Big 12 and Stuff

SI’s Dylan Lyons reports that Ohio State AD Gene Smith had thrown out the idea of having the FBS leagues move under the College Football Playoff rather than the NCAA and the NCAA govern everything else.

Telling Heather Dinich that he was “just throwing ideas out,” he proposed that the 10 FBS leagues move under the College Football Playoff banner, while having the NCAA continue to govern other sports, including basketball.

“We [can] create our own rules, create our own governance structure, have our own enforcement, we have our own requirements, whatever that might be,” Smith said in the ESPN interview. “…The reality is, those schools who offer 85 scholarships in football have made a different commitment and that needs to be addressed.”

Smith, who says he’d keep academic requirements in place, said that he’s received “mixed reviews” from his peers when discussing the proposal.

SI’s Ross Dellenger writes that hte SEC and Pac-12 are going to lobby lawmakers to help the conferences and institutions with name, image, and likeness.

On Thursday, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey will meet with U.S. senators on Capitol Hill to fight for a congressional mandate to regulate what has evolved into the NCAA’s latest festering problem. Sankey and Kliavkoff, two of the industry’s most influential leaders, are teaming up to encourage lawmakers to pass an NIL statute. They are also expected to seek senators’ help in preventing what they believe is another potential issue looming for college sports: employment status for college athletes.

The primary topic, though, is NIL, a 10-month-old concept that gives athletes the right to monetize their image.

The two commissioners have meetings set with at least two senators, including Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and potentially additional lawmakers, the aide told SI on the condition of anonymity. While not unusual—NCAA leaders have spent three years lobbying Congress for an NIL bill—Sankey and Kliavkoff’s trip comes amid a somewhat chaotic stretch in the sport. It is reaching a climax.

I had posted some articles yesterday about how the NCAA was going to try to crack down on these collectives and all of the money going back and forth and that the NCAA would try to crack down on those sorts of things. Well, trying to limit or regulate someone’s ability to make money, or limit a time when a player can enter the transfer portal, may require actual federal legislation because the NCAA is simply asking for litigation if they try to limit the ability of players to earn money. Heck, they’ve already lost on that.

This is all above my pay-grade, but it is something that will affect college athletics.

Football

Dallas Morning News’ Chuck Carlton recaps the recruiting event that head coach Joey McGuire headlined in Dallas.

McGuire’s big-picture philosophy beyond X’s and O’s and deep-dive metrics comes from two coaches he served under: Texas high school hall of famer Robert Woods and Baylor’s Matt Rhule, now with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

“Both of those guys had a brand, a style of football that they believed in,” McGuire said. “I think more than anything what we’re trying to do is, this is who we are at Texas Tech. This is the way we’re going to play. This is what you’re going to get every single week. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. It doesn’t matter.”

/snip/

“We’ve had a plan and tried to follow it,” McGuire said. “You know, the toughest thing with the plan is holding everybody accountable. We tried to do that, because you need complete buy in and so that’s what we’re working for every day.”

With the end of the spring practice removed, is McGuire ahead of his personal schedule? In maybe the way that counts most, yes.

“The one thing I will tell you is the players that came out of spring football, we’re all going in the same direction,” McGuire said. “Now, we’re not going as fast as I want to. We’re not going as hard as I want to. … But the one thing I truly feel 100% is that that locker room is going in the same direction. That’s all you can ask for in terms of being ahead or behind.”

I’m going to absolutely admit that I love the idea that the way that the team plays can be the identity, not the system, because systems change, but the way that you play the game.