GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – The Gator athletic season for 2024/25 is now history and we’ll have to wait a couple of months before a new one begins. But what a difference a year makes! You remember what was happening a year ago, don’t you? Gator Football Coach Billy Napier was on the hot seat, and many called for Athletic Director Scott Stricklin to be replaced. Funny, don’t hear much about those two things this year. The football team is in most preseason top 25 polls and the guy that Stricklin hired as the men’s basketball coach, Todd Golden, is coming off winning a national championship. Funny what winning does.

We’re heading into the end of June with still no resolution as to what future college football playoffs will look like and some are getting antsy about it. Call me one of them. Why can’t these people come up with a plan that checks all the boxes? Sure, that’s not easy with egos, power, and money on the line but we don’t even know if the SEC will play another league game and we don’t know how many teams will be in a future playoff. Heck, the current model hasn’t been totally ruled out; but time is running out. The hope is they will finally get this right and we can all see a formula for how teams get into the playoff without as much controversy and uncertainty about the process.

The ink is hardly dry in the house settlement when we have a lawsuit to deal with, and it comes from the University of Wisconsin who is suing the University of Miami for breaking the law by allegedly tampering with one of its football players. The lawsuit says a player that had signed a two-year contract with the badgers met with Miami representatives and that Miami broke the law by knowingly compelling the player to break his agreement with Wisconsin. This could prove interesting in the courts because players are not technically considered to be employees of a school. Further, the contract stipulates that a school is only paying to use the player’s NIL rights and is not being paid to play football at the school. We shall see where this goes but a ruling here could once again change the nil landscape.

We are right smack in the middle of the Major League Baseball season and some of the storylines have been interesting. Who would have thought the first player to reach 30 homers this year would be one Cal Raleigh…Remember him Gator fans? He was a catcher for FSU, watched him play a lot doing radio games and while I thought he would be a big leaguer, he’s absolutely crushing it this year. He is the first switch hitter ever to have 30 home runs before the all-star break…Too bad you don’t see him on TV much because he plays in Seattle, but he’s having a historic season.

Finally, kudos to Anthony Richardson for having a youth camp here over the weekend. In the sweltering heat, AR had a ton of young people to come out and learn football skills but also learn about some life lessons as well. Great to see him, or any athlete, give back to their community and this camp was an excellent example of that…Very cool thing to see. I’m Steve Russell, that’s the Russell Report!

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Thomas Castellanos is determined to prove his doubters wrong this fall following a transfer to Florida State. The starting quarterback continues to poke the bear that is Alabama.

The Seminoles will host the Crimson Tide in Week 1 of the 2025 college football season. Castellanos is confident in his ability to take down his future foe.

The passer started his career at Central Florida before moving into the ACC with Boston College. There, he threw for more than 3,600 yards to go along with 33 touchdowns.

Despite the production, he was benched in his final season with the Eagles. That demotion led to a second transfer within the conference.

That move seems to have proven quite lucrative given his activity on social media. The passer’s been spotted travelling the world this offseason while also flaunting his NIL wealth.

Most recently, he showed off a new tint on his Mercedes-Benz GLE53.

Castellanos’s NIL value sits around $500K according to On3 Sports’ valuation. It ranks fifth on the FSU roster. He’s looking to show that he’s worth the investment by helping his new school rebound from a 2-10 campaign.

He’s been handed the keys to the offense by head coach Mike Norvell. Castellanos says he’s not only playing for himself, but for the opportunity to “save jobs” on the coaching staff.

“I’m playing for coaches who are fathers and who have homes and families here,” he said in an interview with Pete Nakos of On3 Sports. “I’m trying to save jobs and win.”

Within that interview was a direct shot at Alabama, his first opponent as a Seminole. He doesn’t believe the Crimson Tide will present a worth adversary with Nick Saban no longer at the helm.

“They don’t have Nick Saban to save them,” he stated. “I just don’t see them stopping me.”

Alabama did struggle at times with dual threat quarterbacks last year. That was evident in a close win vs. South Carolina, as well as surprising losses to Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Still, it was a defensive bunch that ranked 10th in the nation, allowing just 17.4 points per game.

Thomas Castellanos is out for revenge.

