Heading into year four of the Joey McGuire era of Texas Tech football, the Red Raiders are at a pretty interesting spot. This is a team that, given the influx of NIL money and the way that TTU worked in the transfer portal, could conceivably make a run for the Big 12 championship this season. Or, well, that’s at least the hope. 

While it previously appears like Texas Tech may have hit a ceiling under McGuire’s leadership with an average of 7-8 wins a season, the Red Raiders might be a bit closer to breaking through than what some are comfortable acknowledging. Yes, Texas Tech gave up 51 points to Abilene Christian a season ago, but the Red Raiders also went out and put up a 6-3 Big 12 record last season. 

So, maybe with the hiring of brilliant young coaching minds like a brand new defensive coordinator in Shiel Wood and a brand new offensive coordinator in Mack Leftwich, we’ll see some improvement in the very near future.

Oh, and by the way, the Red Raiders also managed to churn through their roster (shoutout to that aforementioned NIL push and the transfer portal) that resulted in 20ish new players showing up in Lubbock to help reinforce things across the board.

But as one anonymous coach told Athlon Sports, it’s not clear if that sort of spending will put the Red Raiders on the throne of the Big 12 in just one cycle. 

Rival Big 12 coach questions if Texas Tech football will be elevated into conference championship contenders via NIL spending

“They’re better pretty much everywhere, obviously. But don’t assume you can spend your way to a power conference championship in one cycle,” one coach anonymously told Athlon Sports. “Don’t get me wrong — all of us would rather have an NIL collective that’s throwing a ton of cash instead of the alternative, but there’s a lot of questions here.”

And there is a pretty big thing that this coach brings up in that quote there. That whole thing about “one cycle.” It’s worth pointing out just how quickly some rebuilding projects are happening these days. Like the Arizona State Sun Devils going from the bottom of the Pac-12 to, with some portal work and some changes on the coaching staff, thriving in the Big 12. 

Will we see similar sorts of elevation from the Red Raiders this fall? I don’t know. Will this be something that takes another year or two? Maybe? But with as volatile as this conference can be and with the way the Red Raiders were looking pretty good in conference play last year, maybe we see things actually work out in Texas Tech’s favor.

Also, is that sort of success sustainable? Will Texas Tech continue to spend in a way that brings that sort of recruiting boost to Lubbock on an annual basis? We’re really still pretty early in this current era of college football and the sample sizes are still pretty small, all things considered.

Yaxel Lendeborg, the top-rated player in the Transfer Portal, will play for the Michigan Wolverines this winter.

The talented big announced the news earlier this week, giving Dusty May and Co. a jewel in their Transfer Portal haul and raising expectations for Year 2 in Ann Arbor. Lendeborg joins the roster alongside Elliot Cadeau (North Carolina), Morez Johnson Jr. (Illinois) and Aday Mara (UCLA) as they complement Trey McKenney, Nimari Burnett, Roddy Gayle Jr., Will Tschetter and others with the goal of improving on last season’s run to the Sweet Sixteen.

Last season, Lendeborg averaged 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.7 steals per game at UAB. He’s a two-time AAC Defensive Player of the Year and first-team All-AAC and is considered among the best bigs in the country.

Here are thoughts on Yaxel Lendeborg picking Michigan over the NBA Draft and what it means for the Wolverines:

Why Yaxel Lendeborg chose Michigan over the NBA Draft

Lendeborg was pretty transparent about the factors influencing his decision between Michigan and the NBA Draft. He explained that his ultimate goal was securing a guaranteed NBA contract, but that he had legitimate interest in the Wolverines.

This week, Lendeborg spoke with The Banner and explained why he ultimately withdrew from the NBA Draft process.

“When I working out with NBA teams, working through that whole process talking with teams, they pretty much assured me, or reassured me, that even if I was to go to Michigan, the majority of them would still be with me and it wouldn’t hurt my draft stock,” Lendeborg told The Banner.

“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t ready to go into the draft, but skill wise I don’t know if I would be as productive as I think I am. Pretty much what decided it was teams telling me I could still get drafted in the same spot or better if I go polish my game.”

Lendeborg added that “nobody really promised or guaranteed me” a first-round selection and that excelling against better competition could move his stock upward next year at this time. You can read his full interview here.

Lendeborg is more proof that Michigan is competitive in the NIL space

Dusty May spoke candidly with The Michigan Insider last month about how NIL at Michigan “improved greatly” during his first season at the helm in Ann Arbor. From an NIL perspective, he said, Michigan and other top programs can compete with a second-round NBA contract.

