One of the top-ranked players in the 2026 recruiting cycle came off the board on Tuesday morning, with 5-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson announcing his commitment live on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN. Unfortunately for Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks, it was not the Oregon hat that Atkinson pulled on.

The Michigan basketball program is currently gearing up for what they hope will be a successful 2025-26 season. The Wolverines are coming off of a 2024-25 season in which they made the Sweet 16 under first year head coach Dusty May but saw considerable talent head to the NBA Draft this past June.

Wolverine fans likely can’t help but reminisce about the days of the “Fab Five,” led by Chris Webber in the early 1990s. Recently, Webber stopped by ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter’s podcast and discussed what impact that NIL rules (Name, image, and likeness) may have had on the Fab Five’s success three decades ago.

“If somebody could have paid you now multiple millions of dollars to stay in school…” wondered Schefter.

“To stay with Jalen, Juwan, Ray, and Jimmy? What are you talking about, yes we could’ve extended and we would have gotten an NIL for all of our players. We would’ve had our 12th man with an NIL deal because we loved our teammates that much,” said Webber. “You know, almost like a quarterback giving his offensive linemen go-karts or whatever. Two more years to be able to be kids? Yeah.”

Webber himself was caught up in an incident where he was accused of borrowing money from Michigan booster Ed Martin, something that never would have been an issue now with the current name, image, and likeness rules in place.

Joining Webber as members of the Fab Five were Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson, who helped lead the team to championship game appearances in both 1992 and 1993.

Unfortunately, those Final Four appearances were vacated due to Webber’s incident with Martin.

Today’s college sports landscape is drastically different, with players routinely inking deals in the millions to allow themselves to benefit off of their name and image, and with the transfer portal now affording players an opportunity to take their talents elsewhere much more easily.

Jackson Stone is a sports journalist for ClutchPoints with expertise in covering the NBA, NFL, and CAA Football. The Mercer University senior from Atlanta is on track to graduate with a BA in communications, and he has bylines at FanSided and USA Today Sports’ Georgia athletics website.

Rock Hill, S.C. – Winthrop head men’s soccer coach Daniel Ridenhour announced a 20-game slate for 2025 that includes three exhibitions.
 
The Eagles will have 10 home contests that consists of two exhibitions and eight regular season matches. 

Winthrop kicks off its exhibition schedule on Saturday, Aug. 9 as it travels to Statesboro, Ga. to take on Georgia Southern. The next two exhibitions will be on Eagle Field as the Eagles host Mercer (Aug. 11) and UNC Wilmington (Aug. 16).

 

The regular season begins with three consecutive home games starting with Coastal Carolina on Aug. 21 followed by Campbell (Aug. 24) and Georgia State (Aug. 30). The remainder of the non-conference home slate includes Wofford (Sept. 13) and College of Charleston (Oct. 14).

 

The non-conference road schedule begins Sept. 5 with a trip to Queens followed by a trip down to Columbia, S.C. to take on South Carolina on Sept. 9. The remaining non-conference road games are ETSU (Oct. 8), Virginia Tech (Oct. 22) and Furman (Oct. 28).

 

Eagles begin Big South action on the road at Gardner-Webb on Sept. 20. Winthrop will also travel to Presbyterian College (Oct. 11), Longwood (Oct. 17) and High Point (Nov. 1) in league play.

 

The conference home opener is Sept. 27 against USC Upstate. The Eagles will also host Radford (Oct. 4) and UNC Asheville (Oct. 25).

 

The Big South Conference Championship will be Nov. 5-15 with the Top 6 teams of the regular season standings qualifying for the tournament. The quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game will all be played on the home field of the higher seed.

 

For the 2025 season, all home games at Eagle Field will be free admission.

 

Watch The Eagles Live

Select home and away Big South matches will air live through the Big South Network on ESPN+. To watch live on ESPN+ you must be a subscriber. For more information on how to subscribe, click here. Select non-conference games on the road will be available to watch on various platforms. Links will be made available on the women’s soccer schedule (when made available) on winthropeagles.com.  

 

Follow The Eagles On Social

To keep up with the latest news on the Winthrop men’s soccer program follow the Eagles on X (@Winthropsoccer), Instagram (@WinthropSoccer) and Facebook (/WinthropUniversitySoccer)  

 

The Michigan Wolverines established themselves as one of the premiere NIL spenders when they reportedly signed quarterback Bryce Underwood to a $10.5 million deal last November to get him to flip his commitment from LSU to Michigan.

