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How college athletes will be paid after House v. NCAA settlement: NIL changes, enforcement, contracts and more

The House v. NCAA settlement was officially ratified on Friday, clearing the way for universities to directly pay athletes starting in 2025. The settlement is expected to formally take effect on July 1, 2025, after it was approved by Judge Claudia Wilken of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.  This […]

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The House v. NCAA settlement was officially ratified on Friday, clearing the way for universities to directly pay athletes starting in 2025. The settlement is expected to formally take effect on July 1, 2025, after it was approved by Judge Claudia Wilken of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. 

This settlement marks one of the greatest shifts in the history of college athletics by paving the way for formalized pay-for-play for the first time ever. The NCAA cleared several rules banning the practice in the lead-up to the settlement, and the new reality is now here. 

So how will players be paid, and what impact will this have on the structure of college football heading forward? 

How will players be paid?

Starting in 2025, colleges will be able to opt into revenue sharing with athletes. Athletic departments will be allowed to use their own funds to pay players, with a cap expected to hover around $20 million annually per school. That figure is intended to cover all athlete compensation across varsity sports — not just those that generate revenue. 

The number represents approximately 22% of average athletic department revenue across power conference athletic departments. The settlement estimates that the total cap will start at around $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and could rise to nearly $33 million per school in the next decade. Between the revenue sharing, scholarships and other athletic benefits, the NCAA believes that compensation to athletes could push close to 50% of athletic revenue in many athletic departments. 

There are few guidelines in place for how the money should be distributed across sports. The expectation is that more than 70% of the funds — around $15 million — will go to football at power-conference schools. However, individual schools have the discretion to allocate funds as they choose. For example, Kentucky or UConn could decide to spend 50% of their budget on men’s basketball. Non-football schools in conferences, like the Big East, could gain a major advantage when funding other programs.

It remains unclear how Title IX will factor into the model, though at least some funds will likely be directed toward women’s sports. While players will be compensated directly for participating in college athletics, potentially through contracts worth seven figures or more, they still won’t be classified as employees. Instead, their compensation is expected to resemble that of independent contractors.

Which schools will be eligible? 

Any NCAA schools that opted into the House settlement will be allowed to participate in revenue sharing, regardless of level or funding. Schools in the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC have all confirmed that they will pay out the full $20+ million rev share each season. The AAC notably is requiring schools to rev-share $10 million with their athletes over the next three years. Sacramento State, an FCS school hoping to transition to FBS, also intends to share revenue. Any school at any level of the NCAA can technically opt into the agreement as long as they in exchange follow the terms of the settlement. Plenty of FBS schools, however, will forego the major new expense. 

Who will administer the new sport? 

In the wake of the settlement, the Power Four conferences will take over regulation and enforcement of player compensation issues. They plan to create a new organization called the College Sports Commission, and will hire a CEO soon after the settlement. Power conference schools will be pressured to sign onto the new organization or risk expulsion from their conferences. 

The CSC will be in charge of enforcing the upcoming salary cap and working with Deloitte to create the NIL clearinghouse. Additionally, they will police and enforce punishments for circumventing the salary cap or improper athlete compensation. 

The decision to move player compensation to the CSC was spurred by the plaintiffs in the House case. The NCAA will continue to focus its enforcement efforts on its traditional issues heading forward, including player eligibility, academics, competition and a variety of other topics. 

Can players still sign school NIL contracts? 

The new agreement will allow players to sign outside contracts. However, a new wrinkle requires NIL contracts to be sent through a clearinghouse run by Deloitte to ensure “fair market value” based on an actual endorsement. For example, a rotation offensive lineman could potentially make six figures in the NIL era. While they will still be allowed to do that with a revenue-sharing contract, future NIL contracts are expected to be far more stringent. Additionally, the NCAA has the right to prohibit NIL compensation from a group it classifies as “Associated Entities or Individuals,” which would seem to mean boosters. 

Take a player like Cooper Flagg at Duke. His brand value would be considered high for Duke, which could allow the school to pay him for an endorsement without pulling from their revenue sharing money. Notably, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian claimed Quinn Ewers did not take any money from their collective, instead signing endorsement contracts to claim his millions. 

Per reports, Deloitte told ACC officials that 90% of existing NIL contracts with public companies would have been approved. More than 70% of deals with booster collectives would have been denied. 

