
NIL
Cowgirl Softball set for Phillips 66 Big 12 Softball Championship
The basics The No. 23/23 Oklahoma State softball team (33-17 overall, 13-9 Big 12) is the No. 4 seed at this week’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City. The Cowgirls take on No. 5 Arizona State at 11 a.m. Thursday in Devon Park. The winner of that contest faces either Texas […]

The basics
The No. 23/23 Oklahoma State softball team (33-17 overall, 13-9 Big 12) is the No. 4 seed at this week’s Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City. The Cowgirls take on No. 5 Arizona State at 11 a.m. Thursday in Devon Park.
The winner of that contest faces either Texas Tech, Baylor or Kansas in the semifinal round at 3 p.m. Friday. The championship game is set for 11 a.m. Saturday.
Watch, Listen, Follow
All games at the Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship are streamed live on ESPN+. Saturday’s title game on ESPN is the only one with a linear broadcast.
All of OSU’s games can be heard live on KGFY-FM 105.5 and stillwaterradio.net and streamed on the Varsity Network app with Ryan Breeden on the call.
Live stats for all of OSU’s games are available online at okstate.statbroadcast.com.
Fans can follow @CowgirlSB on X all season for regular coverage, including a live scoreboard.
Postseason pedigree
Oklahoma State has seven conference tournament titles in its history – six in the Big Eight (1980, 1981, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992) and one in the Big 12 (2022).
In the rankings
Oklahoma State is No. 23 in the USA Today/NFCA Coaches poll and No. 23 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll. The Cowgirls are unranked in the D1Softball and Softball America polls.
In the NCAA Ratings Percentage Index, which looks at wins and strength of schedule, Oklahoma State is No. 20 and Arizona State is No. 34.
Oklahoma State from a distance
Winners of four in a row and six of the last seven to close the regular season, Oklahoma State enters the postseason with momentum on its side. The current four-game winning streak matches OSU’s second-longest of the season and six wins in seven games marks the second-best seven-game stretch of the Cowgirls’ season.
OSU faced the nation’s toughest schedule for the first few weeks and came out of it with wins over No. 9 Florida State, No. 23 Kentucky, No. 5 Texas A&M and No. 12 Alabama, among others. An 11-game win streak highlighted by wins over No. 18 Nebraska and Missouri, brought the Cowgirls’ record to 15-4 in early March. Inconsistency became an issue from there, with OSU going 12-12 in its next 24 games prior to winning six of seven to close the regular season.
Washington transfer Ruby Meylan, an All-American with the Huskies in 2023, has been outstanding in the circle and ranks in the top 10 nationally in strikeouts, shutouts and innings pitched. She is the Big 12 leader with six shutouts, 15 complete games and 189.0 innings pitched. With 225 strikeouts entering the Big 12 tournament, she’s already etched her name into OSU’s single-season top 10 and is 16 shy of passing Michele Smith’s senior-year total of 240 from 1989.
Offensively, six Cowgirl regulars bat .300 or better, with Tia Warsop leading the way at .364 with 19 stolen bases. Cal State Fullerton transfer Megan Delgadillo bats .331 and leads the Big 12 with 30 stolen bases, a mark that ranks sixth on OSU’s single-season list. Delgadillo is the NCAA Division I active career leader in games played, at bats and stolen bases and she ranks second among all active players in career hits. NC State transfer Amanda Hasler is OSU’s top power bat with 15 home runs and a .737 slugging percentage. Rosie Davis has emerged as one of the Big 12’s most complete players, as she bats .352 with eight home runs, a team-best 49 runs batted in and a .462 on-base percentage. Veterans Karli Godwin, Tallen Edwards and Megan Bloodworth have also been productive.
Notable streaks and trends
• OSU has 84 stolen bases this year, which ranks third in school history and is the most since 2015.
• OSU has won 11 games in which it trailed by two runs or more.
• Since being re-inserted into the starting lineup during the Kansas series, Claire Timm is 9-for-18 at the plate (.500 batting average) and has an on-base percentage of .524.
• In her last four appearances, RyLee Crandall is 2-0 with an 0.88 earned run average in 16.0 innings of work. During that stretch, she is limiting opponents to a .167 batting average.
• In her last six appearances (31.2 innings pitched), Ruby Meylan has struck out 40 against just six walks and is limiting opponents to a .172 batting average.
