Year in and year out, the Ohio State Buckeyes feature one of the nation’s premier college football teams. Despite consistent turnover on the roster, the Buckeyes are one of the few teams that has been able to find consistent success.

Since Ryan Day fully took over as head coach in 2019, the Buckeyes have peaked inside the top five of the College Football Playoffs each season. They’ve made their way to the CFP four times under Day and finally broke through to win a national championship last season in the inaugural 12-team CFP format.

The national championship victory was the Buckeyes’ first in a decade and likely saved Day from losing his job. The team and the fanbase celebrated the championship for weeks after their victory over Notre Dame, but all attention has now been turned to running it back and securing another ring in 2025.

With new developments in the NCAA and the world of college football, it appears that not only will Ohio State have the opportunity to contend in 2025, but they could have the potential to build the next great dynasty in college football.

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Over the last handful of years, NIL has changed the landscape of collegiate sports forever. Some would argue, myself included, that it’s gone too far, but the reality of the situation is that collegiate athletes are now going to be paid for their services.

Ahead of the 2025 school year, there are new developments when it comes to how collegiate players are being compensated. TWSN’s Andrew Little broke down the key impacts of the House v. NCAA settlement and how it will affect college sports.

“Moving forward, schools can choose to opt into revenue sharing and allocate a portion of their athletic department funds to pay players directly. The cap will start at $20.5 million in 2025-26 and increase by at least 4% annually for the next decade,” wrote Little.

The Buckeyes will be using $18 million of the $20.5 million cap for direct player payment. The ability to pay players to this degree immediately gives Ohio State a leg up over schools that don’t generate enough revenue to be able to pay players millions and millions of dollars.

Outside of the developments that allow schools to directly pay players, we’re seeing changes to how NIL funding is collected from external donors.

For the last few years, a group called THE Foundation was the primary NIL collective at Ohio State. In 2025 and beyond, the primary NIL group will be Buckeye Sports Group, an in-house entity that is run in part by the athletic department.

This might not sound like much, but the transition to an in-house entity now means that OSU’s NIL group will now have access to the school’s alumni database, something THE Foundation could not utilize. The ability to directly contact members of one of the nation’s largest alumni networks will be game-changing for Ohio State’s ability to raise NIL money.

In 2025, money drives almost everything in college football. An elite coaching staff and strong structure within your program is what pushes you over the edge, but money is what gets you a seat at the table.

Ohio State is already an established school with an unbelievable ability to recruit the top talents in the nation. With even more money now flowing through the football program, the rest of the nation better watch out because there’s a dynasty in the making in Columbus, Ohio.

Most people attached to the NCAA are celebrating a judge’s approval of a $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit settlement they hope will eliminate much of the uncertainty that has plagued the name, image and likeness issue.

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas — one of the loudest critics of the NCAA and the highest-profile celebrity who long has demanded money for college athletes — says the new deal will allow players to get their money and schools to lock them down.

To start, colleges will be able to spend up to $20.5 million on players, with the amount likely rising each year as revenues increase. It’s a cap: The schools aren’t forced to spend that amount, and players still can earn “fair-market” additional money from endorsements and other endeavors.

But with the new arrangements will come contracts — with buyout clauses that probably will lock them down, said Bilas, a former Duke basketball player.

“The biggest I think thing for me in this is now schools can sign players to contracts,” he said. “So when you sign a player to a multi-year contract with this $20.5 million amount annually, that going to keep going up because revenues keep going up in those arm lengths negotiations. You can also put buyouts in those contracts. And when you put a buyout in, these players aren’t going to go anywhere.”

Bilas said other revenue streams for players will be policed.

“Any contract for your name, image and likeness in the marketplace is going to be subject to review by [accounting and auditing firm] Deloitte for fair-market value,” he said.

“If there’s a local car dealership in Ann Arbor that wants to pay the third-string quarterback $4 million a year to do commercials for a dealership that grosses only a million dollars per year, Deloitte’s likely to say that’s not a fair-market value deal.”

Bilas addressed the concerns that allotting big money to revenue sports like football and basketball will squeeze out athletes who compete in Olympic sports, which normally lose money.

“I’ve heard administrators over the years say, ‘Boy, if we start paying athletes, it’s going to really hurt the United States Olympic movement. Because college sports is the breeding ground for our Olympic athletes and Olympic movement.’

“And I’m going, ‘Oh, so now the college athletes must pay for our Olympic movement, too? They have to remain unpaid so we can win medals?’

“If we really care about our Olympic movement, the government should deal with that, not college athletes,” Bilas added. “I don’t see coaches anywhere taking a discount so we can win more medals, or facilities not being built so we can win more medals. We’ve got to get out of this idea that the players have to take a discount so we can do all these other things. Those days are over.”

Roger Wilson is coming off his second season with the Boston College softball coaching staff, overseeing hitting, player development, and recruiting. During Wilson’s first season with the program (2024) coaching defense, the team recorded the fewest number of errors since 2014 (not counting the shortened 2020 season).