The rule is intended to prevent schools from using fake NIL deals to circumvent the salary cap. However, the likelihood of this is highly dependent on whether the Deloitte-run clearinghouse will have any teeth. At least one high-profile sports lawyer has argued for athletes to refuse to disclose NIL deals to the clearinghouse. It remains to be seen how the NCAA will attempt to handle a punitive case of cap circumvention. 

The race to keep up with $40 million rosters is shaking college football

John Talty

The race to keep up with $40 million rosters is shaking college football

What will happen to collectives?

There’s no one consensus answer on the future of collectives; every school will handle them differently. Some will sunset their collectives and move all operations in-house. Others will use third-party collectives as a support tool for services like connecting athletes with outside endorsements or financial education. Different collectives have different relationships with their respective schools. 

Will rev-share contracts be binding?

The short answer is — no one knows. Arkansas became the first school to publicly hire an attorney to enforce conditions on an NIL contract when quarterback Madden Iamaleava opted to transfer to UCLA. According to CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello, Iamaleava’s deal requires a buyout of 50% of the remainder of his contract should he transfer. 

Earlier this offseason, Wisconsin lost defensive back Xavier Lucas to Miami and similarly claimed that he was flaunting a two-year binding revenue sharing contract with the school. At this point, no formal legal challenge has been filed. Lucas is now on the roster at Miami. 

The binding nature of contracts could be a key complication still remaining for the pay-for-play era. It could soon be addressed by the courts. 

Is this the end?

Even though the House v. NCAA settlement is coming down, it doesn’t solve the biggest remaining questions around contracts, athlete movement, eligibility, NCAA enforcement power or a plethora of other issues. Key athletics leadership has consistently gone to Washington, D.C., to lobby for federal legislation. 

Additionally, former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville (now a senator) have spoken to president Donald Trump about an executive order to help clarify rules. Trump has proposed a presidential commission to discuss college football issues, though it has not come to fruition. However, the House settlement will at least bring a backdrop for any solutions to be written on. 





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Argument over ‘valid business purpose’ for NIL collectives threatens college sports settlement

Associated Press Less than two weeks after terms of a multibillion-dollar college sports settlement went into effect, friction erupted over the definition of a “valid business purpose” that collectives making name, image and likeness payments to players are supposed to have. The new College Sports Commission sent a letter to athletic directors last week saying […]

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Associated Press

Less than two weeks after terms of a multibillion-dollar college sports settlement went into effect, friction erupted over the definition of a “valid business purpose” that collectives making name, image and likeness payments to players are supposed to have.

The new College Sports Commission sent a letter to athletic directors last week saying it was rejecting deals in which players were receiving money from collectives that were created solely to pay them and don’t provide goods or services to the general public for profit.

A lead attorney for the players responded by saying those instructions went against settlement terms and asking the CSC to rescind the guidance.

“This process is undermined when the CSC goes off the reservation and issues directions to the schools that are not consistent with the Settlement Agreement terms,” attorney Jeffrey Kessler wrote to NCAA outside counsel Rakesh Kilaru in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Yahoo Sports first reported details of the letter, in which Kessler threatens to take the issue to a judge assigned with resolving disputes involved in the settlement.

Kessler told the AP that his firm was not commenting on the contents of the letter, and Kilaru did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment.

Yahoo quoted a CSC spokesman as saying the parties are working to resolve differences and that “the guidance issued by the College Sports Commission … is entirely consistent with the House settlement and the rules that have been agreed upon with class counsel.”

When NIL payments became allowed in 2021, boosters formed so-called collectives that were closely tied to universities to work out contracts with the players, who still weren’t allowed to be paid directly by the schools.

Terms of the House settlement allow schools to make the payments now but keep the idea of outside payments from collectives, which have to be approved by the CSC if they are worth $600 or more.

The CSC, in its letter last week, explained that if a collective reaches a deal, for instance, for an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, that collective does not have a “valid business purpose” because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit.

Another example of a disallowed deal was one an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because, the CSC guidance said, the purpose of “selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose.”

Kessler’s letter notes that the “valid business purpose” rule was designed to ensure athletes were not simply being paid to play, and did not prohibit NIL collectives from paying athletes for the type of deals described above.

To prevent those payments “would be to create a new prohibition on payments by a NIL collective that is not provided for or contemplated by the Settlement Agreement, causing injury to the class members who should be free to receive those payments,” Kessler wrote.

