NIL

Quarterback Dads give college football coaches nightmares like never before, but there’s hope

Be like Jay Underwood, Quarterback Dads. The father of Michigan super freshman Bryce Underwood is one of the good ones. There are good ones despite the constant barrage of headlines about Quarterback Dads gone wild — Carl Williams (Caleb’s dad) torching his son’s employer publicly, Nic Iamaleava (Nico’s dad) bungling a good situation at Tennessee, […]

Published

1 month ago

May 29, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Be like Jay Underwood, Quarterback Dads.

The father of Michigan super freshman Bryce Underwood is one of the good ones. There are good ones despite the constant barrage of headlines about Quarterback Dads gone wild — Carl Williams (Caleb’s dad) torching his son’s employer publicly, Nic Iamaleava (Nico’s dad) bungling a good situation at Tennessee, Deion Sanders (Shedeur’s dad) doing whatever he did to contribute to a fringe NFL first-round talent going in the fifth round, and so on.

Those are three success stories at the glamor position of American sports, of course, which means some parental credit must be due. But some of the behaviors match that of countless Quarterback Dads whose sons’ names aren’t known, whose misdirected ambition and absence of perspective make them college football outlaws of sorts.

“Quarterback Dad” is generally not a compliment among the college coaches I talked to for this piece, some of whom have stopped recruiting quarterbacks who checked every box except: Can we tolerate his dad?

“We’re picking the dad almost as much as we’re picking the quarterback,” said a Power 4 head coach, who was granted anonymity, like others in this story, so he could speak freely on the subject. “Every person in this business has horror stories.”

The explosion of money in the game in the past few years has made things only more toxic. But I’m here to tell you there’s hope.

There’s hope, in part because, at some point, college athletics will become less chaotic. That’s probably going to require collective bargaining at some point. But it will happen, and it means player movement will slow down and compensation will be fairly determined by professionals. Less chaos in college football should mean less chaos among its various factions.

Also, at least there’s awareness of the Quarterback Dad dynamic. We’re talking about it. People are trying to make things better, including the guy who wrote the actual book on Quarterback Dads, the guy who presents Jay Underwood as a “how-to” of sorts for those with pigskin-slinging children.

Donovan Dooley is a prominent quarterbacks coach who counts Bryce Underwood among his clients, has worked with the family for years and noted in that 2022 book (written with sportswriter Teddy Greenstein and aptly titled “Quarterback Dads: Wild Tales from the Field”) that Jay had previously been “the classic Quarterback Dad, in every maddening sense.”

This included Jay’s proclamation, when Bryce was closer to elementary school than graduation, that he could “be the LeBron James of football.” Invoking the (arguable) GOAT of another sport is a classic sign of the Not-In-Touch-With-Reality Dad, and Jay’s admitted overzealousness in critiquing his son screamed Helicopter Dad. These are two of the 12 types of problematic Quarterback Dads detailed by Dooley (he lists three good types).

Bryce Underwood’s dad, Jay, has remained largely in the background and allowed his son to enjoy the spotlight of being the No. 1 recruit in the nation. (Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)

It all changed when Jay, with Dooley’s help, realized how strained his relationship with his son was getting. To save it, he needed to revert to being just a dad and take the pressure off his son.

“Total turnaround,” Dooley, whose Quarterback University is based in Detroit, said last week. “Now, Jay stays in the background a lot. Hell, I don’t even know if some of the staff at Michigan know him. It’s usually not that way when your son is a prime guy like this, but he sits back and lets Bryce do his thing.”

To that point, Underwood could not be reached to speak on the topic.

This is the kind of reform Dooley seeks to foster. Not that he’s seen enough of it. The urge to help goes back to his Detroit childhood as a future high school and college quarterback, dealing with a father he described as “crazy as hell” when it came to pushing him in football.

The book inspired an outpouring of letters and emails, Dooley said, from fathers who apologized for their behavior and from both mothers and fathers who thanked him for forcing moments of clarity with his storytelling.

