Dustin Johnson is sticking with LIV Golf for the foreseeable future.
Johnson, a two-time major championship winner and former top-ranked golfer in the world, has signed a multi-year extension with the league, it announced on Wednesday. Johnson was one of the biggest names to make the jump over to LIV Golf from the PGA Tour initially, and he currently is the captain of the 4Aces GC team.
Advertisement
Specifics of Johnson’s new deal are not yet known. His initial contract with LIV Golf was reported to be worth more than $100 million when he first left the Tour in 2022.
Johnson won 24 times on the Tour in his career. He’s won two major titles, too, first the U.S. Open in 2016 and then the Masters in 2020. While he’s more than held his own with LIV Golf, Johnson has struggled significantly lately elsewhere. He has missed the cut in six of his last nine major championship starts. The 41-year-old has plummeted to No. 636 in the Official World Golf Rankings, too, as LIV Golf events still do not count toward ranking points.
LIV Golf also announced that Thomas Detry has joined the 4Aces GC team. Detry, who is currently No. 58 in the OWGR, picked up his inaugural Tour win last season at the WM Phoenix Open. He won that tournament by seven strokes, which made him the first player from Belgium to win on the Tour.
Detry and Johnson will join Patrick Reed and Thomas Pieters on the four-man squad.
Advertisement
“This team is built for big moments, and 2026 is a chance for us to take another step forward,” Johnson said in a statement. “Thomas Detry is a great addition; he’s confident, competitive, and that fits exactly what we’re about. We’ve got the talent, the chemistry, and the mindset to be right there all season.”
Dustin Johnson doesn’t qualify for PGA Tour return
That deal, which Brooks Koepka accepted, allows a select group of LIV Golf members to return to the Tour if they accept several significant penalties. Koepka, for example, will have to make a $5 million donation to charity, can’t earn any FedExCup bonus money in 2026 and can’t receive any sponsor exemptions into signature events, among other things. The Tour estimated that it could cost Koepka up to $85 million in potential earnings.
Advertisement
Koepka, who split with LIV Golf in December, will make his Tour return at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines later this month.
“There was no negotiating,” Koepka said on Monday. “It’s meant to hurt, it does hurt, but I understand. It’s not supposed to be an easy path.”
The program, however, is only available to golfers who have either won a major championship or The Players Championship between 2022 and 2025. As Johnson’s last major win was in 2020, he does not qualify. Other than Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith are also eligible for the program if they wish — though those three have not yet accepted and appear to be, at least for now, committed to LIV Golf.
While it’s unclear if Johnson ever wanted to return to the Tour, the “Returning Members Program” wasn’t an option for him. So, he clearly decided to stick with LIV Golf for the time being.
Johnson and the 4Aces GC will open the new LIV Golf season on Feb 4 in Saudi Arabia.
Trae Young’s debut with the Washington Wizards will have to wait another month at least.
Young, who is still recovering from MCL and quad injuries in his right leg, is not going to be evaluated again until after the All-Star break next month, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Advertisement
That means that Young won’t be on the court with the Wizards until their Feb. 19 matchup with the Indiana Pacers at the very earliest. The NBA’s All-Star weekend is scheduled for Feb. 13-15 at the Intuit Dome in Southern California.
Young was dealt to the Wizards earlier this month in exchange for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, ending his tenure with the Atlanta Hawks. Young had spent his entire career with the Hawks after Atlanta selected him with the No. 5 overall draft pick in 2018.
Young is in the fourth year of a five-year, $215 million deal this season. He could hit free agency this summer, too, as he has a player option for $49 million next season.
Young has played in only 10 games so far this season while dealing with an MCL sprain in his right knee that has reportedly caused him residual pain. He’s also battling a right quad contusion. In those 10 games, he’s averaged 19.3 points and 8.9 assists.
“I don’t want to come back and not be myself for this team and for this city. So I’ll just leave it up to them to make sure they let you know when I’m coming back — hopefully soon.”
The Wizards will enter Wednesday night’s game with the Los Angeles Clippers with just a 10-28 record. They’ve lost three of their last four games and now sit near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.
Advertisement
While Young will undoubtedly make a huge difference for the Wizards on the court, the team clearly isn’t willing to rush anything. The Young era in Washington, however long it ends up being, will have to wait.
We originally wanted to take a closer look at each wild-card losing team for this edition of the Four Verts column. Then came the downpour of the NFL news cycle. Happens! We’ll still hit a couple notable teams eliminated this past weekend, but first, about as big a coaching story as you can get.
Steelers have suddenly become the most fascinating team in the NFL
It’s hard to put into words what Mike Tomlin has meant to the Steelers, the NFL and the community around this league in general. Nineteen years, no losing seasons, a Lombardi Trophy and some of the most fearsome defenses in this century of football are all on Tomlin’s résumé. The future Hall of Famer appears like he’s headed to television for a year after stepping down from his role as Steelers head coach, opening a seismic rift in the league. While Tomlin’s recent run as head coach has been disappointing to some, there will now be an interesting case study to see just how much he was helping the team through its inability to land a franchise quarterback since the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger.
