NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — The coach of your favorite team has little idea about what’s coming next in college basketball and that reality is stirring insecurity throughout the sport.
From a recruiting outlook, the upcoming 6-10 months are especially hazy; most coaches are trying to grasp what will be the law of their lands in this next key phase of NCAA reconstruction.
The House v. NCAA lawsuit settlement, which was given final approval in June and took activation on July 1, was the culminating act that scotched a century-old amateurism model that is never coming back.
So now what?
Well, things have gotten confusing in the past week-plus. This confusion intersected with the July live recruiting period, giving coaches plenty of opportunity to gripe, ponder and predict — with media and with each other — about where things are and where they might go in the foreseeable future.
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David Cobb
“I’m concerned. I don’t believe it yet, because until they start enforcing any rules, no rule is going to matter,” a coach with recent Final Four experience told CBS Sports. “I would suggest we should shut down our collective tomorrow if I knew that this new structure was going to work. … I’m skeptical over it, that things are going to get there.”
The event provoking this latest bout of anxiety came on July 10, when the College Sports Commission (CSC) published a reminder about its allowable payment models to college athletes. (A lot of this stuff can get cumbersome to follow, but as a refresher: It’s now the CSC, not the NCAA, that oversees all things NIL-related. This major shift in responsibility was part of the terms of the $2.8 billion House settlement and endorsed by the power conferences.)
The CSC reiterated that collectives are no longer acceptable means of payment to players, at least not with how they’d evolved in the past three years. For 90% (if not more) of the basketball and football athletes who made millions the past few portal cycles, their earning power was a function of collectives. And now the CSC is aiming to stamp them out, aided in no small part by a big stipulation with a small money figure attached. Per terms of the settlement, any NIL deal valued $600 or above is subject to review via a third-party arbiter, the accounting firm Deloitte, which is one of the largest companies of its kind in the world.
The Athletic put it succinctly last week: “Officials created those rules to prevent schools from utilizing booster-driven entities to funnel payments to recruits and transfers as a way to work around the $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap.” Moving forward, in order for a player to receive payment through a school’s collective, it has to clear discriminating parameters of having a “valid business purpose.” There are already stories circulating of some stuck in NIL limbo after having deals red-X’d by Deloitte and its NIL Go clearinghouse.
The CSC’s memo prompted pushback. Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler, the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in the House case (and whose firms are set to earn north of $500 million (!!) for their efforts), may not be keen to let this guidance from the CSC stand. An entity called “The Collective Association” issued a statement that said, in part, the CSC’s stance on collectives is “not only misguided but deeply dismissive of the collective organizations and the tens of thousands of fans and donors who fuel them.”
There’s belief from many in the space that lawsuits challenging the CSC’s language on collectives are on the way. Nobody has any clue if those lawsuits would be successful, but they’re guaranteed to make headlines when they land.
So now college basketball is sitting, waiting, wondering what’s licit and what’s unlawful, what’s real vs. what’s not, and who’s going to be the first to truly challenge the new system.
As one high-profile coach put it to me: “Do you prepare like it’s going to be the way they said, or do you prepare like it’s going to be the way it’s always been?”
‘Moving forward, they won’t abide by the rules’
At this year’s Final Four in San Antonio, prominent player agent Daniel Poneman spoke at Silver Waves Media’s Global NIL Conference to a room filled with a variety of power players in the college sports space.
“I said it tongue-in-cheek, with a call to action: organized resistance,” Poneman told CBS Sports, “I said, ‘Guys, look around the room. If none of us follow these rules, then they can’t enforce them. What are they going to do about it? Really, what are they going to do about it?'”
Poneman runs WEAVE, a player agency that has quickly ascended over the past four years. He’s been a thorn in the NCAA’s side at times, but there’s no downplaying his agility in the NIL space. In April he knew the pending House settlement was a threat to his burgeoning business. Poneman saw that 2025’s portal cycle, by far the most lucrative yet, could be the last of its kind.