But Greenstein and Dooley wrote it in the early days of the dirtiest phrase in college football coaching: “NIL and the transfer portal.” For folks in that profession, NIL, the transfer portal and the Quarterback Dad make up the unofficial unholy trinity of the sport.

“It’s heightened the anxiety around everything,” Dooley said of Quarterback Dads now having seven-figure paydays as incentive and free movement as leverage. “I mean, you’ve got dads, not long after kids get out of the womb, kids that are 5 years old, coming up with logos and slogans for social media to get attention. You’ve got dads talking dollar amount with coaches before they ever talk football or academics.”

How bad is it for some? One Power 4 coach contacted for an interview on Quarterback Dads replied: “Nah. I’m staying away from that.”

A Group of 5 head coach said he loved the topic and that it should be made into a documentary, but was fearful of telling any specific stories because “if it ever got back to me, I’d never get a quarterback again, ever.”

He did explain the difference between dealing with problematic Quarterback Dads now and five years ago.

“A dad texts, ‘Why aren’t we doing more quick game with my son? Why so much dropback game?’ S— like that,” the coach said. “Back before the portal, you text back something like, ‘Man, let’s sit down after the season and talk about this if you feel that way.’ Now? You pick up the phone immediately and talk through it. You explain why you’re doing what you’re doing, in detail.”

This isn’t necessarily all bad, the coach said, because “we really should be giving our kids more ‘whys’ in today’s game and we should be thinking about it collaboratively.”

It’s just harder to be collaborative with someone who, unlike the quarterback in question, doesn’t play the game and doesn’t know the concepts or what it takes to execute them. This can be the mark of The “We” Dad in Dooley’s book (the dad who thinks he’s also part of the team), The Stat-Hungry Dad or The Really-Not-In-Touch-With-Reality Dad. Or all three.

“Some of them, the wild, wild ones, are all 12,” Dooley said of categories that also include The Reminiscer, The Jealous Dad and The Braggin’ Dad. “Those are the ones who read the book and say, ‘I’m none of those.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re all of those.’ ”

Dooley got to know the Iamaleavas on the recruiting circuit and considers Nic Iamaleava (who did not respond to a request for comment) a friend. He also considers him a cautionary tale.

As a Group of 5 assistant coach said about Nico Iamaleava’s abrupt departure from Tennessee amid reported financial conflict: “The kid’s in a perfect offensive system for him, he’s paid $2 million a year, even as a freshman to not play and redshirt, and you leave that for UCLA? That’s not the kid, that’s the people around him.”

As an outspoken expert on the topic, Dooley has also become a resource for college coaches in the past few years. This is not unlike college coaches who give frank assessments of their former players’ personalities for interested NFL personnel people. In this case, coaches hit up Dooley on what he’s observed and/or heard about various Quarterback Dads.

“I’m never going to say anything too negative,” Dooley said. “My code word is, ‘Yeah, that dad is wired a little different.’ That’s my polite way of saying, ‘S—, be ready for everything you don’t want.’”

What they want is what we all should want, which is for parents to not make life more difficult for their children by mangling experiences that should be positive and enriching.

If you’re like me and you’ve spent a lot of years as a parent around a lot of different sports, you’ve seen some ridiculous behavior from alleged adults. Economics, both in terms of the cost of higher education and the rewards possible for the tiny fraction of a fraction of elite athletes, dictates some of this.

It does not excuse completely missing the point of what both sports and parents are supposed to be.

“Sport is sacred,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said. “It’s sacred because it’s a vessel of self-discovery. You learn to belong to yourself, so you can belong to something bigger. Sport is a place of belonging and community where you can gather a large body of people around one mission. That’s special, that’s sacred, but sports culture is sick right now.

“And you can experience that at any level of competition. There are a lot of parents who are focused on the performance of a child rather than the development of a child.”

This is not new.

I’ll keep unnamed the Quarterback Dad who used to call me frequently about 20 years ago, once assuring me the very bad team I covered had as much talent as Pete Carroll’s national champion USC Trojans and was poorly coached — that was very untrue, and he was very inebriated.