• Entering the Big 12 tournament, OSU has committed just one error in its last five games.
• In the last seven games of the regular season, the OSU pitching staff combined for 51 strikeouts against just 13 walks. In that same span, the OSU offense worked 35 walks and struck out just 15 times.
• OSU is outscoring its opposition, 76-26, from the sixth inning on.
• OSU has been ranked in the NFCA poll in each of its last 382 games, dating back to the start of the 2019 season.
• Dating to last season, Karli Godwin has started 111 consecutive games, the longest streak on the team.
NIL
Why this former BYU player doesn’t like what’s happening to high school athletes – Deseret News
What’s happening to high school and junior college recruiting in the wake of the transfer portal and NIL in college sports is a travesty. So says a former Dixie Junior College star who played with Heisman winner Ty Detmer at BYU and sent a son, Jaren Hall, to the NFL via BYU. Kalin Hall is […]
What’s happening to high school and junior college recruiting in the wake of the transfer portal and NIL in college sports is a travesty.
So says a former Dixie Junior College star who played with Heisman winner Ty Detmer at BYU and sent a son, Jaren Hall, to the NFL via BYU.
Kalin Hall is taking his love for coaching young men from Maple Mountain High to Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, where Badgers head coach Zac Erekson will deploy him as director of football operations and running backs coach.

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Hall has been an energetic, beloved high school coach at Maple Mountain High and had a community rally behind him this past year when he was released, rehired, and then declined to return.
Hall hates what modern major college sports has done to kids.
“Shame on the NCAA for doing what they did. Shame on athletic directors around the country for collectively making the financial decisions they’ve made,” said Hall, decrying the reduction of roster spots, dismissing walk-on programs, and robbing high school players of opportunities to play and prove themselves.
Hall was referring to changes to scholarship caps in college sports, which are laid out in the landmark House settlement. Although the settlement has not yet been approved, many schools have already adjusted their programs to fit its conditions, including by making cuts.
“It’s not only the transfer portal that’s hurt, but the 105 because within that, those additional 20 kids, those who would have been preferred walk-ons, do not have a chance to mature because schools are no longer handcuffed,” said Hall.
Of course, what started all of this were the lawsuits by athletes to get paid when schools used them to produce truckloads of money through ticket sales and TV contracts.
It’s today’s college sports and it’s been force-fed to everyone.
Hall said today’s climate has put college coaches in a hopeless position. They have to win now. Should they put their job on the line and risk it all for a kid you can develop over time by signing a high school player, or do they make a more informed choice and take a transfer from the portal?
“I feel so bad for the high school kids,” Hall said.
Earlier this spring he spoke to University of Utah running back coach Mark Atuaia about a prospect. He told Hall the kid was someone they’d normally have taken a shot on at the P4 level and brought him in as a preferred walk-on. Then, in a year or two, he’d have become a player. “But we can’t do that anymore. We don’t have the time,” the coach told Hall.
Now Hall will see the same challenges for kids at Snow, a national juco football powerhouse.
He’s excited to teach and help young men, just like he did at Maple Mountain. His real job, however, is working with former BYU tight end Gabe Reid at PureEnviro Management as vice president. The company manages issues with government departments in Utah, nationally, and does work in the South Pacific.
Erekson has tried to get Hall to work with him at Snow for years.
“Zac is like my little brother,” said Hall. “I’ve known Zac since he was 7 years old and we’ve been close family friends for years.”
Hall said his boss, Reid, told him he should go to Ephraim and give his time — it isn’t a financial decision at all — but one of love.
“He said to go and share some of my ancient wisdom.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time working with kids at BYU, Utah and Utah State, a lot of local kids, but this will be a little different. As a former JC kid myself, playing more than 30 years ago at Dixie, I understand the dynamics.
“But millennials are different today and young people are different. I was there at Snow for spring ball and it was fun. I’m the older guy out there, there is only one other guy that is older than me, the defensive coordinator, working with Zac.”
Hall said Snow expects to play high-quality football again this coming season.
What about his son Jaren, who was drafted out of BYU by the Vikings before going to Seattle?
Well, he just turned down an offer from the Jacksonville Jaguars, said the father.
