Well, the Dear John letter on Instagram we’ve all been dreading dropped on Thursday.

“First, I want to thank God for the opportunities that he has blessed me with to play this game. I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to represent TCU for an incredible 4 years. It has been a dream to be able to play and graduate from this university and I will forever be grateful for that.”

But — there’s always a “but” — TCU quarterback Josh Hoover continued, “I will be entering the transfer portal.”

So, there it is. Well, hell. This one hurts because Hoover represented stability in a volatile era of name, image, and likeness, and the specter of the transfer portal. He was “our guy” in a sports culture where “our guy” barely exists anymore.

But alas … . 

Josh Hoover is a fantastic person. We wish him the best. 

Our man Ken Seals of Azle and then Weatherford High, who traveled back here by way of Vanderbilt, is presumably the starter for TCU’s Alamo Bowl game against Southern Cal. (Everybody remembers the last time TCU lost its starting quarterback right before the Alamo Bowl. It was epic.)

Thankfully, Kansas — the band, that is — taught us all about transience in 1977. Nothing lasts forever, especially in today’s college athletics’ revenue sports. Once upon a time, our guys stayed with us until the eligibility ran out. Today, our college athletes more resemble Mickey Rooney or Jennifer Lopez. (Can you believe that Mickey Rooney found eight wives?)

It’s TCU one day. Indiana the next?

The clickbaiting stations got on this immediately: Where will Josh Hoover land?

Miami, Oregon, Texas Tech. No, Lord, no … not Texas Tech!

The leader in the clubhouse appears to be Indiana, once a hotbed of college basketball. Bob Knight is somewhere beside himself — that is, red-faced and expressing his emotions, shall we say, with the harshest language ever known to man — that the Indiana football program is, one, No. 1 in the country; and, two, that the football coach there is making something like $93 million over eight years.

However, Curt Cignetti has made the Hoosier State a destination for football transfers.

Indiana is also the school Hoover initially committed to as a senior at Rockwall Heath. He had been lightly recruited with only two major suitors — SMU and Indiana. At the helm at SMU at the time was, of course, Sonny Dykes. When Dykes took the TCU job he reached back out to Hoover, who jumped at the chance to come to Fort Worth. He recalled to us in September that on his recruiting visit he “loved it here.”

Things are different at Indiana since Hoover’s change of direction. Different coach and drastically different direction.

Just last year, Hoover turned down a lucrative offer to go to Tennessee. He declined it, he said, because he had already committed to returning to TCU. And the pull of money isn’t the only reason he’s leaving. With one year of eligibility remaining, he likely wants to polish his NFL prospects by playing in bigger games.

That’s not to say that can’t or won’t happen here. But a place like Indiana — whose quarterback this season just won the Heisman Trophy — is likely to open the year in the top 10, playing in the media-darling Big Ten Conference.

Suffice to say, Hoover will be an attractive option for a lot of programs.

His 9,629 passing yards and 71 touchdown passes will likely be the most of any QB in the portal. In 2024, he set a school record with 3,949 passing yards. Hoover also has 17 wins over the past two seasons.

“I want to Thank Coach Dykes for giving me the opportunity to play at TCU. I want to thank Coach Briles and the rest of the coaching staff for pushing me to be my best on and off the field.

“Lastly, I want to thank my teammates for all of the memories that we’ve shared together. This place has allowed me to meet some of my best friends, and I will always be grateful for that. I’ve prayed about this and decided that I will be entering the transfer portal.

“God Bless & Thank you TCU”

We’ll shed a tear, take a sip, and move on. It’s the only option.

So long, farewell, Josh Hoover.

Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.

In today’s day and age of college football, the landscape of the sport has dramatically changed.

Now, instead of loyalty, coaches are forced to battle against the tampering of their best players in order to keep them from entering the portal for a big pay day.

And, as has been seen with USC and Texas A&M, players are also now announcing contract extensions to simply forgo that portal temptation, and stay with the school they are currently playing for.

Fortunately – and refreshingly – Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning is taking a different approach.