The late Marv Marinovich remains the standard of Quarterback Dad dysfunction, as first revealed in the 1988 Sports Illustrated story “Bred to be a Superstar” by Doug Looney about Marv’s QB son, Todd Marinovich. Marv used Eastern Bloc training methods to build him into a passing machine and essentially hijacked his childhood. Todd was a star recruit prohibited from eating fast food, a USC quarterback arrested for cocaine possession, a failed pro and now a dad speaking out on the right way to nurture kids in sports.

Plenty of Quarterback Dads care about that. Some of them fall into Dooley’s good categories — The Helpful Dad, The Hands-Off Dad, The Coach Dad. Archie Manning, who has said the 1988 SI story on Marinovich spooked him into taking special care with his boys, falls into all three.

So does Dave Henigan, said Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield. Henigan is the head coach at Ryan High School in Denton, Texas. His son Seth just wrapped up four years of starting for the Tigers. Opportunities to leave and make more money emerged. Conversations about fair compensation happened, as they should.

Development, relationships and happiness prevailed. Seth threw for more than 14,000 yards, and now he’s with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent.

“Stability should matter,” Silverfield said. “And transparency. A huge part of this whole thing is both sides being transparent with each other.”

Sometimes that still results in a change in environment, and sometimes that’s the right choice. I wanted to interview one of the most impressive Quarterback Dads I’ve encountered for this story, in part because I can see how his son’s movement — a fourth school in four years starting this fall — could give a completely false impression of their outlook.

Mike Wright, now at East Carolina, just wants a chance to play after coming up short at Northwestern, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. Big Mike Wright just wanted to support his son. Tragically, Big Mike passed away recently at age 49.

“He was an example of a dad who always functioned in support of his son, not his football player, you know what I mean?” Lea said.

“My father never played football, but he loved his kids,” Mike Wright said of an engineer who tutored athletes while a student at the University of Tennessee. “Whatever we loved to do, we made it his passion.”

I did a story on the Wrights, a delightful family of six, in 2022 before Wright embarked on his starting opportunity at Vanderbilt. I went back through the notes last week and found some Big Mike Wright quotes that didn’t make the story.

He said: “I tell my kids, ‘Put your phones down, don’t listen to the noise, don’t listen to the chatter. Have fun and play football and don’t stress out too much.’ ”

He said: “Your life is an interview and everyone around you is the interview panel. So first of all, stay humble.”

He said: “Even in high school, Mike went through adversity and it wasn’t easy. At one point, I texted his coach and said, ‘I really appreciate you, because you’re making him earn everything.’”

Hey, Quarterback Dads: Be like Big Mike.

(Top photo of Nico and Nic Iamaleava: Donald Page / Getty Images)

Link

NIL

Offensive revamp, revenue sharing to be hot topics – Deseret News

FRISCO, Texas — It’s time to talk. Big 12 media days have arrived, shifting from Las Vegas last year to its traditional spot in Texas. Players and coaches from all 16 teams in the conference are on hand at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas, for two days of media activities. Utah will take center […]

Published

2 seconds ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

FRISCO, Texas — It’s time to talk.

Big 12 media days have arrived, shifting from Las Vegas last year to its traditional spot in Texas. Players and coaches from all 16 teams in the conference are on hand at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas, for two days of media activities.

Utah will take center stage Wednesday, with coach Kyle Whittingham, quarterback Devon Dampier, offensive tackle Spencer Fano, cornerback Smith Snowden and linebacker Lander Barton on site to represent the Utes.

Dampier was named the Big 12’s preseason newcomer of the year, while Fano and fellow offensive tackle Caleb Lomu were named to the league’s preseason all-conference team. Both awards were voted on by the media.

Whittingham will address the large media contingent at 11:40 a.m. MDT Wednesday from the main podium, before he and his players make the media rounds, including stops at radio stations and ESPNU.

The Utes will cap off the day with a media scrum — the players going first at 4:45 p.m. MDT and Whittingham finishing things off at 5:30 p.m. MDT.