Now that the next phase is here, there’s hesitancy in college hoops about what’s going to hold. Poneman has his doubts about the legitimacy of the CSC’s rulebook.
“Some think we’re going to see a complete shift in college basketball, but it’s not going to happen,” Poneman said. “I don’t know how it’s not going to happen, but there are too many talented, powerful, motivated basketball coaches who have spent their whole life getting to this position to allow some arbitrary, nonsensical legislation totally impact their career in irreparable ways.”
Will collectives actually go away? As a result, will cheating heavily come back into style? What does “cheating” mean in 2025? What will the loopholes be? What will the punishments be? How far will agents or boosters or players or coaches go to keep funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into the sport?
The value of a high school recruit could be in major flux from the past two years.
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“The most pressing thing is, can it withstand the legal challenges?” one prominent SEC coach told CBS Sports. “Because if it loses to the legal challenge of being able to cap someone’s NIL, that’s gonna be the first lawsuit, and if that goes away then all we’ve done is say we have to pay the 20.5 plus what we’re already paying.”
Whether Congress can solve the problem remains unknowable. The Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements (SCORE) Act is trying to get pushed through, to give the NCAA antitrust protection, but in reality it’s probably going to be the next piece of legislation to die on the House or Senate floor.
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo told me that, in his view “10 to 15%” of the sport was cheating 15 to 20 years ago. He thinks if strict restrictions are put in and they hold, the number will be closer to 40% because the money’s gotten too big to go all the way back.
“If they’re going to do what (Tony) Petitti and (Greg) Sankey are saying, they’re going to have to have some real enforcement,” Izzo said. “That means more to me than Deloitte.”
About three hours after Izzo said that, I sat next to a Big 12 coach as he scouted a player. He pointed to different people in the gym as he made this point.
“His administration, my administration, her administration, his administration are all hoping and believing that the guardrails are in place and this is how we will operate,” he said. “And you know what coaches are saying? Bull-f—ing-shit.”
Opendorse, a company that has been at the forefront of the NIL business, reported that collectives were responsible for 81.6% of all trackable and/or reported NIL deals for the 2024-25 cycle. Those deals totaled more than $1.6 billion. That’s a lot of money being taken off the table — with a portion probably slipping under it.
It’s why coaches are wired to be cynical about the alleged drastic change in college sports’ financial environment.
“I think collectives are going underground,” another SEC coach told me. “But they’re not going away.”
“Going underground” is code for cheating.
Until just a few years ago, paying for a player realistically meant anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 in cash (maybe a little more in extreme cases, or so the stories go) in addition tangible items (like a car, setting up a loved one with a job or a residence) and discretely finding ways to deliver the money to a player or their family.
Those days are over; the money’s gotten too big.
Highly prized transfers have gone for more than $1 million the past two offseasons. It would be ambitious to suggest rule-breaking at that level will happen, because moving that amount of money — not to be traced, and thus not to be taxed — is asking for major trouble from law enforcement. Still, coaches think something is on the table if collectives dissolve.
“I think it goes over the rev share cap,” one Big Ten coach told me. “Moving forward, they won’t abide by the rules.”
Creative accounting will soon be the new rage. Coaches believe some of their competitors will be doing whatever it takes, either through loopholes or brazen cheating, to keep acquiring talent.
“I heard a school hired Deloitte to come up with an algorithm beat their algorithm,” another coach with Final Four experience told me, referring to Deloitte’s system that is determining what a “valid business purpose” is to clear NIL deals.
Some of these schemes are why Poneman doesn’t think the CSC’s current guidance will stand.
“I don’t think that’s going to fly, because all it takes is one coach to say go f— yourself,” Poneman said. “All it’s going to take is one school to say f— you, we’re going to keep our collective, we’re not submitting to NIL Go and what are you going to do? Who does it hurt if collective can spend money? Nobody! Who does it help? It helps coaches, who get better teams. Players, who get more money. Agents, who get more money. Players are waiting longer to enter the draft, they’re staying in school, the product is better.”