Now, they are being recognized for their deep pockets. According to a survey conducted by Pete Nakos of On3, the Wolverines are one of the top ten NIL spenders in the country. On the list, Michigan was tied for 7th with USC.

Advertisement

The Wolverines and Trojans come in just ahead of noted SEC spenders Tennessee and Auburn. The list is led by Texas, Texas Tech, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M, and Miami.

Regarding the Wolverines’ spending, Nakos wrote:

“Michigan’s highest-paid player on this year’s roster is well documented. The Wolverines flipped On3’s No. 1 overall recruit from LSU in November. The quarterback inked a multi-year deal that is expected to pay out over $12 million in his career at Michigan. The Wolverines are another program that is expected to cross the $20 million threshold in 2025.”

With this type of spending, the Wolverines are able to keep themselves on the same playing field for top-end recruits and transfers. Coach Sherrone Moore can use this expanded budget to seek out more players like Bryce Underwood and Alabama transfer running back Justice Haynes.

Advertisement

The Wolverines finished with the 6th-best 2025 recruiting class, according to 247Sports. It is safe to assume the extra funds played a role in Michigan achieving that ranking by being able to offer competitive payouts to top recruits.

Mikel Brown Jr. has gone viral this offseason after his performance in the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup. Brown secured his second gold medal for Team USA and was a crucial piece in the United States’ gold medal run.

The 5-star point guard averaged 14.9 points, 6.1 assists, and 2.1 rebounds per game while shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 47.6 percent from beyond the arc. He led Team USA in points, assists, efficiency, and made 3-pointers, and was blatantly snubbed for the MVP award.

A former Duke star and NBA first-round pick went on air and stated Brown was snubbed, but went even further to say Louisville basketball’s incoming freshman has a chance to be the best player in college basketball next season and a future NBA All-Star.

Related: Mikel Brown Jr. brings Louisville exactly what they’ve craved since Donovan Mitchell

Louisville basketball’s Mikel Brown Jr. earns Duke legend’s fiery praise

Brown is emerging as everyone’s favorite point guard in college basketball, and the whole nation has been drooling over him for months now. The 5-star guard is ranked as high as No. 6 in the country and the No. 1 point guard in the 2025 cycle.

Entering the 2025-26 season, it is no surprise that Louisville fans are excited to see the elite point guard play. However, now the whole nation is counting down the days to see Brown in action, as he truly is fun to watch.

Former Duke legend and No. 10 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, Austin Rivers, went on his podcast and gave Brown the biggest praise yet, and hearing it come from a former top 10 pick and a Duke All-American like Rivers has Louisville fans smiling from ear to ear.

“Mikel has talent, bro, like, he shoots the ball like three or four feet behind the line. I’m talking about NBA range now. You don’t see that in high school. His athletic ability has just skyrocketed over the past couple of years. He used to not have that, and now he can go to the lane and punch on you.”

It is no secret that Brown is going to make an immediate impact, but what separates him from other 5-stars is his 3-point shooting, as Rivers stated. When watching his film with Team USA, he was splashing 3-pointers from well beyond the arc, and was able to do it with hands in his face. He won the McDonald’s All-American 3-point contest and shattered the previous record.

The only negative thing people had to say about Brown was his size, and well, they simply can’t anymore.

“He also had a growth spurt,” Rivers stated on Brown. “He went from being this undersized point guard, he is like 6-foot-4 now. He has a size 14 shoe, man, I think the kid might have another inch or two to grow. He can shoot the (expletive) out of the ball, and he has feel, he can pass, this guy has vision, you can’t teach these things. He went to USA, he was the best player there. They gave AJ the MVP. Everybody who knows, who was there, knows Mikel played better than everybody, and was the best player on that team.”

The praise doesn’t just stop there. The former Duke Blue Devil went so far as to say Brown has the chance to be the best college basketball player and an NBA All-Star.

“I truly believe going to a program like Louisville, it is his show. They are going to give him the ball and be like, ‘We are going as far as you take us.’ And he is going to run the show there, man. Mikel Brown has the chance to be the best player out of college next year, and I think he has a chance to be a perennial NBA All-Star. I think he has the chance to be one of the most successful, decorated players in Orlando history.”