___

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports




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Goodman: The blood-lusting American Dream is back for college football and the SEC

This is an opinion column. _____________________ There are blood-lusting winners in the SEC, and then there are losers soon to be sucked dry and without jobs. There are no saints. There are no Boy Scouts. There are no values other than money. There are no morals when it comes to chasing a championship in this […]

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This is an opinion column.

_____________________

There are blood-lusting winners in the SEC, and then there are losers soon to be sucked dry and without jobs. There are no saints.

There are no Boy Scouts.

There are no values other than money.

There are no morals when it comes to chasing a championship in this league of leagues. It’s a business, and the business, according to commissioner Greg Sankey’s sword-swinging remarks on Monday, is pretty good.

And dripping with the blood of the innocent.

I’m here at SEC Media Days 2025 in Atlanta, and it seems like some of these coaches need a refresher course on the unspoken, unscrupulous rules of engagement.

Oblige, I will.

Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss gets it. So does Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee.

LSU’s Brian Kelly?

Auburn’s Hugh Freeze?

They’re either preening and posturing about the evolution of cheating in the SEC, or they’re positioning themselves this summer to join Nick Saban in retirement.

Auburn coach Freeze interrupts his summertime golf schedule on Tuesday for a visit with reporters at Media Days. Freeze wants everyone to know that he and Auburn are suddenly playing by the rules and are holier than they’re rivals.

On Monday, LSU’s Kelly turned the stage inside Atlanta’s College Football Hall of Fame into a pulpit after being asked about the latest attempt at governance for our beautiful Southern sport of legalized corruption.

“If we start with transparency, and start with the clear communication necessary, and consistency, and approach … look, I know this might not be what you were asking, but it’s got to start with coaches.

“It’s got to start with us.

“I mean, we have to be the stewards of this. There has to be a moral high ground — ethics in this. It starts with us. It starts with coaches.

“I was at a speaking engagement a few weeks back, and every question about the NIL was trying to find a way around it, trying to find a way to bring in revenue in some other way. Sooner or later, we have to take the stand that transparency, consistency, ethics, and morality are at the core of this.”

Spoken like a man who sounds like he wants to be replaced before the start of fall camp. Would Saban consider making his comeback at LSU?

Saban is the coaching GOAT of college football, but he got out because he didn’t want to play this new game of paying players every season. Kelly is the active wins leader (313) among college coaches, but he sounds like the game is passing him by.

Last time we checked, there’s no such thing as moral high ground down in the bayou. In fact, LSU’s football stadium, the highest point above sea level in Baton Rouge, was built thanks to public corruption.

Former LSU governor and U.S. senator Huey P. Long was a man of the people, loved LSU football and found creative ways to funnel money into the program. Long, and all the Kingfisher’s men, would have loved this new SEC, too, and they would have considered it a personal challenge that Tennessee’s state government is playing the game better than anyone.

Earlier this summer, Tennessee governor Lee signed into law legislation that gives the Volunteers and Vanderbilt Commodores a license to operate beyond the latest attempt at rules for college football.

Legalized cheating, in other words.

Under the law, college athletes in the state of Tennessee have no limits on the amount of money they can earn through NIL payments until the federal government says otherwise. Is the new College Football Commission already a joke? We’ll see.

The new commission was set up to govern college football, but I’m guessing that the CFC swung and missed by hiring a former Ivy League-educated baseball executive to run enforcement. Should they have hired someone like Sankey instead?

Sankey isn’t very good at controlling the coaches in the SEC, but at least the SEC’s commissioner understands the game. On Monday, he described the sport as “messy,” said it was backsliding into the “early 1900s” and all but called out Vanderbilt for bringing back quarterback Diego Pavia after successfully suing the NCAA for an extra year of eligibility.

“Literally,” Sankey said, “if you go to the first quarter century, and look at some of the practices around college sports, you start to see the same things that we are seeing today — an older group of college athletes, constant movement without a lot of oversight and questions about whether there are real academic standards that apply.

“As the world changes throughout college sports, we have to hold on to some values that are at the center of what we do on our academic campuses.”

Back at the turn of the 1800s, when college football was an unregulated portrait of the American Dream, football players would go from school to school for the highest dollar. Some of the players were given jobs as teachers. Some of the players were 28 and 30 years old, and everyone called them “scabs.”

There were no rules, which means there was no concept of phony, manufactured morality.