According to reports from Inside Texas reporter Justin Wells, Manning is set to take a reduced payment from the Longhorns’ 2026 revenue-sharing pool in order to free up money to help his team both retain its own star players, as well as attack the transfer portal to improve the roster for a 2026 championship run.

A Tom Brady-Like Approach From Arch Manning

This move is eerily reminiscent of former NFL superstar Tom Brady, who was famous for taking pay cuts throughout his career in order to help his team acquire players in free agency in hopes of winning a championship.

Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki also took a similar approach during his time in the NBA, helping Mark Cuban to add firepower to the roster by taking a massive pay cut.

The only difference is that this is college football, and in an era of a ‘look at me and my bank account’ mentality from the vast majority of college football, Manning’s selfless approach is a sight for sore eyes.

Manning Selfless Despite Elite Season

This is especially true considering the fact that Manning deservedly earned a major pay raise in his first season as the starter, completing 227 of 370 passes for 2,942 yards and 24 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He also rushed for 244 yards and led the Longhorns with eight rushing touchdowns, and had a receiving touchdown, accounting for 33 total scores for the season.

And, he was able to do all of that behind a leaky offensive line that ranked 67th in the country in pass blocking grade per PFF, while allowing 159 total pressures and 22 sacks – numbers that could have been much higher if Manning did not have such elite pocket presence and escapability. Not to mention, the offense being encumbered by the worst rushing attack the school had since 1944.

But instead of using that as leverage, like so many other players in the sport, Manning is giving Texas the Brady treatment – allowing them more money to dedicate towards NIL in the transfer portal in hopes of bringing in help to fix the team’s issues up front on the offensive line and in the running game, with potentially multiple additions at the running back spot.

Not to mention, it potentially allows Texas to make some major improvements at wide receiver, linebacker, and defensive back.

His decision also makes it much easier for Texas retain current players on the roster, who have no doubt been receiving tampering-level overtures from other schools and agents.

And it will be made possible in part thanks to a selfless act from Manning, who has now made he desire to win a national championship quite clear.

The college football coaching carousel spins on, but now some of that speculation includes one of the most prestigious positions in the NFL which came open this year, and a rising star in the NCAA is now being connected to the vacancy.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman is someone who should be considered in contention to become the next coach of the New York Giants franchise, according to college football analyst Josh Pate.

Freeman in play for the Giants?

“I just think Marcus Freeman is gonna be in play for the Giants job,” Pate said during an appearance with Bussin’ With The Boys. 

“I think a lot of people in the college football administrative world know that/expect that. The agency world knows that/expects that. Not a done deal. I’m not going Schefter. 

“If it’s even a remote possibility, and it certainly is, then that means the Notre Dame job may be open, as well. The coaching cycle is not close to done yet.”

NFL insiders seem to agree

The talk connecting Freeman to the Giants is not just random speculation at this point.

Freeman has also emerged as one of the most prominent names on the shortlist being assembled by the Giants franchise itself, according to The Athletic.

That is something to keep an eye on, as the NFL coaching bonanza is only just getting started, and Freeman is considered one of the best young coaching minds in circulation at any level.

LSU, Penn State, and Florida were all reportedly in communication with Freeman through his representatives when those schools were in the market for a coach, and the Giants could be next.

What Freeman has done at Notre Dame

Freeman has just completed his fourth season at the helm of the Fighting Irish program and boasts a 43-12 overall record, winning more than 78 percent of his games.

Freeman led Notre Dame to a No. 2 national ranking and an appearance in the national championship game against his alma mater a year ago.

His team went 10-2 this season and seemed poised for another berth in the College Football Playoff, before the committee reversed course on Selection Day and left the Irish out of the field, leading the school to decline playing in a bowl game. 

What Notre Dame is giving Freeman

Freeman, who will turn 40 next month, signed a contract extension with Notre Dame last year that will lock him in with the school through the 2030 season, but if this carousel has proven anything, it’s that almost any contract can be gotten out of.

Notre Dame is a private school and is not obligated to publish its coaching salaries, but insiders contend his deal pays him $9 million per season and is worth a total of a reported $54 million.

But that raise is already somewhat out of date after Indiana recently inked Curt Cignetti to a new deal that will pay him $11.7 million per season.