“He’s just waiting for the right opportunity. Very few guys turn down opportunities, but he turned one down last week. He didn’t want to go to Jacksonville. He just didn’t think it was right for him. He was inspired religiously that it wasn’t the right move. So he’s a better man than I am, because I would have been in Florida.”
Hall praised Jaren for his maturity and faith in looking for an inspired move in his next landing.
“He’s a better dude that I am. As a dad, I had to back up and tell him that he was my idol and I’m sorry for trying to influence him to take the Jacksonville job when he was prompted spiritually to wait for something else in his life.”

NIL
College sports lurches forward, hoping to find a level playing field with fewer lawsuits
By EDDIE PELLS 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 […]

By EDDIE PELLS
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.”
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.”
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.”
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
NIL
How Models & Data Analytics Are Impacting College Baseball Roster Decisions
Image credit: (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) If you wandered the trade show floor at the American Baseball Coaches Association convention in Washington, D.C. this past January, it was impossible to miss the shift. Technology booths sprawled across the space, packed wall-to-wall with screens, devices and demos. One stand measured batted-ball performance, […]

Image credit:
(Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
If you wandered the trade show floor at the American Baseball Coaches Association convention in Washington, D.C. this past January, it was impossible to miss the shift.
Technology booths sprawled across the space, packed wall-to-wall with screens, devices and demos. One stand measured batted-ball performance, another tracked arm force and fatigue. Around the corner, a startup promised real-time insights on UCL health thanks to a device that intricately measured grip strength. Across the aisle, another system proclaimed the ability to map a pitcher’s biomechanics down to the millisecond.
College baseball has fully entered its data age.
“I couldn’t imagine us really doing a full-on player development plan, executing our scouting reports and putting together our scouting reports without the data we have now,” said Jamie Tutko, LSU’s director of pitching development. “We’re literally using it every single day—games, practices, every single pitch.”
That level of integration wasn’t common even a few years ago.
As recently as 2017, when LSU was among the pilot programs to test TrackMan, even staffers weren’t sure what it was or how to use it.
“We were collecting all of the data not really knowing what it was about,” Tutko said. “And me being kind of an old-school type guy when I first got into working in baseball, I wasn’t totally against it, but I was like, ‘I don’t need this. I’ve got a radar gun. I can see with my own eyes.’”
But that skepticism didn’t last. Not for Tutko, and not for the vast majority of his peers.
By 2021, the shift was in full swing across the sport. The explosion of the NCAA transfer portal, the growth of private player development labs and the widening gap between resource-rich and resource-strapped programs accelerated the adoption of data-driven decision making.
“It really started to go wild,” Tutko said of LSU’s integration of data analytics. “We really started to be able to use it and understand it and use it correctly.”
The transition to analytics began around the same time at Wake Forest. Tom Walter, the long-time Demon Deacons coach, recalled the pivotal moment.
“We were one of the first schools to get TrackMan,” he said. “We had it for a year and didn’t use it very well or even understand what it meant, but I challenged our coaching staff. It was like, ‘Let’s become the experts at this.’”
For Wake, it wasn’t just about keeping pace. It was about finding an edge.
It used technology to dive into the pitching lab space, a way to develop arms in their own mold using fact-based feedback derived from an endless supply of numbers.
“I just feel like at Wake Forest, we’re never going to be able to line up and play the same game as some of these schools that have endless resources,” Walter said. “They have more scholarship dollars or better facilities or more resources in the NIL space. So we’ve got to find a competitive advantage.”
That edge evolved into a holistic system—analytics, biomechanics, pitch design, lineup optimization, defensive shifts, even recruiting models.
“We’ve built these systems for evaluating our current players, evaluating recruits, coming up with player development plans and everything in between,” Walter said.
Across the country, programs big and small have followed similar trajectories. At Arizona State, Jared Matheson, a 23-year-old pitching analytics coordinator, represents the sport’s new wave of young minds breaking in through data.
“The analytical side of baseball is on the up and coming,” Matheson said. “Some stuff you want to keep coach-facing, and some stuff you want to keep player-facing. Our guys are all in. They dove in head first and want to learn as much as possible.”
That duality—balancing deep data with digestible player insights—has become central to modern coaching. Where once scouting reports offered vague summaries—“this guy’s 86 to 88 with a slider”—they now detail pitch usage by count, movement profiles, hitter tendencies and much more.
