ESPN ranked every Big Ten team ahead of the 2025 college football season, using their SP+ metrics. Confused? Well, we’ll give you an explanation via ESPN.

“One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency,” ESPN’s Bill Connelly wrote. “It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.”

The preseason factors for this list include returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. So when you put that all together, you’ll see how all of these Big Ten teams stack up going into the 2025 season. Every team’s national rank is included in parentheses.

The Buckeyes are at the top of the Big Ten and also the top of the country, when it comes to ESPN’s SP+ rankings. Ohio State is the defending champ and could very well repeat.

Having to replace key positions could prevent that, but they still have stars such as Jeremiah Smith and Caleb Downs. Whomever Ryan Day picks as his starting quarterback will be the biggest move of the offseason.

Penn State plans to run it back in 2025 like Ohio State just did last season. The goal? A national championship victory.

ESPN has them as the second best team in the Big Ten right now and a top three team in the country. Drew Allar, Kaytron Allen, Nick Singleton, Dani Dennis-Sutton, the stars are endless!

The Ducks won the Big Ten last season, going 13-0 and earning the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. They slipped up against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl but have a chance to win it all this year too.

ESPN has them No. 7 overall, which goes to show the strength of the conference, being that Oregon is third among their foes. Dante Moore takes over at QB and it’ll be an intriguing storyline considering he took a year behind Dillon Gabriel.

Here’s where it gets interesting for the Big Ten and college football at large. Michigan is back near the top of the conference after an average season in 2024.

Sherrone Moore goes into Year 2 with a better quarterback situation and some solid pieces on both sides of the ball. The fact that ESPN’s metrics have the Wolverines in the top 10 is telling. This could be a playoff team after a year off.

Illinois will also try to make it to the College Football Playoff this season as ESPN ranked them in the top 20 nationwide. It’s good for the top five in the Big Ten.

Luke Altmyer is back at QB, giving the Fighting Illini a leg up on most teams in the conference. Bret Bielema’s crew won 10 games last season and that could be a possibility this fall.

Curt Cignetti pushed every right button in 2024 and now has a reloaded roster as he tries to lead the Hoosiers back to the CFP. Fernando Mendoza is in at QB from Cal, giving him another talented signal caller.

ESPN ranked them in the upper half of the Big Ten and a top 25 team in the country. But, it might be hard to replicate last year’s record setting season. Still, they have the talent.

The Hawkeyes being a top 30 program just feels right year to year. They’re in the top half of the Big Ten and ESPN likes how Iowa projects into 2025 and beyond.

Kirk Ferentz and crew are always going to be a tough out and that could be the case again this year. Although, we don’t think they’ll necessarily be a playoff threat. But we can’t rule it out!

8. USC (30)

USC is trying to avoid another disappointing season, but facts are facts right now. Lincoln Riley’s time with the Trojans has been mediocre since his debut season.

That doesn’t mean the team doesn’t have talent, especially on offense and what Riley does with his quarterbacks. But the age old question is can the defense actually improve? They’ll need that to compete at the top of the Big Ten.

The Huskers’ expectations are certainly rising going into 2025. Second-year quarterback Dylan Raiola will be the man who drives the bus.

Matt Rhule getting Nebraska to rise in the Big Ten and nationwide would be par for the course, given his coaching history. But right now, they’ll have to prove it as ESPN has them in the middle of the conference.

The Badgers underwent a makeover with Luke Fickell at the helm. Going into 2025, Wisconsin could see some improvements, despite being No. 10 in the Big Ten.

ESPN still has them as a top 40 team in the country, which might mean postseason when it’s all said and done. Don’t be surprised if this team rises up the ranks a bit.

The Huskies will go into Year 2 under Jedd Fisch. There were some ups and downs last season and ESPN expects them to be a middling Big Ten team this year.

As far as the national ranking? Well, top 40 isn’t too shabby. There are a lot of transfers on defense, six of which are projected starters a little less than two months away from the season. 

