.” So, we’re in “coach throws everyone under the bus” territory.
Previous rank: 27
“We’ve been in this place before,” coach James Borrego said of his last-place Pelicans, who have lost seven straight since a five-game win streak. “We found our way out of it. You’ve just got to keep plugging away. Keep chopping. Keep working. The No. 1 thing is: Stay together. Keep our heads up. Keep spirits up and keep fighting. This group has not dropped the sword.”
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Previous rank: 23
Jordi Fernández has given his young Nets some tough love this season, and Nolan Traoré is the latest of their five first-round draft picks to feel the brunt of his coach’s expectations: “And if you keep shooting and missing, then sometimes, if you keep doing the same thing and seeing the same results, that’s the definition of insanity.” Yup, we have reached this part of the season.
Previous rank: 30
The Wizards are 6-5 since mid-December! “Thankfully over the course of the last 15 games or so, we’ve proven this isn’t who we are,” Wizards wing Corey Kispert said of another poor performance, against Minnesota. “So it feels like more of fluke than a bad trend, so we’re really optimistic, and we’re excited to get back out there and change the narrative and flip the script.”
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Previous rank: 22
By net rating, the Jazz (-6.8) are almost as close to the third-place Lakers (-0.2) as they are the last-place Kings (-11.5). They better pick a direction, since they owe their first-round draft pick (top-eight protected) to the Thunder, but the players are not on board with a tank job. As Walter Clayton Jr. conceded after a recent victory over the Spurs, “I think guys are just tired of losing.”
Previous rank: 24
“That just shows growth,” Miles Bridges said of his team’s effort not to give up easy baskets, as had been a problem for much of the season. “Earlier in the year we wouldn’t have been able to do that. But we are learning as we go. We’ve got guys that want to win, and when you’ve got guys that want to win, it’s easy to compete.” Except when LaMelo Ball is one of those guys?
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Previous rank: 18
Anthony Davis is back. Kyrie Irving is, presumably, coming back at some point. But the Mavericks have still been bit by the injury bug. “It’s just tough because of the simple fact that we don’t have the guys to be on the floor at the same time. Injuries have been our Achilles heel, but we’re managing,” said Daniel Gafford. “It’s just something we’re trying to figure out on the fly.”
Previous rank: 26
Even after a win, it is difficult to draw much encouragement from Milwaukee’s season, as the Bucks nearly blew a 26-point lead to the eight-win Kings. “We should not be in that position,” said Giannis Antetokounmpo. “We should not be in that position. We’re up 26 points. We should not let them come back to three. Like, we have to do a better job of just putting the game away.”
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Previous rank: 19
If you had any concerns about how a 9-16 start would impact the Blazers, or whether they might tank, center Donovan Clingan is here to assuage them: “We’re really just sticking together. We’re figuring out what we have to do to win games, to play well. And we’re not going off script … we’re listening to coaches. Everyone’s playing for one another and that’s really important.”
Previous rank: 25
Following a horrendous start to the season, the Clippers are 7-1 since coach Tyronn Lue said they have to finish the season with a 35-20 record over their final 55 games to give themselves a chance at a playoff berth. “Yeah, we still got steps,” said Kawhi Leonard. “I mean, good teams are in the top eight or above. We’re not there. We’re below .500. So we’re working our way up.”
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Previous rank: 15
“Fire Iisalo!” chants have apparently been audible in FedEx Forum, where the Grizzlies are scrapping for a play-in tournament berth and facing an existential question: Do they want their coach or their superstar, Ja Morant, for the future? Because it is becoming increasingly clear Memphis cannot succeed at the level it needs to under the current leadership structure.
Previous rank: 17
“We love Trae and what he does for us,” insisted Hawks coach Quin Snyder, even amid reports to the contrary. The coach went on, though. “We’ve got some high-level defenders … which they’re consistent no matter who’s on the floor. But it’s been great to have Trae back. And I think our team will continue to meld.” Not exactly a surprise that Young is on the trading block, then!
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Previous rank: 21
Billy Donovan, a coach’s coach: ‘‘We don’t have the margins not to [do the little things]. The consistency part, the concentration part. The way we’re trying to play — and I don’t necessarily think that we’re different from other teams because the pace of the game is definitely sped up throughout the league — that’s what we’re fighting for. Can you come back and do it again?”
Previous rank: 20
Draymond Green was ejected twice in a seven-game span — in a pair of Warriors wins, which raised interesting questions around Golden State, where coach Steve Kerr … quelled concerns they may be better in his absence? “We’ve been a little jumbled this year,” he said. “We haven’t quite found a rhythm, but I do feel better about the way we’ve played the last couple weeks.”
