By Franz Beard
APPLEBY TRANSFERRING TO WAKE FOREST
Tyree Appleby announced on Instagram that he will be transferring to Wake Forest for his final year of college eligibility. Appleby came to Florida as a transfer from Cleveland State, but as a UF graduate, he is eligible immediately at Wake Forest.
Appleby averaged 10.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game last season. In two seasons at UF, Appleby made 44 starts, scoring scoring 653 points in 59 games (11.1 per game). He had 207 assists (3.5 per game).
At Cleveland State, Appleby scored 899 points, averaging 14.3 points per game. He continues his college career with 1,552 points, 339 rebounds and 504 assists.
THE COLLEGE SPORTS EARTH IS ABOUT TO MOVE
A week ago, the Big 12 Conference announced without too much fanfare that BYU, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston would become full-fledged members of the league starting with football season in 2023. It didn’t move the sports needle too much, but it should have because what’s about to happen is probably a sign that SEC expansion will take place sooner and not later.
First, the Big 12 moves. BYU was going to join the Big 12 anyway since it’s an independent and unencumbered by conference affiliations. UCF, Cincinnati and Houston, on the other hand, are leaving the American Athletic Conference which, according to Bret McMurphy, is negotiating its pound of going away flesh to the tune of a $17-20 million per school buyout. All three were hit hard financially by the pandemic and none have sufficiently recovered, so this is a huge expenditure. Where do they find the money?
Second, when the four schools join the Big 12, there will be 14 teams in the league but only for a couple of years unless Texas and Oklahoma leave early for the Southeastern Conference. A two-year, 14-team schedule would be seriously awkward for a league whose ten teams have played every team in the league in football for each of the last few years and a home-and-home round robin in basketball.
But, what if Texas and Oklahoma bolt early for the SEC? They both have buyouts in their contracts with the Big 12. On paper the combined buyouts would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $140 million. This is where the SEC and ESPN could step in and offer a helping hand.
Start with ESPN. There is $160 million remaining on ESPN’s deal with the Longhorn Network, which just so happens to be owned by the University of Texas. The network is going to be dissolved when Texas bolts for the Southeastern Conference, so why not work hand-in-hand with the SEC and ESPN to pay the $140 million in buyout money to the Big 12? The SEC could kick in some bucks so that Texas winds up with a tidy profit, and that money will be regained once ESPN renegotiates its contract with the SEC, currently set to kick in with the 2024 college football season and worth $300 million a year ($20 million per SEC school per year and $20 million per year to the SEC).
CBS pays the SEC $53 million a year to broadcast its games through the 2023 season, so there would be another buyout there. Considering the ad revenues that will be generated with Texas and Oklahoma joining the league, ESPN won’t have any problem managing $53 million for the final year of the CBS contract.
ESPN will also have to rewrite its contract with the SEC. Some economists predict that with the new contract that includes Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC will be paying out something like $80-90 million per SEC school per year for media rights and bowl revenues.
The $140 million of buyout money paid to the Big 12 would allow the league to pay the buyouts for UCF, Cincinnati and Houston to the American Athletic Conference. The AAC would then have the money it needs to pay the buyouts for Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, UAB, North Texas, Rice and UT-San Antonio to leave Conference USA to join the AAC.
The departures of the six schools leaving for the American has gutted Conference USA, which also lost Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss to the Sun Belt, which also enticed James Madison to leave D1AA for its up and coming league. Conference USA’s survivors – UTEP, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, will be joined by Liberty and New Mexico State along with D1AA teams Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State in 2023. That’s a 9-team league that is stretched from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Lynchburg, Virginia, a fiscal nightmare when you consider travel expenses.