Advertisement
The Steelers have been hitting their head against the ceiling for the past few years in the most disappointing, and quite frankly boring, fashion. This season’s team was the best iteration of the muck they’ve put on the field since Roethlisberger retired, but this run has largely been littered with teams punching above their weight before hitting the wall hard when a more talented team shows up in the playoffs. It’s understandable why that is something an organization, fan base and even Tomlin himself would get tired of. It was time for a shakeup, but as a representative of Fans of Bad Teams: it can always get worse.
These rosters were not talented, clearly, and not once did the Steelers dip below .500 or have a losing season outright. That’s an accomplishment that doesn’t have many peers. Winning in the NFL is difficult, and the fact that for nearly two decades straight the Steelers were a relevant team (to varying degrees) is an unbelievable feat of consistency and leadership. The downside of having such a high baseline level of competency is that it’s difficult to acquire the piece you need to win, especially in the AFC: the quarterback. The highest pick they’ve been able to spend on a quarterback has been Kenny Pickett with the 20th selection in the 2022 NFL Draft. No point in rehashing how that went.
The Steelers need to bottom out and if Tomlin didn’t want to do that, that’s fair and understandable. However, the idea that they’re going to be able to stay as a playoff-relevant team for the near and long-term future is a major question mark. This roster has been good enough to only scrape by into the playoffs where Pittsburgh has been quickly outmatched. Now that Tomlin is gone, seeing just how much value he was adding will be the biggest question for the team — beyond another offseason of quarterback musical chairs if Aaron Rodgers calls it quits.
Advertisement
Salute to 19 years at one job. That’s the kind of longevity and success 99% of NFL head coaches would dream of, even if the run didn’t reach the peak heights over the last half of it. Winning is hard as hell to do for this long in this league, and the fourth Steelers head coach since 1969 has titan-level shoes to fill.
Shifting away from Kevin Patullo is only a slight fix for the Eagles
The Eagles’ tumultuous, dramatic, emotionally draining year came to an end with another disappointing offensive performance to close the season. This time, against one of the worst, most depleted defenses in the league in the 49ers, who are missing several big-ticket players on that side of the ball. Shortly following the end of the Eagles’ season, offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo was relieved of his duties and the team began the search for what will be the fourth play-caller in the Nick Sirianni era which will enter its sixth season. While Patullo certainly was one problem for the Eagles, some of the others they’re facing were around last year. It’s just a Super Bowl ring cures a lot of woes.
Advertisement
The core problem that everyone agrees with regarding the Eagles is simple: There’s just no reason for an offense this talented to have the ruts that they do. There’s too many Pro Bowlers and a couple future Hall of Famers, and the peaks of what all these players can be has already been glimpsed at various moments throughout this iteration of the Eagles. A.J. Brown’s arrival to Philadelphia was a godsend for this team, immediately helping take the passing game to a new level while having a stellar performance in the Eagles’ first Super Bowl against the Chiefs. Things have stagnated here, but it’s not all on the coaches who have been there. The players themselves have been inconsistent as well.
Last season, the ever-expressive Brown complained that “the passing” was an issue for the Eagles. Including the playoffs, the Eagles had 11 games with under 200 passing yards last season and seven of those games finished with 127 passing yards or fewer. Total net passing yards is not the cleanest way to assess the woes of the passing game, but that number is shockingly low for an offense with this many draft picks and contract extensions folded into it. Despite those troubles, the Eagles rode the legs of Saquon Barkley and a historically good defense en route to an emphatic Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs.
The Super Bowl is the goal in the NFL. Winning one can generate enough feel-good that the expectations remain high and previous struggles get lost to time. When those same problems reared their head this season — including two halves of football with zero completions — they were essentially treated as new and all blame landed in the lap of Patullo. While Patullo struggled, he didn’t invent the issues that revolved around the Eagles’ offense. That is what Sirianni and general manager Howie Roseman have to figure out this offseason.
Advertisement
It remains to be seen if big changes will be coming to the personnel on the Eagles’ offense, but they probably have about one year left of playing this poorly before things need a major shakeup. Brown obviously is not happy with how things have unfolded for him recently and there’s only so much longer this can be an issue hovering over the locker room. Just another day for this team.
The solution to Green Bay’s latest playoff failure may be hard to stomach right now
After blowing a 21-3 halftime lead and allowing Caleb Williams and the Bears to etch a historic win in the NFL’s oldest rivalry, Matt LaFleur’s feet have been held to the fire. The Packers did take an injured club on the road to one of the hottest teams in the league, but a three-possession lead blown in a half is a tough pill for everyone involved to swallow. The Packers’ all-in season ended in a complete mess with questions about how to proceed, but the likely answer might not sound satisfactory right now: just run it back and try again.
Green Bay’s defense never maintained the hot start following the Micah Parsons trade, but by season’s end, even before Parsons was lost with a torn ACL, the group was one of the worst defenses in the league. The Packers’ linebacker play took a huge step back and the defense was routinely getting worse as games went along. The middle of the defense was already shaky — and then they lost defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt and Parsons for the season. That was too much to overcome, and it showed as Chicago ate up chunks of yards in bursts in the second half on its way to knocking Green Bay out of the playoffs.