“Now it’s like, ‘Hey, this guy throws 76% fastballs in this count and 36% in this count, and this is what his breaking ball looks like,’” Walter said. “There are no secrets anymore.”
The results are tangible: faster player improvement, more precise game-planning and more efficient recruiting.
But the revolution didn’t happen overnight. Most coaches trace its rapid acceleration to around 2018-19 as TrackMan’s data-sharing network grew. It got another boost a few years later as competitive pressures in the portal era mounted and player expectations evolved.
“There’s more teams in Division I baseball in the TrackMan sharing network than not,” Tutko said. “The amount of data that’s out there is crazy.”
The tools themselves are now ubiquitous—TrackMan, Edgertronic, K-Vest, Kinatrax, Hawkeye, Rapsodo, blast sensors, high-speed cameras and force plates. But as several coaches noted, simply owning the tools isn’t enough.
“It’s one thing to say that ‘Yeah, we have TrackMan’ … But it’s another thing to actually utilize it,” Tutko said. “And we feel like we’re utilizing it just as well as anybody else, if not better than anybody else in the country.”
For those who do, the gains are clear.
“The game is always evolving,” Matheson said. “If you can learn every aspect of data—whether it’s TrackMan or biomechanics—it kind of just puts another feather in your cap. It helps you build your resume and gives you an edge.”
– –
The first part of the equation is the ballpark’s dimensions: 314 feet down the line in right, 365 feet to right-center, 404 straightaway, 370 to left-center and 350 down the line in left.
Next comes the wind. On a neutral day in Athens, a ball struck just north of 90 mph at the proper launch angle will clear the right field wall. A firm line drive in the same direction is likely to find extra bases.
Left field is less forgiving. The prevailing wind blows in from that side, and with deeper dimensions, home runs that way or to center require real force and the right trajectory.
The final variables live inside each player. Air pull rates, average and peak exit velocities, swing planes—metrics that, through two years of refinement, Georgia’s staff has learned to weight and model against their park’s unique characteristics.
When Wes Johnson accepted the Bulldogs’ head coaching job, he understood the challenge in front of him. Georgia wasn’t a historical SEC power. It didn’t carry the built-in recruiting muscle as many of its conference foes.
If the Bulldogs were going to close that gap quickly, they had to be smarter.
“One of the things we worked a ton on, right when I got the job, I had worked really hard and put together a projection model that we used,” Johnson said. “You’ve got to trust the model. If you have enough data, you gotta trust it. That’s one of the things I learned in professional baseball.”
The park itself became a roadmap. Georgia’s staff began running extensive overlays—taking prospective hitters’ batted-ball profiles and mapping them into Foley Field’s layout under typical conditions. Who could play here, not just anywhere?
It was in that process that a name surfaced this past offseason: Robbie Burnett.
A lefthanded hitter out of UNC Asheville, Burnett wasn’t high on portal big boards. In fact, Johnson estimated only two or three schools showed any interest. And even those were lukewarm or came from a lower-major program.
But the Georgia model told a different story. Burnett’s pull tendencies, swing path and raw exit velocity suggested untapped power potential—especially to right field in Athens.
“When we put Robbie’s numbers in our ballpark, we’re like, ‘OK, Robbie can hit 20,’” Johnson said. “I told the staff Robbie will hit 20 for us.”
Burnett had the baseline metrics, and with adjustments, Johnson believed he could thrive.
“All I’ve got to teach this guy is to pull the ball a little more,” Johnson said. “And we’re gonna work on getting his exit velo as high as we can.”
It wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t a hunch. It was data refined into action.
“We’re moneyballing it, is what we’re doing,” Johnson said.
To say that it’s worked would be an understatement. In 53 games leading up to the NCAA Tournament, Burnett batted .318/.492/.732 with 20 home runs, 66 RBIs, 12 doubles and nearly as many walks (41) as strikeouts (48). Seventeen of his 20 homers have come in Athens.
“We knew exactly what we were getting,” Johnson said. “That’s how we’re building this — we want players who fit what this park gives us.”
Of course, such precision has limits. Building to your park means leaning into strengths at home, but it also requires adaptability on the road.
“When I tell people we recruit players to our ballpark, this is what I’m talking about,” Johnson said. “Now, it hurts when you go to Texas, and it’s a big ballpark, or Kentucky. Or the wind’s blowing in.”
