MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Along a carpeted hallway within the Sandestin Hilton, Brian Kelly is mid-conversation when a man interjects. “Hey,” the man said toward the LSU football coach, “you asked great questions today during our presentation!”
The man continued onward, leading a team of about a half-dozen people through the lobby of this place. They are members of the Deloitte leadership and implementation team operating college sports’ new NIL clearinghouse dubbed “NIL Go.”
Presenting in front of SEC coaches here on Tuesday — a question-and-answer session too — Deloitte representatives walked them through the intricacies and concepts of the much-ballyhooed clearinghouse, the industry’s new, somewhat controversial method to prohibit booster payments to athletes.
While the presentation garnered rave reviews, uncertainty and doubt still lingers from coaches and others on the clearinghouse’s legal sustainability and enforcement method.
There’s so much uncertainty, says Georgia coach Kirby Smart, that some schools are promising high school recruits and transferring players third-party NIL deals as part of their compensation package despite an important fact: None of those deals can be approved by a clearinghouse that hasn’t fully launched.
But more concerning, says Smart, is that some school-affiliated, booster collectives are currently compensating high school players — upwards of $20,000 a month — to remain committed and eventually sign with their school.
“Teams that are unusually good at recruiting right now are doing it. Kids are getting money, but if you decommit, you owe that money back,” Smart said. “These are high school kids getting money from an entity not affiliated with the university but is a collective of the university.”
Pressed to identify the schools, Smart said none of them are in the SEC, but the schools “are signing kids [to contracts] right now and paying upfront through an outside collective.”
It is the latest maneuver from athletic departments to take advantage of this murky, unregulated space as college sports transitions the way in which it compensates athletes — from booster-backed collectives to direct school revenue sharing, a move scheduled to be finalized July 1 if the House settlement is approved.
In the meantime, it is a free-for-all. But not for long, says Kelly.
College sports’ new NIL clearinghouse will be charged with ensuring deals involving players are legit. (Getty creative image) (zimmytws via Getty Images)
Three days after the settlement is approved — if it is approved — the “NIL Go” clearinghouse is expected to begin processing athlete NIL contracts. Athletes must submit to the clearinghouse all deals valued at more than $600. Deloitte is using a fair market value algorithm to create a “compensation range” for NIL deals to assure they are not the fabricated contracts that boosters have struck with athletes for years.
Smart expects a “mass run” on submissions to the clearinghouse from schools attempting to test the entity to determine just “how much can I get outside the cap,” he said.
“Every team is going to put pressure on Deloitte to say, ‘I need to know! I’m promising this money outside of the cap!’” Smart told Yahoo Sports.
It could get tricky.
The officials from the Deloitte-run clearinghouse “NIL Go” — the centerpiece of the new enforcement entity, dubbed the “College Sports Commission” — is sharing data with coaches and athletic directors, including that 70% of past deals from booster collectives would have been denied. Deloitte also shared that about 80% of NIL deals with public companies were valued at less than $10,000 and 99% of those deals were valued at less than $100,000 — figures that suggest the clearinghouse threatens to significantly curtail the millions of dollars that collectives are distributing to athletes.
“If you got some mucky deals going on right now, you’d better be careful,” warned Kelly. “These deals have got to be for a valid business purpose. A lot of [previous] deals would have never gotten through.”
Even some of those currently being promised to recruits are at risk of rejection by the clearinghouse, coaches and administrators tell Yahoo Sports. For example, schools are guaranteeing to recruits that a portion of their compensation will be derived from third-party deals. An example of this might be a school guaranteeing a player an entire compensation package of $500,000: $300,000 from the school in revenue share plus $200,000 more in third-party endorsement deals that would, presumably, not count against a school’s revenue-share cap.
What if these third-party deals don’t get approved?
“That’s a risk,” Smart told Yahoo Sports. “Schools are going to either default on a contract, or have lied, or have been right and they gain a player for it.”
Such a contract is actually prohibited by new rules. Administrators learned of that during a call with House implementation committee members earlier this spring. No third-party NIL deals — including those from multi-media rights companies, apparel brands and corporate sponsors — can be guaranteed to athletes as part of their revenue-sharing contracts from schools.
However, uncertainty still lingers about all of this.
Many legal experts believe that the clearinghouse concept will trigger a bevy of legal challenges, but Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts believes in the new entity. He is one of 10 administrators from the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC and Pac-12 on the implementation committee.
“The reality is not a lot of people understand it or know about it, which leaves them to [say], ‘It won’t work!’ ‘It won’t be fair!’ ‘They don’t know what they’re doing!’” Alberts said from meetings on Tuesday. “The system has to be given a chance.”
For now, the system cannot formally launch until a decision from a California judge is made over the House settlement. A decision to approve or deny the settlement has, for nearly two weeks, been in the hands of Judge Claudia Wilken. She’s on her own timeline.
Meanwhile, Alberts acknowledges the jockeying from schools in an attempt to exceed the cap with third-party contracts.