So absorb all that for a moment because this is beyond the speculative stage and more along the realm of highly probable. By adding the four teams, the Big 12 is going to have the support it needs from the SEC and Notre Dame to remain one of the Power Five conferences but will the Big 12 keep its current members? Kansas, for example, draws bigger television ratings for midweek basketball games than ESPN gets for Saturday night football. That has to be very attractive to the Big Ten. Even with Kansas football so rotten, poaching the Jayhawks for basketball would be huge for the Big Ten. If Kansas were to leave for the Big Ten, you could almost bet that Iowa State would leave also, adding a decent football team to the Big Ten West.
Even with a new TV deal with ESPN, Fox or both, the Big 12 isn’t going to pay out $39 million a school like it does now. The new Big Ten deal contract is going to mean an $85-90 million a year payout per school. Would Kansas and Iowa State stay put if they could pick up that kind of cash? Doubtful they would stay if invited to bolt for the Big Ten.
The SEC, meanwhile, is going to emerge from this stronger than ever. The earth is going to move and the SEC will do some moving along with it, but make no mistake about it, when the dust settles here, Greg Sankey will still be the most powerful man in all of college sports and the Southeastern Conference will be the strongest league.
UF SOFTBALL: GATORS DROP 2-1 HEARTBREAKER TO FSU
Elizabeth Hightower made very few mistakes Wednesday night in Tallahassee, but the one she made in the bottom of the seventh inning was a killer for the Gators (38-14). Hightower (12-7, 2.51) allowed only six hits and walked just one batter but she gave up a leadoff homer to Jahni Kerr with the score tied 1-1 in the seventh and that was the difference in the game as Florida State (46-5) took a 2-1 win.
The Gators scored their only run of the game in the second inning when Sam Roe and Katie Kistler got UF’s only two hits, but there was only one more scoring threat the rest of the game when Kendra Falby stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error with two outs. FSU pitcher Kathryn Sandercock (25-1) got a groundout to end the inning, extinguishing Florida’s last scoring chance.
The Gators will play a pair of non-conference double-headers this weekend to end the regular season against Mercer and Florida Gulf Coast. Next week the Gators will host the SEC Softball Tournament.
UF MEN’S GOLF: GATORS EARN A NO. 2 SEED
Florida’s strong showing at the Southeastern Conference Championships earned the Gators a No. 2 seed in the Palm Beach Gardens Regional of the NCAA Championships. The three-day tournament begins May 16 at PGA National. The No. 1 seed will be familiar foe Vanderbilt, which beat the Gators 3-2 in the final match-play round for the SEC championship. Notre Dame is the No. 3 seed while FSU is the No. 4. South Florida earned the No. 7 seed.
UF LACROSSE: GATORS BEGIN QUEST FOR AAC TOURNAMENT TITLE
Already the American Athletic Conference regular season champions, the 8th-ranked and top seeded Gators (13-4, 5-0 AAC) take on 4th-seeded East Carolina (9-8, 2-3 AAC) today in the conference tournament in Greenville, North Carolina. The Gators have won the AAC tournament title all three years in the league. They’ve won 11 straight conference championships and have gone unbeaten in conference play nine times.
Danielle Pavinelli was named conference Attacker of the Year, while Emma Wightman was Defender of the Year and Sarah Reznick was Goalkeeper of the Year. Emma LoPinto was Freshman of the Year and the Florida staff of Amanda O’Leary, Taryn VanThof and Regy Thorpe were named the Coaching Staff of the Year.
MATT HAYES SAID IT …
Jimbo Fisher can go off on a rant about how Texas A&M was totally above board when it landed its top-ranked recruiting class that some have gone out on a limb to call the greatest ever but Matt Hayes isn’t exactly buying it. Without addressing the rumor of $30 million spent on the recruiting class or even a much lesser amount, Matt Hayes in Saturday Down South plants a few seeds that cause inquiring minds to wonder just a teensy bit.
“With deference to Jimbo Fisher’s passionate defense of the way his program recruits, money is increasingly becoming the factor in player procurement … The Aggies didn’t land 8 –EIGHT! – 5-star recruits in the 2022 recruiting class because of performance. This is the same program that hasn’t won a conference championship since 1998, and whose coach can’t match the resume produced by the previous coach (Kevin Sumlin), who was fired.