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Previous rank: 14
Coach Kenny Atkinson’s confidence in his talented Cavaliers might, slowly, be paying off, even amid the losses. “I wish I could be up here and be like, ‘Yeah, we won this game,’ but you feel it as a coach,” he said. “I told the guys after: I couldn’t be more encouraged. Disappointed in kind of how we lost, but like I keep telling you: Buy the dip. I’ve got a ton of confidence in this group.”
Previous rank: 16
“We’re definitely not there yet,” Heat guard Norman Powell said of his team’s status, as it heads for the midseason turn on either an upswing or downswing, depending on how you look at it. “We’ve had stretches. You can see where we want to be, how we are, and the potential of the team. But good, great teams, it’s their identity every single night. And that’s what we’re building.”
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Previous rank: 11
A win over the Pacers was a microcosm of the season for the Magic. “Much better offensively, but we’ve still got to figure out how to string together some stops on the defensive end,” said Orlando’s Desmond Bane, who has been averaging a 22-5-5 on 47/37/94 shooting splits for a month-plus. “We got a few when it mattered, but we’re better than that on that end, for sure.”
Previous rank: 12
Of rookie Collin Murray-Boyles and sophomores Jamal Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter, Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said, “Those guys, they’re built of special cloth, of resiliency. They’re really putting in a lot of work. It doesn’t matter if we win, we lose. It doesn’t matter if we’re up, we’re down. It does not really matter what kind of mood we’re in. They keep going forward.”
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Previous rank: 10
The Sixers are, believe it or not, incorporating Joel Embiid and Paul George into Tyrese Maxey’s team, and it is … kind of working. “Everybody understands that it will be your time,” said Embiid. “But until then, just do your job. It’s not necessarily that everybody knows their role. We’re just playing basketball, and we like each other. No one cares about taking a step back for the other.”
Previous rank: 13
What did Suns star Devin Booker think when in a span of 17 seconds the Thunder erased a four-point deficit to tie Sunday’s thriller? “It’s our turn,” he said. Against all odds, it may be their turn very soon. The Suns play hard, and they have Booker. Dillon Brooks is enjoying a great season. Everyone has bought in behind them. And Jalen Green has barely even played yet.
The Nuggets, one could argue, are a bottom-10 team without Nikola Jokić, as is the case right now. As coach David Adelman said, “We’re going to have to find a way to get to the fourth quarter.” But be real: Jokić will be back, and Denver will be fine. For now I put them here, on the bottom of our title tier, where every team on out, if all were to go right, could win the whole thing.
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Previous rank: 3
Yeah, they could still win it, despite their four-game losing streak, if they can solve their defensive issues. There is only so much Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson can do when Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns both need to be on the floor. Coach Mike Brown’s solution? “Our mindset is everybody just trying to bring a little bit more.”
Previous rank: 8
Something is missing from these Timberwolves, especially in the absence of Nickeil Alexander-Walker. “We have to have more internal voices,” said Minnesota’s coach, Chris Finch. “When things aren’t going well, our guys can be a little bit quiet in those moments. That’s just kind of been in our DNA the last couple of years.” Not sure Ja Morant would be that answer.
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Previous rank: 9
“Best 2 way player in the game,” Jaylen Brown posted on X (formerly Twitter), before he asked to defend two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. “Smh,” Brown added when he was passed over for Eastern Conference Player of the Month honors in favor of Brunson, before he dropped 50 points on Leonard’s Clippers. Yes, he is a superstar. The dude is a bona fide MVP candidate.
Previous rank: 5
The Knicks came for the Pistons on Monday, and Detroit set the defending Eastern Conference finalists straight, reminding New York that last season’s playoff series was last season. “It was a playoff series from last year,” said Cade Cunningham, “but them being second and us being first [in the East], them being on our heels, we were not trying to allow that. It was a big game and we all came in locked in.”
Like the Nuggets, who are without Jokić (left knee hyperextension), and like the Rockets, without Şengün (right ankle sprain), the Spurs are playing in the absence of their injured All-Star center, Victor Wembanyama (left knee hyperextension). But he should be back this week. “He’s champing at the bit, and we’ll get him out there as soon as we can,” said coach Mitch Johnson.
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Previous rank: 1
After starting the season 24-1, the Thunder are 6-6 in their last 12 games, including consecutive losses to the Suns and Hornets, which counts as a serious slump for the defending champions. They remain heavy favorites, though. As coach Mark Daigneault said, “You can look at it as a threat, as a source of insecurity, or you can look at it as a challenge and, like I said, a privilege.”