Advertisement
If the Packers believe injuries, which they suffered on offense as well to key players like Elgton Jenkins and Tucker Kraft, were the main root of their downfall, then running it back and crossing your fingers that the injury onslaught doesn’t happen again is a defensible strategy. However, Packers fans appear to be growing tired of getting to the playoffs and not making a run to the Super Bowl, even though the team has made the playoffs in six out of the seven seasons LaFleur has been in charge.
Winning is hard in the NFL. It’s hard to find coaches who can win and develop quarterback talent, and LaFleur has proven himself to be competent enough at both that finding a realistic upgrade would be difficult. That’s something everyone who watches this league should keep in mind as competency becomes weaponized over time when it never breaks through to the biggest wins: even being here is incredibly difficult. Getting to the playoffs once is hard. Getting there every year is harder.
This one stung. Because they had the win in their hands, and they have the quarterback talent necessary to go on a run even though the defense was banged up. That doesn’t necessarily mean now is the time to blow it up. Try again next time.
Advertisement
Carolina gained the most of any playoff loser
The Panthers might have lost a tough one against the Rams this past weekend, but they should feel good about where they stand after trading blows with one of the Super Bowl favorites this postseason. There should be a renewed sense that the Panthers can be a more convincing representative of the playoff pool next season, should they win the dismal NFC South again. After a season that saw the highest peaks and lowest valleys, this last performance is at least a sign that they’re doing some things right — which can’t be said about the entirety of team owner David Tepper’s regime. However, there’s a clearer vision of what steps this team needs to make ahead of what will be a crossroads in 2026.
It’s a bit of a miracle that Bryce Young has gotten to a point where the Panthers picking up his fifth-year option makes sense. Considering where Young started in his career, as one of the worst first-round quarterbacks in league history, the fact that he’s functional enough to be a postseason starter is one of the more incredible development stories. There’s still a long way to go for Young before he can get the lucrative contract extension, because his physical limitations put a hard cap on this offense sometimes, but at least it’s not a position they immediately need to upgrade for next season.
Carolina will be able to turn their attention toward the rest of the team, which needs some major upgrades — just like every other team in the NFC South. In Week 18, the Panthers did not have the talent to put away the Buccaneers and lost that game, needing the Falcons to beat the Saints in order to make the playoffs. Considering they just spent a first-round draft pick on rookie sensation wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, a few premium assets being put into defense or the offensive line is a strong idea to try and improve to keep this train moving. They have some solid pieces on both sides of the ball, but not nearly enough talent to be a real Super Bowl contender.
Advertisement
Pass rush is a good starting point. Finding secondary help or help at linebacker is a smart play — really anything. This team is not far removed from picking in the top 10 of the 2025 NFL Draft and the overall team quality is only a few hairs better than a team picking in the top 10. They had a losing record, so that’s not a controversial statement.
If Young is going to have his best chance of success to be the Panthers’ quarterback beyond next season, they need a lot to go right. But at least they’ve put themselves in position to be a truer version of a playoff contender next season.
The 30-year-old Suárez is coming off a season in which he posted a 3.20 ERA over 157 1/3 innings with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Advertisement
Since converting to a full-time starter in 2022, Suárez has been an effective pitcher when on the mound. Over the past four seasons, he owns a 3.59 ERA over 588 1/3 innings. That was good for a 117 ERA+, meaning his ERA was 17% better than the league average over the past four seasons.
The left-hander, however, has dealt with minor injuries in each season during that stretch and has never started more than 30 games in a single regular season. Notably, the last time Suárez dealt with an elbow injury was in 2023. He was able to return from the issue that season and still posted solid numbers. His injuries the past two years have not involved his arm. While he’s not necessarily a workhorse, Suárez has averaged 26 starts per year since 2022, so he’s not injury-prone, either.
His performance since joining the Phillies’ rotation was enough to make Suárez one of the more coveted starting pitchers on the free-agent market, ranking No. 9 on Yahoo Sports’ list. With Suárez, Dylan Cease and Tatsuya Imai off the board, that leaves Framber Valdez and Zach Gallen as the biggest names left on the starting pitching market.
Advertisement
Suárez is a fascinating signing for the Red Sox, who also acquired veteran Sonny Gray this winter in an effort to shore up the team’s rotation. With Garrett Crochet expected to once again serve as the team’s ace, Suárez, Gray and Brayan Bello should round out the top four in the rotation. From there, the Red Sox have myriad other options, including Connelly Early, who showed promise in limited starts last season. The team could also consider Kyle Harrison, who was acquired as part of the Rafael Devers trade, or Payton Tolle, who remains one of the team’s top prospects despite struggling in his brief debut in the majors. In addition to those three, the Red Sox should get Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck and Patrick Sandoval back from injury at some point in 2026.
Because of that, it could be argued that starting pitching wasn’t the most pressing need for the Red Sox. But as a number of MLB teams will attest, you can never have enough starting pitching, and Suárez definitely makes the team stronger at the top of the rotation. If the Red Sox make it to the postseason in 2026, he’s a clear candidate to earn a playoff start.