“After the first 48 games as coach at Texas A&M:
“Wins: Fisher (34), Sumlin (34)
“Wins vs. ranked teams: Fisher (7), Sumlin (9)
“Wins vs. ranked teams on the road: Fisher (0), Sumlin (5)
“Yet somehow Fisher and his staff landed the greatest recruiting class ever. EVER.”
SEC FOOTBALL
Alabama: There is every good chance Alabama is going to land former Pitt wide receiver Jordan Addison from the transfer portal. Last season Addison caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns. Addison has been working out with Alabama QB and Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young.
Auburn: Wide receiver Dazalim Worsham, a former Under Armour All-American, is transferring in from Miami, where he played in one game in two years ... Safety Eric Reed Jr. is transferring to Georgia Tech.
Tennessee: Former 5-star recruit Bru McCoy is transferring from Southern Cal to Tennessee. He caught 21 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns in 2020 but didn’t play in 2021. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The American Football Coaches Association has proposed a pair of rules changes that make very good sense as college football struggles to get a handle on NIL and the transfer portal as well as a few dozen other issues. At a time when it seems all college sports are on the verge of unraveling this is a time for some positive moves that can affect football, which generates the most income of any collegiate sport.
Proposed are rules that would change the way scholarships are counted and the other has to do with establishing windows for players to transfer.
The scholarship rule would eliminate 25 scholarships in a single year, counting backward to include players who early enrolled in the previous signing class and oversigning. With this proposal, scholarships would be limited to 85 at all times, so if a school lost 30 players in the portal, it could make up for it either signing high school, jucos or transfers. It’s a smart and overdue rule.
Under current rules, kids can enter the transfer portal at any time, but with this new proposal the portal would be closed during the season and open during December after the regular season and up to early signing day; from mid-January to the February signing day; and between mid-April and May 1.
APPLEBY TRANSFERRING TO WAKE FOREST
Tyree Appleby announced on Instagram that he will be transferring to Wake Forest for his final year of college eligibility. Appleby came to Florida as a transfer from Cleveland State, but as a UF graduate, he is eligible immediately at Wake Forest.
Appleby averaged 10.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game last season. In two seasons at UF, Appleby made 44 starts, scoring scoring 653 points in 59 games (11.1 per game). He had 207 assists (3.5 per game).
At Cleveland State, Appleby scored 899 points, averaging 14.3 points per game. He continues his college career with 1,552 points, 339 rebounds and 504 assists.
THE COLLEGE SPORTS EARTH IS ABOUT TO MOVE
A week ago, the Big 12 Conference announced without too much fanfare that BYU, UCF, Cincinnati and Houston would become full-fledged members of the league starting with football season in 2023. It didn’t move the sports needle too much, but it should have because what’s about to happen is probably a sign that SEC expansion will take place sooner and not later.
First, the Big 12 moves. BYU was going to join the Big 12 anyway since it’s an independent and unencumbered by conference affiliations. UCF, Cincinnati and Houston, on the other hand, are leaving the American Athletic Conference which, according to Bret McMurphy, is negotiating its pound of going away flesh to the tune of a $17-20 million per school buyout. All three were hit hard financially by the pandemic and none have sufficiently recovered, so this is a huge expenditure. Where do they find the money?
Second, when the four schools join the Big 12, there will be 14 teams in the league but only for a couple of years unless Texas and Oklahoma leave early for the Southeastern Conference. A two-year, 14-team schedule would be seriously awkward for a league whose ten teams have played every team in the league in football for each of the last few years and a home-and-home round robin in basketball.
But, what if Texas and Oklahoma bolt early for the SEC? They both have buyouts in their contracts with the Big 12. On paper the combined buyouts would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $140 million. This is where the SEC and ESPN could step in and offer a helping hand.
