The NCAA changed college sports in 2021 with the long-awaited introduction of its Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) policies for student-athletes. These policies granted college athletes the right to earn money through endorsements, sponsorships, and social media platforms.

Previously, the NCAA’s rules banned athletes from profiting from their personal brand in any form. NIL has opened doors for young people, especially those from financially challenged backgrounds. Unfortunately, it has disrupted the stability and culture of college athletics.

Before the current NIL era, student-athletes transferring schools often had to redshirt and sit out for a year before returning to play. The redshirt rule, which has long been a target of criticism, aimed to keep rosters stable and reduce the frequency of short-term transfers, but those days are now long gone.

Now, athletes switch schools more freely and frequently to find better financial opportunities through NIL deals. This newfound “freedom,” while lucrative, is reshaping recruiting and ultimately roster management across college sports.

The NIL system has its share of critics, with Shaquille O’Neal being among them. Shaq did not hold back about his issues with the way the current system operates. On the latest episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq, he slammed players for transferring too often due to NIL incentives.

“If I write you a check for a million dollars, you can’t stay for 300 days,” Shaq said. “You gotta at least give me 2 years.” O’Neal believes NIL athletes should show loyalty if they accept money from collectives.

“I think there should be some rules and regulations because you got all these guys going into portals and guys that are high school players unless you’re [an] All-American like myself [you are] not going to get a shot,” O’Neal remarked, raising a less-talked about issue regarding players in the NCAA transfer portals.

Shaq’s criticism of how this trend will ultimately affect young high school athletes seeking college opportunities was brought up during a press conference in February by tenured NCAA college coach Rick Pitino, who stated, “We’re not recruiting any high school players.”

Do today’s (would-be) college athletes weigh program prestige and coaching alongside potential NIL earnings before committing to a school? Some believe they solely look at their earning potential, with many choosing to transfer if another university offers stronger branding or better collective support. That trend worries coaches, who fear fractured locker rooms and fleeting loyalty.

Even Dwyane Wade and WNBA icon Tina Thompson have spoken out about how the NIL is slowly defeating the main point of college athletics- students getting a good education. Like Sam L. Jackson said in Coach Carter, college ballers are students first, and athletes second. Their education cannot be compromised for the sake of basketball.

Thompson, in a conversation with Wade, echoed the same sentiment. “These kids are transferring colleges, going to a different school every single year. You can’t get an education that way,” Thompson said. “Like, you’re not getting a degree. The money that you’re getting, 75, 100,000, 300,000 dollars- you think it’s a lot of money because you’ve not made any money.”

While both Thompson and Wade have raved about how the NIL finally allows student athletes to make money off their own hard work, the flip side of it does tend to outweigh the pros. Will the NIL’s legacy be the financial freedom it gives students or the adverse effect it has on their education?

NiJaree Canady will be staying with the Texas Tech Red Raiders for another season.

Ramona Shelburne of ESPN reported that the ace pitcher had signed a “seven-figure NIL deal” to keep her with the program past the 2025 season. The junior right-hander had transferred to Texas Tech from Stanford ahead of the 2025 season and became the first softball player to secure a NIL deal in excess of $1 million.

Canady has had a sensational season with the Red Raiders, going 34-7 with a 0.97 ERA in 239 innings. Her efforts helped lead the program to the College World Series Championship against in-state rival Texas.

The Red Raiders enter the contest with a 54-13 overall record in 2025. This was the first season that Texas Tech won the Big 12 conference title and reached the College World Series. This was the seventh time the program has made the College World Series and the first since 2019.

Canady has been a driving force to this success and staved off elimination with a Game 2 victory over the Longhorns Thursday night. She went seven innings and allowed six hits, two earned runs and struck out six batters in the 4-3 win.

As Canady and the Red Raiders prepare for a winner-take-all game Friday night, she can take comfort in the fact that she will be back with the team in 2026.

Jon Scheyer has been talking to the media this week, at least the podcast media. He has provided some truly revealing comments about what he looks for when putting a team together and the way he constructs his ideal roster. The Duke Basketball Roundup dives into what he had to say and what it all means.