This is not so much a problem now as it will be a massive adjustment in 2026. That’s because any school that could afford to put up the majority — or all — of its NIL payments prior to July 1 (when the House settlement’s terms became official) did so.
One prominent coach told CBS Sports he was told by another school that it paid out well north of $20 million before July 1, meaning all those players have been fully taken care of for the upcoming year. That school will be comfortably north of $6 million in revenue sharing for next year’s portal cycle, putting it at an advantage against the field in rev-share capital.
“I just talked to one of the coaches, and they said they gave everyone on the team at least a million,” this coach said. “Schools have front-loaded two-year deals and paid them all up front. So, they get the kid, they front-load the two-year deal: $1.5 (million) in Year 1, $1.5 (million) in Year 2, they give them $3 million before June 30 because of the settlement. They do that with the entire team, except for three or four guys. They have to sign three guys next year, now they’ve got this year’s rev share plus next year’s rev share to go get those guys.”
For the very few schools that had the money on hand to do that, it put them ahead of the pack for next April, when funds are expected to be tighter sport-wide vs. 2025’s free-for-all levels. Poneman predicts a 10-20% drop in contracts next year.
“Some schools are going to go into it expecting to follow this new cap, and others go into it with workarounds,” Poneman said. “There will be this chaotic real-time transformation. I wonder if it happens in the portal or if it happens before that. These high school kids, is no one going to sign them?”
Word gets around. High school players graduating in 2026 are aware of the general figures five-star players in the 2025 and 2024 classes were getting. A handful of coaches I asked about this issue admitted they weren’t sure what to tell 17-year-old prospects. It explains the slow in commitments vs. the trends of the past few summers. (Only five of the top 50 prospects for 2026 have pledged to a school.)
“Coaches are going to offer numbers and try to figure it out later and it’s going to be a total shit show,” Poneman said.
Every coach I spoke with agrees with Poneman that the numbers for high school recruits and the portal players of next spring are going to drop. But by how much is the devilish detail. Based on my conversations this offseason with dozens of sources, the average high-major transfer this year made around $600,000. So for 2026, does that drop in price mean a reduction of $100,000 on average? Does it mean $400,000 less?
Maybe the most important aspect of the House settlement moving forward is that the schools who opt into the agreement cannot sue the CSC, NCAA or Deloitte. It’s the bond that holds the whole thing together. Without it, there wouldn’t be a settlement at all.
The catch: What is to stop a player from suing if an NIL deal through a collective, or a separate business, is shot down by Deloitte? Should collectives cease to exist the way the CSC has outlined, the lost earning potential in the years to come would be in the hundreds of millions.
“These new rules are bullshit,” Poneman said. “They benefit the NCAA and the administrators, the same stuffy white people who were trying to suppress these players in the first place, and now they’re trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.”
So what do we have? Five hundred lawsuits from players waiting in the months to come?
That’s the next big wait-and-see. Are we going to look up around Thanksgiving and see an assembly line of legal challenges overrunning college sports? How long would those lawsuits take? Would injunctions enable them to be paid while still in school? If so, this new system is build on matchsticks.
“How does anybody determine what somebody’s market value is?” a coach with a national championship on his résumé told me. “They’re making it seem so casual that these deals won’t be accepted. And to be honest, I don’t see how they can’t be accepted.”
Dan Hurley (left) and Shaka Smart (top) are benefitting as a result of being in the Big East, without the constraints of football affecting their revenue sharing, like Alabama’s Nate Oats (center).
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Big East’s perceived advantages worries some coaches
The most common inquiry I got from coaches on the recruiting trail this month was: How much do you think Big East programs have to spend now?
It’s gripping the imaginations of many.
“Coaches in the league are worried about the Big East,” one SEC coach told me.
Most Big East schools don’t have football, and even the ones that do (UConn, Villanova), aren’t driven by it. This means they can’t reach $20.5 million in revenue sharing, but they also don’t have to allot $12 million-plus to football, which escalates their spending power.