His motivation likely stems from his rejection at Boston College. It might also have something to do with his being overlooked as a high school recruit.

Castellanos was rated as a three-star prospect in the class of 2022. The signal caller played his high school ball in the heart of SEC Country for Ware County in Waycross, Georgia.

He picked up offers from schools like Florida State and Kansas in the recruiting process according to his 247 Sports profile but was not given an opportunity by SEC schools.

Alabama was the class of the conference under Nick Saban. It took a step back in Year 1 with Kalen DeBoer. Castellanos believes he can capitalize.

This isn’t the first bit of shade the quarterback’s thrown in reference to that matchup with the Crimson Tide. Earlier this offseason, he was heard ripping ESPN for not putting the opener in primetime. In a now-deleted post on X, he wrote, “LOL, no primetime is crazy but bet.” The game will kick off at 3:30 PM.

Thomas Castellanos believes both he and his team are being overlooked following a disastrous 2024 campaign. He’s taken it upon himself to right the ship. That starts with Game 1 against Alabama.

Castellanos is motivated to prove the doubters wrong. He’s not lacking confidence ahead of his first season with the Seminoles. We’ll see if his words come back to bite in Week 1.

The 2025 college football season is more than two months away from officially kicking off. But that just means Ranking Season is in full swing, and Athlon Sports came bearing gifts with its annual preseason magazine.

As part of its 2025 edition, Athlon Sports predicted the ACC’s order of finish for the upcoming season, with some serious similarities to how 2024 played out. That includes reigning ACC champion Clemson once again lifting the conference trophy after knocking off Miami in Charlotte.

Beyond that, Athlon expects a considerable bounceback effort for FSU, which suffered through a miserable 2-win campaign in 2024, but isn’t nearly as high on some of the other ACC teams that could find themselves looking for a new head football coach before the end of the regular season.

CLICK HERE to buy Athlon’s 2025 magazine online.

Check out Athlon Sports‘ ACC projected order of finish for the 2025 season (2024 record) below:

Clemson is back, and Athlon Sports believes it will ultimately reign supreme atop the ACC once again in 2025 after claiming its eighth ACC championship in the last 10 years last season. Athlon predicts the Tigers will win its ninth conference title since 2015 with a championship game win over the Hurricanes.

Dabo Swinney returns a ton of talent, led by three-year starting QB Cade Klubnik, and finally dipped into the NCAA Transfer Portal to reload defensively. That included adding former Purdue pass rusher Will Heldt to work under new defensive coordinator Tom Allen, the former Indiana head coach who comes over after a one-year stint as Penn State‘s DC.

After a transformative 2024 season with ex-transfer QB Cam Ward at the helm, ‘Canes head coach Mario Cristobal doubled down and added former Georgia starting QB Carson Beck, a two-year starter, out of the portal this offseason. And Athlon clearly expects Beck to be a great fit in Miami, projecting a run to the ACC title game.

Despite a disappointing 2024, which ended prematurely with a UCL elbow injury to this throwing arm in the SEC Championship game, Beck is primed for a bounce-back season in Coral Gables and will have plenty of help in 2025, especially behind a loaded offensive line — which was clearly lacking last season in Athens. If Beck follows in Ward’s footsteps, he could cement his place as the next No. 1 overall draft pick.

The Mustangs were the surprise of the 2024 season, rolling through the ACC undefeated in their first season in the league before falling to Clemson in the ACC championship game. Still, that conference run was more than enough to secure a spot in the 2024 College Football Playoff, and Athlon clearly doesn’t expect much of a dropoff in 2025.

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee returns much of same roster that helped spearhead last season’s success, including returning starting QB Kevin Jennings, who has gone a bit overlooked as one of college football’s elite returning QBs. If Jennings and company can turn that perceived slight into motivation, the Mustangs will once again be a serious ACC contender in 2025 with another potential Playoff spot on the line.

Much like it did a year ago, Cardinals head coach Jeff Brohm put all his chips behind a former transfer QB leading the way after landing Miller Moss out of USC this offseason. Much like last year’s QB1, Tyler Shough, Moss is hitting reset on his career under Brohm’s tutelage and could be primed for a breakout season in 2025.