That’s where versatility becomes currency. Positional flexibility—especially among hitters—has become a priority in Georgia’s model.
“When guys can play multiple positions, that moves the needle for us,” Johnson said.
What started as a workaround—an effort to compete with bigger brands—has quickly become identity.
“You gotta trust your model or you don’t,” Johnson said. “You’re playing the math.”
At Georgia, that math now drives swings, at-bats, and increasingly, roster decisions.
– –
For all the precision, for all the modeling, for all the numbers on screens and projections in staff meetings, one truth still holds: The game is played by human beings.
Wes Johnson will be the first to say it.
“You’ve got to trust your model,” he said. “But there’s still an art to it. You’ve got to have some gut in this game. You can’t just be a robot with it.”
That philosophy echoes across the programs now embracing data—not as a replacement for coaching instincts, but as a tool to sharpen them.
“You still have to recruit good baseball players,” said Tom Walter. “We can look at all the numbers we want, but there’s still an element of makeup, of toughness, of how a kid’s going to compete.”
At LSU, Jay Johnson sees it the same way.
“It’s a game being played by human beings,” he said. “There’s a character element to this. There’s a make-up element to this. There’s still an element of old-school scouting.”
What the best programs have learned is not to drown in the data. The right balance matters. The numbers can guide decisions—but they can’t play the game. They can’t recruit either, so teams are using the figures to identify talent but not to determine if each spreadsheet darling is truly the right fit.
“I’m never going to just blindly take a guy because his exit velocity is great,” Wes Johnson said. “If he can’t hit a breaking ball or if he can’t adjust, that doesn’t show up in one number.”
For players, too, there’s a learning curve. Some thrive on data-driven development, while others need simplicity. The staff’s job is knowing which is which.
“Our guys get all the information they need,” Walter said. “But we’re also careful about how much we give them. Sometimes less is more.”
That calibration—when to lean on data, when to trust the eyes, when to simplify—has become one of the modern coach’s most valuable skills.
“It validates a lot of things you’re saying for player improvement,” Jay Johnson said. “But it also gives them a pathway of how to get there. That’s where it really helps.”
At Georgia, that path is still being built. The program Wes Johnson inherited wasn’t one with a surplus of experienced arms or proven depth.
“I had three pitchers on the staff who had gone five innings in a college baseball game,” he said. “Only three.”
Data alone wasn’t going to solve that. It would take player development, culture and coaching—areas where Johnson has also invested considerable time, even if his model is fine tuned and producing.
“We can model it all day long,” he said, “but if we don’t make the players better, it doesn’t matter.”
At Wake Forest, even with one of the most advanced systems in college baseball, Walter still brings it back to the human element.
“We’re never going to have the finances to go out and get that high-end guy that everybody wants,” he said. “We’ve built our program on developing our guys. That’s what matters most.”
– –
For all the evolution still ahead, one consensus has already emerged: The data revolution isn’t slowing. If anything, it’s deepening—and changing the sport in ways that go far beyond pitch design and batted-ball profiles.
Wake Forest has even developed proprietary databases, housing pitch-level data across Power 4 baseball for the past seven years. Those insights don’t just shape who the Demon Deacons recruit. They inform how players are developed, how pitching plans are built, how games are managed—and increasingly, how coaching staffs operate.
“We’re looking for outliers,” Walter said. “Guys who do something unique. Then we take what makes them unique and build their plan around that.”
At LSU, the growth curve has been just as steep. Johnson likened the challenge to scouting in fast forward.
“There’s a profile you want,” he said. “There’s a blueprint of the player and the team. But it still comes back to: Can they take their talent and make it a usable skill at the highest level?”
For Johnson, the value of data lies in avoiding blind spots, especially as the recruiting landscape grows faster and more transactional.
“There’s a lot of safety in data and numbers,” he said. “It helps you predict the player better. You can still do your visual scouting. You can still trust what people you know are saying. But now you’re making even more informed decisions.”
Coaches still caution against leaning too far. The game, they remind, isn’t played on spreadsheets. But the tools will keep advancing. The models will get sharper.
And as those numbers keep climbing, one truth remains: In the game’s new data age, standing still is no longer an option.