This is the unintended consequence of having football interests dictate most of the decisions in college athletics. As things stand right now, Big East jobs have bumped in value. You can claim it’s “unfair,” or you can acknowledge that the history of college sports has always had trends and swells that benefitted certain programs over others; it’s never been an even playing field. It’s not the fault of St. John’s, Marquette, Creighton — or even A-10 powers like VCU and Dayton — that they’re free of football’s power grip on college sports.
They don’t get the benefit of everything that comes with housing a football team, but they’re also not saddled with the expenses either.
That’s the trade-off.
Per sources: One high-major, non-Big East job that came open earlier this year told prospective candidates that their budget up until June 30 would be well north of $7 million to build out a roster for 2025-26, then funding would be sliced in half for 2026 and beyond due to football eating up a lot of the rev-share cap.
The consternation stems from most SEC teams operating below $3 million in revenue sharing for the upcoming year, according to a variety of sources. One expected exception is basketball-crazed Kentucky, which is believed to be at a 45% rev share of its $20.5 million cap for 2025-26. There was talk of all SEC programs agreeing to an equal rev-share cap, but similar to the Big East situation, if Kentucky wants to put more emphasis on its basketball program (and sacrifice for less on the football side) than the likes of Alabama, Auburn or Tennessee, that’s Kentucky’s prerogative.
As one Big East coach put it to me: “If I’m at $6 million for my team this year and the University of Florida men’s basketball program has $3 million, how am I not an advantage? [SEC schools] are not going to cheat up to $3 million. That’s a lot of money. In the old days, cheating was like 50 grand. … I understand if an SEC assistant wanted 50 grand and went to some rogue booster. You would never go to a booster now and say, ‘Hey, I need $2 million for a player.’ That’s criminal activity.”
Besides, spending big money doesn’t assure anyone anything, as another Big Ten coach was quick to point out. This person estimated schools in his league will max out just north of $4 million in men’s basketball for the upcoming year, with the bottom being about $2.5 million.
“If everybody stays within that, it’ll tighten things up,” the veteran coach said. “You’re still gonna have to spend your money wisely. I don’t think the teams that spent the most money necessarily won last year. Florida, Houston, Auburn, I don’t think they were at the top.”
This unavoidable variety of money allotment across high-major athletics has gotten some to wonder: Should college basketball have its own cap eventually as well? It seems unlikely — and let’s be clear: would be blatantly hypocritical — but cynicism runs deep on this subject.
“Ohio State won’t let Xavier, Illinois won’t let DePaul, Virginia won’t let VCU beat them for players. That’s not happening,” another Big Ten coach told me. “How is it not going to happen? I don’t know.”
That clears things up.
Coaches condition themselves to think someone is always out to skirt the rules, if not outright break them, and they’re a bit paranoid at what they don’t know and who’s getting an edge on them. Relatedly, Izzo said he wants transparency on basketball spending when it comes to revenue sharing. Michigan State is at $3.5 million for the upcoming season, but that number will increase in a year. Why can’t the public know how each school is breaking down their budget? After all, the $20.5 number is public information.
“Why isn’t it transparent?” Izzo said. “You don’t have to say what these players are making, but why can’t we say Michigan State gets $4 million, Arkansas gets 5 million and so on?”
Inevitably, this conversation for most leads to an obvious conclusion.
“Just make them employees,” was the sentiment from plenty on the recruiting trail this month.
Five years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find a gaggle of coaches endorsing a player’s union. It’s funny how a true free market can zip them into a headspace where they want collective bargaining. They want players to stay for more than one season. They want to pay them a fair share, have contracts and bring stability back to college basketball.
But that future isn’t coming soon.
So in the long interim, everyone’s bracing for the next era, with more money — on the line, up for grabs, changing hands — than at any point in the history of college sports.