But Moss isn’t coming alone. Brohm and Louisville also added talented WRs TreyShun Hurry (San Jose State) and Dacari Collins (NC State), while also reloading defensively with the addition of LB Clev Lubin (Coastal Carolina), among others. If Brohm can get Moss and the new transfers to play up to their potential, Athlon believes the Cardinals will be in the mix for the ACC title in 2025.

Entering Year 3 at the helm of his alma mater, Yellow Jackets head coach Brent Key clearly has Georgia Tech headed in the right direction and Athlon expects more of the same in 2025. Tech returns talented dual-threat QB Haynes King to lead a mostly-intact offense that lost its 2024 leading receiver (Auburn transfer Eric Singleton Jr.) but returns nearly everyone else.

Given the wealth of experience, the Yellow Jackets could be primed for a surprise breakout season in 2025, especially if Key can continue to push the right buttons. Still, Georgia Tech isn’t without its question marks, including in the trenches, where Key overhauled its offensive and defensive fronts through the transfer portal this offseason.

Manny Diaz‘s first season in Durham was certainly a success after transforming the Blue Devils into legit ACC contenders in short order. And Athlon clearly has high hopes for another strong push in 2025 after Diaz landed uber-talented QB Darian Mensah (Tulane) out of the transfer portal.

Of course, that will require Diaz and the Blue Devils getting the most out of their newest portal additions, especially after losing plenty of talent at key skill positions this offseason. If Mensah can build upon last season’s success, Duke will undoubtedly make itself a factor in the ACC in 2025.

Suffice it to say, 2024 was an utter disappointment for FSU and head coach Mike Norvell. That led to a complete offseason overhaul, including former UCF and Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn as the new offensive coordinator and former Nebraska DC Tony White taking over the same position in Tallahasse.

Norvell also went heavy into the transfer portal in landing new dual-threat QB1 Tommy Castellanos (Boston College) and elite receivers Duce Robinson (USC) and Squirrel White (Tennessee). While Athlon doesn’t expect back-to-back disappointments for FSU, they clearly aren’t yet believers the Seminoles will return to its ACC-leading ways in 2025.

The Panthers were a roller coaster in 2025 and Athlon doesn’t expect much to change in 2025, especially after losing a litany of talent to the NFL and the transfer portal this offseason.

Still, Pitt returns talented QB1 Eli Holstein and RB Desmon Reid and managed to rebuild its offensive line through the portal, which could mean big things for the Panthers in 2025.

North Carolina dominated the college football offseason headlines following the surprise hiring of six-time Super Bowl champion head coach Bill Belichick, even if it wasn’t always for the right reasons.

Still, the Tar Heels are all-in on Belichick and believe a coach of his NFL caliber will ultimately pay major dividends at North Carolina. A lot will rest on the shoulders of new transfer QB Gio Lopez (South Alabama), who is one of two dozen new additions that will be counted on in 2025.

The Wolfpack underwent quite the offseason overhaul after last season. Longtime head coach Dave Doeren replaced both coodinators as well as a multitude of premium talent to the portal.

Still, NC State isn’t without some talented returners, including QB CJ Bailey and playmakers Hollywood Smothers, Noah Rogers and Wesley Grimes. But given those losses, especially on defense, it’s clear Athlon expects another up-and-down season for the ‘Pack.

Hokies head coach Brent Pry faces arguably the most pivotal season of his tenure ahead of Year 4 in Blacksburg. And Athlon Sports isn’t betting on a turnaround in 2025.

Pry added former Tulsa head coach Philip Montgomery as his offensive coordinator in hopes of turning things around for talented dual-threat QB1 Kyron Drones. If that happens in 2025, Virginia Tech could be primed for a breakout season. If not, Pry could find himself on the hot seat before the end of the year.

Year 1 under head coach Bill O’Brien was an overall success after making a bowl game, but BC has much higher hopes in 2025.

Part of that rests on O’Brien getting the most out of the QB position in Year 2 with Grayson James, who replaced Castellanos as QB1 midway through last season. Still, Athlon Sports doesn’t have the same expectations and expects a repeat of last year’s rollercoaster season in 2025.