Despite his success on the mound, Suárez doesn’t get a ton of publicity, thanks to his approach. He doesn’t throw hard by today’s standards, with a fastball that averaged just 91.3 mph last season. Because of that, Suárez isn’t an elite strikeout pitcher and needs to rely on pinpoint location and great command to stymie hitters. That said, throughout most of his time as a starter, the approach has worked. Suárez limited opposing batters to a 31.1% hard-hit rate last season, one of the best figures in MLB.
That success has mostly come due to Suárez’s breaking pitches. While his fastball, sinker and cutter tend to get hit hard, his changeup, curve and slider are true weapons. Opposing batters hit .203 on Suárez’s changeup last season. They posted even worse averages against his curveball and slider.
Advertisement
The Red Sox are the ideal team to take advantage of those strengths. When Boston emerged as a surprise contender at the beginning of the 2024 MLB season, the team did so thanks to an approach that drastically cut down on four-seam fastball usage. The Red Sox finished the year throwing four-seam fastballs 37.1% of the time, the lowest figure in the majors.
That strategy didn’t continue in 2025, as Boston jumped to 14th in fastball usage, but the team’s willingness to get away from the pitch suggests the Red Sox could see value in Suárez that other teams overlooked. And a tweak to his approach or pitch usage could lead to even more improvement from a player who already has one All-Star appearance under his belt.
While Suárez’s approach could be a cause for concern in the long run given his lack of strikeouts and lesser velocity, the Red Sox might be the perfect team to take advantage of his unique approach.
Tom Haberstroh and Dan Devine discuss Jaylen Brown’s $35,000 fine after calling out the NBA refs, break down how the lack of foul shots is impacting the league in the new year and ask what can be done to end the scoring drought.
Advertisement
Next, they dive into the latest NBA trade deadline rumor mill news. The duo breaks down Rich Paul’s comments surrounding a potential Austin Reaves trade and gives their thoughts on the best fit for Ja Morant.
Later, they react to Giannis being booed by his home crowd. Should the Bucks trade Giannis for Jalen Johnson? Plus, they discuss Anthony Davis not undergoing surgery for his hand injury and confirm he is back on the trade block. Where would he fit best?
1:12 – The Big Number: $35,000 – Jaylen Brown’s fine for criticizing refs
3:50 – NBA scoring drought: What’s causing the slump?
15:57 – The Little Numbers: 77 – 3-shot fouls called since January 1st
Advertisement
22:11 – The Little Numbers: 12 – teams with at least 17% of total points from free throws
26:43 – The Little Numbers: 3.4% – OKC’s FTA rate increase in the new year
30:49 – Latest with the trade deadline
32:41 – What’s next for Ja Morant?
37:37 – Anthony Davis back on the trade block
47:10 – Giannis gets booed by home crowd
Boston, MA – January 10: Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown drives to the basket as San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet defends in the first quarter. The Celtics played the Spurs at TD Garden on January 10, 2026. (Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — About 12 miles south of Washington, D.C., the Gaylord National Resort looms over the Potomac River, its 19-story indoor garden atrium delivering a perpetual oasis as thousands of tourists meander underneath its glass ceiling.
This week, university and conference executives participate in the annual NCAA convention here.
Advertisement
As it turns out, the scene — thousands of convention-goers under a single roof — is indicative of the NCAA as a whole. The Gaylord is quite literally a “big tent,” the term often used to describe the NCAA’s scope of member schools with drastically differing missions, standards and financial prowess, yet they are all governed under a single national association.
Perhaps, it’s time for a change.
“Big problems are not solved in big rooms filled with people. That is a principle,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a recent interview with Yahoo Sports.
In the midst of the association’s annual gathering, leaders from the NCAA’s aristocracy — the Football Bowl Subdivision, including most notably the four power conferences — are charting a course for more change to the governance and enforcement of college athletics, in particular football.
Advertisement
Unbeknownst to many, college leaders have created a new committee with the expressed mission to study the future of FBS governance and determine if the subdivision should operate outside of the NCAA structure — a long-discussed move gaining more momentum than ever.
But there is, perhaps, something even more serious brewing: a frustration from those in many power leagues at the lack of enforcement from the NCAA — and College Sports Commission too — over allegations of tampering of college athletes, eligibility rulings and the circumvention of the industry’s new roster spending cap.
For some, a solution is emerging: Each conference should govern itself, enforce its own rules and, perhaps even, compete solely with its own members.
“If the CSC is not going to enforce the House settlement, if the NCAA is not going to enforce tampering rules and if Congress is not going to pass the SCORE Act, then it leaves the SEC in a position that we have to go our own way to create some rules and a level of responsibility,” Georgia president Jere Morehead, a former chair of the NCAA DI Board of Directors, told Yahoo Sports earlier this month. “We’d be able to make a much stronger argument that we are not in violation of antitrust rules because we don’t have market power.”
Leaders from across college sports are gathering this week at the Gaylord National Resort in National Harbor to discuss the industry’s many pain points.
While the SEC isn’t alone in its dismay over national enforcement, league officials are publicly expressing their feelings, while they privately take preliminary steps to contemplate a new model.