Rivers knows what it takes to be successful at the collegiate and pro-level. The Duke legend was a McDonald’s All-American who went on to win ACC Rookie of the Year, earn First-Team All-ACC honors, and be a top-10 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.

He played 11 seasons in the NBA, with his best season coming in 2017-18, when he averaged 15.1 points, 4.0 assists, 2.4 rebounds while shooting 42 percent from the field and 37 percent from beyond the arc.

Brown’s praise from the former Duke star and NBA vet proves the Cardinals’ 5-star phenom is poised for not only a breakout season but a historic one. As Rivers said, Louisville will go as far as Brown takes them, and after watching his gold medal run, the Louisville fans are hoping for a similar result.

Related: Duke expert just admitted Louisville’s 5-star phenom is a walking nightmare

For all the latest on Louisville basketball’s offseason and recruiting, stay tuned.

When it comes to rookie contracts in the NFL, there isn’t usually too much negotiation involved. Thanks to the collective bargaining agreement from 2011, every draft contract is essentially slotted due to the rookie wage scale, which means each player knows how much they’re going to make as soon as they get drafted. 

What this means is that negotiating a rookie contract shouldn’t be that difficult, well, unless you’re the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals seem to invent new ways to frustrate their fans (and players) every year, and that’s once again happening this year. 

The team’s first-round draft pick, Texas A&M pass rusher Shemar Stewart, showed up at OTAs, but he didn’t participate in a single workout this spring because he still hasn’t signed his contract. He also showed up for the first two days of minicamp during a whirlwind 48 hours where he watched practice before abruptly leaving prior to Thursday’s final session of camp. He didn’t do any on-field activity during those 48 hours, but he did make time to complain about Cincinnat’s front office, which seems to be a theme for Bengals players this offseason. 

Bengals contract drama: Cincinnati may be a title contender, but money issues keep distracting franchise

Cody Benjamin

We know this isn’t about the money. Both sides know that Stewart will be signing a four-year, $18.94 million rookie contract that’s fully guaranteed. The 17th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft was complaining because the Bengals threw a curveball in their contract negotiations with him by adding new language to his deal that the Bengals didn’t use with their past two first-round picks. The team essentially wants to add a default clause, according to former NFL team executive Andrew Brandt. This would allow the Bengals to void future guarantees if he were to get into trouble (this could be a suspension for on-field conduct, off-field conduct, an arrest or anything else the Bengals can think of). Normally, a first-round pick gets a fully guaranteed four-year contract, but this would give the Bengals some wiggle room to potentially get out of that if he were to get into trouble at any point during his four-year deal. 

Stewart is adamantly against the language being in his contract. 

“I’m 100 percent right,” Stewart said about his stance.”I’m not asking for nothing you all have never done before, but in you all case, you all just want to win an argument instead of winning more games.”

This has created arguably the most acrimonious standoff between a rookie and his team since Joey Bosa held out of Chargers’ training camp for 31 days in 2016, which is the longest holdout by any rookie since the 2011 CBA was implemented. 

The Bengals are playing hardball with Stewart, and in the past, that has usually worked for them, but this time around, Stewart does have at least one bit of leverage that rookies in the past didn’t have: Money. 

• Stewart’s leverage. For most of NFL history, rookies were generally broke when they entered the league, so many of them would quickly sign their first contract so they could get the signing bonus in their pocket. That’s not the case with Stewart, though. The former Texas A&M star collected plenty of NIL money in college, so he definitely isn’t broke, which means he can afford to wait things out until he can get the Bengals to cave, if that’s what he wants to do. 

If the Bengals aren’t willing to change the language in the contract, that next question becomes: How far would Stewart be willing to go to get what he wants? 

He was asked that question this week and he said “it depends.”

Stewart is the prototype of the money and player empowerment era that’s swept up college football recruiting and college football and has now fully arrived at the NFL. He was a high-profile recruit by the time he was a high school sophomore in Florida, debuting as the No. 1 overall prospect in the class of 2022 in the early rankings (he finished ranked No. 9 overall). He’s comfortable in the spotlight. He’s comfortable talking money — a player of his ilk in college football would have commanded at least $1 million the last few transfer portal cycles, and you can bet Texas A&M’s NIL collectives spent a pretty penny to keep Stewart in the system after its infamous, best-class-money-can-buy 2022 recruiting class fell apart. 

Stewart can hold a grudge, too. There’s a famous card room story about Stewart from his days as a recruit. 