Start with ESPN. There is $160 million remaining on ESPN’s deal with the Longhorn Network, which just so happens to be owned by the University of Texas. The network is going to be dissolved when Texas bolts for the Southeastern Conference, so why not work hand-in-hand with the SEC and ESPN to pay the $140 million in buyout money to the Big 12? The SEC could kick in some bucks so that Texas winds up with a tidy profit, and that money will be regained once ESPN renegotiates its contract with the SEC, currently set to kick in with the 2024 college football season and worth $300 million a year ($20 million per SEC school per year and $20 million per year to the SEC).
CBS pays the SEC $53 million a year to broadcast its games through the 2023 season, so there would be another buyout there. Considering the ad revenues that will be generated with Texas and Oklahoma joining the league, ESPN won’t have any problem managing $53 million for the final year of the CBS contract.
ESPN will also have to rewrite its contract with the SEC. Some economists predict that with the new contract that includes Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC will be paying out something like $80-90 million per SEC school per year for media rights and bowl revenues.
The $140 million of buyout money paid to the Big 12 would allow the league to pay the buyouts for UCF, Cincinnati and Houston to the American Athletic Conference. The AAC would then have the money it needs to pay the buyouts for Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, UAB, North Texas, Rice and UT-San Antonio to leave Conference USA to join the AAC.
The departures of the six schools leaving for the American has gutted Conference USA, which also lost Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss to the Sun Belt, which also enticed James Madison to leave D1AA for its up and coming league. Conference USA’s survivors – UTEP, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, will be joined by Liberty and New Mexico State along with D1AA teams Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State in 2023. That’s a 9-team league that is stretched from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Lynchburg, Virginia, a fiscal nightmare when you consider travel expenses.
So absorb all that for a moment because this is beyond the speculative stage and more along the realm of highly probable. By adding the four teams, the Big 12 is going to have the support it needs from the SEC and Notre Dame to remain one of the Power Five conferences but will the Big 12 keep its current members? Kansas, for example, draws bigger television ratings for midweek basketball games than ESPN gets for Saturday night football. That has to be very attractive to the Big Ten. Even with Kansas football so rotten, poaching the Jayhawks for basketball would be huge for the Big Ten. If Kansas were to leave for the Big Ten, you could almost bet that Iowa State would leave also, adding a decent football team to the Big Ten West.
Even with a new TV deal with ESPN, Fox or both, the Big 12 isn’t going to pay out $39 million a school like it does now. The new Big Ten deal contract is going to mean an $85-90 million a year payout per school. Would Kansas and Iowa State stay put if they could pick up that kind of cash? Doubtful they would stay if invited to bolt for the Big Ten.
The SEC, meanwhile, is going to emerge from this stronger than ever. The earth is going to move and the SEC will do some moving along with it, but make no mistake about it, when the dust settles here, Greg Sankey will still be the most powerful man in all of college sports and the Southeastern Conference will be the strongest league.
UF SOFTBALL: GATORS DROP 2-1 HEARTBREAKER TO FSU
Elizabeth Hightower made very few mistakes Wednesday night in Tallahassee, but the one she made in the bottom of the seventh inning was a killer for the Gators (38-14). Hightower (12-7, 2.51) allowed only six hits and walked just one batter but she gave up a leadoff homer to Jahni Kerr with the score tied 1-1 in the seventh and that was the difference in the game as Florida State (46-5) took a 2-1 win.
The Gators scored their only run of the game in the second inning when Sam Roe and Katie Kistler got UF’s only two hits, but there was only one more scoring threat the rest of the game when Kendra Falby stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error with two outs. FSU pitcher Kathryn Sandercock (25-1) got a groundout to end the inning, extinguishing Florida’s last scoring chance.
The Gators will play a pair of non-conference double-headers this weekend to end the regular season against Mercer and Florida Gulf Coast. Next week the Gators will host the SEC Softball Tournament.