It was football without pretense. It was a juicy, bloody, rare steak of possibility just waiting to be consumed by the masses. Here we are again. The American Dream is alive and well in this new age of college football, and I only have one question.

Why didn’t Auburn pay for Pavia to transfer?

BE HEARD

Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what’s on your mind. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”

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‘I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within the cap’

ATLANTA, Georgia – It probably should come as no surprise that Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was the most outspoken coach on the SEC Media Days podium when he was asked about the controversy and confusion surrounding revenue sharing and NIL. “I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within the cap, so I think the […]

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ATLANTA, Georgia – It probably should come as no surprise that Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was the most outspoken coach on the SEC Media Days podium when he was asked about the controversy and confusion surrounding revenue sharing and NIL.

“I think it’s obvious people aren’t staying within the cap, so I think the whole thing will be, ‘What does that look like?’ That’s what we don’t know. What does it look like when you don’t and what are the punishments for that? Do you win and that comes later?”

On a hard salary cap

“I think that’s what we attempted. Doesn’t seem like that’s working very well. So yeah, I mean, stating the obvious. That was the intention of what was going on because there were so many complaints when NIL started about, OK, everybody has different advantages, and different payrolls. Saw those a couple years ago.

“I was up here at one of these joking about a luxury tax based on A&M’s spending or whatever it was. So that was supposed to be being fix, and now it’s not.”

On getting an early start

“If you go back to retention of last year’s players and the portal guys December, January, we went into that operating under this cap because we were told the settlement was most likely going to get approved and how that would work,” Kiffin said.

“We get a lot of questions like, ‘What’s it like now?’ We’ve been operating – we have – under these cap guidelines of what was coming and what it was going to look like. I think we’ve done a really good job of that.”

Hovering over every coach at SEC Media Days are questions about revenue-sharing and NIL. It is the front and center in every discussion about football.

SOUTH CAROLINA’S SHANE BEAMER

On what he wants to see

“That what we say is going to happen. That what we say is going to be enforced. For all the talk out there, if there is no teeth to it, it doesn’t matter. What is being implemented with rev share and the clearinghouse, I see other conferences talking about it, saying it’s not going to work and this and that.”

On how it can work

“Something that has some teeth to it and is what it is supposed to be and if somebody is not doing what they are supposed to be doing, there are going to be repercussions. Let it be what it is supposed to be and let ‘s see what happens.”

LSU’S BRIAN KELLY

On the process

“We are early on in the process,” Kelly said. “This is the first step in what we are trying to build. I am excited about college football. I am excited we have something in place in terms of revenue-sharing. NIL is still something we have to navigate. I think we still have to be thinking about how we continue to build or support for NIL. It’s not going away. Nor should it.”

On what is important going forward

“Transparency and consistency. Those two words are probably the most important things as we continue to move forward. … If we start with transparency and start with the clear communication necessary and consistency and approach. It’s got to start with coaches.

:It’s got to start with us. I mean, we have to be the stewards of this. There has to be a moral high ground. Ethics in this. It starts with us. It starts with coaches. I was at a speaking engagement a few weeks back, and every question about NIL was trying to find a way around it, trying to find a way to bring in revenue in some other way.

“Sooner or later we have to take the stand that transparency, consistency, ethics, and morality are at the core of this. If that’s where we are we’re going to be able to move to the next step and be able to continue to make progress.”

This story will be updated.



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Doron Lamb would’ve stayed all four years at Kentucky with NIL – with untouchable shooting records

Kentucky does not win the national championship in 2012 without Doron Lamb, the former Wildcat sharpshooter going for a game-high 22 points in the 67-59 victory over Kansas to hang banner No. 8. It was the perfect way to finish a near-perfect postseason run, the Queens native scoring in double figures all six games with […]

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Kentucky does not win the national championship in 2012 without Doron Lamb, the former Wildcat sharpshooter going for a game-high 22 points in the 67-59 victory over Kansas to hang banner No. 8. It was the perfect way to finish a near-perfect postseason run, the Queens native scoring in double figures all six games with 16-plus in four of six and two 20-point outings.

Lamb was consistent, just as he was his entire career in Lexington. He averaged 12.3 points per contest in year one, 13.7 points in year two with shooting splits of 49/48/81 in 78 total games. Until Reed Sheppard came along in 2023-24, he held the all-time shooting record at Kentucky, knocking down 47.5 percent of his three-pointers on 303 attempts with 144 makes.