“I think if you’re not doing it, you’re behind already,” Walter said. “And if you’re doing it and not evolving with it, you’ll be behind soon.”
NIL
Texas Tech softball hopes to ride NiJaree Canady’s million-dollar arm to a championship
Texas Tech’s softball team won their first game ever in the Women’s College World Series on Thursday, beating Ole Miss by a score of 1 to 0. As has often been the case this season, the Red Raiders’ win was powered by pitcher NiJaree Canady, a transfer from Stanford who made headlines for being the […]

Texas Tech’s softball team won their first game ever in the Women’s College World Series on Thursday, beating Ole Miss by a score of 1 to 0.
As has often been the case this season, the Red Raiders’ win was powered by pitcher NiJaree Canady, a transfer from Stanford who made headlines for being the first college softball player to earn $1 million in NIL deals.
Nathan Giese, sports reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, spoke to the Texas Standard about what makes Canady such a unique talent.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Can you first just explain what makes NiJaree Canady such a special player?
Nathan Giese: Well, this year it’s different because she’s a very different player from what she was at Stanford. Whereas at Stanford they didn’t want her to hit, they wanted her to focus on pitching, and when she went to the transfer portal, that was one of the things she wanted to do. She wanted to find a place where she could hit.
And Gerry Glasco is a renowned hitting coach, and he took over as head coach at Texas Tech. He put his name in the hat and said, “Hey, I’m not only going to let you hit, I’ve going to turn you into a pretty dang good hitter.” And that’s exactly what she’s been.
She’s been just as good pitching 30 and 5 with a 0.89, I believe, ERA going into the Women’s College World Series right now. She also leads the team with 11 home runs. She’s got about 34 RBI, batting 300 on the year.
So what she’s really done is she’s evolved her game into figuring out ways to still be a dominant pitcher, even when she’s not striking out everybody.
And that really shows the tenacity and consistency that she has that she can figure out ways to get the job done, even with she’s not quite to her usual standard. But even then she’s still the best pitcher in the country.
I mean, is she getting some comparisons to the all-star on the LA Dodgers, being able to pitch and hit?
Yes, that was one of the things before the season, I talked to her management team at Prestige Management Group about what kind of went into generating this move and this deal that she received. And they said they wanted her to be the Shohei Ohtani of women’s college softball. And that’s kind of what she is now.
The numbers, hitting-wise, they’re not quite where they would want to be, because of [an] injury. But when she is healthy and batting, she is just as good as any hitter out there.
She’s got a lot of power. She’s able to go to the opposite field, driving out home runs, and she’s able to do both things so well that teams have to respect both aspects of that.
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Well, you’ve mentioned that she wanted to hit and couldn’t do that at Stanford, but I gotta ask – I mean, Tech wasn’t exactly known as a softball powerhouse. Is it reasonable to think that Canady might not have moved there if it hadn’t been for its ability to reach deep into its pockets to pay her as well?
I think that’s putting it a little too, that’s kind of the easy scapegoat thing. So the way I’ve been told about it is yes, the money was a factor of it, but it wasn’t the only factor.
Some teams that wanted to come in and try to get her, they didn’t want her to hit either. So then she took them out of the running completely. Or she did kind of want to go back to Stanford, but it did come down to, am I going to be able to hit? And the money factor, it’s not nothing, but it wasn’t everything.
But the reason why Tech got into the running was because they were able to kind of put up some money and say, “Hey, we’re willing to pay you to do this for us.” And it didn’t ultimately come down to the money because – I’ve reported this throughout the year – she got that offer in late June and she didn’t make a decision until late July, because she was still looking at every option possible.
So that was not the defining factor. Did it play a role? Absolutely. Nobody’s naive enough to say that it didn’t. But it wasn’t the be-all end-all in this case.
What kind of attention has she brought to this Texas Tech program?
Quite a bit. So as soon as they signed her, it was very much a, oh, this team could really go do something.
But then when they went through their fall scrimmages – and they were playing community colleges, so it’s hard to get people out there in the fall when it’s cold and you’re playing teams that have no shot against a player like Canady – the fan buzz wasn’t quite there in the fall.
And it took a little bit after basketball season because Tech men’s basketball had a great year, too; there was a lot of attention on that. So it was like right after basketball ending was when people started really catching on to, Oh, this team is really, really good. And she’s really, really good.