Believe it or not, there was a time when being a Nick Saban disciple did not seem like a ticket to greatness. Particularly in the first part of his Alabama tenure, when schools were desperate to mimic Saban’s methods, some of the more prominent names on his coaching tree like Derek Dooley, Jim McElwain and Will Muschamp could not reproduce his secret sauce when they got their chance to run SEC programs.
But with Saban now comfortably on the ESPN desk, where it seems like he spends most of his time either railing on the state of the sport or helping rehab the image of his fired buddies, his influence over college football is inescapable.
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While Saban left the stage before the professionalized era of college football could chip away at his mystique, he has found a way to still dominate the sport through proxies who have adapted his lessons to a model that Saban himself wanted little to do with.
“I think everybody learned a lot from Nick,” said Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, who was Alabama’s wide receivers coach for Saban’s first four seasons in Tuscaloosa. “If you were serious about your career and wanted to be a head coach one day, you took great notes or great mental notes. I felt like after one year with Coach Saban, I had learned more about how to run a program than I maybe did the previous 27 as an assistant coach.”
Now, as we reach the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, you can see Saban’s influence on multiple generations of coaches who have reached the top of the sport.
There’s Cignetti, 64, who has clearly borrowed Saban’s intensity, attention to detail and unwillingness to accept complacency from anyone in his organization.
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There’s Dan Lanning, 39, who learned at Alabama that you need to recruit the best players to build the best teams and has imported that philosophy to Oregon.
There’s Mario Cristobal, 55, who has built Miami in the image of Alabama teams that dominated on both lines of scrimmage.
Then there’s Pete Golding, 41, who almost sounds like he’s doing a Saban imitation — both in cadence and curse words — whenever he steps in front of a microphone as Ole Miss’ new head coach.
Nick Saban may be retired from coaching, but his fingerprints are all over this College Football Playoff field with the coaches remaining. (Brandon Sumrall/Getty Images)
(Brandon Sumrall via Getty Images)
And though they’re all different in terms of their X-and-O expertise and what they borrowed stylistically from Saban, the one thing they all share is an inside view of how to build the kind of multi-layered, staffed-up organization that covered every base and made Alabama a consistent winning machine no matter which coaches or players came in and out in a given year.
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“The time there opened my eyes to what college football had grown into, what it had become and the resources necessary,” said Cristobal, who spent four seasons as an assistant under Saban.
They’re not alone. Seemingly every top-level program, but particularly those that encountered peak Saban either as a competitor or a cousin, has tried to copy Alabama with an army of analysts, personnel gurus and assistants to assistants on top of the cutting-edge facilities and bloated recruiting budgets.
It hasn’t always worked out, of course. Plenty of former Saban assistants have arrived at head coaching jobs with big hype and left a trail of expensive buyouts in their wake.
But when you look at the entire breadth of the sport, Saban’s coaching tree is now undeniable, stretching from Kirby Smart at Georgia to Steve Sarkisian at Texas to Lane Kiffin at LSU to Brent Key at Georgia Tech along with up-and-comers like newly hired Cal coach Tosh Lupoi and Charles Huff at Memphis.
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It’s enough Saban-connected success across the landscape to raise the question of why Alabama — which is 20-8 without a playoff win since Saban retired — doesn’t have a Saban acolyte in charge now.
But that’s a story for another day. Alabama is old news at this point, and Saban’s DNA is all over the four teams playing for a chance at this national championship.
It doesn’t even necessarily matter how long his former assistants were there or how they arrived.
Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding was a defensive assistant to Nick Saban while at Alabama. (Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Lanning and Golding represent the dozens of up-and-comers who passed through the Saban system, hoping to learn his famous “process” from the inside.
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Golding was a defensive coordinator at UTSA who caught Saban’s eye at a chalk talk and subsequently spent five years at Alabama, helping the Crimson Tide win the 2020 national title. If you watch and listen to him closely, you can see echoes of Saban’s verbal tics with a lot of “aights” and hand motions as he makes his points.
“I think most people who went through and were fortunate enough to be around Coach Saban understand, No. 1, the lifeblood of the program is recruiting,” Golding said. “And then you’ve got to have sound schemes on both sides. You want to keep stability within those schemes for the development of players. And there’s a toughness component, a competitive character component to hold these guys accountable and hold them to a high standard. And I think that’s pretty consistent with whoever is playing right now.”
Lanning’s time at Alabama changed the trajectory of his career. Though he was only with Saban for one year, he left a job as a full-time, on-field coach at Sam Houston State in 2014 to work at Alabama as a graduate assistant, which many would consider a backward career step. But not only did it help launch Lanning into an assistant coaching role at Memphis, getting into Saban’s world helped him land at Georgia for four years under Smart.