PJ Fleck is ready to row the boats back to the postseason in 2025 and maybe a little further. But right now, ESPN has them in the bottom half of the Big Ten right now.

Still, being a top 40 team projects out to a team that’ll make a bowl game. Transfers on the offensive line should help reshape the unit to success.

Rutgers has made a bowl game two years in a row as Greg Schiano has something cooking during his second stint at the school. The defense was a problem last season as there were numerous missed opportunities at nine, maybe even 10 wins.

Competing in the Big Ten this year will be harder with a more difficult schedule. There’s a good offense to work with as this is still a top 50 team according to ESPN, so a third straight bowl game should be a possibility.

14. UCLA (51)

DeShaun Foster hopes for more success in Year 2, which would include getting to a bowl game. Right now, they’re in the bottom third of the Big Ten per ESPN.

Nico Iamaleava is at QB after transferring from Tennessee. How that translates is anyone’s guess, but the Bruins certainly have a talented player at the position.

Jonathan Smith is working to rebuild Michigan State and they’ll have to climb out from the bottom of the Big Ten, per ESPN. There’s a bit of a gap between UCLA and MSU at this point too.

Aidan Chiles is an intriguing QB talent and could turn into something worthwhile throughout the course of the season. Like the Bruins, the Spartans were 5-7 last season and making a bowl game should be the goal, despite a lower ranking.

The Terrapins might be in a bit of a rebuild now as Mike Locksley turns the calendar to the 2025 season. They’re near the bottom of the Big Ten in these rankings.

ESPN also has them far lower than a few teams just above them in the conference. It could be another down year for this crew.

Northwestern had a lot of magic in 2023 under David Braun. It all came crashing back down to earth last season and ESPN probably expects another year of four or five wins, based on the metrics.

The Wildcats are second to last in the Big Ten rankings going into the season. Maybe Braun and crew have a few more surprises up their sleeves.

Purdue is undergoing a total rebuild with new head coach Barry Odom. He’s brought some of his guys over from UNLV for a fresh start as well.

The Boilermakers will have to do a lot of work to climb up the ranks of the Big Ten. ESPN’s rankings have them outside the top 100 nationwide as well.

Sports Media Watch presents thoughts on recent events in the industry, starting with the Paramount-Skydance merger and its implications for sports TV.

One of the biggest storylines in news, media and politics is the Paramount-Skydance merger. After an on-again, off-again saga during the early part of last year, the merger was finally agreed to exactly one year ago — just in time for the home stretch of the presidential election, and a questionable lawsuit against Paramount-owned CBS News by its eventual winner. While few observers believe CBS would have lost at trial, Paramount’s much-criticized decision to settle was widely viewed as a necessity to win regulatory approval. Putting aside the implications of such an arrangement, the expectation is now that the Skydance-Paramount merger will be eventually approved.

As far as media mergers go, Skydance-Paramount does not change much on the surface. This is not GE acquiring Universal, putting NBC and USA under the same umbrella — or Comcast acquiring NBCUniversal less than a decade later, combining NBC and USA with Golf Channel and Versus. This is not even Disney picking up most of the Fox cable networks, or WarnerMedia and Discovery combining their platforms into an ill-fated new venture. The Paramount properties will remain the same as now.

The difference is that Skydance has both the resources — and seemingly the intention — to make Paramount into a bigger player in sports television. Currently, Paramount’s $8.9 billion market cap is closer to Nexstar ($5.38B) than to fellow major media conglomerates Fox Corporation ($23.7B), Warner Bros. Discovery ($27.5B), Comcast ($132.5B) and Disney ($221.3B). (Including debt and cash, Paramount is a bit closer to Fox, $22B to $28B.) While CBS may seem every bit the equal of its “Big Four” rivals, its approach to sports rights has been considerably thriftier and more selective.