And then they started breaking attendance records left and right. They set the new standard for attendance. They had to put more bleachers. They had the add seats into the outfield that they never had before just to accommodate the fans there. And it’s still growing to this point, but it’s definitely changed how people view the softball program.
NIL
My biggest unanswered questions about EA Sports College Football 26
Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points. Quick reminder: I, along with the entire Extra Points team, will be headed to Orlando next weekend for NACDA. I’ll be in town from around 11 AM on Sunday the 8th until the evening of the 10th. If you’re in town, I’d love to […]

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.
Quick reminder: I, along with the entire Extra Points team, will be headed to Orlando next weekend for NACDA. I’ll be in town from around 11 AM on Sunday the 8th until the evening of the 10th.
If you’re in town, I’d love to chat! Our team is giving free demos of Extra Points Library to anybody interested, but I’m also trying to catch up with sources, do a little good ol’ fashioned professional development, and shoot the breeze. Drop me a line at [email protected] if you’re around!

In non-NACDA news, yesterday was the official Trailer Release Day for the follow-up to last year’s spectacularly success, EA Sports College Football 25….EA Sports College Football 26. If you’re the kind of person who is interested in this sort of thing and somehow missed it, I’ve got you.
I know that an awful lot of people read Extra Points last year to learn as much information as possible about the game’s development. I’m still working to get answers on some of the biggest questions, but if you are most interested in learning whether a particular song made this year’s game, or how the new physics-based tackling works, I would defer to my friends who have actually gotten their hands on the sticks at this point. I haven’t played the game.
But after watching, reading, and asking around the industry for the last few weeks, I still have a few unanswered questions about this year’s game…questions that are more big-picture in scope.
How will consumers, and the industry at large, react to college coaches finally being included in the game?
Last year was the first time that actual, current college athletes had their NIL included in a college football video game. It was a massive undertaking, as more than 11,000 real people had their likeness depicted. If there’s been another video game in history that included likenesses of so many real people, I haven’t heard of it, and neither has EA.
EA CFB25 had real players, real mascots, real stadiums, real logos…but did not include real coaches. EA CFB26 will be the first edition in the series to change that, as developers say more than 300 coaches will be included. So that’s not just most of the head coaches, but also most of the offensive and defensive coordinators.
As of right this second, I do not know exactly how EA pulled this off. I don’t know the licensing agent for the coaches, I don’t know what kind of contract they got, how much they earned (if anything? Lane Kiffin famously said he’d do it for free), if they get a royalty rate, etc. I hope to better understand this in the near future.
But beyond that, I’m very curious what this will mean for the game’s consumers, and how it might impact future non-athlete, non-university IP decisions.
Here’s the thing. The most commonly played game mode for any of the college football video games is the Dynasty mode, where the user takes over a college football program, recruits players, hires staff, and eventually tries to turn Louisiana Tech or Kent State or even Purdue into a five-star signing powerhouse.
In this mode, you’re the coach. Is the fantasy for the user to play as “themselves?”, or a fictionalized version of a coach, or are users actually clamoring for the chance to play a Joe Harasymiak simulator?

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NIL
Highest-rated Class of 2026 football recruits from Indiana | State
Highest-rated Class of 2026 football recruits from Indiana The recruiting race for the Class of 2026 is already heating up — not just on the field, but in the increasingly complex ecosystem of modern college football, where NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals are reshaping how programs and players navigate early recruitment. For elite underclassmen, […]

Highest-rated Class of 2026 football recruits from Indiana
The recruiting race for the Class of 2026 is already heating up — not just on the field, but in the increasingly complex ecosystem of modern college football, where NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) deals are reshaping how programs and players navigate early recruitment. For elite underclassmen, talent alone is no longer the only factor drawing attention; marketability, social media presence, and brand potential are now playing pivotal roles in how offers are extended and decisions are made. The top recruits in the 2026 cycle are not only physically advanced and highly skilled — they’re entering high school with endorsement potential and media savviness.
Stacker compiled a list of the highest rated Class of 2026 football recruits from Indiana using data from 247Sports. Here’s the players from Indiana set to dominate Saturdays (and potentially Sundays) for years to come.