Turns out, the rivalry between Notre Dame and USC was close to being saved earlier this season. According to Ryan Kartje of The Los Angeles Times, the two programs almost announced a 2026 game had been scheduled. However, the agreement Notre Dame put together with the College Football Playoff changed things for the Trojans.
“USC and Notre Dame were close to announcing a continuation of their rivalry earlier this season, a source told @latimes,” Kartje said via X. “USC was ready to compromise and play the ’26 game in November But then USC learned of ND’s agreement w/ the CFP to have a guaranteed spot if in the top 12.
“In light of Notre Dame’s agreement re: CFP, which USC hadn’t been aware of, USC reversed course on its plan to compromise and insisted that the ND game be played in Week Zero in 2026. A source said they felt ND’s agreement was ‘a material advantage’ that could disadvantage USC.”
Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua revealed this agreement, also called an MOU, with the CFP after this past Selection Sunday. If the Irish are placed inside the top-12 moving forward, they are guaranteed a spot in the field. The same is true if the CFP expands to 14 teams, as Notre Dame would need to be ranked inside the top 13.
If the MOU were in effect this season, Notre Dame would have gotten into the field over Miami despite being ranked lower. Miami also held the head-to-head matchup, jumping Notre Dame at the last possible moment. This scenario playing out against USC was apparently a concern for administration in Los Angeles.
“Had Notre Dame had its new agreement with the CFP committee in place in 2025, the Irish would’ve gotten in over Miami, who beat them earlier in the season,” Kartje said via X. “That scenario was a concern to USC.”
Now, for just the second time since World War II, there will not be a game between Notre Dame and USC. It’s one of the more storied rivalries in college football despite the two never sharing a conference. We are not too far away from 100 games between them, sitting at 93 after the 2025 edition took place in South Bend.
Notre Dame already has a game on the ’26 and ’27 schedule to replace USC. A home-and-home series will take place with BYU, a team they could have played in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in a few days.
HONOLULU (Island News) — When conversations turn to Name, Image and Likeness in college sports, the focus often lands on eye-popping numbers and national stars.
This year’s Heisman Trophy winner, Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, reportedly earned more than two million dollars through NIL deals — a figure that has become shorthand for how dramatically the college athletics landscape has changed.
But far from the national spotlight, NIL is quietly reshaping opportunity in a very different way.
At the University of Hawaiʻi, athletes are discovering that NIL isn’t only about endorsements or social media reach. It’s about identity, adaptability, and learning how to navigate a world where athletic performance and personal story now intersect.
For kicker Kansei Matsuzawa, that intersection arrived unexpectedly.
Matsuzawa came to Hawaiʻi from Japan to play football, improve his English, and test himself at the highest level of college athletics. Branding and marketing were never part of the plan. Yet in today’s NIL era, those skills have become part of the education.
“As a business… I can apply to the business side,” Matsuzawa said, reflecting on what he’s learned through the process.
That lesson took shape through an NIL partnership with Honolulu Coffee Company, a collaboration rooted not in star power, but in storytelling. The result was the Tokyo Toe Blend, a coffee inspired by Matsuzawa’s journey from Japan to Hawaiʻi and the precision and discipline required of a kicker — details that mirror both his athletic and personal path.
For Honolulu Coffee, the partnership represented a shift in how businesses think about college athletes.
“As we really started to think about his story… and the University of Hawaiʻi athletics this year too,” said Erica Mounsey, the company’s chief operating officer. “We think this is just the beginning of many partnerships to come in the future.”
Rather than chasing national recognition, the company leaned into authenticity — choosing an athlete whose background aligned with its values and local customer base. In the evolving NIL marketplace, that approach is becoming increasingly important. Consumers respond not just to names, but to narratives that feel real and connected to place.
Those same changes are being felt inside athletic departments.
At UH, NIL has introduced a new layer of complexity to college sports — one that requires creativity, coordination, and a long-term view of athlete development beyond competition.