Advertisement
Sankey cautions any suggestion of the long-discussed “breakaway” by the SEC and other power leagues. Nobody wants to “rush there,” and the SEC remains committed to a “national organization,” he says.
However, “there are limits to that,” Sankey said. “The frustration level is building. I anticipate that there’s a lot of people that are saying, ‘This might not work for us.’”
Those people exist well beyond the SEC’s footprint, even if they remain in the background.
“There is support among other memberships for a similar model,” one Big Ten athletic director told Yahoo Sports. “Each league governs itself and plays only games within the league.”
Advertisement
‘We are money laundering’
At the forefront of the latest frustrations is the unruly nature of the college sports landscape six months into the industry’s most fundamental change in its more than 100-year history — schools directly compensating athletes through a capped revenue-sharing model.
The enforcement failures are directed at the NCAA, charged with tampering and overseeing eligibility, and the new entity created by the power leagues, the College Sports Commission, charged with policing the cap.
The pursuit of athletes at other schools is a common occurrence, described by Mississippi State president Mark Keenum as “widespread tampering.” Coaches and staff members are encouraging athletes from other schools to enter the portal, despite many of them being under signed revenue-share agreements with their current programs — something that has resulted already in one lawsuit (Wisconsin is suing Miami over tampering allegations).
Advertisement
Roster budgets are booming well beyond the $20.5 million cap meant for all athletes within a university athletic department. Most big-brand football roster estimates are exceeding $25 million as schools arrange the redirection of revenues — from the athletic department to rosters — using third-party marketing and endorsement deals exempt from the cap.
They are using old-fashioned methods (collectives and boosters), multimedia rights partners (Playfly and Learfied) and apparel brands (Adidas, Nike and Under Armour). And while these deals must pass through the CSC’s new clearinghouse, NIL Go, university administrators are guaranteeing the cash to athletes before they reach the point of being cleared.
The situation has left the industry exasperated and broken, with many wondering aloud four simple words.
What are we doing?
Advertisement
“We are money laundering,” said one high-level Big Ten school administrator. “All we are doing right now is moving money around.”
Three power conference athletic directors — all of them outside of the SEC, as it turns out — told Yahoo Sports within the last week that they believe there should be no cap as the enforcement of it is far too difficult.
In a recent interview on an Ohio-based podcast, the Tim & Beanie Show, Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said college leaders need to seriously consider no longer “restricting the money,” as it results in rule-breaking and legal challenges. He suggests that the $20.5 million cap figure is no longer enough, evident by the third-party workaround from schools.
Advertisement
“Should we just make it an open market?” Bjork asked.
But not everyone wishes to drastically alter a system that is only six months old.
In a wide-ranging interview with Yahoo Sports recently, Sankey specifically directed his dissatisfaction toward the NCAA for inconsistencies in eligibility waiver rulings that often magnify frustration and confusion among coaches, he says, and also chided the organization for little tampering enforcement.
“I’m mystified why there is a lack of clarity over the responsibility for tampering,” Sankey said. “That is the responsibility for the NCAA to oversee.”
However, tampering is not an easily prosecuted violation. Firstly, NCAA officials point to a Tennessee judge’s ruling in 2024 that allows booster-funded NIL collectives to communicate with high school recruits and transfer portal players. That judge’s preliminary injunction still stands.
Advertisement
In a statement to Yahoo Sports, the NCAA says its enforcement team has processed about 95 tampering cases thus far this year, some of which remain with the Committee on Infractions for final approval.
“Successfully enforcing tampering cases requires cooperation from coaches, student-athletes and administrators — especially from those whose teams were tampered with — and while the Association is thankful for the support for the finished cases, more cooperation will lead to more closed cases,” said Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president of external affairs.
However, the roster spending cap is another matter entirely.
It is overseen by the College Sports Commission.
Advertisement
‘Gun shy’ CSC?
The College Sports Commission is only in its infancy, but its CEO Bryan Seeley has by all accounts worked diligently with conference and member schools to assure an earnest operation of the system.
However, in a situation indicative of the strife within college sports, the CSC’s participation agreement — drafted and encouraged by attorneys from the power leagues — has twice failed to gain consensus among the 68 schools in the SEC, Big 12, ACC and Big Ten. The original version of the document — signed by the SEC but only binding if all power league schools sign — prohibits universities from taking legal action against the CSC. It’s a way to protect the CSC to enforce rules and avoid the death knell of NCAA enforcement — legal challenges from its own member schools.
“Everyone wants to blame the NCAA. The NCAA is us,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said. “We made the rules as a governing body and yet members broke the rules and lawyered up to sue over the rules they created.”
Advertisement
In a presentation from the NCAA convention on Wednesday, Seeley delivered an impassioned 10-minute plea to schools, urging them to sign the participation agreement — a document he refers to as “foundational” to the future — and encouraged administrators to openly support it.
“If there’s a time to stick out your neck, it’s now,” Seeley told the room of conference and school officials.
Investigations could be right around the corner. Seeley says the organization is in the process of notifying several schools of “issues we’re looking into in terms of unreported NIL deals.” The CSC recently hired a 10th member to its staff, which includes at least one former FBI investigator.