“Our market allows the best players to be competitive with a second-round contract,” May told TMI.

“… The last couple of years there’s been a boon in what the players are able to make, and what the market says. So now the best players at all of these teams that are considering going to the NBA, you have to be competitive with that second-round pick. Obviously the first round is a guaranteed multi-year contract. It’s tough to compete with that. But the second-round picks, they’re probably going to be much better off if they go to college from a financial standpoint, and it gives you a chance to move up and improve and get a chance to be a first round the following year.”

And Michigan can also sell playing in front of sold-out arenas and for passionate fan bases — something the G League cannot offer. The educational opportunities, development at top-tier facilities and expectations to compete in the NCAA Tournament are also bonuses. This isn’t unique to the Wolverines, and this week saw a number of players choose a return to college basketball as NIL has helped make the sport a preferable option compared to a two-way or G League contract.

Dusty May is swinging big in recruiting, and it’s working

Michigan had to rebuild through the Transfer Portal out of necessity last offseason, but the end product was better than most people expected. The Wolverines nabbed three high-major players, plus two mid-major stars (Vlad Goldin, Danny Wolf) with clear starting potential.

Dusty May got to work quickly this offseason, visiting Elliot Cadeau hours after the Wolverines were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by Auburn. Adding Morez Johnson (Illinois), Aday Mara (UCLA) and a likely first-round NBA Draft talent in Lendeborg again places Michigan among the top-ranked Portal classes in the country. Meanwhile, the program lost only one starter (Tre Donaldson) to another school.

NIL, of course, is a major factor here, but so is the staff’s ability to recruit. There’s a reason Lendeborg picked Michigan over both the NBA and the many, many college programs that were interested in his services.

“Our staff does a great job of developing relationships,” May said last month. Specifically with Lendeborg, it’s clear the UAB transfer’s visit to Ann Arbor and the Michigan staff’s support of him at the NBA Combine in Chicago played a significant role in swaying him toward the Wolverines.

At the same time, the staff can and does point to their success in Year 1 — and the entertaining, fast-paced style of basketball — and use that as a recruiting tool moving forward.

“There were a lot of questions for us coming in and players, parents, agents, they weren’t quite sure yet how this coaching staff would be, how would this team be,” said assistant coach Drew Williamson. “And now you go out and have some success the first year and everybody’s kind of like, ‘Okay, well, that translated from what we thought it would be.'”

Yaxel Lendeborg gives Michigan another powerful, intriguing front court

About a year ago, when Michigan coaches started talking about playing Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin together, the public reaction was ambivalent. The result, of course, is that what the staff saw behind closed doors in practice translated against opponents: Area 50-1, the combination of two skilled 7-footers, made the Wolverines a unique beast on offense.

This offseason, Dusty May and Co. have several more intriguing puzzle pieces at their disposal. Start with Yaxel Lendeborg, who played the majority of his minutes as a small-ball ‘5’ at UAB and offers value as an on-ball playmaker, defender and rebounder.  His age belies his inexperience; Lendeborg saw just 11 games in high school and has markedly improved in each season he’s played. If his 3-point shooting (36% on 69 attempts) translates with more volume, it could be the key to a potent Michigan offense.

It’s likely Michigan again plays two-big lineups. The 7-foot-3 Aday Mara is a good rim protector and finisher in the paint, though he played limited minutes with the Bruins. (KenPom compared his output last season at UCLA to Vlad Goldin at FAU in 2022.) Morez Johnson is a force on the boards, and his motor and athleticism at 6-foot-9 will impact games. Then there’s Will Tschetter, the veteran who can help space the floor with his 3-point shooting.

Not even Michigan’s coaches know how all the pieces will fit, but odds are good that some combination of those four will click and once again make the Wolverines an entertaining, high-ceiling team.

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — On the one hand, what this new version of cash-infused college sports needs are rules that everybody follows.

On the other, they need to be able to enforce those rules without getting sued into oblivion.

Enter the College Sports Commission, a newly created operation that will be in charge of counting the money, deciding what a “fair market” deal for players looks like and, if things go well, helping everyone in the system avoid trips to court whenever a decision comes down that someone doesn’t like.

With name, image, likeness payments taking over in college, this group will essentially become what the NCAA committee on infractions used to be – the college sports police, only with the promise of being faster, maybe fairer and maybe more transparent.