The ‘Cuse were another ACC surprise behind new head coach Fran Brown, who rode the strong arm of former Ohio State transfer QB Kyle McCord in what amounted to a breakout 2024 season.

But McCord is now in the NFL, and Brown must decide between a pair of transfer QBs in Steve Angeli (Notre Dame) and Rickie Collins (LSU) to lead the way this Fall. Based on this projection, Athlon isn’t quite sold on either QB repeating McCord’s success and expects a fall back to Earth for the Orange.

Much like his in-state rival, veteran Virginia head coach Tony Elliott could find himself on the hot season if the Cavaliers struggle once again in Year 4.

Still, Elliott went all-out in the transfer portal to avoid such a fate, including adding transfer QB Chandler Morris (North Texas) and WR Jahmal Edrine (Purdue) on offense as well as S Devin Neal (Louisville) and LB Mitchell Melton (Ohio State) on defense.

The Golden Bears faced quite the uphill climb in their first season apart of the ACC, and Athlon Sports sees much of the same happening in 2025.

And outside of a considerable turnaround, Cal head coach Justin Wilcox is another ACC coach that could find himself on the hot seat before the end of the season, especially if new transfer QB Devin Brown (Ohio State) doesn’t produce a McCord-like effort in 2025.

The Demon Deacons enter Year 1 under head coach Jake Dickert with as many questions as answers, especially given the complete offseason overhaul that generally comes with a change at the top.

Dickert did manage to replenish some talent through the portal, especially in the trenches, but any 2025 success will undoubtedly depend on hitting a home run with one of its multi-time transfer QB additions in Robby Ashford (South Carolina) and Deshawn Purdie (Charlotte).

Last and but hardly least in Athlon’s projection is Stanford, which was dealt a shocking offseason overhaul with the March dismissal of former coach Troy Taylor and the hiring of former NFL coach Frank Reich.

New Cardinal general manager Andrew Luck brings some hope for the once-proud Pac-12 leader, but the coaching change added to widespread roster turnover doesn’t bode well for a return to form in 2025.

The NCAA will no longer maintain sport-specific scholarship limits, as its Division I Board of Directors on Monday formally adopted new roster limit rules to align with the recently approved House settlement. The changes go into effect July 1.

All schools that opt into the House settlement will, in turn, be allowed to award scholarships to as many players as they wish as their teams fall in line with the roster size caps outlined in the settlement. Football, for example, will have a roster cap of 105 players. 

The NCAA says this change will dramatically increase the number of available scholarships and will more than double the previous total offered to women.

“With the court’s approval of the House settlement, college sports are entering a new era of increased benefits for college athletes,” said Virginia Tech president Tim Sands, chair of the board. “Today’s vote to codify the roster provisions of the settlement formally removes limits on scholarships for schools that opt in, dramatically increasing the potential available scholarships for student-athletes across all sports in Division I.”

House v. NCAA settlement approved: Landmark decision opens door for revenue sharing in college athletics

Brandon Marcello

Under the new college sports model, which paves the way for revenue-sharing from the university to athletes, roster sizes across all sports are in flux. College football teams will shrink to a maximum of 105 players, but each player inside that number can receive a scholarship. That contrasts with the previous NCAA model, which capped scholarships at 85 per team but allowed programs to carry a bevy of walk-ons to fill out their rosters.

Importantly, the NCAA’s new roster limit rules include legislated exemptions for current athletes with remaining eligibility, ensuring they will not lose their roster spots if their teams must constrict to fall within the House settlement’s outlined roster sizes. This, in effect, “grandfathers” them in while schools adapt over time to the new regulations.

That point was a primary holdup in the House settlement’s approval. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, who presided over the case, delayed the approval multiple times over concerns with the roster limit implementation. The settlement’s roster limits were expected to lead schools to cut nearly 5,000 athletes from rosters, and many programs had already begun the process before the judge issued her final approval.

The House settlement approval is a landmark moment in college sports history and ushers in an unprecedented era wherein schools can directly pay their players. The $2.8 billion, 10-year settlement will also pay past players for missed name, image and likeness opportunities and ensure current and future players will have access to legitimate NIL contracts. Schools can share as much as $20.5 million of their revenue with players during the upcoming academic year, and the new NIL Go clearinghouse will approve additional financial deals for student-athletes.