Consider the three most important CBS Sports partnerships. Yes, CBS is able to afford a full NFL rights package for more than $2 billion/year — an essential for any major media company. But the network was only able to keep the NCAA men’s basketball tournament as part of a joint deal with then-Turner Sports, and pays nothing for rights to the Masters golf tournament.

The network’s other major rights deals include the Big Ten “B” package, filling a vacancy that opened when the network failed to renew its SEC football deal. (Per reporting when the deals were struck, CBS is actually paying more for the Big Ten “B” package — $350 million/year — than ESPN paid to steal away the SEC “A” package — $300 million/year.) Plus, CBS pays some portion of the $700 million/year PGA Tour rights deal, which it splits with NBC and Golf Channel.

With all due respect to international soccer, it is ultimately a light portfolio. CBS has not held NBA rights since 1990 or baseball rights since 1993. When it was desperate in the mid-1990s, it got passed over for NHL rights in favor of FOX. It last aired the Olympics in 1998. Other than renewing its own properties, it has for years stayed mainly on the sidelines during major negotiations — even when business was comparably booming.

But Skydance clearly has designs on changing that. In a conference call following the announcement of the merger deal last year, Jeff Shell — the former NBC executive who will be the new president of Paramount — called sports “the foundation of our business,” adding that “if there’s compelling rights in the future that we think can bolster us, we are a buyer probably, rather than a seller.”

If that is to change under new management, there are a handful of opportunities to make a considerable splash in the near term. Rights to the 2030 FIFA men’s World Cup have yet to be awarded, and the current Major League Baseball and NHL rights deals expire in 2028. The joint NCAA Tournament deal with TNT Sports expires in 2032, and given the uncertain state of TNT, it would not be surprising to see an empowered CBS seek to reclaim exclusive rights to the event.

But there are only so many rights available, and Paramount will surely prioritize keeping the NFL over any new deals. The NFL is expected to exercise the various opt-outs in its rights deals starting in 2029 and has the option, however unlikely, to immediately renegotiate its CBS deal in the event the network is sold to a new owner.

Plus, “New Paramount” is still going to be a far cry from Disney or Comcast, to say nothing of streamers like Amazon, Netflix and Google. Its proposed valuation of $28 billion would be merely on par with Fox Corporation.

The presence of a newly aggressive player will surely be helpful to properties that are on the market, but there is only so much impact that a company of Paramount’s modest size and scope can possibly have.

With the exception of Comcast acquiring NBCUniversal, the major media mergers of recent years have been a net negative for sports television. AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner in 2018 — which was similarly held up by government regulators — resulted in a short-term spending spree that included the newly-renamed WarnerMedia picking up NHL rights for the first time. But within five years, the networks were spun off into a new venture with Discovery. Next year, most will be spun off yet again, this time onto an ice floe.

Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets brought with it the promise of ESPN-branded regional sports networks, but government regulators yet again gummed up the works and forced them to divest. Those RSNs ended up with Sinclair, went bankrupt, and barely survived — imperiling the entire RSN industry.

Even the Comcast-NBCU merger ultimately resulted in the demise of OLN-turned-Versus-turned-NBCSN, and the looming spinoff of USA, CNBC, MSNBC and Golf Channel — networks that at one time belonged to three separate media companies, but after two sets of consolidation are now the core elements of the new venture “Versant.”

To an extent, it makes sense. At one time, media mergers were growth opportunities. Disney’s 1996 acquisition of ABC and ESPN transformed both the networks and the parent company. Now, these deals are borne of a combination of desperation and opportunism. The properties on the move in the past 15 years are linear networks, most of them cable, with futures that are hazy at best. It is no surprise that in many cases, the networks acquired only last a few years before being sent on the move again.

Perhaps Paramount-Skydance has a better chance of success. But the issues that have plagued media companies throughout the decade — the decline of linear, the at-times ragged transition to streaming — are not going to magically disappear.