UF MEN’S GOLF: GATORS EARN A NO. 2 SEED
Florida’s strong showing at the Southeastern Conference Championships earned the Gators a No. 2 seed in the Palm Beach Gardens Regional of the NCAA Championships. The three-day tournament begins May 16 at PGA National. The No. 1 seed will be familiar foe Vanderbilt, which beat the Gators 3-2 in the final match-play round for the SEC championship. Notre Dame is the No. 3 seed while FSU is the No. 4. South Florida earned the No. 7 seed.
UF LACROSSE: GATORS BEGIN QUEST FOR AAC TOURNAMENT TITLE
Already the American Athletic Conference regular season champions, the 8th-ranked and top seeded Gators (13-4, 5-0 AAC) take on 4th-seeded East Carolina (9-8, 2-3 AAC) today in the conference tournament in Greenville, North Carolina. The Gators have won the AAC tournament title all three years in the league. They’ve won 11 straight conference championships and have gone unbeaten in conference play nine times.
Danielle Pavinelli was named conference Attacker of the Year, while Emma Wightman was Defender of the Year and Sarah Reznick was Goalkeeper of the Year. Emma LoPinto was Freshman of the Year and the Florida staff of Amanda O’Leary, Taryn VanThof and Regy Thorpe were named the Coaching Staff of the Year.
MATT HAYES SAID IT …
Jimbo Fisher can go off on a rant about how Texas A&M was totally above board when it landed its top-ranked recruiting class that some have gone out on a limb to call the greatest ever but Matt Hayes isn’t exactly buying it. Without addressing the rumor of $30 million spent on the recruiting class or even a much lesser amount, Matt Hayes in Saturday Down South plants a few seeds that cause inquiring minds to wonder just a teensy bit.
“With deference to Jimbo Fisher’s passionate defense of the way his program recruits, money is increasingly becoming the factor in player procurement … The Aggies didn’t land 8 –EIGHT! – 5-star recruits in the 2022 recruiting class because of performance. This is the same program that hasn’t won a conference championship since 1998, and whose coach can’t match the resume produced by the previous coach (Kevin Sumlin), who was fired.
“After the first 48 games as coach at Texas A&M:
“Wins: Fisher (34), Sumlin (34)
“Wins vs. ranked teams: Fisher (7), Sumlin (9)
“Wins vs. ranked teams on the road: Fisher (0), Sumlin (5)
“Yet somehow Fisher and his staff landed the greatest recruiting class ever. EVER.”
SEC FOOTBALL
Alabama: There is every good chance Alabama is going to land former Pitt wide receiver Jordan Addison from the transfer portal. Last season Addison caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns. Addison has been working out with Alabama QB and Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young.
Auburn: Wide receiver Dazalim Worsham, a former Under Armour All-American, is transferring in from Miami, where he played in one game in two years ... Safety Eric Reed Jr. is transferring to Georgia Tech.
Tennessee: Former 5-star recruit Bru McCoy is transferring from Southern Cal to Tennessee. He caught 21 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns in 2020 but didn’t play in 2021. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The American Football Coaches Association has proposed a pair of rules changes that make very good sense as college football struggles to get a handle on NIL and the transfer portal as well as a few dozen other issues. At a time when it seems all college sports are on the verge of unraveling this is a time for some positive moves that can affect football, which generates the most income of any collegiate sport.
Proposed are rules that would change the way scholarships are counted and the other has to do with establishing windows for players to transfer.
The scholarship rule would eliminate 25 scholarships in a single year, counting backward to include players who early enrolled in the previous signing class and oversigning. With this proposal, scholarships would be limited to 85 at all times, so if a school lost 30 players in the portal, it could make up for it either signing high school, jucos or transfers. It’s a smart and overdue rule.
Under current rules, kids can enter the transfer portal at any time, but with this new proposal the portal would be closed during the season and open during December after the regular season and up to early signing day; from mid-January to the February signing day; and between mid-April and May 1.
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