The revenue-sharing era of college sports is set to begin in a matter of days. The House settlement and its host of new rules, among them being the allowance for universities to directly pay players, takes full effect on July 1. For the power conference schools, teams in the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, this means sharing all the way up to the designated cap of $20.5 million from their budgets (which range from $100 million to nearly $200 million at the top end) with players. For the rest of the schools, those in the Group of Five — the Mountain West, American, Sun Belt, Conference USA and MAC — reaching that revenue-sharing cap is not viable. The question at this point becomes which programs can reach the highest amount of revenue sharing.

While having what is essentially a salary cap could end up having a leveling effect on the Power Five, since every team will theoretically be paying the same amount of money on their rosters, the Group of Five (perhaps soon to be Group of Six as the Pac-12 rebuilds) are in a different camp. There are only two G5 teams that project to come anywhere close to having budgets big enough to meet that $20.5 million cap (which will be going up as its tied to average revenue of the P4 and Pac-12), are Oregon State and Washington State. But both of those schools will probably have to scale back spending, having been left behind in the collapse of the Pac-12. At best, G5 schools will find ways to share somewhere around $8-10 million, but it could take years of tightening spending elsewhere in athletic departments to be able to reroute that amount of money on an annual basis to the athletes.

Since revenue sharing hasn’t begun, obviously there isn’t any clear indication of how much money G5 teams are going to try to spend. Many programs have indicated they will opt in to revenue sharing but, understandably, G5 programs haven’t given any indication of what the exact amounts of revenue sharing they’ll be doing.

Of the 11 full-member institutions in the Mountain West, it’s likely that 10 of them (all excluding Air Force) will be opting in and paying athletes directly. But with none sharing definite numbers, we turn to speculation. NIL-NCAA.com has offered estimates for NIL collectives in years past, with the site turning its methodology to revenue sharing as well looking ahead to this upcoming season. To that end, these are their estimates for the Mountain West.

Taking these numbers at face value isn’t going to be the best approach, but you can get a good idea. After all, how much money these schools can afford to pay players is going to be based on. The above ranking is pretty much just a knock-on estimate of the revenue rankings for Mountain West teams. Quick disclaimer, these totals are not the entire total of income brought in, just those that contribute to how the revenue sharing cap is generated. Air Force is excluded (just as they were above) due to an expectation that it will not be revenue sharing).

1. UNLV — $29,750,807
2. Boise State — $24,372,780
3. Fresno State — $23,992,615
4. Colorado State — $22,041,323
5. New Mexico — $19,941,247
6. Nevada — $19,890,559
7. Wyoming — $18,676,631
8. San Diego State — $17,693,647
9. Utah State — $12,336,573
10. San Jose State — $9,924,753

As noted, those revenue numbers don’t include things like institutional support and student fees, along with some other miscellaneous revenue. Some power conference teams don’t actually draw on institutional support (or relatively little), but G5 teams very often do, usually to a significant degree. So, looking at the rankings of total revenue is pretty important context.

Here are the total revenues for schools as reported by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, in order of highest revenue to lowest. In parenthesis, there will be a percentage indicating what percent the NIL-NCAA.com estmate is of the total athletics budget of that university.

1. Colorado State — $73,501,380 (10.1%)
2. Boise State — $68,357,435 (11.9%)
3. San Diego State — $65,897,302 (12.2%)
4. UNLV — $64,243,413 (14.5%)
5. Utah State — $55,771,008 (7.6%)
6. Wyoming — $54,832,184 (11.9%)
7. New Mexico — $54,644,322 (11.3%)
8. Fresno State — $54,124,579 (13.6%)
9. Nevada — $53,329,304 (12.0%)
10. San Jose State — $44,239,752 (7.2%)

In the end, these remain simple estimates and what the guesses tell is is that the expectation is for Mountain West teams to spend somewhere around 11-12% of their athletics budget on players. Though these numbers are a bit fuzzy as the percentage was calculated taking the estimated revenue sharing total and the NIL Collective estimate. Whether the funds from collectives are simply absorbed into athletics department revenue is uncertain as the role of these collectives is in a state of flux.