The most recent reporting contends that Notre Dame and Freeman have not yet reworked his deal with the school, but that both sides are interested in coming to a new arrangement by the new year.

The faster they do that, the faster they can end talk of his leaving.

Read more from College Football HQ

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Name, image, and likeness.

It has taken athletics across the amateur level by storm nationally, creating an avenue for players to make money from their NIL, particularly in football.

College football, most notably at the NCAA Division I level, has been forever changed because of it, with one SEC coach calling the state of CFB “sick.”

“We’re trying to sound warning bells. There’s a warning that the system that we are in really is sick right now, and college football is sick,” Missouri head football coach Eli Drinkwitz said about NIL on Monday, December 16, ahead of his team’s appearance in the Gator Bowl. “There’s showing signs of this cracking moving forward… Tampering is at the highest levels – there is no such thing as tampering, because there’s no one that’s been punished for tampering. Everybody on my roster is being called.”

In Mississippi, Ole Miss has benefited from its strong NIL movement, the Grove Collective, which is a large reason why the football program is hosting a College Football playoff game in the school’s first-ever appearance.

But how is NIL affecting high school student-athletes in Mississippi?

Thirty-six states in the country are allowing high school student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness.

Mississippi is not one of them.

“NIL is not for high school students,” Rickey Neaves, the Executive Director of the Mississippi High School Activities Association, said. ”They’re much too young to be taking on that responsibility and handling that large sum of money. So, a high school student and our association need to concentrate on number one, being a young person and enjoying school, enjoying the high school experience, and just being a young man or a young lady. And then the rest of it will take care of itself later on. They’re going to have to work and be responsible later on in life, and long enough. So let them be young while they can.”

According to Yahoo Sports, Fazion Brandon, a five-star recruit playing high school football in North Carolina, is allegedly making $1.2 million in NIL money, who signed several highly publicized contracts since his lawsuit.

Tristen Keys, the highest-rated Mississippi recruit in the class of 2026 and a senior at Hattiesburg High School who signed to play CFB at Tennessee, has an NIL valuation of over $500k, according to On3 Sports.

While not naming the said student-athletes, Neaves confirmed that several Mississippi athletes have been approached every year with a large sum of money with NIL deals since its emergence.

$1.2 and $1.4 million to be exact.

These individuals likely played football in the state, with Mississippi consistently ranking in the top five, and even the best in the country in producing four and five-star talent on the gridiron, multiple reports show.

In fact, 12 high school student-athletes are ranked in ESPN’s Top 300 recruits in the nation, with 5 of them being ranked in the top 100.

That amount of money is hard to turn down for anyone, let alone a high school athlete with the opportunity to achieve dreams at the tip of their finger.

Neaves said turning this opportunity down has impacted a select few of student-athletes in the state.

However, there are ways around signing an NIL contract that can’t be accepted until they graduate and are enrolled in a university.

“They can sign an NIL contract. [But] they or their parents cannot receive any money or any goods that can be escrowed, as we call it, into a bank account for when they do graduate,” Neaves stated. “They cannot use their school logo, their school colors. It does not keep them from using their own name, their own image, and their own likeness, but all of that other belongs either to their school or even to the association, so they can’t use that.”

“We do encourage parents to look into that,” he continued. “I had a deal with a couple of student-athletes last year, and my advice to them was, you can’t tell a young man when they’re 17, 18 years old to turn down $1.2 million. What you can tell them is to be very careful, have that money escrowed and waiting on you once you use your eligibility or once you have graduated, and then build your own name, your own legacy, and build off of that.”

No local student-athletes, according to Neaves, have left the state to pursue NIL deals that are eligible to profit from while in high school.

While the NIL movement hasn’t made its way to high school athletics in the Magnolia State, Neaves suggests another entity is directly affecting high school athletics here.

The transfer portal.

It has changed the landscape of amateur athletics forever, with major colleges able to pay millions in NIL contracts for transfers arguably older and more ready-made for a football program – or any other athletics program, for that matter – to win immediately.

While there are no formal, large-scale academic studies that provide a precise, specific percentage of high schoolers affected, this in turn undoubtedly results in fewer roster spots and scholarship offers for talented high school recruits.