Thing is, he only averaged 3.9 attempts per game — 3.7 as a freshman, 4.1 as a sophomore. He was a coin-flip shooter, but didn’t get many opportunities with 1.8 conversions each time out. Keep that in mind, he says, when talking about the all-time greats in the blue and white.

“Let me tell y’all real quick. Look, y’all. Listen,” Lamb told KSR, clearly needing to get something off his chest. “Back in my era, back in my time playing basketball, I only averaged four attempts at the three-point line — but I averaged two makes. These kids now are shooting 10 threes, eight threes a game. If I would’ve done that back then, I would have averaged 20-plus. So that’s all I need to say.”

He’s got a good point. Take college basketball’s leading three-point shooter from a year ago, Belmont’s Tyler Lundblade. He knocked down 48.1 percent of his attempts — worse than Lamb’s year-one average as a Wildcat of 48.6 percent — but took 6.5 threes per game. Koby Brea may be the better example for BBN, finishing No. 9 nationally shooting 43.5 percent from deep on 5.9 attempts per contest in Lexington. Houston’s L.J. Cryer got up 7.3 three-pointers each night on 42.4 percent shooting to finish at No. 16 on his way to the national title game. Remember Lamar Wilkerson, who turned down Kentucky for Indiana in the transfer portal? 44.5 percent on 7.7 attempts at Sam Houston State, No. 7 nationally.

Could the efficiency match the volume? Lamb is almost offended by the question. Of course it would, because that’s what he does.

“For sure. If I get more shots, I’m making more shots. I’m a shot-maker,” he told KSR. “You gotta make shots to play in Coach Cal’s system because there are too many guys on the team. You only get eight, nine shots a game. That’s what I was, a shot-maker. If I’m gonna get 10 threes per night, I’m gonna make six easily.”

Lamb playing in today’s game with more shots opens the door to the dream of NIL potentially keeping him in Lexington longer than the two years he stayed, leaving as a second-round pick after the title in 2012. He was taken with the No. 42 pick as a sophomore, but would’ve happily stuck around if the price was right.

What would that price be, exactly? Considering his status as a top-30 recruit making the McDonald’s All-American Game and Jordan Brand Classic, along with the obvious shooting efficiency that put him in the Kentucky record books, it’s safe to call him a seven-figure player.

His price tag would’ve certainly gone up after scoring 22 points in the championship game, too, making the opportunity too good to pass up. The two years we saw of Lamb in Lexington would have been four.

“Me coming in as a McDonald’s All-American? I would have needed a million dollars, minimum,” he said. “These kids are getting a million dollars to average three points; it’s crazy. I would’ve been a millionaire easily. I would have stayed, I ain’t gonna lie. After one championship, I would have stayed because I would have gotten a big bag. I would have stayed in college.”

Knowing what it would have meant to his legacy as a hooper, he wishes that’s how things unfolded.

“I would’ve still had records today — three-point records, points. I would have had a lot of records,” Lamb told KSR. “I wish I had done four years.”

D-Lamb could’ve been eating a whole lot more and sleeping a whole lot less in blue and white.





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Argument over ‘valid business purpose’ for NIL collectives threatens college sports settlement

Terms of the House settlement allow schools to make the payments now but keep the idea of outside payments from collectives, which have to be approved by the CSC if they are worth $600 or more. The CSC, in its letter last week, explained that if a collective reaches a deal, for instance, for an […]

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Terms of the House settlement allow schools to make the payments now but keep the idea of outside payments from collectives, which have to be approved by the CSC if they are worth $600 or more.

The CSC, in its letter last week, explained that if a collective reaches a deal, for instance, for an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, that collective does not have a ”valid business purpose” because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit.

Another example of a disallowed deal was one an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because, the CSC guidance said, the purpose of ”selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose.”

Kessler’s letter notes that the ”valid business purpose” rule was designed to ensure athletes were not simply being paid to play, and did not prohibit NIL collectives from paying athletes for the type of deals described above.

To prevent those payments ”would be to create a new prohibition on payments by a NIL collective that is not provided for or contemplated by the Settlement Agreement, causing injury to the class members who should be free to receive those payments,” Kessler wrote.



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Can Purdue Compete in the NIL Era Under Head Coach Barry Odom?