Indeed, for all the sound, fury and political tumult surrounding the Paramount-Skydance merger, the drama surrounding this sale may paint an exaggerated picture of what is at stake if it goes through.

Plus: Caitlin Clark, MLB on ESPN, NASCAR Chicago

Caitlin Clark has played in just half of the Indiana Fever’s 18 games this season — fewer than half if one includes the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Final, which technically does not count — and as the All-Star break approaches, it is fair to wonder if the realities of modern day basketball could start to slow her impact on the game.

Indiana knows well what happens when players try to power through injuries. Pacers GM Kevin Pritchard said Monday that star G Tyrese Haliburton will not play at all next season after tearing his Achilles during Game 7 of the NBA Finals. In the case of Clark, who is not only the future of her franchise but of her league, a few regular season games are a small price to pay to ensure she does not suffer more serious injury.

Nonetheless, the fits-and-starts nature of her sophomore season has taken her mostly out of the news cycle. If one is looking for a positive parallel, Michael Jordan missed nearly his entire sophomore season with a broken foot — but returned just in time to score 63 points in the first round of the playoffs.

How much should one read into ESPN’s delaying the start of the MLB All-Star Selection Show due to cornhole runover? Not much, usually. But if MLB is channeling Manny Ramirez and “looking for a reason,” then perhaps it could be viewed as a sign of disrespect.

On the long list of ESPN slights, a few minutes of overrun really do not jump off the page. If the preceding event was not cornhole, it is possible few would have even noticed. In fact, one could easily argue that it would be poor form to preempt a live competition like cornhole in favor of the recitation of names.

Having said all of that, given the hard feelings at MLB regarding ESPN, it may have been wise to just get to the baseball on time.

If Sunday marked the final edition of the NASCAR Chicago Street Race, it was the end of an interesting experiment. Realistically, shutting down portions of the nation’s third-largest city was never going to be a long-term proposition. But when this writer attended the race last year, even the rain and a shortened finish could not put a damper on what was a pleasant afternoon.

While NASCAR could take its street race concept to other locales, like San Diego, Chicago was a particularly evocative host. For all the negative headlines, Chicago is on a short list of iconic cities with the right history and scenery to make such a race into a marquee event. Short of racing around Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip, it is hard to see how NASCAR can do much better.

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Editor’s Note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.

Midway through his junior season, Richie Saunders, a 6-foot-5 small forward at BYU, received an unexpected piece of advice from his head coach. Saunders was in the midst of a breakout season, which meant that endorsement offers were starting to surface. However, he worried about distractions, so he wanted to wait until the offseason.

That is, until Kevin Young, BYU’s first-year head coach, told him the financial component was worth prioritizing now.

“He’s kind of helped me see, for example, being a professional basketball player, you have to have these kinds of conversations during the season,” Saunders said in March, during the Cougars’ run to the Sweet 16. “And it can’t detract from your focus, but you need to have them.”

Until recently, a college basketball coach encouraging a player to pursue endorsements during the season would have been unimaginable. However, that was before the era of name, image and likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal.

The birth of paid players and de facto free agency has reshaped college sports in almost every way. It’s also challenged the traditional leadership archetype of a college basketball coach.

Once upon a time, the leadership style of a college coach was simple: intense, demanding, rigid, focused on detail and motivating with more stick than carrot. However, as the college game has become more professionalized, the result is a coaching model that is a little younger, a little more flexible and a little more in line with their NBA brethren.

The evolution has left coaches grappling with a big question: As college basketball players gain more money, more agency and more power, what is the best way to lead them?

In the early 2000s, Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist and science journalist, conceived a framework for leadership, identifying six leadership styles commonly found in the business world. They were, in order: coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching.

Each style included a detailed description, but Goleman offered a useful shorthand.

1. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance.
2. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision.
3. Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.
4. Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.
5. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.
6. Coaching leaders develop people for the future.

Through research and experience, Goleman maintained that the best leaders toggled between styles, utilizing each one at the appropriate moment, like different clubs in a golf bag.