In 2023, an analysis done by Gene’s Page shows that SEC programs’ high school signees dipped nearly 11-percent between 2019 and 2021 as the portal gained prominence.

The FootballScoop stated in an article that in 2021, around 400 fewer players across the country signed FBS scholarships compared to the two cycles prior, and the trend has continued.

Neaves proposes that high school athletes in the state are impacted today.

“We need to look at what that is doing to our high school athletes,“ he warned. ”Right now, we have some outstanding high school athletes, both male and female, who are not getting the opportunity to go on to the next level because these people are still hanging around. They’re gaining some of the six and seven-year college athletes, and that’s not letting today’s seniors in the room. One of these days, NIL money is going to run out, and you have, you have juniors and seniors in college that are staying in college because they’re making more money off their NIL than they would make out of working.”

Is there a future for NIL in Mississippi high school sports?

For the possibility of NIL to maneuver its way into Mississippi high school sports, it would first have to start above the MHSAA.

Neaves doubled down that it is not in the picture within the rules of the association, but that “the legislature could pass a bylaw that says student athletes of high school age can do this.”

“If that ever happened, we would have to stay within the rules ourselves. So, we would have to allow it,“ he said. ”I personally hope that does not happen because I think we have the best option for both worlds here. The student athlete can still have [NIL deals] waiting on them when they get out of school at any time in their life, when they are more adapted to [the] use of it and can benefit from it even more.”

It does remain a possibility, however.

More states are trending towards allowing high schoolers to make NIL money.

On November 25, Ohio became the latest state to join the NIL movement.

While it is technically out of Neaves’ control, he does encourage that high school sports remain the same in Mississippi.

“You never know in today’s world what’s going to be coming down the pipe, but I think you have to always look ahead and see what pitfalls are out there.”

“Let’s be realistic. Is a 16 or 17-year-old mature enough to handle a million dollars? No. I know when I was that age, I would have blown it and probably ruined my whole career while doing it. Now, that’s not what everybody would do, but if that happens to one person, that’s one too many.”

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© Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

College football has been skidding down a slippery slope since the start of the NIL Era, and the line between that level and the pros gets blurrier with every year that passes. Now, we’ve been treated to our latest shift on that front courtesy of Arch Manning’s decision to take a pay cut ahead of his second season as the starter for Texas.

Next summer will mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that essentially forced the NCAA to abandon its longstanding efforts to prevent students from cashing in on their name, image, and likeness.

It was a fairly inevitable development and one that was poised to have a dramatic impact on the landscape of college sports. While most fans agreed that student-athletes deserved to make some money, the ways in which they’re now able to do so have slowly but surely eroded the spirit of collegiate athletics as the concept of amateurism becomes a memory of the past.

That evolution has been marked by a number of tangible signposts, and the latest stake has been pounded into the ground courtesy of Arch Manning.

Arch Manning is taking a pay cut to allow Texas to use more of its House settlement funds on other talent

Earlier this week, we were treated to the latest piece of evidence that college football is basically a pro sport when USC went out of its way to announce running back Waymond Jordan had re-signed with the program after deciding to return to the Trojans for a second season.

We’ve reached a point where every player is effectively a free agent when their season comes to an end due to the transfer portal, and schools now have even more money they can use to try to poach and retain talent in the wake of the House settlement that will allow athletic departments to redistribute up to $20.5 million in revenue to athletes during the current academic year.

According to Texas Insider, the University of Texas is setting aside around $14 million for its football program next season. Arch Manning will undoubtedly receive a significant chunk of that sum, but the outlet spoke with sources who say the quarterback will accept “a reduced compensation” from the Longhorns so they can spend more money on other players in pursuit of a national championship.

Manning certainly isn’t hurting for cash, as he reportedly received at least $3.5 million this season thanks to NIL deals with companies including Red Bull, Uber, and Warby Parker.

It’s a commendable move for a QB who will be looking to improve after largely failing to meet the admittedly lofty expectations surrounding him during a campaign where the Longhorns went 9-3, but it’s also one that shows the sport has firmly reached the point of no return.