Returning production is a key aspect in any team’s national championship aspirations. One-and-done schools like Kentucky dominated college basketball; athletes came to college to fulfill the one-year obligation imposed by the NBA. NIL changed that; athletes can stay in college and make more money than what the professional leagues offer now.

With NIL athletes staying and returning, production became an important metric. Bringing back productive players and pairing them with ready-to-play transfer players is the new blueprint for success and championship aspirations. Texas Tech has cornered the market in both of those phases of college basketball team building. Coupling a returning point guard in Christian Anderson and the Big 12 Player of the Year JT Toppin, Tech paired them with an elite transfer portal class. Production and addition have the Red Raiders in a great position to dominate college hoops in the 2025-26 season.

In a 16-team league, Texas Tech is returning the 8th most scoring production next season. Beyond the scoring metric, they are bringing back key veterans with experience that will matter when they clash with Big 12 basketball powerhouse Houston. The Red Raiders have the unenviable task of facing Houston twice in conference play. Anytime you face a national championship contender, it helps to have battle-tested players. Tech has those players, and with that experience, they can make waves in the Big 12 and wreck brackets in March.

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James Franklin’s body of work in college football crosses an important line of demarcation in the sport. The Penn State football coach played and coached in Division III football as the launch pad to a career in a game that wasn’t yet a business. Now, Franklin coaches in a business built around a game, to which he’s constantly trying to adapt without losing sight of his purpose.

“I think the majority of people got into coaching college football, in my generation, to be transformational on young people’s lives” Franklin said recently. “None of us, my age or older, got into this business because of money. It was because you love the game of football and you wanted to help young people grow and mature. I worry a little bit now that, because of how the sport has changed, there’s people being attracted to the sport for the wrong reasons.”

Entering his 12th season at Penn State, and 15th season as a head coach, Franklin has developed into a pragmatic voice of the game. He addresses college football’s questions and inconsistenies with firm boundaries but a measured hand. Franklin talks about revenue sharing, the transfer portal, conference scheduling, NIL, roster limitations and every other debate point about the game through a common lens. Franklin wants college football to be transformational in a transactional world.

The recent House vs. NCAA settlement means that, beginning July 1, Penn State and other athletic departments can begin paying players directly for the first time. Penn State will fund revenue sharing for football to the maximum. It’s only practical for a national championship contender.

Penn State and Franklin recruit with revenue sharing and NIL in mind, sometimes top of mind, and are willing to pay for talent. Yet Franklin also wants money to be part of a package, not the focus, in playing at Penn State.

“The way the sport has changed from a transfer portal perspective and from an NIL perspective, I think there’s also young people and families that are making decisions based on a transactional experience rather than a transformational experience,” Franklin said. “So for us, we’re one of a handful of programs that are still holding on to [wanting] it to be as transformational an experience as possible. I think that aligns with Penn State and what our values are and how we want this program to be run. That’s something that was always very important to me.”

Certainly, Penn State football has traded in being transformational for decades through “Success With Honor.” However, Franklin also must understand modern college football, which believes that funding programs also can be “transformational.” At Penn State, the balancing act is more complex.

“It was also very obvious to me coming to Penn State that that was very important to our alumni and very important to this community and very important to our lettermen,” Franklin said. “So we are fighting, scratching, clawing to balance those two things. There’s an aspect that you have to embrace the evolution of college football. But you don’t have to abort what your values are and and how you still want it to go. And I think there’s a way that you can really blend the both, so that the kid, the family, the program, the university … can still really provide a similar experience that we always have.”

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It’s the dawn of new era in college athletics.

Thanks to the new landmark House vs. NCAA settlement being approved, schools will now have $20.5 million to disperse throughout their athletic department for revenue sharing. The tricky part, how teams will do so. Obviously, college football is the biggest revenue sport out there, and with basketball being second. But there are also other sports that deserve some money. But will they actually get any of the ‘House Settlement’ money?

With it being days following the historic announcement, a few Athletic Directors are starting to share which sports will receive money. Ohio State AD Ross Bjork shared there will be four Buckeye sports that get money, and that’s likely going to be the norm most schools follow.

“Yes, we have $20.5 million of revenue-shared dollars that can now be given to the athlete,” Bjork said. “And as part of that, anytime you add a new scholarship – in any sport – whether it’s one, five or 91 like we did, that has to count against the $20.5 million, up to $2.5 million. Does everyone follow that? Twenty-point-five million, minus $2.5 million for scholarships – we added 91 – so therefore there’s $18 million to distribute to our sports. The scholarship part has not been widely publicized, but any time we add a scholarship we have to count it against (the $20.5 million maximum).

“We are going to allocate the $18 million starting in four sports: women’s volleyball, women’s basketball, men’s basketball and of course our football program. We really tried to use metrics and a formula, while also balancing some Title IX approach in this as well.”

While football, both basketball teams, and women’s volleyball will likely be the four sports for most schools that receive money from the revenue sharing, Oklahoma will help out a couple of other sports.

Speaking at a Board of Regents meeting on Thursday, Oklahoma athletics director Joe Castiglione said that six sports will be a part of the program’s revenue share: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball and women’s gymnastics.

According to Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, he says a model a lot of schools are focusing in on is the 75-15-5-5 model.

“Many schools have been very public already about how they’re going to distribute it,” Yormark said of revenue share. “One of the models out there, not to say it’s right or wrong, is 75, 15, 5 and 5. 75% to football, 15% to men’s basketball, 5% to women’s basketball and 5% to other Olympic sports. But there are probably going to be variations of that model and it’ll be determined by the schools themselves.”

It’s clear football will get the lion’s share of the money, but other sports are going to get involved with the revenue sharing, while others are left out for dry.

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