Morehead and three other power conference university presidents penned a letter earlier this week encouraging schools to sign the CSC agreement so true enforcement can begin. The situation with the CSC agreement is “the perfect example of why we can’t fix our problems,” said Joe Castiglione, the outgoing athletic director at Oklahoma.
Advertisement
“The CSC is probably a little gun shy to enforce things at the Power Four schools because we basically just fired the NCAA,” Tennessee athletic director Danny White said.
Many administrators attribute some of the ballooning rosters not as much to cap circumvention but to schools “frontloading” athlete contracts last spring. Universities paid millions to players for their 2025 roster before the implementation of the new enforcement entity and the creation of the cap, thus providing them with excess cash to use in the portal for next year’s roster.
“It’s going to take a couple of years to normalize what happened in the frontloading,” said Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, who says he’s aggressively working toward having the participation agreement signed soon. “CSC is prepared to enforce settlement rules and is making real progress.”
Last summer, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said that a school may need to be punished to fully realize the effectiveness of the new enforcement arm.
Advertisement
“That needs to happen,” Phillips said. “And if it happens in our league, I won’t feel any differently about it because this is about us trying to settle down the whole entire enterprise.”
Is enforcement on the way?
Sankey gestures toward the NIL Go clearinghouse as one avenue for enforcement by approving and denying third-party compensation to athletes. In the latest figures, the CSC has approved 17,321 deals worth $127.2 million and denied 524 deals worth $14.9 million. Several hundred more are under review.
The organization announced on Friday that it is “concerned” over third-party guarantees to athletes that have not yet been approved and that it is launching inquiries into several programs for unreported NIL deals. If these deals are eventually rejected, athletes may be risking their eligibility.
Advertisement
“If we don’t get the federal legislation and schools don’t legitimately agree to this settlement and do everything we can to follow the spirit of the law, if you don’t get to that place, we’re going to have to look at the other alternatives that allow us to have guardrails,” Baylor president Linda Livingstone, a former chair of the NCAA Board of Governors, told Yahoo Sports in an interview in August.
“The ones you hear most about are some kind of bargaining model,” she continued. “We don’t want an employment model, but everybody recognizes bargaining is something we need to be considering.”
‘What’s old is new again’
Decades ago, even before Mike Slive and Jim Delaney deftly operated the SEC and Big Ten, enforcement and investigations originated from the conference office.
Advertisement
Many administrators believe such conference-only governance provides a way to create rules and enforce those rules — such as tampering, eligibility and the roster cap — without as much legal scrutiny as the NCAA endures.
But for many that also could mean something else: conference-only competition.
“Federal law prevents us from setting unilaterally national standards,” says Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin. “It seems like the only chance you have at setting a standard is a smaller subset of schools. We want to make this a national sport. But according to federal law, it’s a regional sport that happens to have national appeal.”
For years, conferences operated within silos, governing only themselves, investigating and enforcing themselves and playing mostly themselves until the postseason, when bowl games — tethered to specific leagues — arranged end-of-year matchups.
Advertisement
“What’s old is new again,” said one power league athletic director with a laugh here at the convention.
But such a model doesn’t solve all of the problems, Sankey acknowledges, though it’s “helpful to have a more consistent environment and more commonality among decision-makers to make decisions for the group,” he said.
“Regardless of everyone who calls you to pitch their idea, there is no easy button,” Sankey said.
From the convention on Tuesday, NCAA president Charlie Baker doesn’t necessarily disagree on some of these points. In fact, the NCAA plans to undergo what Baker described as a “pretty big review” of rule-making to “figure out where deregulation makes sense.” The vast majority of his membership believes that national standards should exist on academic and eligibility standards, seasons of competition and some level of playing rules. As for the rest of it, he hopes to shift to more “conference-centric.”
Advertisement
“The big question mark on some of this is, ‘Can you create a national championship if you don’t have some framework on how people are engaged?’” he asked.
It’s true.
What if other leagues don’t adopt similar rules and enforce them? One SEC athletic director says it’s “plausible” to have an SEC-only independent enforcement arm, but that could cause problems with national competition.
“If the Big Ten does something different, it doesn’t work,” the official said. “Our coaches would be up our asses.”
That’s why some within the SEC believe that conference-only competition is necessary — at least eventually — if other conferences do not adopt and enforce similar policies.
Advertisement
“l think we’d want to play with the schools following the rules,” said Morehead, the Georgia president. “I think this plan would work because college football fans are focused on the SEC. Look at the TV ratings this past season. Our fans want to see a rules structure.”
The SEC won 13 of the football national championships from 2006-2022. Despite not having a team for a third straight year in the national title game, the league’s viewership continues to top the sport. Twelve of the top 15 most-watched games this season involved an SEC team.
Can it survive only playing among itself? The league may be trading legal antitrust scrutiny for heated political criticism.
Sankey knows this. In fact, unprompted during the interview, he launched into his respect and appreciation for national competition such as the NCAA basketball tournament — one of the most popular events in American sports. Over the last several weeks, Sankey has distributed to his university presidents a history on “how we got to where we are now,” says Keenum, the Mississippi State president.