In a signal of what the CSC’s most serious mission might be, the schools from the four biggest conferences are being asked to sign a document pledging not to rely on state laws – some of which are more permissive of payments to players — to work around the rules the commission is making.

“We need to get out of this situation where something happens, and we run to our attorney general and file suit,” said Trev Alberts of Texas A&M, one of 10 athletic directors who are part of another group, the Settlement Implementation Committee, that is helping oversee the transition. “That chaos isn’t sustainable. You’re looking for a durable system that actually has some stability and ultimate fairness.”

Number crunching to figure out what’s fair

In this new landsacpe, two different companies will be in charge of two kinds of number crunching.

The first, and presumably more straightforward, is data being compiled by LBi Software, which will track how much schools are spending on every athlete, up to the $20.5 million cap each is allowed to distribute in the first year of the new arrangement expected to begin July 1.

This sounds easy but comes with the assumption that universities – which, for decades, have sought to eke out every edge they can, rulebook or no – will provide accurate data.

“Over history, boosters have looked for ways to give their schools an advantage,” said Gabe Feldman, a sports law professor at Tulane. “I think that will continue even with the settlement. It’s anyone’s guess as to how that manifests, and what the new competitive landscape looks like.”

Adding some level of transparency to the process, along with the CSC’s ability to deliver sanctions if it identifies cheaters, will be key to the new venture’s success.

“There’s legal risk that prohibits you from doing that,” Alberts said. “But we want to start as transparent as we can be, because we think it engenders trust.”

Good intentions aside, Alberts concedes, “I don’t think it’s illogical to think that, at first, it’s probably going to be a little wonky.”

How much should an endorsement deal be worth?

Some of the wonkiest bookkeeping figures to come from the second category of number crunching, and that involves third-party NIL deals. The CSC hired Deloitte to run a so-called clearinghouse called “NIL Go,” which will be in charge of evaluating third-party deals worth $600 or more.

Because these deals aren’t allowed to pay players simply for playing – that’s still technically forbidden in college sports — but instead for some service they provide (an endorsement, a social media shoutout and so forth), every deal needs to be evaluated to show it is worth a fair price for what the player is doing.

In a sobering revelation, Deloitte shared with sports leaders earlier this month that around 70% of third-party deals given to players since NIL became allowable in 2021 would have been denied by the new clearinghouse.

All these valuations, of course, are subject to interpretation. It’s much easier to set the price of a stock, or a bicycle, than the value of an athlete’s endorsement deal. This is where things figure to get dicey. Though the committee has an appeals process, then an arbitration process, ultimately, some of these cases are destined to be challenged in court.

“You’re just waiting to see, what is a ‘valid business purpose’ (for an NIL deal), and what are the guidelines around that?” said Rob Lang, a business litigation partner at Thompson Coburn who deals with sports cases. “You can see all the lawyer fights coming out of that.”

Avoiding court, coordinating state laws are new priorities

In fact, elements of all this are ripe to be challenged in court, which might explain why the power conferences drafted the document pledging fealty to the new rules in the first place.

For instance, Feldman called a law recently enacted in Tennessee viewed by many as the most athlete-friendly statute in the country “the next step in the evolution” of state efforts to bar the NCAA from limiting NIL compensation for athletes with an eye on winning battles for recruits and retaining roster talent.

“What we’ve seen over the last few years is states trying to one-up each other to make their institutions more attractive places for people to go,” he said. “This is the next iteration of that. It may set up a showdown between the schools, the NCAA and the states.”

Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, said a league spanning 12 states cannot operate well if all those states have different rules about how and when it is legal to pay players.

The SEC has been drafting legislation for states to pass to unify the rules across the conference. Ultimately, Sankey and a lot of other people would love to see a national law passed by Congress that does that for all states and all conferences.

That will take months, if not years, which is why the new committee drafted the document for the schools to sign.

“We are all defendant schools and conferences and you inherently agree to this,” Alberts said of the document. “I sat in the room with all of our football coaches, ‘Do you want to be governed?’ The answer is ‘yes.’”

___

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

• The Red Sox are struggling with a .500 record despite Garrett Crochet’s strong pitching performance.
• The team’s underperformance is attributed to a combination of injuries, lack of production from veterans, and questionable managerial decisions by Alex Cora.
• The article also touches upon other sports news, including NIL deals, college basketball scheduling, and the NBA playoffs.

Thinking out loud…while wondering if baseball managers and diapers should both be changed regularly for the same reason…