“We’re thinking about, okay, is there… we gotta be thinking about all at the same time,” said Matt Elliott, UH’s athletic director. “We’re putting together packages… a lot of creative problem solving.”
That problem solving reflects a broader reality: athletes are now brands, universities are strategic partners, and local businesses are part of the ecosystem. Success depends not on one viral moment, but on relationships built thoughtfully and sustainably.
For Mounsey, that mindset defines the future of NIL in Hawaiʻi.
“Anything’s possible… with a goal in mind,” she said.
As NIL continues to evolve nationwide, Hawaiʻi’s athletes are navigating it in a uniquely local way — balancing culture, community, and opportunity. For Matsuzawa, the experience has expanded his understanding of what it means to be a student-athlete.
The kicks still matter. So do the wins and losses. But increasingly, so does the knowledge gained off the field — lessons in storytelling, adaptability, and self-advocacy that will carry far beyond college football.
In Hawaiʻi, NIL isn’t just changing the game.
It’s changing what athletes take with them when the game ends.
The Sherrone Moore era is over at Michigan after two short years, and for good reason. Now that he’s in the rearview mirror, we can begin to assess the overall job he did as Michigan’s head football coach.
Today, we broke down a few of the key qualities of a football coach and assessed how he performed as Michigan’s leading man.
Following Jim Harbaugh’s departure, Moore had to rapidly fill out a staff as Harbaugh took most of Michigan’s assistants with him to the NFL. Moore hired Kirk Campbell to be his offensive coordinator, Wink Martindale to be the defensive coordinator, and J.B. Brown to be the special teams coordinator. Swing and a miss. Campbell and Brown were abject disasters, with Campbell being let go after just one season while Brown made it two yeaes before being fired. Martindale was well on his way to needing to find a new job as well.
As for position coaches, Moore does get credit for bringing in defensive line coach Lou Esposito and running backs coach Tony Alford. However, the rest of the staff has been disappointing to various degrees. Alford and Esposito prevent this from being an F, but Moore was pretty close to flunking this department.
High School Recruitment: A-
Moore did well on the recruiting trail. The 2026 class was a borderline Top-10 class and included two five-stars in running back Savion Hiter and edge rusher Carter Meadows. But since his firing, two members of the class in four-star tight end Matt Ludwig and three-star offensive lineman Bear McWhorter have already left. However, it’s okay to give Moore some credit for putting together very good classes. Don’t forget the class of 2025 also included two five-stars in Bryce Underwood and Andrew Babalola.
Transfer Portal Management: B
In the transfer portal era, it’s unfair to define this category based on quantity as back-ups move around at their own pleasure now. However, we have to look at the quality of players in and out. Michigan lost a small handful of notable players in Keon Sabb, DJ Waller Jr. and Matthew Hibner after winning Harbaugh left and Moore was hired. However, Moore then brought in Jaishawn Barham, Josh Priebe and Dominic Zvada, to name a few, that same offseason. At worst, he broke even that season.
Before his second year, he was able to bring in Justice Haynes, Donaven McCulley, Damon Payne Jr. and Tre Williams, to name a few. The transfers out were plentiful, but very few made an impact at their respective new schools. It’s safe to say Moore brought in more talent than he lost in each of his two years. However, there were a few glaring holes each offseason that he did not address (quarterback in 2024, punter in 2025, etc.).
It’s hard to give Moore anything other than an A in this category, as he essentially got NIL off the ground at Michigan. Harbaugh’s famous “transformational, not transactional” model was destined to be dead-to-rights. Moore was able to retain players such as Mason Graham, Will Johnson, Kenneth Grant and Colston Loveland thanks to NIL deals, and he also played a role in Underwood signing with the Wolverines. Say what you will about Moore’s tenure at Michigan, but this was one of his legitimate strengths.
To me, this is the single most-damning category for Moore. He seemed to have no clue what he was doing when it came to clock-management and his use of timeouts. The 2024 Indiana game is the best example, as it quite literally cost the Wolverines a chance at winning. However, alternative examples are numerous and there were no signs of improvement. Under his watch, Michigan routinely challenged obviously correct calls, failed to challenge obviously incorrect calls, and played an all-around undisciplined brand of football. This category is easily an F.