Stewart was a heavy LSU lean and made Baton Rouge his first stop on his official visit circuit. LSU’s operations staff misspelled Stewart’s name on one of the many handouts and greeting pamphlets recruits receive. LSU was never a factor for Stewart after that.

Stewart signed with Texas A&M in somewhat of a Signing Day stunner after hometown Miami made a big push. Texas A&M is believed to have paid more. Stewart’s people, I’ve heard this week, are driven by the principle that they want what they think they deserve and they will not compromise if they don’t get it. 

Stewart has several options and he could quickly turn into the Bengals’ (and NFL’s) worst nightmare if he decides to go with a nuclear option of re-entering the draft next year, a process that is outlined in article 6 of the CBA. 

Here’s a look at two of his options he would have if he doesn’t want to sign with the Bengals:  

• He could re-enter the NFL Draft. If Stewart doesn’t sign his contract and he doesn’t play football at all in 2025, he could re-enter the NFL Draft in 2026. If he went this route, it means that any team could draft him next year, except for the Bengals. If a player were to successfully pull off a power move like this, it could throw a wrench into the future of the draft. It would set up potential situations where a player could sit out if he got drafted by a team he didn’t want to play for. Stewart would essentially have until November to make a decision on this. He’s allowed to sign his rookie contract until the Tuesday following Week 10. If he doesn’t sign it by that date, then he’s not allowed to play in 2025. There’s another upside to this strategy: If Stewart went undrafted in 2026 — maybe his situation with the Bengals scares other teams away — then he would become an undrafted free agent following the 2026 draft and he’d be free to sign with any team. 
• He could ask for a trade. If the Bengals won’t give him the contract language he wants, maybe someone else will. There is a unique deadline in place for any team that wants to trade a rookie: A deal has to be made at least 30 days before the start of the regular season, so a decision would have to be made here by Aug. 5 or Aug. 8 (The CBA isn’t clear if it’s 30 days before the start of the first game of the regular season or 30 days before the Bengals’ first game of the season). The Bengals don’t like being bullied, so this scenario would probably be unlikely, but it would be an option. 

Those are the two most practical options, but there’s also a wild card option: Stewart could try to return to Texas A&M for his senior year. 

During Monday’s episode of the Cover 3 podcast, CBS Sports college analyst Bud Elliott noted that Stewart has actually been working out at Texas A&M this summer. 

“A guy who has had some good A&M stuff in the past, he hit me, he’s like, ‘Hey, Shemar might end up back here,'” Elliott said.

Elliott then said his source had a few more nuggets. 

“‘He’s been at College Station, he’s been fully involved in workouts, He’s holding out from the Bengals, (the) relationship is toxic. He could try to come back and play again this season and go into the draft again next year.'” 

The NCAA has rules against a player returning to college once they’ve been drafted, so he would likely be facing a legal battle if he went this route, but it could be something that he’s considering. And as Elliott noted, it seems that everything with the NCAA is subject to litigation right now, so Stewart could certainly come out victorious if he decided to go to court. 

Stewart could also head to the CFL to stay in football shape, but he likely wouldn’t go that route, because if he signs with another professional football league, that would give his NFL rights to the Bengals for the next three years. 

The most likely scenario is that the two sides agree to a deal, but as the Bosa situation proved, these things can drag on. When the Bengals are dug in on something, they don’t usually budge, so it will be interesting to see who wins this multi-million dollar game of chicken. 

The Bengals have had a history of slow starts under Zac Taylor and part of that has had to do with contentious contract negotiations. Ja’Marr Chase sat out of training camp last year due to unhappiness with his contract and the Bengals offense looked out of sync to start the season. 

Even Joe Burrow seems to be getting tired of the distractions. The QB was asked if Trey Hendrickson’s absence was a distraction and he answered with two words: “Of course.”

“Last year, we had two. This year, we have one,” Burrow said of the holdouts the Bengals have dealt with. “So we do have less. You’d love to have none, but that’s life in the NFL.”

If you’re scoring at home, that means the Bengals sack leader from 2024 (Hendrickson) and the pass rusher who’s supposed to complement him on the defense (Stewart) are both sitting out. 

The Bengals had one of the worst defenses in the NFL last season, and now, there’s a chance that Stewart and Hendrickson could both possibly sit out training camp, which certainly won’t make the unit better. It’s another frustrating offseason for Bengals fans, who are probably used to it at this point.