Advertisement
“The decisions made in the early 2000s, to pull the commissioner’s office out of investigation and enforcement, do we want to make any changes to the current status quo?” Keenum asks. “We are having early preliminary conversations in our conference in light of all the frustrations and without a clearly delineated enforcement and investigative body.”
Some suggest that it should go well beyond a conference-only governance model.
In a wide-ranging story published at Yahoo Sports in June, several power conference athletic directors publicly voiced their support for a collective-bargaining model as a way to establish rules, regulations and some stability.
As the NCAA convention marches onward here, beneath the giant roof of the Gaylord National Resort, everyone seems to be searching for a solution.
Advertisement
Anything but this.
“Lots of people in this league are saying, ‘What is Plan B?’” Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts says. “I’d put a really small group together, including current coaches. Put everything on the table. You’re basically saying, ‘If we were going to start over, what would it look like?’ The longer we wait, the deeper the hole gets.”
In 18 seasons with the Ravens, Harbaugh posted a 180-113 record. He led Baltimore to a Super Bowl XLVII victory in the 2012 season, 12 playoff appearances and six AFC North championships.
He emerged as the top head-coaching candidate in this year’s hiring cycle, and the Giants were willing to pony up to pay the 63-year-old and his future staff, according to Hughes.
Advertisement
As for Dart’s reported appearance during Harbaugh’s Wednesday meeting with the Giants, it wasn’t exclusive. Dart is around the facility daily and has met with most of the coaches his organization has welcomed for in-person interviews, per Hughes.
College basketball is getting a new, shorter transfer window.
The NCAA announced Wednesday it will adjust transfer windows for both men’s and women’s college basketball to just 15 days immediately following the conclusion of their respective national championship games.
Advertisement
This change, which was proposed by the Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees in November, will go into effect in April. Now, the women’s basketball notification-of-transfer window will be open from April 6-20. The men’s basketball window will be open from April 7-21.
Additionally, a 15-day window to enter the transfer portal will start five days after a school announces a new head coach. If a school hasn’t hired a new coach within 30 days of the previous head coach’s departure, and the 31st day is after the national championship game, a 15-day window will open, too.
This is now the third change to the transfer portal window since it was first introduced ahead of the 2022-23 academic year. Initially, the NCAA had a 60-day window that started after Selection Sunday of the NCAA tournament. That was cut to 45 days after Selection Sunday in 2023, and then shortened to 30 days starting after the second round of the tournaments in October.
Now, teams will have to wait until each tournament has ended to jump into the portal.
Advertisement
This is one of several changes the NCAA made on Wednesday. Men’s wrestling will have a new 30-day transfer window starting April 1 of each year, down from 45 days. Men’s ice hockey will have a 15-day window starting after the national championship game. Men’s and women’s track and field will still have a 30-day window that opens after the selections for the outdoor track and field championships, as well as a fall window.
The men’s and women’s fields for this season’s NCAA tournaments will be revealed on March 15. The men’s Final Four is scheduled for April 4 and 6 in Indianapolis, while the women’s Final Four is set for April 3 and 5 in Phoenix.
At long last, the Boston Red Sox are on the board in free agency.
Just hours after Alex Bregman’s deal with the Chicago Cubs was made official, the Red Sox made their first major-league free-agent signing of the winter on Wednesday, agreeing to a five-year, $130 million deal with left-hander Ranger Suárez. Boston was the only MLB team that had yet to add to its big-league roster via free agency this winter, with its additions to this point (notably, Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and Johan Oviedo) all coming via trade. Suárez represents Boston’s biggest move yet — and a fascinating and unexpected pivot in the wake of losing Bregman.
Advertisement
Once Bregman bolted for Chicago, it was natural to speculate about how the Red Sox would attempt to replace his bat, despite a narrow selection of alternatives still available in free agency or via trade. But while the Red Sox have been linked to infielder Bo Bichette, reports indicated that Boston was contemplating leaning further into its pitching staff as its core strength, rather than trying to backfill Bregman’s impact on offense. It’s possible that Boston will still make an offensive addition to offset the loss of Bregman, but this agreement with Suárez suggests that a pitching-first strategy has indeed been activated. It’s also a sudden jolt in a starting pitching market that has largely laid dormant, and it could spark action involving the other top available arms, such as Framber Valdez and Zac Gallen.
At the outset of the offseason, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow was not shy about his intention to add impact starting pitching. “I don’t think we’re going to spend a ton of time trying to add a No. 4, a No. 5 starter,” he said at the GM meetings in November. “If we’re going to make a starting pitching addition, I think it should be somebody who can pitch at the front of a rotation … particularly someone that we feel like can pitch alongside or slot in behind Garrett [Crochet] and start a playoff game for us.”
A few weeks later, the Red Sox acquired veteran right-hander Sonny Gray from the Cardinals, a highly accomplished arm but not one who necessarily fit Breslow’s description. Gray proved to be effective during his St. Louis tenure, and his hefty $31 million salary is commensurate with that of a frontline arm, but as he enters his age-36 season, he projects more as a reliable mid-rotation option than someone you’d feel confident giving the ball to in October. A few weeks later, the Sox added Johan Oviedo from Pittsburgh to strengthen their rotation depth further, but once Boston turned its focus to retaining Bregman, any discussion about the rotation was largely put on the back burner.