The classic archetype of a college coach has often leaned on two styles, blending what Goleman called “coaching” leadership with “coercive” leadership. Perhaps most visible in coaches like Bobby Knight, Tom Izzo or Mike Krzyzewski, these styles emphasized discipline, rigid demands and high standards to prepare players for the next level.

However, that style, former college coach and NBA coach Lon Kruger said, is harder to employ in the pros, where players are grown men with lavish salaries and stars often possess more power than the coach. As a result, NBA coaches have usually prioritized other leadership styles, leaning more on Goleman’s “authoritative”, “affiliative” and “democratic” leadership styles.

“With NBA guys,” Kruger said, “it’s more of a communication thing than a challenging or demanding type of thing.”

When Brad Stevens transitioned from head coach at Butler University to the Boston Celtics in 2013, he found that the most difficult challenge in the NBA was creating a sense of purpose in a group amid the anticipation of roster turnover. If a player wasn’t sure if he would be back the following season, he was less likely to buy in.

The cyclical nature of college basketball has consistently led to roster turnover. However, the recent addition of unlimited free transfers has created a system with more turnover and more uncertainty than almost any level of professional basketball.

“I get a kick out of people when they say, ‘Man, you’ve got like pro rules,’ ” Izzo said in March. “I always say, ‘Which ones are those? We don’t have free agency. We don’t have a salary cap. We’ve got beyond pro rules.’ ”

Over the years, Izzo is among those coaches who have softened his most grueling methods. In his earliest days at Michigan State, he borrowed football pads from Nick Saban and put their players through the famous “War Drill,” a full-contact rebounding exercise. He eventually stopped using the pads, though not because he worried about his players.

“The lawyers would sue me,” Izzo said. “So I don’t do that anymore.”

Izzo, though, still feels like that drill is essential. When he studies other successful coaches, he sees similar values. Players need to be disciplined, tough, accountable and connected. The difference in the era of NIL may lie in the ways coaches communicate their standards and values to players.

“We go too far to the right or too far to the left when we’re making adjustments,” Izzo said. “And that’s why I vowed that I’m going to do what I believe in.”

Michigan State, which advanced to the Elite Eight last season before losing to Auburn, has retained much of Izzo’s foundational program culture. However, the portal, coaches say, has put more pressure on coaches to create bonds and connections before each season.

“You feel like you can skip steps when you really can’t,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “You have to start from ground zero every summer.”

For years, Scheyer says, the Duke program ran on the idea of empowering players to lead, passing down the culture to the next generation.

“Players teaching players,” Scheyer said.

That changed, in part, with the emergence of one-and-done freshmen, which led to increased roster turnover. And it changed even more as the portal wreaked havoc on continuity. So last offseason, the Duke staff embarked on an unofficial summer class: Duke Basketball 101.

“We went back to the basics this (last) summer of just how to build this team from the ground up, build the connectivity, teach the standards, hold them accountable to what the standards are,” Scheyer said. “And that’s something I know we’re going to have to do each year going forward.”

Duke coach Jon Scheyer knew he was only going to have Cooper Flagg for one season. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)

When Alex Jensen became the head coach of Utah in early March, he surveyed the landscape of college basketball: player movement, money, negotiations for what amounted to year-long deals.

For Jensen, previously an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks, the system resembled one of his former stops: head coach in the NBA’s G League.

“The college game, I think it’s becoming more and more professional,” Jensen told reporters at his opening news conference. However, Jenson said he thinks most players are still the same.

“They want to know if you care and two, if you know what you’re talking about,” Jensen said.

Jensen, who played at Utah, was the latest NBA assistant to land a Power Four college job (Florida State also hired Luke Loucks, a former Sacramento Kings assistant). The coaches were comfortable with the transactional nature of professional basketball.

In some cases, Jensen says, “it makes it simpler if that makes any sense.”