Purdue is officially less than two months away from the 2025 season and the start of Barry Odom’s head coaching tenure in West Lafayette. Odom turned around a struggling UNLV program and, while the task at Purdue may be steeper, he’s shown he can bring success to places that need a rebuild. His time at […]

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Purdue is officially less than two months away from the 2025 season and the start of Barry Odom’s head coaching tenure in West Lafayette. Odom turned around a struggling UNLV program and, while the task at Purdue may be steeper, he’s shown he can bring success to places that need a rebuild. His time at Missouri was average, but college football looks very different now—especially with the impact of NIL.

At media days across the country, coaches like Deion Sanders made it clear that winning is tied directly to money. Odom won’t have the same resources as programs like Ohio State or Michigan, but he wants to build a hard-nosed team that can compete regardless of recruiting stars or spending.

Purdue hasn’t recruited well in the NIL era, and the 1-11 record reflects that. While underdog stories are easy to root for, the truth is money matters. With the recent House vs. NCAA settlement, schools can now pay players directly via a $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap. Following the ruling, Purdue Athletic Director Mike Bobinski went on the record and clarified that the football program would receive less than the industry-standard 75% of allocated resources, this disadvantage being just another hurdle for Barry Odom to jump in his new job.

Odom acknowledged how much the game has changed in a June press conference. “We’ve changed more rule wise in the last two years than we have in the last twenty-five, and I believe that. But I also know that if you don’t adjust or adapt, you get left behind.” Coaches have always had to evolve, but Odom’s challenge is rebuilding while navigating a landscape most coaches have never seen.

Despite ranking just 47th in the 2025 transfer team ratings via 247Sports, Odom quietly retooled the roster. He focused heavily on the trenches, landing linemen like Bradyn Joiner from Auburn and Marc Nave Jr. from Kentucky. Building a strong front is part of the identity he’s trying to establish.

Odom also brings back a familiar face at quarterback in an interesting situation. Ryan Browne transferred to North Carolina to play under new head coach Bill Belichick, one of the best talent evaluators of all time, who clearly saw potential in Browne. He wasn’t the only quarterback Belichick brought in however, and a crowded room pushed him back to Purdue in pursuit of a starting spot.

Despite a dramatic offseason, Browne has the tools to be a solid Big Ten quarterback and should take over as the starter this season. He’s in a similar position to Odom as both are trying to prove they belong as consistent contenders in the conference. The original transfer seems to be water under the bridge now, with everyone in the program recognizing the redshirt sophomore as a key piece of Purdue’s rebuild.

Purdue doesn’t need a bowl game this year, but it needs to be a consistent bowl team in the near future. The program has history, and fans want to feel like it’s heading somewhere again. Whether Odom is the right guy to lead that charge is still uncertain, and he’s been honest about his own discomfort with where college football is headed. “I can’t say that I agree with everything that we’re doing now in college football, but that’s what the rules are. I’ve had to change my traditionalist thinking. It doesn’t really matter what I believe in, they didn’t ask me to write the rules.”

He’s right. If Purdue wants to compete, it can’t just be on the coaching staff. The administration has to be just as invested. What happened on the field last year wasn’t just on Ryan Walters. Odom appears to be fully bought in, but the athletic department needs to be as well. Purdue won’t ever spend like the top programs, but that doesn’t mean it can’t compete with a smart, balanced roster.

Odom has a task on his hands, but this is the same coach who turned a 10-loss UNLV team into back-to-back bowl appearances, finishing 11-2 in 2024 with a top-20 AP ranking. UNLV isn’t the same stage as the Big Ten, but Odom did exactly what he’ll be asked to do at Purdue: rebuild a struggling program and make it competitive. The Purdue job was attractive to him, and he genuinely seems locked in on turning things around.

While Odom doesn’t have the on-paper resources that Curt Cignetti had when he took over at Indiana last year, the now in-state rival laid out a blueprint for how to revive a program from the bottom. Indiana and Notre Dame are slowly cementing themselves as the standard for football in the state, but Odom has a chance to change that. He may not replicate the exact success Cignetti had at Indiana last season, but he does need to follow a style that clearly works in today’s college football landscape.

It wasn’t that long ago Purdue was in the Big Ten Championship. That game should have been a launching point, but the program hasn’t matched it since. I expect this year’s team to be better than expected. Odom’s group is under the radar, but fun, and that’s more than enough for most fans in year one. He isn’t expected to outspend college football’s giants. He’s expected to bring structure and identity.

Can Purdue compete in the NIL era under Barry Odom? We’re about to find out.



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