With the offseason Utah had after a 5-7 campaign in its inaugural season in the Big 12, there’s plenty of storylines and questions entering their appearance at the two-day talkfest. Here are three of the hottest topics Whittingham and company will be asked about.

The offensive revamp

Utah Utes offensive analyst and quarterbacks coach Koy Detmer Jr. talks with Utah Utes quarterback Devon Dampier (4) during the Utah Utes’ 22 Forever spring game at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 19, 2025. | Brice Tucker, Deseret News

It’s a near-guarantee that Utah’s offense is going to be more fun to watch than last year’s.

With no Cam Rising for much of the season, 2024 was a drag, as the Utes’ offense averaged just 329.8 yards and 23.6 points per game. Despite a defense that kept them in every game but two, Utah’s offense — guided by backup quarterbacks — just kept sputtering, game after game.

It was time to rebuild, and Utah went to work, hiring New Mexico offensive coordinator Jason Beck and getting Dampier to come along. Add in an entirely new running back room (headlined by Washington State transfer Wayshawn Parker) and receiver room, and you’ve got a complete revamp.

Dampier, who racked up 2,768 passing yards and 1,166 yards rushing a season ago and scored 31 combined touchdowns, is tasked with reviving Utah’s offense.

Can he adjust well to the step up from the Mountain West and correct some turnover and accuracy issues from last year? Will Beck’s offense, which was the fourth-most productive in the nation and featured some exciting creativity, produce similar results? Can Parker lead the way for Utah’s running backs and continue his trajectory? Can Utah’s wide receiver room produce a few go-to guys?

If even half those things happen, Utah’s offense will be a lot more fun — and productive.

When will Kyle Whittingham retire?

Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham speaks during the Big 12 football media days in Las Vegas, Tuesday, July 9, 2024. | AP

The answer is going to be the same as the last 10 times that Whittingham has been asked about when he is going to retire, but someone will still pose the question. When will Whittingham call it a day?

Retirement speculation heated up last season when Utah officially announced defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley as the program’s coach-in-waiting and Whittingham said at last year’s Big 12 media day that he “probably won’t be sitting here in this chair” when Utah opens the 2027 season against Miami in Las Vegas.

Whittingham was asked about the topic on the “Jim Rome Show” recently.

“I would just answer it this way. As long as I’m excited about coming to work every day, have a ton of energy and am passionate about what I’m doing, and as long as my wife continues to support me — she may have the final say on this one when it’s time to quit,” Whittingham said.

“But as long as I’m excited to come to work every single day and be around these players, that’s kind of what I’m gauging on. If there comes a time I wake up and say, ‘Hey, that’s enough. I’ve had enough. I’ve got no energy left and it’s time for me to go.’ So I guess it is kind of vague, I know, but that’s kind of how I’m approaching it. It’s just a year-by-year basis.”

There’s no question that the college football landscape is completely different from five years ago, from conference realignment to NIL and revenue sharing.

As of July 1, schools can officially share up to $20.5 million per year with athletes — the vast majority of that going to football and men’s basketball.

Utah athletic director Mark Harlan said the Utes will meet that number.

Additionally, NIL deals will now be sent through a clearinghouse managed by accounting firm Deloitte, which will assess those deals and has the ability to approve or deny each NIL deal according to if it meets “fair market value.”

Texas Tech is one Big 12 school that has been making waves recently, reportedly spending over $10 million on a transfer portal class that ranks as one of the best in the nation. That momentum spread to recruiting, where the Red Raiders are reportedly set to pay at least $775,000 per year for three years to five-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo.

Utah, meanwhile, brought back offensive tackles Fano and Lomu, along with key players on defense like Snowden and Barton. Add in all of the transfers — Dampier and Parker were hot commodities on the transfer portal market — and Utah has been spending money, too.

What does Whittingham think of the new era of college athletics, where schools can now directly pay players? We’ll find out.