When Moore was first promoted, his main mantas quickly became “SMASH” and “Team over Me.” At the time, most fans were optimistic about these, as Moore was the former offensive line coach and had developed three stellar offensive lines from 2021-23. But that quickly deteriorated, as the 2024 and 2025 offensive lines were average at best.
However, the main reason we are giving this an F is the events of the past few weeks. The fact players and staffers in the program were aware of the inappropriate relationship between Moore and the staffer but were seemingly too afraid to speak up tells you all you need to know. The culture appears to be significantly worse now than what it was when Moore took over, prompting an easy F in this field.
Former Georgia defensive end Damon Wilson II has sued the school’s athletic association, escalating one of the messiest player-school disputes of the NIL and transfer portal era.
In a 42-page complaint filed Tuesday morning in Boone County, Mo., Wilson’s attorneys allege a civil conspiracy involving the Bulldogs and Georgia’s collective to try to “penalize Wilson for his decision to transfer.” The suit alleges that they interfered with his ability to enter the portal and lied about his NIL buyout. The former five-star recruit spent this season at Missouri.
The move is a counter to Georgia earlier seeking to go to arbitration to get $390,000 from Wilson, alleging damages after the player signed an agreement to return to Athens for his junior season before entering the transfer portal a month later.
It’s also believed to be the first time a player and school have taken each other to court over an NIL dispute. The resolution could hinge on Wilson’s argument that the NIL agreement with Georgia’s collective was a binding contract.
“Georgia appears intent on making an example of someone, they just picked the wrong person,” said Jeff Jensen, one of Wilson’s attorneys. “Damon never had a contract with them. I don’t see how Georgia thinks intimidation and litigation will help their recruitment efforts — maybe players could bring lawyers with them to practice.”
“As this matter involves pending litigation, we will have no additional comment at this time and refer you to our previous statement,” University of Georgia Athletic Association spokesman Steven Drummond said.
The backstory
Wilson appeared in 26 games at Georgia from 2023 to ‘24 and was expected to be a significant contributor this season when he signed an NIL agreement last December with Georgia’s Classic City Collective. The terms sheet called for him to receive $30,000 per month from December 2024 through January 2026.
A month after signing the deal, he transferred to Missouri, where he led the Tigers with nine sacks. Because the agreement was contingent upon his staying at Georgia, the collective ended the deal.
In October, the UGAAA filed an application to compel arbitration in Athens-Clarke County, Ga. It alleged Wilson owed $390,000 — the unpaid amount on the deal — in liquidated damages, as spelled out in the terms sheet.
What Wilson’s suit argues
The suit alleges Georgia staffers falsely told multiple unnamed Power 4 programs that Wilson would owe the Bulldogs $1.2 million if he left. That action was “an effort to prevent (other schools) from offering Wilson an NIL agreement, thereby impeding his ability to obtain an NIL agreement from a competing program that was the product of free and open competition for his athletic services and NIL licensing rights.”
It also contends the Bulldogs didn’t immediately put his name in the portal but instead launched an “all-out offensive” to try to keep him at Georgia. Those acts were part of what the suit called a “civil conspiracy” to interfere with Wilson’s business endeavors by the suit’s defendants: UGA’s athletic association, the collective and its two now-former CEOs, Matt Hibbs and Tanner Potts.
The suit also includes a count of interfering with Wilson’s business opportunities and accuses UGA’s athletic association of violating the confidentiality provision of the terms sheet by sharing its contents, including through a public court filing.
Much of the complaint addresses the NIL deal itself. The suit said Wilson and several other teammates were simply told by a Bulldogs employee to go upstairs at the football building to sign the agreement during preparations for the College Football Playoff. Wilson’s filing argues the deal is not enforceable because it says its terms would “be used to create a legally binding document.” That document was not created. The filing also notes that the terms sheet encouraged Wilson to “seek legal counsel” before finalizing a full agreement. If Wilson’s reading is correct, he would not owe the $390,000 the Bulldogs claim he does.