Before joining the Eagles, Wilson spent the past six years working at all levels of the game, developing players’ individual skills. Wilson also coached within the Concord Raiders and New Jersey Pride organizations, assisting in the college prep program with player development and on-field management. 

Serving as a player development analyst with the Baltimore Orioles (2017-19) and Philadelphia Phillies (2019-22), Wilson performed advanced statistical analysis for player evaluation, built integrated performance tracking systems, and delivered player development plans and reports.

As an athlete, Wilson played baseball at the California University of Pennsylvania where he captained the team and earned a bachelor’s degree in pre-law. 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – How many marathon runners are currently working on major college football staffs? 

That unlikely question is more apt to pop up on The Onion than it is Phil Steele’s 2025 College Football Preview, which about to hit newsstands any day now, according to my X feed. 

Well, there’s at least one marathoner for sure, and he’s working for coach Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia University.

Assistant wide receivers coach Ryan Nehlen recently competed in the Buffalo Marathon, and get this, he ran a time fast enough to qualify for next year’s Boston Marathon.

The 130th Boston Marathon will take place on Monday, April 20, 2026, and Nehlen believes he might be able to fit that into his busy football schedule.

The qualifying window for the 2026 race opened on Sept. 1, 2024, and it closes this fall in mid-September. According to the Boston Marathon website, runners can submit their qualifying times for race approval prior to the formal registration period.

Nehlen needed to cover the 26.2-mile distance in less than three hours to earn a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. He said his time this year was a 20-minute improvement over his previous best clocking.

“The Boston Marathon basically has 30,000 slots, and it depends on the year,” Nehlen said last week. “Some years, not all those people will qualify and other years there might be a little bit more than 30,000 who qualify, and they have to make the time a little tougher, but I should be okay because I got the time by about four minutes.”

Since his days playing for coaches Bill Stewart and Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia University, the former receiver has always kept himself in great shape at the various places he’s worked during his climb up the coaching ladder.

Those stops included stints at Marshall, Glenville State, Akron, Michigan, West Virginia, McNeese State and now back to West Virginia when he rejoined Neal Brown’s staff in 2024 as a senior offensive assistant/pass game specialist.

When Rodriguez took over for Brown last December, he kept Nehlen on board and reassigned him to wide receivers, where he works with Ryan Garrett and Logan Bradley.

Back in 2020, during his first stint on Brown’s staff as an analyst, Nehlen said he really began taking running seriously when COVID shut down the country.

“Everything was shut down, and I kind of just got into running, went online and registered for (a marathon) and ran it,” he shrugged. “When you research it, sub-three hours is really a standard that a lot of (recreational) marathoners try to achieve.”

Nehlen said running was born out of a desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle and to remain competitive in some manner or form.

“I’ve always wanted to stay in shape ever since I played here,” he explained. “Between (WVU strength and conditioning coach) Mike Joseph, Darl Bauer, Kevin McCadam and Bryan Fitzpatrick, all of them are doing great now. Darl is head strength coach at Troy; Bryan is the head guy at Navy and Kevin is at Houston. Those guys instilled a work ethic in me, and I kept it going.

“I’m done with football, but I still miss the actual physical part of it and running is obviously a physical component,” Nehlen continued. “I can compete with myself or other people, and I can get better as I age. As you get older, you really can get better at it.”

As a college football player, Nehlen endured the wear and tear of a four-year playing career but not necessarily the wear and tear of a lifelong runner, so his knees and joints have remained relatively unscathed.

He’s also got outstanding upper body and core strength because of his years preparing for grueling college football seasons, which can be helpful in running. It’s just not very common to see 200-pounders out there running marathons.

“I’m a bigger runner, but me having a good strength foundation with lifting all those years has made my legs, knees and tendons strong,” he noted. “For the most part, I’ve been able to stay away from the nicks that can happen to longtime runners.”

Nehlen, the son of WVU equipment manager Danny and Janie Nehlen and the grandson of Hall of Fame Mountaineer coach Don Nehlen, said distance running can be therapeutic. He doesn’t wear headphones when he’s out running the streets early in the morning before activity begins in the Milan Puskar Center.

His preferred course takes him from the Puskar Center parking lot up and around the WVU Law School and over to the Engineering Building on the Evansdale campus. He continues to the WVU Coliseum complex where he makes the loop and continues through Suncrest back to the Puskar Center. 

He estimates the length of the course he runs is about six miles, which he does daily.

“I just get out there in the mornings and try and avoid all the potholes as much as I can,” he laughed.

Nehlen admits it will become a challenge remaining in peak shape during football season. In the meantime, he said this summer he is focusing on speed training. His University High friend Matt Schiffbauer was an NCAA qualifier at Marshall and has been giving Nehlen some helpful pointers on distance running.

“He was really close to qualifying for the Olympics, and he actually lives in the Boston area now,” Nehlen said.

Nehlen indicated his plan is to continue running marathons and see how much he can improve.

“I’m going to push my limits,” he said. “I definitely think there is room for improvement. I am still new to it and I’m still getting better. The nice thing about it is I can get better as I get older.”