“That chaos has been my reality,” Loucks said in March. “My reality as a professional coach and a professional player in Europe is constant roster turnover, constant ego management. One player is on a $300 million contract, and the other one is on minimum wage. Minimum wage in the NBA is like $1.2 million, but … there’s egos involved.”

What Loucks learned during his years as an NBA assistant was not that coaches should lower their standards or be overly deferential to players. It was that trust and respect were paramount in building relationships. To lead players at the professional level meant understanding who they were and what motivated them.

“You never want to be friends with your players,” Loucks said. “But you need them to trust you. Or all of your words and all of your teaching, all of your coaching is in one ear and out the other. And it has to be authentic. If you don’t build authentic relationships, you have no chance.”

The trend has not been limited to head coaches.

In May, Kansas hired former NBA head coach Jacque Vaughn — a program legend — to fill an assistant coaching opening, while Duke hired Evan Bradds, a 31-year-old assistant with the Utah Jazz. In announcing the hire, Duke touted Bradds’ “player development and NBA coaching experience.”

Meanwhile, Kansas coach Bill Self said that Vaughn “brings immediate credibility to guys that want to be pros out there.”

When Kruger coached in the NBA, he often heard the phrase “players’ coach.” Its definition was always elusive, depending on the source. Still, he came to this conclusion: A player’s coach was a good communicator, honest and empathetic, who always provided a clear path forward.

“My style was not to yell and scream,” Kruger said. “Which I think certainly doesn’t work in the NBA. You have to communicate on a more peer basis rather than saying, ‘I’m the coach and you’re the player and disregard everything else.’ ”

College coaches may soon resemble their NBA counterparts, Kruger says, but the secrets of leading basketball players remain the same, no matter the level: You need to be able to adjust. You need to embody different styles. You need to build relationships.

In other words, you need to be an effective and consistent leader.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Andrew Wevers, Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

A new yet strangely familiar disturbance took place in college football last weekend.

Texas Tech celebrated Independence Day with one of the biggest recruiting wins in program history. Five-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo — No. 1 recruit in the state of Texas and top-10 national prospect in the 2026 class — committed to the Red Raiders. Ojo chose Tech over Texas, Ohio State and just about every other power conference school, a coup for the program.

Just as startling was the financial news that soon followed. As college sports embark on a new revenue-sharing voyage under the House settlement, it was reported that Ojo would be going to Tech on a three-year, $5.1 million revenue-share agreement, setting the market just days after the new system went into effect July 1. Or maybe it’s three years, $2.3 million. Depending on the source.

Either way, the dollar figure itself isn’t a new thing. Since name, image and likeness compensation was introduced in 2021, money has become an increasingly standard part of the recruiting conversation. And within the rules. But this situation was different. The timing of Ojo’s decision makes him the highest-profile recruiting commitment of the rev-share era, when the dollar figure attached to him will be coming fully and directly from the university as part of a capped annual revenue-sharing pool.

Within this fledgling framework of college sports, the money is now more relevant than ever. As conflicting reports on Ojo’s revenue-share agreement trickled in over the weekend, distracting fans from their star-spangled revelry, social media buzzed with folks marveling at the price tag while also debating whether it’s a wise investment.

This is new territory for college football. But it feels a lot like the NFL.

A blue-chip five-star such as Ojo is a boon for any college program, but especially Texas Tech, which beat out the in-state Longhorns and a slew of elite programs. Tech emerged as a legit recruiting force in recent years thanks to its oil-dipped resources, led by billionaire boosters Cody Campbell and John Sellers. The alums and self-made oil magnates led the charge on funding Tech’s big-money NIL efforts, but the House settlement and revenue-sharing system alter that calculus.

The settlement aims to rein in an unregulated NIL landscape and put some guardrails in place with direct revenue sharing capped at $20.5 million per school in Year 1 and roughly 75 percent of that going to football at most power conference programs. Jury’s still out on whether it works as intended, but Ojo’s commitment — and contract — is an early indication the Red Raiders will remain a force to be reckoned with.