Finally, the suit includes a count of defamation over a line from a Bulldogs spokesperson about expecting athletes to honor commitments. The statement, the complaint said, implies that Wilson was dishonest, which hurts his reputation.
Wilson lost out on endorsement opportunities and NIL revenue and suffered emotional and mental distress caused by the Bulldogs’ false claims, his attorneys allege. He’s seeking a “fair and reasonable amount of damages” for the “financial and reputational harm he has suffered” along with legal fees.
Why this case is important
Georgia’s filing against Wilson this fall was the first known instance of a school taking a current/former player to court over an NIL buyout. And this complaint appears to be the first time a player has sued a school regarding an NIL deal.
The closest comparison is one-time Florida signee Jaden Rashada’s pending lawsuit over a $13.85 million dispute. But he filed that against three individuals involved (including now-former Florida coach Billy Napier) and a booster’s private company; the Gators have not been named as a party in the case.
As the player compensation space evolves in the first year of direct revenue sharing between schools and athletes, disputes will continue to arise. Whether contracts are binding is, to some degree, an open question and affects whether players can essentially act as free agents every year. This case is one of the first, best looks into how the issue might be resolved.
Quarterback Nico Iamaleava is returning to UCLA football for a second season to play under new coach Bob Chesney, the team announced Dec. 22.
The former Tennessee quarterback had transferred to UCLA in April. The Bruins went 3-9 this past season, during which DeShaun Foster was fired after an 0-3 start.
Iamaleava completed 64.4% of his passes for 1,928 yards and 13 touchdowns, with seven interceptions in 11 games. He also rushed for 505 yards and four touchdowns. He did not play at Ohio State in November due to a concussion.
Nico Iamaleava spent two seasons with Tennessee football before exit
Iamaleava played 18 games in two seasons at Tennessee, and started all 13 games during UT’s College Football Playoff run in 2024.
The QB threw for 2,616 yards with 19 touchdowns and five interceptions in 2024, but was less efficient in SEC play. He threw nine touchdowns in eight conference games, but four of those were against Vanderbilt in the regular-season finale.
In his UT career, he completed 241 of 379 passes for 2,930 yards with 21 touchdowns and five interceptions. He redshirted in 2023 behind starter Joe Milton.
Why did Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee football split?
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel informed the Vols that Iamaleava was no longer a member of the team prior to the April 12 spring game, ending the relationship between UT and Iamaleava amid an apparent NIL dispute.
Iamaleava skipped the Vols’ final spring practice on April 11, the morning after On3’s Pete Nakos reported ongoing negotiations between Iamaleava and UT. His NIL deal reportedly paid him more than $2 million per year.
ESPN’s Chris Low, citing sources, reported that Iamaleava’s representatives wanted his NIL pay increased to $4 million per year. The family used the possibility of him entering the transfer portal as leverage.
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.
If you watched any part of Ole Miss’ 41-10 blowout of Tulane, the one common theme you felt was that the absence of former head coach Lane “Benedict” Kiffin was not acknowledged by the home fans; they even appeared to embrace it. It took a while for Rebel Nation to realize it but Kiffin simply was never “one of them” and, while he built the program, he did not measure up to the “Ole Miss family.” Most Rebel fans would probably tell you now they’d rather lose without him than win with him. Kiffin has now been fully exposed and St. Nick (Saban, now known as Mr. Hypocrite) and Pete Carroll, his self-proclaimed advisers, should be ashamed for their comments supporting the manner in which he tried to negotiate his way to both coaching one team and recruiting for another simultaneously. One is the GOAT who ran away from NIL and the transfer portal while the other is a recognized cheater by many. The best part is Kiffin’s LSU Tigers play at Mississippi next year. Good riddance!