#20. Tyler Klaner (TE)
– National rank: #1,332 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #65
– College: Northern Illinois
– Offers: Northern Illinois, Toledo
– High school: Boonville (Boonville, IN)
#19. Anthony Coellner (QB)
– National rank: #1,303 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #99
– College: not committed
– Offers: Bowling Green, Cincinnati, Indiana, Maryland, Miami (OH)
– High school: Carmel (Carmel, IN)
#18. Dominick Barry (TE)
– National rank: #1,300 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #63
– College: not committed
– Offers: Kansas, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Duke, Indiana
– High school: Center Grove (Greenwood, IN)
#17. Deacon King (S)
– National rank: #1,235 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #110
– College: not committed
– Offers: Akron, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Illinois State, Kent State
– High school: Westfield (Westfield, IN)
#16. Brady Ballart (LB)
– National rank: #1,150 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #95
– College: Louisville
– Offers: Louisville, Air Force, Ball State, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Michigan
– High school: South Dearborn (Aurora, IN)
#15. Brock Brownfield (IOL)
– National rank: #1,096 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #92
– College: Purdue
– Offers: Purdue, Ball State, Bowling Green, Indiana, Miami (OH)
– High school: New Palestine (New Palestine, IN)
#14. James Williams Jr. (IOL)
– National rank: #983 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #84
– College: Purdue
– Offers: Purdue, Appalachian State, Kent State, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois
– High school: Lawrence Central (Indianapolis, IN)
#13. Bo Polston (QB)
– National rank: #972 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #64
– College: Toledo
– Offers: Toledo, Akron, Appalachian State, Ball State, Central Michigan
– High school: Decatur Central (Indianapolis, IN)
#12. Malachi Mills (OT)
– National rank: #950 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #76
– College: Kansas
– Offers: Kansas, Akron, Colorado State, Eastern Michigan, Florida Atlantic
– High school: Westfield (Westfield, IN)
#11. Benjamin Novak (IOL)
– National rank: #928 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #83
– College: Wisconsin
– Offers: Wisconsin, Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Indiana
– High school: Andrean (Merrillville, IN)
#9 (tie). Blake Smythe (DL)
– National rank: #914 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #92
– College: Indiana
– Offers: Indiana, Ball State, Illinois, Kansas, Louisville
– High school: Franklin Community (Franklin, IN)
#9 (tie). Carsen Eloms (CB)
– National rank: #914 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #79
– College: Wisconsin
– Offers: Wisconsin, Purdue, Akron, Ball State, Central Michigan
– High school: Fishers (Fishers, IN)
#8. Trevor Gibbs (LB)
– National rank: #855 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #67
– College: Indiana
– Offers: Indiana, Purdue, Cincinnati, Iowa, Ball State
– High school: Crown Point (Crown Point, IN)
#7. Terry Walker III (QB)
– National rank: #817 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #47
– College: Duke
– Offers: Duke, Appalachian State, Ball State, Bowling Green, Coastal Carolina
– High school: Hamilton Southeastern (Fishers, IN)
#6. Tayshon Bardo (WR)
– National rank: #703 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #107
– College: Wisconsin
– Offers: Wisconsin, USF, Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan
– High school: Penn (Mishawaka, IN)
#5. Jett Goldsberry (ATH)
– National rank: #682 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #44
– College: not committed
– Offers: North Carolina, Ole Miss, Rutgers, Purdue, Air Force
– High school: Heritage Hills (Lincoln City, IN)
#4. Kasmir Hicks (CB)
– National rank: #509 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #41
– College: Indiana
– Offers: Indiana, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, Ball State, Central Michigan
– High school: Decatur Central (Indianapolis, IN)
#3. Tyler Ruxer (TE)
– National rank: #477 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #24
– College: not committed
– Offers: Minnesota, Purdue, Duke, Northwestern, Baylor
– High school: Heritage Hills (Lincoln City, IN)
#2. JJ Finch (DL)
– National rank: #443 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #50
– College: not committed
– Offers: Purdue, Tennessee, LSU, Alabama, Central Michigan
– High school: Warren Central (Indianapolis, IN)
#1. Jerquaden Guilford (WR)
– National rank: #430 (3 stars)
– Position rank: #67
– College: not committed
– Offers: Ohio State, Tennessee, Indiana, Arkansas, Georgia
– High school: Northrop (Fort Wayne, IN)
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