“Everybody is trying to figure out fair market value NIL,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re all looking for a competitive advantage. What is real is you have rev-share amount and scholarship amount, but what is undefined is how much fair market value deals can you get through NIL Go.
“The institutions most successful in getting that done, if you can organically grow your cap by $3-5 million per institution, you have more resources as others.”
An affiliation agreement being circulated throughout the power conferences requires schools to abide by the new enforcement rules, even if their state law contradicts them, and waives their right to sue over enforcement decisions. The agreement aims to, above all, protect the clearinghouse’s decisions, exempting it from lawsuits from schools and preventing those schools from circumventing the settlement’s compensation cap through affiliated entities such as collectives.
Alberts calls the agreement “critically important.”
“We are all defendant schools and conferences and you inherently agree to this,” he said. “I sat in the room with all of our football coaches, ‘Do you want to be governed?’ The answer is yes.”
Five of the top 10 teams in the HERO Sports Group of Five Top 25 media poll lost last week. Arguably the most surprising was Tulane, which was ranked second, losing to UTSA by 22 points.
But the No. 1 program remained the same, as Memphis is still at the top of this week’s Group of Five Top 25 media poll. Members of nationally-focused media outlets as well as at least one team beat reporter from every G5 conference is involved.
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Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft is heading into his fourth week in a national search for Penn State Football’s next head coach. Kraft has been casting a wide net in his search, showing interest in current head coaches, current coordinators, and former head coaches turned media personalities.
One of the most intriguing candidates that kept coming up in the process is former Ohio State and Florida head coach and current Fox Sports media personality, Urban Meyer.
As of last week, Kellyanne Stitts of On3 Sports reported that Meyer does not have a “desire” to return to coaching.
However, on Saturday, Kevin Borba of Athlon Sports reported that Meyer did pursue the Penn State job, before being turned down by Pat Kraft for an interesting reason.
There could be mutual interest between Urban Meyer and Penn State Football. (Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images)
Despite being out of college football since 2018 and not coaching since 2021, Urban Meyer’s name has continuously been brought up each offseason because of his impressive career accomplishments.
Meyer is one of the most accomplished coaches in the history of the sport, with three national championships between two teams and the third-best winning percentage in college football history over his 17-year career. Meyer holds a 187-32 career record (.854 winning percentage) with coaching stops at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida, and Ohio State.
Urban Meyer Reportedly Spoke to Penn State About Head Coaching Vacancy
Penn State Football most recently saw Meyer during his stint at Ohio State, where he won over 90 percent of his games, including the 2014 national championship and six wins over the Nittany Lions.
As reported by Borba, on his Zach Gelb show on Audacy, Gelb reported that Meyer had “strong interest” in the Penn State job opening.
“I’m not going to crush Urban Meyer for lying when he says ‘Hey, I don’t have any interest in coaching again,’” Gelb said. “But I’ve talked to two sources and two sources told me that Urban Meyer had a great interest level in becoming the next head football coach at Penn State.”
According to Gelb, the conversations between Meyer and Penn State hit a major snag, though.
“The reasons why those talks did break down is when they got to the topic of NIL,” Gelb explained. “Which Urban Meyer has never been a head coach during the NIL era. His plan and his answers in terms of navigating those Name Image, and Likeness waters were not viewed as satisfactory enough.”
Gelb’s reporting matches the overall theme of what Pat Kraft focused on during his initial press conference regarding Penn State’s opening.
How Penn State’s Coaching Search is Taking Shape
Kraft noted in early October after James Franklin was fired that he was looking for Penn State’s next coach “to be able to maximize elite resources, attack the transfer portal, and develop at the highest level.”
Kraft is looking for a coach who can take Penn State to an elite level through the use of the new NIL and transfer portal rules.
Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft is leading an expansive search for the Nittany Lions’ next head coach.
With Urban Meyer’s last stint in college coaching being before the new NIL rules, this was always a question about how well Meyer could adapt to the changing landscape of college football.
From Gelb’s reporting, it seems as though Pat Kraft was not satisfied with Meyer’s ability to adapt to this new landscape.
In his On3 interview, Meyer did name a candidate to throw his weight behind in Penn State’s coaching search. Meyer told Kellyanne Stitts during his interview that Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline is ready to be a head coach.
“I’m a big Brian Hartline fan,” Meyer noted. ‘Always have been, and he just needed the experience (as an OC).”
Hartline remains one of the top candidates on Penn State’s board as the search for James Franklin’s successor continues.
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Robert Shields covers Penn State Football for Nittany Central. As a Penn State graduate, Robert has covered Penn State football since 2019, but had been a fan of the Nittany Lions for well over a decade. During his undergraduate education, Robert was a manager in the athletic department of a division III school, working in various aspects of athletic management at football, soccer, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse games.
North Dakota Fightin’ Hawks at Alabama Crimson Tide
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BOTTOM LINE: No. 15 Alabama hosts North Dakota in the season opener.