Utah Utes head coach Kyle Whittingham talks with scholarship football players as they celebrate getting a Dodge truck given to them by the Crimson Collective during an NIL announcement at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Link

NIL

Elite 2028 WR Brysen Wright inks first trading card NIL deal

Elite 2028 wide receiver recruit Brysen Wright has inked his first trading card NIL deal, On3 has learned. Represented by ESM, the 6-foot-3.5, 210-pound wide receiver has signed with Wild Card. Wild Card has released a box of college football trading cards previously, but Wright’s signing is the company’s first foray into the high school […]

Published

1 hour ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Elite 2028 wide receiver recruit Brysen Wright has inked his first trading card NIL deal, On3 has learned. Represented by ESM, the 6-foot-3.5, 210-pound wide receiver has signed with Wild Card.

Wild Card has released a box of college football trading cards previously, but Wright’s signing is the company’s first foray into the high school space. Leaf Trading Cards and Topps have been aggressive in signing up top high school talent in recent years.

“This is Brysen’s first trading card partnership,” his agent, Dan Everett of ESM, told On3. “The five-figure deal pays the soon-to-be 10th grader a first-round NFL wide receiver rate per autograph.”

ESM currently represents a slew of college quarterbacks, including Georgia’s Gunner Stockton, Iowa State’s Rocco Becht, Ole Miss’ Austin Summons, Mississippi State’s Luke Kromenhoek, Tennessee’s Jake Merklinger and Miami’s Carson Beck.

Wright already holds scholarship offers from Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, LSU, Alabama, Miami and Texas, among others. He impressed in OT7 this spring and turned heads at the OT7 Playoffs last month. The 2028 prospect tallied seven total touchdowns over the OT7 Playoffs, including three in his final game of the tournament. He camped at Ohio State in June.

“He’s incredibly physically developed at this early stage and is a smooth mover at his size,” Rivals’ Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power recently said. “The Jacksonville native is the only 2028 prospect to hold an early four-star rating.”

The Jacksonville (Fla.) Mandarin star played alongside Jaime Ffrench in 2024. Wright hauled in 31 passes for 646 yards and scored eight touchdowns as a freshman, including a four-catch, 114-yard performance with two touchdowns.

“Brysen Wright may be the best amateur wide receiver in the country not named Jeremiah Smith,” Wild Card’s vice president of talent acquisition, Jay Claud, said in a statement. “And he is 14.”

Link

NIL

College football expansion debate re-ignited by Big 12 commissioner

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark has re-ignited the debate over the expansion of the College Football Playoff and how it should be structured. He leaned into his preferred format choice just a few minutes into his opening address at the conference football media day event. What format is the Big 12 proposing? Yormark said, “5-11 […]

Published

2 hours ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

What format is the Big 12 proposing?

Yormark said, “5-11 is fair,” adding, “We want to earn it on the field. It might not be the best solution today for the Big 12, but long term, knowing the progress we’re making, the investments we’re making, it’s the right format for us. And I’m doubling down today on 5-11.”

Download the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts™.

Point phone camera here

The term “5-11” refers to a format with five automatic bids for conference champions and 11 at-large bids, filling out what would be a 16-team playoff field starting with the 2026 season. The Big 12 and ACC are the two conferences proposing this format in an attempt to head off what the Big Ten and the SEC believe is the best solution.

The Big Ten and the SEC hold the most sway in expansion talks, and they want to see four automatic qualifiers earn bids from each of their leagues, along with two each from the Big 12 and the ACC. Adding Notre Dame as an automatic would leave just three at-large bids in that scenario.

The initial 12-team playoff kicked off in 2024 and ended four weeks later with the National Championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame. Ohio State won the title, 34-23. The format featured four teams that earned first-round byes after winning their conference championships. All four teams lost their first matchups in the playoffs.

What do some of the coaches think about expansion?

During the Big 12 media interview sessions, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman didn’t have an opinion on how the playoff should be set up going forward but brought up another expansion concern.

The wear and tear on the athletes is real,” Klieman said. “I don’t think we help that at all by knocking the roster size down. I don’t think that was a good move at all, but that’s control what you can control. So, that’s going to be a concern when you have fewer players playing that amount of games. But I’m excited about what I was able to watch last year of the playoff and the potential expansion here in another year.”