After the break, The DBR Podcast needs your help. We are conducting a survey. We want to know who your favorite Dukie is, which team you want Duke to play, which Duke team is your one true love, and how you feel about the current shape of college basketball including the transfer portal, NIL, and one-and-done. Let us know what you think. We want to see what the collective Duke community thinks about our team and our sport. We will reveal the results on a later show once all of you have had plenty of time to fill out the survey.

Make sure you’re following us! Head to our Linktree to get all our available social media and links to follow and subscribe to the show. That includes our affiliate partnerships, from Homefield Apparel (use the code DBRPODCAST to save 15% off your first order) and Fanatics to the NBA Store, NFL Shop, and even Fubo TV. And…we have some more coming! Save some cash on the latest gear or follow the Blue Devils on the go by hitting those affiliate links and it helps support the show as well. We are now on YouTube! Subscribe there, rate, and review our episodes on there and everywhere you get your podcasts. Also, follow us on Bluesky ⁠@DukeRoundup⁠!

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FRISCO – For the second straight year, an East Texas A&M University student-athlete has earned the prestigious F.L. McDonald Scholarship from the Southland Conference as Lion softball player Kasey Kuyrkendall was announced as one of the winners by the conference office on Friday morning for the 2024-25 academic year.
 
Only two student-athletes across all sports and schools in the Southland receive the F.L. McDonald award, which is presented annually to one female and one male graduating student-athlete upon selection by the Southland Conference Faculty Athletic Representative Committee. The $5,000 scholarship must be applied to graduate study at an institution of the recipient’s choice.
 

Kuyrkendall (Royse City) follows Lion track & field student-athlete Colten van Voorhis, who earned the award last year, as F.L. McDonald award winners for East Texas A&M since joining the Southland.
 

A three-year member of the Lion softball team, Kuyrkendall was also a representative on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the East Texas A&M Honor’s College, and the Chi Omega Sorority, throughout her Lion career, serving leadership officer roles of recruitment assistant and treasurer for Chi Omega.
 
Being chosen as the team captain for two years, Kuyrkendall appeared in 95 games over three seasons and served an internship with the athletic department during the spring semester of her senior year as well.
 

This past spring, she received her bachelors of science in sport & recreation management, graduating with a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average and earning Summa Cum Laude with honors distinction. Kuyrkendall was named to the President’s List in all six semesters she attended at East Texas A&M and the SLC Commissioner’s Honor Roll three times.
 
Kuyrkendall is set to begin her Master of Science in sport management at Baylor this fall, while also serving as a graduate assistant for the Baylor Athletics Ticket Office.
 
The F.L. McDonald award was established in 1996 in memory of Dr. F.L. McDonald, a former president of Lamar University and 1999 Southland Hall of Honor inductee. McDonald was serving as Lamar’s president in 1963 when the Southland Conference was established. He is considered one of the league’s founding fathers.

New Orleans’ baseball player Alexander Saunier is the male F.L. McDonald Postgraduate Scholarship award winner from the Southland this year.

 

Kuyrkendall and Saunier were chosen from a pool of fellow classmates and graduated student-athletes. Applicants must have at least a 3.75 GPA and have lettered at least two seasons at the nominating institution. Each recipient must enroll in a full-time graduate program within one year of receiving the award.

 

-ETAMU-

The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline

Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.

In 2026, will the new Pac-12 be as competitive, or greater than, the likes of the ACC and Big-12? — @eric_zetz

The Hotline has given this matter much thought recently while publishing a series of columns on the College Football Playoff controversy.

The conference hierarchy in 2026 and beyond is interconnected to any analysis of CFP access models, whether it’s the automatic qualifier format (4-4-2-2-1) favored by the Big Ten or the at-large format (5+11) preferred by the Big 12, ACC, SEC and Pac-12, as commissioner Teresa Gould said this week.

(In our view, the Big 12 and ACC have no choice but to push for 5+11, because the alternative is the end of those conferences as we know them.)

The Hotline does not believe — not for a second — that the rebuilt Pac-12 will be as competitively successful as the ACC and Big 12 in the next era. Although to be fair, those conferences are not entirely comparable, either.