And yet, the bigger-picture takeaway from a blockbuster recruiting weekend was how college football is speeding faster and faster toward an inevitably NFL-ized future.

ESPN first reported the $5.1 million deal via Ojo’s agent, Derrick Shelby of Prestige Management. Shelby confirmed those details to The Athletic on Saturday, and that the entirety of the deal would be from Tech’s direct revenue share. However, multiple Texas Tech sources rebutted the specifics, telling The Athletic the agreement is for $2.3 million, with a verbal agreement that the total value could be renegotiated into the $5 million range depending on future circumstances.

A lack of clarity on contract details isn’t uncommon. NIL deals were not required to be made public under the old way, and there was plenty of incentive for agents to inflate the dollars on behalf of their athletes and for booster-led NIL collectives to keep their budgets confidential. (And for the schools to feign ignorance.) It’s long been similar in the NFL with free agency and re-signings. Agents leak the highest feasible dollar figure to media insiders; fans celebrate, opposing fans chirp back that the player is overpaid, and the salary-cap wonks implore those on both sides to “wait until we find out about the guarantees.” There’s no requirement for NFL contracts to be made public either, but eventually, the details usually come to light, offering a fair amount of transparency to the process.

That hasn’t been the case in college football. To this point. With no “salary” cap — no NIL guardrails at all, really — there was little impetus for transparency. Most insight was either dodgy or surprisingly voluntary, such as Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork’s publicly stating that the Buckeyes, who went on to win the national title, had a $20 million roster in 2024. A willingness and ability to shell out NIL dollars gave a sense of which schools were contenders, but so much of it was (and still is) half-truths and whispers. And like the good ole days of the bag man, it was largely unregulated.

Now the stakes have changed. There’s a revenue-share cap and reporting requirements, with a new enforcement arm in place to oversee it. It’s not entirely clear how the various details and clauses of these rev share agreements will hold up if challenged in court (along with other aspects of the settlement), but the universities seem to be taking them seriously until convinced otherwise.

The public still won’t be afforded that transparency — the revenue-share agreements will be kept behind the curtain — but how schools and their individual programs build out and balance rosters within the cap will be crucial to success. Much like it is in the NFL.

Yes, there will still be over-the-cap NIL deals for the elite programs, and maybe even some loopholes. But cap management and roster building are the next frontier. Which teams are most efficient with their rev-share money? Who has to overpay for big names and premium positions? How will position, recruiting rank and experience shape the compensation ranges? Who tries the “Moneyball” route? Who tries to develop and retain a young roster? Who opts for signing the established, veteran mercenaries out of the transfer portal?

Who will be the Philadelphia Eagles, and who will be the Cleveland Browns?

This is not exactly music to the ears of college football fans. Many dread the sport’s becoming a Diet NFL. And it’s not simply about the money; most operating in good faith believe, or at least concede, that college athletes should get paid. It’s more about how the money has gradually stripped the sport of its tradition and regionality — of its soul — realigning the college football map into bloated power conferences and super conferences. The House settlement only perpetuates that shift into a smaller-tent professional model.

You could feel it Friday in the wake of Ojo’s commitment. Texas Tech celebrated accordingly, and rightfully so. But even beating out Texas was a little less sweet with the Longhorns no longer a conference foe, and so much of the broader coverage was about a multiyear contract, disputed dollars and guarantees and cap considerations — all for a soon-to-be high school senior. It was a Saturday-afternoon moment dressed up in Sunday-morning discourse.

How this rev-share era unfolds is still to be determined, but it won’t slow college football’s inescapable drift. Fans can rage against it, but the fact the NFL is America’s most popular and lucrative sport won’t help in that fight.

The truth is, college football has been on this NFL trajectory for a while. Last weekend’s biggest recruiting headline was just a brand-new reminder.

(Photo of Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire: John E. Moore III / Getty Images)