The Big 12 Conference had only one representative — league champion Arizona State — in the inaugural playoff last year. The Sun Devils lost to Texas in the quarterfinals in double overtime. Yormark said that reaching a point where several teams are in the discussion each year is how his conference can maximize whatever format the new playoff may take.

“I think parity matters, and I think ultimately over time, and it’s hopefully sooner than later, there’ll be a couple of our schools that will emerge as elite schools that are always part of the conversations at the highest levels, and that’s what we’re working towards,” Yormark said. “But it starts with parity and being competitive top to bottom. And I think we’re there.”

The conference opens play with a rivalry game on Saturday, August 23, between Kansas State and Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland.

What are the next steps in the expansion process?

Yormark believes the Big 12 is the “deepest conference in America” and said that in addition to schedule strength, “new metrics” will be added to the selection process to ensure fairness.

“I have a lot of faith in the selection process,” Yormark said. “They are doing a full audit to figure out how they can modernize and contemporize and how they use data and how certain metrics can be more heavily weighted.”

He also said he was confident conference commissioners will eventually settle on the 5-11 model. They have until December of this year to decide which 16-team format to adopt.

Joey Nunez (Video Editor),

Cole Lauterbach (Managing Editor),

and Lawrence Banton (Digital Producer)
contributed to this report.

Link

NIL

Report: Princeton’s Caden Pierce to redshirt, enter the NCAA Transfer Portal

Offseason movement has slowed in college basketball with the calendar turning to June. That said, next season’s cycle of the portal already apparently has a big name set to be in it. Princeton’s Caden Pierce is to be a very early entry into next spring’s cycle for the NCAA Transfer Portal. That’s according to reporting […]

Published

3 hours ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Offseason movement has slowed in college basketball with the calendar turning to June. That said, next season’s cycle of the portal already apparently has a big name set to be in it.

Princeton’s Caden Pierce is to be a very early entry into next spring’s cycle for the NCAA Transfer Portal. That’s according to reporting today by ESPN’s Jeff Borzello that Pierce will be redshirting this upcoming season to preserve his final year of eligibility to now spend playing for a new program.

“NEWS: Princeton star Caden Pierce, the 2023-24 Ivy League Player of the Year, plans to redshirt next season in order to finish his degree before entering the transfer portal and playing his final season elsewhere in 2026-27, he told ESPN,” Borzello tweeted out this afternoon.

Pierce, a native of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, has spent the past three seasons playing for Princeton with 90 appearances made as a full-time starter for the Tigers. In that career in New Jersey, Pierce has averaged 11.9 points (48.7% FG, 32.7% 3PT on 1.0 makes), 7.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.0 steals per game, which made him the team’s leading rebounder in every year he had there and second-leading scorer in each of the past two.

Pierce developed from being Ivy League Rookie of the Year to being selected each of the past two years as All-Ivy. That included being Ivy League Player of the Year and First Team All-Ivy as a sophomore when he posted his career-best numbers of 16.6 points (54.6% FG, 34.2% 3PT), 9.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.2 steals per game.

Over his three years in the program, Princeton went 66-25 (.725), including 30-10 in conference play to win three conference titles, two regular-season ones and one league tournament, in the Ivy. That led to one appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 2023 as the Tigers were a No. 15 seed who upset No. 2 Arizona and No. 7 Missouri to reach the Sweet 16, the furthest they’ve advanced in the modern era, before losing to No. 6 Creighton. Pierce, a freshman at the time, averaged 6.3 points (35% FG) and 8.7 rebounds during that run.

Pierce will now be another significant loss for the Tigers since the end of last season. Their most notable was the transfer of Xaivian Lee (Florida), a Top-40 overall transfer and No. 10 PG in the portal per On3’s 2025 Top Transfer Portal Players, after consecutive years on the All-Ivy First Team. Darius Gakwasi also entered his name into the portal, with no commitment since, back in March.