Alabama went 28-9 overall with a 12-3 record at home during the 2024-25 season. The Crimson Tide averaged 90.7 points per game last season, 18.1 from the free-throw line and 31.5 from beyond the arc.
North Dakota finished 6-12 in Summit League play and 2-12 on the road a season ago. The Fightin’ Hawks averaged 77.3 points per game last season, 14.6 from the free-throw line and 24.6 from 3-point range.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
Auburn football became the 13th college program to let go of its head coach this year, as Hugh Freeze was let go by the university Sunday afternoon.
The Tigers are also the fourth SEC school with a head coaching vacancy, joining Arkansas, Florida and LSU.
Currently, 12 schools have head coaching vacancies after Kent State promoted interim coach Mark Carney to head coach on Oct. 30 following Kenni Burns’ dismissal after two seasons.
With the many candidates surrounding one of the most chaotic coaching carousels in recent memory, here’s how AL.com ranks all the current openings and where Auburn sits amongst it all.
LSU
LSU let go of former coach Brian Kelly Sunday, Oct. 26 after the Tigers 49-24 blowout loss to Texas A&M the day before.
LSU’s three previous head coaches before Kelly all won national championships (Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron), putting this program at the top when it comes to A-list Power 5 jobs.
With LSU also moving on from Athletic director Scott Woodward, getting both hires right will be pivotal for the state of Louisiana.
Florida
For the fifth time since Urban Meyer retired in 2010, Florida is hiring a new head football coach.
Things never came together under former coach Billy Napier, as he finished with a final record of 22-23 in Gainesville.
Names such as Lane Kiffin and Marcus Freeman are already linked to this program coaching search, indicating the high value placed on this opening.
Penn State
After James Franklin’s tenure of 11-plus years at Penn State came to an end, no coaching job around the country was safe.
Although things fell apart quickly for Franklin, Penn State made significant investments in facilities and NIL to maintain its competitive edge over other programs.
With early targets like Indiana’s Curt Cignetti and Nebraska’s Matt Rhule signing contract extensions, Penn State is a program that’ll still aim high.
Auburn
Former Auburn coach Hugh Freeze blew his second chance coaching in the SEC after failing to restore Auburn as a championship winning program.
With Auburn being a program set up to compete in the NIL/portal era, this opening is just as competitive as the other SEC openings.
After Freeze finished his tenure on the Plains 15-19, Auburn is ensuring its next hire is a guaranteed winner as the SEC enters its nine-game conference schedule era.
Arkansas
Sam Pittman ended the Razorbacks’ 20-game SEC losing streak in 2020 and won nine games in 2021. However, he was fired after six seasons when he failed to get over the seven-win hump in the last four years.
Bobby Petrino is the school’s most successful coach in recent history and is currently serving as interim coach for the Razorbacks.
Athletic director Hunter Yurachek, who landed John Calipari to coach the men’s basketball team, is expected to be aggressive in this current football hire.
Oklahoma State
Mike Gundy, who was the winningest coach in Oklahoma State history and led his alma mater to nine AP top-20 finishes between 2008 and 2021.
However, after a winless Big 12 campaign last season, Gundy’s era ended in 2025 following the team’s first home loss to Tulsa since 1951 and a 69-3 loss to Oregon the next week.
Now with the program in full reset mode, Oklahoma State has some definite pluses, including a history of winning in the Big-12.
UCLA
Former coach DeShaun Foster could not sustain the same success he had as the Bruins running back coach.
Even after signing transfer quarterback Nico Iamaleava, UCLA started the season losing to Utah, UNLV and New Mexico, ending Foster’s run at the helm.
This will be a key hire for UCLA, as they are still finding its identity in the Big Ten conference.
Virgina Tech
Brent Bry entered this season on the hot seat after the Hokies finished 6-6 in the last two years.
Virgina Tech started 2025 0-3 for the first time since 1987, leading to Bry’s exit.
With Athletics director Whit Babcock job not all the way safe either, it seems like Blacksburg, Virgina, is still shaking back from the post Frank Beamer era.
Stanford
Currently led by former NFL coach Frank Reich as its interim coach, Stanford is conducting a search for a replacement following the 2025 season.
As Andrew Luck sits as the team’s general manager, it’ll be no surprise if Stanford builds its staff up like an NFL one or just promotes Reich.
Oregon State
Trent Bray got the boot after leading the beavers to the worst start since 1991, starting the 2025 season 0-7.
Bray was promoted after Jonathan Smith left for Michigan State following the 2023 season.
UAB
The Trent Dilfer experiment failed tremendously at UAB after never coaching in college.
Dilfer was canned after UAB lost its third straight game, 53-33 at Florida Atlantic, to fall to 2-4 on the season. He finished with a 9-21 record in three seasons.
Colorado State
Jay Norvell came to Colorado State from Nevada, where he guided teams to four consecutive bowl appearances.
Colorado State has one winning season since 2017, which was 2024 where they went 8-5 and reached the Arizona Bowl.
Norvell was out after the Rams fell to 2-5, as he finished 18-26 in four seasons.
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