“I was going to take a pay cut to go be there,” Lanning said. “When anybody asked me why, I said, ‘I’m going to get my doctorate in football.’ And that’s what I felt like working for Coach Saban. Things I thought I knew, I realized I didn’t know anything.”
In this 2015 file photo, Alabama head coach Nick Saban talks with offensive line coach Mario Cristobal on the sidelines during a game against Ole Miss. (Michael Chang/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
(Michael Chang via Getty Images)
Cristobal represents the scores of coaches who went to Alabama to, in many ways, rehabilitate their career. Like Sarkisian, Kiffin and current Maryland coach Mike Locksley, Cristobal landed at Alabama as offensive line coach and recruiting coordinator after six years at Florida International where he had some success but ultimately fell victim to significant funding and administrative challenges. After four years, Cristobal left to be Willie Taggart’s co-offensive coordinator at Oregon, took over as head coach the following season when Taggart left for Florida State and was successful enough over four years to come back to his alma mater.
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“If I could just put my finger on one thing that I valued the most in terms of learning, was reconfirming what I learned under Coach [Jimmy] Johnson and Coach [Dennis] Erickson, the guys I had a chance to play for here, is under no circumstances can you allow human nature and complacency to take over yourself and the people in your program,” Cristobal said. “That’s at all costs and it’s a daily fight. When you wake up, that has to be opponent No. 1 that you have to attack with intent, with urgency and I would say that would be the most important thing.”
But perhaps the most Saban-like disciple is the one whose tenure at Alabama barely registers a memory.
Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers battered Nick Saban’s Alabama replacement, Kalen DeBoer, and the Crimson Tide in a 38-3 blowout. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
(Luke Hales via Getty Images)
By the time he got to Alabama in 2007, Cignetti had been a longtime quarterbacks coach rising through the ranks from Rice and Temple to Pittsburgh and NC State. Unable to put his career on a path to becoming an FBS head coach, Cignetti in 2011 famously took the job at D-II program IUP — Indiana University of Pennsylvania — making $125,000, about half of his salary at Alabama.
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Since 2019 when James Madison hired him, Cignetti has posted a Saban-like 77-11 record as a head coach and has Indiana on the verge of arguably the most surprising championship in college sports given the program’s history as a perennial loser.
For many years, it was an interesting hypothetical about what would happen if you imported Saban into a random program and not a monster like Alabama or a place like LSU that had untapped potential.
Cignetti has essentially ended that debate.
“There’s a lot of disciples out there doing well,” he said. “And that’s why he’s the greatest of all time.”
Saban’s role in the sport these days is interesting because while he has a huge megaphone, he has chosen to use it largely as a signal flare against the Wild West of the transfer portal and NIL while engaging in dubious conflicts of interest around certain coaching moves like advising Kiffin before he took the LSU job.
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The reality, though, is that Saban chose to become a TV personality because his own dominance in the sport was waning. With the dramatic shift in recruiting and player compensation, he could no longer horde talent on the premise that being an Alabama player would unlock future NFL riches.
He was also 72 years old.
While Alabama may struggle to ever get back to that level of success, this year’s CFP has made it clear his influence across the sport will be felt for decades to come.
We are inching closer and closer to the culmination of the college football season and this week gives us the next step on that journey. The College Football Playoff Semifinals. One of the star quarterbacks in the playoff is fighting to get a sixth year of eligibility from the NCAA. Ross Dellenger explains this story and how there is a chance Trinidad Chambliss is back at Ole Miss next season. Then Ross, Andy Staples and Steven Godfrey discuss Chambliss’ effect on the Rebel’s this season. They breakdown the semifinal matchup against Miami by discussing who has the advantage and what each team needs to do to move on to the Natty.
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Then, they move over to the other semifinal. This is a rematch from earlier in the year as Oregon takes on Indiana. Indiana got the best of Oregon in Eugene, but the guys talk about how this is a much different Oregon team than it was in the first matchup. They discuss if Oregon will be able to get the best of this dominant Indiana team or if the Hoosiers will claim their spot in the championship game. Plus, they look at how the Big Ten conference was not given enough credit for the strength of its teams this year.
Later, Ross reports about the college football calendar changing yet again. No more spring ball? Discussions are being had about changes to the early signing period, games in Week 0, CFP dates, the dates of the portal and spring and summer access periods. Ross, Andy and Godfrey discuss the benefits of changing all of these and what changes should happen to improve the college football calendar.
Get ready for the CFP Semifinals with College Football Enquirer.
Trinidad Chambliss after the CFP Quarterfinal AP Photo/Matthew Hinton
(AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
0:00:00 – Trinidad Chambliss petitions for 6th year