Advertisement
Evidently, Bregman’s exit prompted an urgent reexamination of the pitching situation; it does not seem like an accident that this pivot to Suárez happened so quickly after Bregman departed. Was this the plan all along, based on the knowledge that Bregman might leave? Or was this strictly reactive to the situation in which Boston unexpectedly found itself? Either way, what matters now is that Suárez is Boston-bound, and his candidacy to be the co-ace behind Crochet is certainly compelling, if unusual in some respects.
We don’t know whether Breslow had Suárez in mind when he mentioned wanting someone who “could start a playoff game” for the Red Sox, but it’s easy to envision the left-hander’s postseason track record standing out as an alluring feature of his résumé. His 1.48 ERA is the fourth-lowest in MLB history among pitchers who have made at least seven playoff starts with at least 40 total innings pitched, behind only Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson and Stephen Strasburg. And perhaps his most memorable October outing came in relief, when he closed out the 2022 NLCS to win the pennant for the Phillies, the only organization he has ever known, having signed as a teenager out of Venezuela back in 2012.
Advertisement
Suárez has excelled in the regular season as well. While he lacks the kind of workload typically associated with pitchers who have commanded nine-figure deals — particularly compared to the two best starters available this winter, Dylan Cease and Framber Valdez — Suárez has been reliably effective when on the mound: Over the past five seasons, he ranked 15th in fWAR despite ranking 38th in innings pitched, and his career-high workload came last year, when he threw 157⅓ frames across 26 starts. Recurring back injuries cost Suárez time in three of the past five seasons, which is something to monitor as he ages.
The stellar stats speak for themselves and paint a picture of a worthy new co-star atop the Boston rotation. The stuff, however, contrasts sharply to that of Suárez’s new rotationmate. Whereas Crochet is one of baseball’s hardest-throwing pitchers, Suárez’s average fastball velocity on both his four-seamer (91.3 mph) and sinker (90.1 mph) is among the lowest of any rotation arm in the league. And his velo has trended down recently, with his 2025 averages a couple ticks less than the 93 mph he averaged on both heaters from 2021 to 2023.
Viewed favorably, Suárez’s ability to rack up outs without premium velocity is a good sign of his advanced pitchability and the likelihood that he can maximize his repertoire as he ages. A more bearish outlook would stress the concern that if Suárez experiences any more of a significant velocity drop, he’s at risk of his fastballs becoming unplayable against the best hitters on the planet.
Velo aside, with plus command of a bevy of offerings beyond his two fastballs — a terrific changeup and curveball, plus a cutter — it’s no surprise that Suárez’s track record of run prevention is strong, and he thrives on inducing weak, ground-ball contact rather than racking up whiffs. In short, he’s a really good pitcher, even if the aesthetic of his arsenal pales in comparison to that of the average frontline arm in 2026.
Advertisement
With this addition, a new round of “now what?” questions will swirl around the Red Sox, specifically involving their position-player group that remains both imbalanced and incomplete. Failing to retain Bregman — their top target this winter and also a main character amid a tumultuous past year for the franchise — was an organizational failure by any measure. But with a resolution finally reached, even if it wasn’t the one they were hoping for, the Red Sox can move forward in their effort to construct a contending team in 2026. Suárez is a bold first move of the post-Bregman era, and more are likely to come.
Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles has declared for the 2026 NFL Draft.
Styles made the widely expected announcement on social media Wednesday. He could be a top-10 pick.
“Thank you to [Coach Ryan Day] for leading me over the past four years and for believing in me throughout my journey at Ohio State,” Styles wrote. “I’m also incredibly grateful to [defensive coordinator Matt Patricia] and [linebackers coach James Laurinaitis]. Both of you had a huge impact on my development and I wouldn’t have the success I did at linebacker without you.”
Styles was Ohio State’s leading tackler in 2025, with 82 stops and 6.5 tackles for loss in 14 games. He also had a sack, an interception and three passes defensed, along with a forced fumble. The season before, Styles had 100 tackles in 16 games as Ohio State won the national championship.
Advertisement
He’s the third star Ohio State defensive player to declare for the 2026 draft, along with fellow LB Arvell Reese and defensive back Caleb Downs. Ohio State’s defense allowed 9.3 points per game and 4.0 yards per play in 2025. Miami’s 24 points in the Hurricanes’ Cotton Bowl win were the most any team scored against Ohio State all season, and Miami’s total included a pick 6.
Here’s what Yahoo Sports’ Nate Tice and Charles McDonald had to say about Styles potentially going to the Rams at No. 13:
The Rams use their first of two first-round picks on Styles to solidify their linebacker room. Styles has an element of speed and range to his game that the Rams could really use, and he would give them a much sturdier front seven than the boom-or-bust one they have.
Styles was a five-star recruit in the class of 2022, the No. 4 player in the country and the No. 2 athlete in Rivals’ rankings. The No. 1 athlete in Styles’ class was Travis Hunter, the 2024 Heisman winner who played both wide receiver and defensive back at Colorado.