Of course, coaching football pays the bills, and that remains his No. 1 priority.

“I’m a football coach, and that is my main focus, along with my family (which includes wife Micah and their daughters Penelope and Stella),” he said. “(Marathoning) is kind of my next love.”

Nehlen believes the coaching profession sometimes gets a bad rap for not always promoting healthy lifestyles.

“I’m an example of being a football coach and still choosing to live a healthy lifestyle and being in shape,” he pointed out. “In my opinion, the better shape I’m in the more energy I’m going to have to coach my players. If you lead by example, they are going to look at that and say, ‘Man, my coach is working his butt off, and I’m going to work my butt off as well.'”

Once Nehlen knows for sure that he’s qualified for the Boston Marathon, he will then begin the planning process and his training schedule to correspond with his coaching responsibilities. Fortunately, Nehlen said the spring practice calendar Rodriguez established last year should fit in nicely with the Boston Marathon.

“If we work off the same schedule as last year, we’ll be done with spring ball in early April, so it should work out for me to get up there,” he said.

When Nehlen prepared to run the Buffalo Marathon, he said he averaged about 55 miles per week. 

It’s not a race you can run in its entirety while preparing for it.

“I just try and shut it off as much as I can, miles one through 13 or 14, and then between miles 14 and 20, you’ve got to lock in a little bit because that’s when it’s going to start getting tough,” Nehlen said. “Those last miles are all about finishing and having some grit and a hard-edge about yourself.”

A “hard-edge” about yourself?

That sounds awful familiar, doesn’t it?

 

After four years of unregulated money flooding into college football, the “Wild Wild West” days of the NIL may finally be winding down.

The long-awaited House v. NCAA settlement has been ratified, and it introduces a seismic shift to college athletics. Starting July 1, 2025, schools will be able to directly pay athletes through formal contracts, but under a hard salary cap.

Additionally, programs that opt into this agreement will be allowed to share revenue with athletes, capped at $20.5 million per year per school. Although this cap is expected to grow over time, for now, it becomes the upper limit of what any school can spend across all varsity sports, not just football or basketball.

This fundamental restructuring of athlete pay has caught the attention of NFL veterans and former college stars like Taylor Lewan and Will Compton. They didn’t hold back when discussing the implications of these changes.

“I love the idea of a cap,” Lewan said on the latest episode of the Bussin’ With the Boys podcast. “In the sense that all these major schools are now on the same playing field.”

Lewan’s point hits a growing concern in college football circles: parity. Without limits, NIL money has turned recruiting into an arms race. How?

Schools with deep-pocketed boosters and donor-backed collectives were regularly outbidding smaller programs, creating a system where athletes chase the highest bidder, often jumping schools mid-career.

“It’s the Wild West, bro,” the former Titans tackle added. “Right now it’s just, ‘who’s got the biggest bank account.’ That’s how I feel.”

This newly added upper limit for spending, Lewan believes, could restore some much-needed level of balance and loyalty in college football, which was missing in the last 4 years of the NIL era.

“Now we can kind of get back to, ‘I grew up a fan of this team, I’m loyal to this team,’” he said. “This is our team—not, ‘It’s springtime, I’m not getting enough snaps, I’m gonna get the hell out of here.’”

Will Compton, Lewan’s co-host, echoed similar concerns. However, he focused on what’s still missing: enforceability. “It’s legitimately, for me, like: when’s the rule going to come out where kids and athletes can be locked into multi-year deals?” Compton pondered.

That question cuts to the heart of the new model. While schools can now offer revenue-share contracts, their binding nature remains unclear. Recent high-profile cases, like Madden Iamaleava transferring from Arkansas to UCLA despite having a contract with a buyout clause, highlight how murky the NIL legal framework is.

“There’s so much money,” Lewan said. “All this is telling me, based on the little things I know, is $20.5 million is just being added to everything else that’s going on right now.”

And he’s not wrong. The NCAA expects compensation (between revenue share, scholarships, and benefits) to eventually reach close to a whopping 50% of athletic department revenue at some schools. That’s a dramatic departure from the amateur model that college sports were built on, and the scary part is, it’s only the beginning.

The former NFL star, however, continued championing the newly implemented cap by pointing out how it could also help solidify team culture and commitment, especially if combined with contract terms that actually stick. “Have one fixed area for free agency or the portal,” he said. “Then it’s a contract — you are here unless these things happen.”

But until courts settle whether these contracts are truly enforceable, schools will continue to operate in a legal grey zone.

For now, the only certainty is the number: $20.5 million. So until further notifications, every power-conference school will have to make it work within that limit, while still trying to land and retain top-tier talent.

With more than 70% of that money expected to go to football alone, expect the elite programs, those who already recruit well and spend big, to only strengthen their grip.

Because the question isn’t just who gets paid anymore. It’s who stays, and why. A sentiment Taylor Lewan summed up best: “Everyone’s getting paid, that’s great. But you chose to come here knowing the money was basically the same in a lot of places.”