There’s a full other season to play before the portal will open again in college basketball in eight or nine months come March. It’ll be then when Pierce will eventually become available for his next school with this big news on his future.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.

Link

NIL

USC Trojans, Lincoln Riley To Make First College Football Playoff This Season?

With the expansion last season, more teams have the opportunity to make the College Football Playoff than ever before. The USC Trojans and coach Lincoln Riley have not yet made the College Football Playoff, but they have a much higher chance, and perhaps the 2025 season will be the year they make it. As the […]

Published

3 hours ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

USC Trojans, Lincoln Riley To Make First College Football Playoff This Season? — Nov 16, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley watches game action against the Nebraska Cornhuskers during the second half at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images / Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Link

NIL

Bill Belichick, Deion Sanders Among Coaches Not in ‘College Football 26’

For the first time in either of its college football video game series, EA Sports incorporated real-life coaches into “College Football 26.” But as over 300 real-life coaches were included in the game, those who got to play “College Football 26” on its early release day recognized that two of the most well-known coaches in […]

Published

3 hours ago

July 9, 2025

Your Sports Nation

North Carolina’s Bill Belichick and Colorado’s Deion Sanders declined to lend their likeness for “College Football 26” to EA Sports, The Athletic reported. Miami (Fla.) coach Mario Cristobal and Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz are also among the head coaches who aren’t in “College Football 26.”

Belichick’s decision not to be featured in “College Football 26” shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. During his 24 seasons as head coach of the New England Patriots, Belichick frequently declined EA Sports to use his likeness for the “Madden” video game series. Instead, the game developers would have a random character as the head coach of the Patriots.

As for Sanders, he typically lent his likeness to EA Sports for the “Madden” series during his playing career. The reasoning for why Belichick, Sanders and other coaches who didn’t lend their likeness for “College Football 26” is unclear.

Similar to what EA Sports did with Belichick when he opted not to appear in the “Madden” video game series, coaches who declined to appear in “College Football 26” were replaced by random characters. “Hector Luna” is the coach of UNC in place of Belichick, while “Kirk Patrick” is Colorado’s coach in place of Sanders, according to On3.

While the most prominent Belichick isn’t in “College Football 26,” there is a member of the family in the game. UNC defensive coordinator Steve Belichick allowed EA Sports to use his likeness in “College Football 26,” the game’s principal game designer, Ben Haumiller, said in June.

“Bill Belichick, historically, famously was not in ‘Madden’ for a lot of years. We chased him forever. We even had coach [John] Madden reach out to him,” Haumiller told the “Split Zone Duo” podcast. “So, when this opportunity came around, that was a joke internally, like, ‘Are we going to get Bill?’ And they never did.

“When it came to Belichick, there were some questions of how he would show up. Ultimately, we were never able to come to a resolution with him. Hopefully, that changes.”

Unlike his father, North Carolina defensive coordinator Steve Belichick will appear in “College Football 26.” (Photo by Peyton Williams/Getty Images)

Steve Belichick, the eldest of Belichick’s two sons, became UNC’s defensive coordinator shortly after his father became the program’s head coach. He was Washington’s defensive coordinator under Jedd Fisch last season, marking his first year of coaching college ball. He previously spent several seasons on his father’s coaching staff with the Patriots.

Stanford interim coach Frank Reich, Utah State’s Bronco Mendenhall, Western Kentucky’s Tyson Helton, Jacksonville State’s Charles Kelly, UAB’s Trent Dilfer, Louisiana-Monroe’s Bryant Vincent, New Mexico’s Jason Eck and Kent State’s Mark Carney are the other FBS head coaches who reportedly declined to lend their linked for “College Football 26.”

As several head coaches declined to share their likeness for “College Football 26,” a handful of the game’s top coaches appeared on one of the covers for the video game. Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Penn State’s James Franklin, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham, Ole Miss‘ Lane Kiffin and Oregon’s Dan Lanning each appeared on the cover of the deluxe version of “College Football 26.”

The full release for “College Football 26” will take place on Thursday, but some users were able to start playing the game on Monday if they pre-ordered the deluxe version.

Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily.