By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:
BILLY NAPIER: “WE’RE LIVING IN A LAND OF NO LAWS”
The land of no laws Florida football coach Billy Napier was talking about Tuesday was what the NCAA has created by throwing the transfer portal and NIL out there at the same time minus any guidelines. Some call it the wild, wild west. Others say it’s worse than that.
Napier, attending the Southeastern Conference Spring Meetings in Destin for the first time, isn’t jealous of the schools with boosters who have more money than brains buying players left and right. It’s about putting some structure to a situation that threatens to spiral out of control and damage the game beyond recognition. Football will survive, but at what cost and what will it look like if something isn’t done. That’s the problem. Not kids getting money.
Napier doesn’t have a problem with college football players getting a share of the money that is generated every year thanks to the NCAA v. Alston Supreme Court ruling.
“If you go back to 1990 – I think I did some research the other day – each SEC institution got like $1.3 million a year from the league, right?” Napier said Tuesday in Destin. “1990? Just 13 years ago I think it was right around $6 or $7 million. I think this ’24 deal (ESPN TV contract) is in the high 60s, low 70s per year. One of the things about my career is I’ve been in the profession and observed this explosion and I think that it’s foolish to think the players don’t deserve a piece of the pie. If there’s no players in these stadiums, no one is showing up to watch and they’re certainly not sitting in their home watching it on TV. It all leads back to the money and I think the TV industry holds the key to the castle so to speak. You’ve got to get a lot of people to the table and there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of conversations that have to happen.”
Napier is right. There is a lot of money out there and there is a way to make sure the players can share it without bankrupting the system or making the monster that has been created one that turns the current system into one that can’t be sustained. What we have is free agency. They have it in professional sports, too, but professional sports have structure and rules, which college football hasn’t. Right now, college football isn’t even working diligently to come up with an owner’s manual.
Combine NIL with a transfer portal that is well-intentioned but poorly implemented and there is chaos.
“Every player that hasn’t used their one-year transfer exceptions is a free agent,” Napier said. “There’s no contractual obligation right now for the current student-athletes so if you draft a player in the sixth round in the National Football League, you’ve got that player for a few years at that price point. They’ve solved the rookie wage scenario. There’s tons of dynamics here that you can earn from but the reality is we have no contracts and we have no cap number. There’s things that you can learn from that systematically but there’s also things that have become very apparent. One of those is that you’ve got a little bit of a conflict when you don’t have a consistent cap. You have no contract and the combination of NIL and portal has created this.”
NICK SABAN ON THE NEED FOR NIL RULES
After making it perfectly clear, at least in his own mind, that he hasn’t even an itsy-bitsy urge to slap Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher silly – “I have no problem with Jimbo Fisher” – Alabama’s Nick Saban pointed out the need for a uniform set of NIL rules that will apply nationally.
“Some kind of uniform name, image and likeness standard that supports some kind of equitable, national competition I think is really important in college athletics and college football and we’ve always had that whether it’s equal scholarships, equal Alston money, whatever it might be,” Saban said. “So, that’s kind of Point 1. Point 2 is we need some sort of transparency in name, image and likeness. And, believe me, I’m all for players making as much money as they can make, okay, but I also think we’ve got to have some uniform, transparent way to do that. Our players did extremely well last year in name, image and likeness because they got agents, they had representation, they had people who wanted them to actually endorse something for them and they did very, very well. That’s public record and you can see how well they did.
“And I think that, also, student-athletes need some protection from unfair name, image and likeness representation or deals. You could have a player – and we’ve had this happen to us in the past – that thinks he signing one thing and he signs something else and gives up his freedom of choice in the future as to who represents him. We have no oversight right now for players when it comes to this, and I also think that boosters should continue to be precluded from recruiting, including use of name, image and likeness offers prior to enrollment.”
THE COMMISH ON SCHEDULING AND THE PLAYOFF
Forget divisions. They aren’t long for the SEC. While you’re adjusting to that, you might contemplate the end of the eight game conference schedules.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wouldn’t come right out and say what is next for the league Tuesday, but he offered up some hints. There are some that are holding out to keep eight games, largely because they can schedule a cupcake that will be helpful to ensure a trip to an exotic bowl location like Shreveport or Birmingham. The 8-game model would have one permanent opponent and then rotate the other teams in the league but that would force elimination of some traditional rivalries. Alabama, for example, plays Auburn and Tennessee while Georgia’s two rivalry opponents are Florida and Auburn. So, the 1-7 format wouldn’t work.
That leaves the 3-6 model – three permanent opponents, play six home and home with every team in the league doing a home and home with every other team every four years. Tuesday night, Sankey said the league’s athletic directors have moved closer to a scheduling format that he expects to announce “sooner rather than later” but for now the primary focus is to eliminate the divisions.
“We’ve focused more on the single division model,” Sankey said.
That is as strong a hint as you would want for the 3-6 model. If the intention is to stay with an 8-game schedule, it makes little sense to eliminate divisions since when Oklahoma and Texas join the league it will be 16 teams, so seven divisional games and one against a team from the other division. That is not the idea that is favored by ESPN, which has been pressing for better scheduling for more and better games for when they take over the league television contract completely in 2024.
As for the playoff, Sankey has rigidly held the stance that the SEC was just fine with four teams but would prefer a 12-team model. The 12-team model was shot down by “the alliance” (Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12). ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who probably was dropped on his head way too many times as an infant, wants an 8-team playoff that guarantees the champions of the five power conferences but offers no guaranteed spot and little opportunity from a team from the Group of Five.
There is one circumstance in which Sankey would go for eight teams but no, he hasn’t softened his stance one bit. Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reports Sankey said, “An 8-team playoff without automatic qualifiers is something we would consider.” In other words, the top eight teams get in but that might leave out conference champs from the Power Five conferences.
Memo to “the alliance:” You aren’t going to get your way. Period. End of story. Either go with the 12-team model that guarantees the champion of the six highest rated conferences and six at-large teams or discover what life is without the SEC earning you big bucks in the playoff. The SEC will forge its own path if necessary. Sankey said that plan is “still in a folder somewhere” and it’s not a threat – “wasn’t created as a threat; wasn’t intended as a threat.”
No. It’s no threat at all. It’s a promise.
SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Georgia: Forward Jailyn Ingram, who played only nine games last season before an injury ended his season, has been given a waiver from the NCAA to come back and play another year … Georgia’s board of directors has approved an operating budget of $162.3 million for next year as well as $90.2 million toward renovation of Sanford Stadium and adding an indoor facility to their tennis complex.
Kentucky: Forward Jacob Toppin, who averaged 6.2 points and 3.2 rebounds for the Wildcats last year, has withdrawn from the NBA Draft and will be back next season.
Missouri: Eli Drinkwitz on his goal at the SEC Spring Meetings: “The goal is not to say anything ridiculously stupid so I don’t get yelled at in this coaches’ meeting.”
Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin on what happens when all the SEC football coaches including Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher meet behind closed doors: “Our group is more professional when they’re in a room together than they are when they’re on camera by themselves. People like say things texting they don’t in person.”
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Now that we made it through day one of the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin without needing a steel cage so that Nick and Jimbo can have at each other with the first one to bite an ear off declared the winner, it should be noted that it’s going to be a great weekend to be a Gator. Tim Walton has the Florida softball team in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City where they will face Oregon State Thursday night (7 p.m.) in the first round. Kevin O’Sullivan has the Florida baseball team playing Central Michigan in the Gainesville regional of the NCAA Tournament Friday (6:30 p.m.) at the Condron Family Ballpark and Mike Holloway has the 2nd-ranked Florida women and the No. 6 Florida men competing at the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Walton and the UF softball team have sort of sneaked up on everyone. Well, if you can call a team that essentially turns an infield hit, a walk or a hit batter into a double and routinely scores from second base on an infield grounder sneaking. The Gators have stolen 131 bases in 147 attempts this year. That’s 49 more steals than Northwestern and Texas, which have 82 coming into the WCWS, and 72 more than No. 1 Oklahoma. If the Gators make a deep run in Oklahoma City, it will be because of the team’s remarkable speed which not only shows up on the base paths but defensively where the Gators rank 4th nationally.
O’Sullivan and the Gators have won 16 of their last 21 baseball games. They’ve done it the Earl Weaver way – “Baseball games are won with good pitching and 3-run homers.” The Gators have hit 110 home runs, second most in the SEC and 8th nationally. The pitching staff is the youngest in the SEC and one of the youngest in the nation.
The Florida women won the NCAA Indoor championship and with the dynamic duo of heptathlete/400 meter hurdler Anna Hall and long jump/triple jumper Jasmine Moore, the Gators have a chance to pile up a lot of points early that could pave the way to Holloway’s 11th national championship. With only nine entries, the UF men will rely on their ability to win relays and score points in the sprints for a top five finish.
A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:
BILLY NAPIER: “WE’RE LIVING IN A LAND OF NO LAWS”
The land of no laws Florida football coach Billy Napier was talking about Tuesday was what the NCAA has created by throwing the transfer portal and NIL out there at the same time minus any guidelines. Some call it the wild, wild west. Others say it’s worse than that.
Napier, attending the Southeastern Conference Spring Meetings in Destin for the first time, isn’t jealous of the schools with boosters who have more money than brains buying players left and right. It’s about putting some structure to a situation that threatens to spiral out of control and damage the game beyond recognition. Football will survive, but at what cost and what will it look like if something isn’t done. That’s the problem. Not kids getting money.
Napier doesn’t have a problem with college football players getting a share of the money that is generated every year thanks to the NCAA v. Alston Supreme Court ruling.
“If you go back to 1990 – I think I did some research the other day – each SEC institution got like $1.3 million a year from the league, right?” Napier said Tuesday in Destin. “1990? Just 13 years ago I think it was right around $6 or $7 million. I think this ’24 deal (ESPN TV contract) is in the high 60s, low 70s per year. One of the things about my career is I’ve been in the profession and observed this explosion and I think that it’s foolish to think the players don’t deserve a piece of the pie. If there’s no players in these stadiums, no one is showing up to watch and they’re certainly not sitting in their home watching it on TV. It all leads back to the money and I think the TV industry holds the key to the castle so to speak. You’ve got to get a lot of people to the table and there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of conversations that have to happen.”
Napier is right. There is a lot of money out there and there is a way to make sure the players can share it without bankrupting the system or making the monster that has been created one that turns the current system into one that can’t be sustained. What we have is free agency. They have it in professional sports, too, but professional sports have structure and rules, which college football hasn’t. Right now, college football isn’t even working diligently to come up with an owner’s manual.
Combine NIL with a transfer portal that is well-intentioned but poorly implemented and there is chaos.
“Every player that hasn’t used their one-year transfer exceptions is a free agent,” Napier said. “There’s no contractual obligation right now for the current student-athletes so if you draft a player in the sixth round in the National Football League, you’ve got that player for a few years at that price point. They’ve solved the rookie wage scenario. There’s tons of dynamics here that you can earn from but the reality is we have no contracts and we have no cap number. There’s things that you can learn from that systematically but there’s also things that have become very apparent. One of those is that you’ve got a little bit of a conflict when you don’t have a consistent cap. You have no contract and the combination of NIL and portal has created this.”
NICK SABAN ON THE NEED FOR NIL RULES
After making it perfectly clear, at least in his own mind, that he hasn’t even an itsy-bitsy urge to slap Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher silly – “I have no problem with Jimbo Fisher” – Alabama’s Nick Saban pointed out the need for a uniform set of NIL rules that will apply nationally.
“Some kind of uniform name, image and likeness standard that supports some kind of equitable, national competition I think is really important in college athletics and college football and we’ve always had that whether it’s equal scholarships, equal Alston money, whatever it might be,” Saban said. “So, that’s kind of Point 1. Point 2 is we need some sort of transparency in name, image and likeness. And, believe me, I’m all for players making as much money as they can make, okay, but I also think we’ve got to have some uniform, transparent way to do that. Our players did extremely well last year in name, image and likeness because they got agents, they had representation, they had people who wanted them to actually endorse something for them and they did very, very well. That’s public record and you can see how well they did.
“And I think that, also, student-athletes need some protection from unfair name, image and likeness representation or deals. You could have a player – and we’ve had this happen to us in the past – that thinks he signing one thing and he signs something else and gives up his freedom of choice in the future as to who represents him. We have no oversight right now for players when it comes to this, and I also think that boosters should continue to be precluded from recruiting, including use of name, image and likeness offers prior to enrollment.”
THE COMMISH ON SCHEDULING AND THE PLAYOFF
Forget divisions. They aren’t long for the SEC. While you’re adjusting to that, you might contemplate the end of the eight game conference schedules.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey wouldn’t come right out and say what is next for the league Tuesday, but he offered up some hints. There are some that are holding out to keep eight games, largely because they can schedule a cupcake that will be helpful to ensure a trip to an exotic bowl location like Shreveport or Birmingham. The 8-game model would have one permanent opponent and then rotate the other teams in the league but that would force elimination of some traditional rivalries. Alabama, for example, plays Auburn and Tennessee while Georgia’s two rivalry opponents are Florida and Auburn. So, the 1-7 format wouldn’t work.
That leaves the 3-6 model – three permanent opponents, play six home and home with every team in the league doing a home and home with every other team every four years. Tuesday night, Sankey said the league’s athletic directors have moved closer to a scheduling format that he expects to announce “sooner rather than later” but for now the primary focus is to eliminate the divisions.
“We’ve focused more on the single division model,” Sankey said.
That is as strong a hint as you would want for the 3-6 model. If the intention is to stay with an 8-game schedule, it makes little sense to eliminate divisions since when Oklahoma and Texas join the league it will be 16 teams, so seven divisional games and one against a team from the other division. That is not the idea that is favored by ESPN, which has been pressing for better scheduling for more and better games for when they take over the league television contract completely in 2024.
As for the playoff, Sankey has rigidly held the stance that the SEC was just fine with four teams but would prefer a 12-team model. The 12-team model was shot down by “the alliance” (Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12). ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, who probably was dropped on his head way too many times as an infant, wants an 8-team playoff that guarantees the champions of the five power conferences but offers no guaranteed spot and little opportunity from a team from the Group of Five.
There is one circumstance in which Sankey would go for eight teams but no, he hasn’t softened his stance one bit. Brett McMurphy of the Action Network reports Sankey said, “An 8-team playoff without automatic qualifiers is something we would consider.” In other words, the top eight teams get in but that might leave out conference champs from the Power Five conferences.
Memo to “the alliance:” You aren’t going to get your way. Period. End of story. Either go with the 12-team model that guarantees the champion of the six highest rated conferences and six at-large teams or discover what life is without the SEC earning you big bucks in the playoff. The SEC will forge its own path if necessary. Sankey said that plan is “still in a folder somewhere” and it’s not a threat – “wasn’t created as a threat; wasn’t intended as a threat.”
No. It’s no threat at all. It’s a promise.
SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Georgia: Forward Jailyn Ingram, who played only nine games last season before an injury ended his season, has been given a waiver from the NCAA to come back and play another year … Georgia’s board of directors has approved an operating budget of $162.3 million for next year as well as $90.2 million toward renovation of Sanford Stadium and adding an indoor facility to their tennis complex.
Kentucky: Forward Jacob Toppin, who averaged 6.2 points and 3.2 rebounds for the Wildcats last year, has withdrawn from the NBA Draft and will be back next season.
Missouri: Eli Drinkwitz on his goal at the SEC Spring Meetings: “The goal is not to say anything ridiculously stupid so I don’t get yelled at in this coaches’ meeting.”
Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin on what happens when all the SEC football coaches including Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher meet behind closed doors: “Our group is more professional when they’re in a room together than they are when they’re on camera by themselves. People like say things texting they don’t in person.”
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Now that we made it through day one of the SEC Spring Meetings in Destin without needing a steel cage so that Nick and Jimbo can have at each other with the first one to bite an ear off declared the winner, it should be noted that it’s going to be a great weekend to be a Gator. Tim Walton has the Florida softball team in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City where they will face Oregon State Thursday night (7 p.m.) in the first round. Kevin O’Sullivan has the Florida baseball team playing Central Michigan in the Gainesville regional of the NCAA Tournament Friday (6:30 p.m.) at the Condron Family Ballpark and Mike Holloway has the 2nd-ranked Florida women and the No. 6 Florida men competing at the NCAA Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Walton and the UF softball team have sort of sneaked up on everyone. Well, if you can call a team that essentially turns an infield hit, a walk or a hit batter into a double and routinely scores from second base on an infield grounder sneaking. The Gators have stolen 131 bases in 147 attempts this year. That’s 49 more steals than Northwestern and Texas, which have 82 coming into the WCWS, and 72 more than No. 1 Oklahoma. If the Gators make a deep run in Oklahoma City, it will be because of the team’s remarkable speed which not only shows up on the base paths but defensively where the Gators rank 4th nationally.
O’Sullivan and the Gators have won 16 of their last 21 baseball games. They’ve done it the Earl Weaver way – “Baseball games are won with good pitching and 3-run homers.” The Gators have hit 110 home runs, second most in the SEC and 8th nationally. The pitching staff is the youngest in the SEC and one of the youngest in the nation.
The Florida women won the NCAA Indoor championship and with the dynamic duo of heptathlete/400 meter hurdler Anna Hall and long jump/triple jumper Jasmine Moore, the Gators have a chance to pile up a lot of points early that could pave the way to Holloway’s 11th national championship. With only nine entries, the UF men will rely on their ability to win relays and score points in the sprints for a top five finish.