If quality depth is the standard, the Big 12 is superior to the ACC. No conference in major college football can match the Big 12 for parity, which is both a blessing and curse.

But if judging by the number of championship-caliber programs, the ACC possesses a clear edge over the Big 12. It has two programs capable of winning the national title, Clemson and Florida State. Until proven otherwise, the Big 12 has none. (The last current Big 12 school to win it all was Colorado in 1990.)

Using either standard, the ACC and Big 12 are a level above the rebuilt Pac-12.

But here’s a question worth pondering: Is the rebuilt Pac-12 closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than the ACC and Big 12 are to the SEC and Big Ten? Which gap is larger?

That discussion also depends on the framing — on how you define the strength of a conference. We believe the flaws in the Big 12 (lack of elite programs) and the ACC (lack of quality depth) are significant enough, relative to the SEC and Big Ten, to make the topic worthy of tracking in the upcoming season.

For the rebuilt Pac-12 to be closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than they are to the SEC and Big Ten in a given season, two benchmarks are required:

— Boise State must be Boise State.

Conferences are often judged by the success of their top brands. If Ohio State and Michigan are both mediocre, the Big Ten will be viewed as having a subpar season. (Same with Georgia and Alabama in the SEC.)

Boise State is the rebuilt Pac-12’s premier football brand by a clear margin. The Broncos must have a Top 15/20-caliber season in order for the Pac-12’s reputation to rise.

— At least two of the following four teams also must be ranked: Washington State, Oregon State, Fresno State and San Diego State.

If the legacy Pac-12 programs flounder with the arrival of the Mountain West contingent, the national narrative won’t be, “The newcomers must be really good to outperform the Beavers and Cougars.” Instead, the narrative will be, “See, the rebuilt Pac-12 is no better than the old Mountain West.” One of them must win nine or 10 games on a consistent basis.

The Aztecs and Bulldogs will have a greater role in shaping the Pac-12’s reputation than the likes of Utah State and Colorado State because of their locations and their recent history of success — of regularly beating the legacy Pac-12 schools, cracking the Top 25 rankings and producing 10-win seasons.

Put another way: There’s a path for the rebuilt Pac-12 to be seen as closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than those conferences are to the SEC and Big Ten, but it hinges on the performance in non-conference games (obviously!) and which teams are leading the way.

If Boise State finishes as an 11-win Pac-12 champion, with Washington State and SDSU, for instance, both sitting on nine victories, the conference will look much stronger than it would if, for instance, Colorado State or Utah State finished on top.

That’s the nature of narratives. Brand success matters at every level of the sport.

From your standpoint, what would be the incentive for a school like UNLV to arrange (in mediation) a move to the Pac-12? Is it financial stability? Conference strength? — @BobhornOrAgcat

UNLV is contractually locked into the Mountain West, so the question is moot … unless, perhaps, the conference cannot meet its financial obligations.

The poaching penalty and exit fee lawsuits have, in total, roughly $150 million at stake. If only half that amount enters the Mountain West’s bank account, the distributions promised to the Rebels and others could be impacted.

Would that be enough to spur UNLV to leave? Would it change their legal commitment?

We don’t have clarity on those matters. (Few do.) And because neither the Pac-12 or Mountain West has signed a media rights agreement, there’s a leap-of-faith element for the Rebels with either course of action.

The Hotline’s view hasn’t changed: UNLV’s administration made an epically bad decision to remain in the Mountain West through the 2020s.

Our assumption is the Pac-12 would welcome the Rebels if they had a change of heart, but only for the right price. They are not a must-have school. There are no must-have schools remaining for the Pac-12. It secured the three it had to have (Boise State, San Diego State and Gonzaga) last fall.

Will Texas State receive a full share after this Pac-12/Mountain West mediation mess? I feel the Pac-12 has lost leverage on that front, unless North Texas or UTSA become a serious alternative. — @vince_per

We can’t answer that question without knowing, at the very least, the outcome of the mediation. How much of the $55 million owed to the Mountain West in poaching fees will the Pac-12 retain or relinquish?

And would the schools agree to use whatever pot of cash exists to lure Texas State, which would offer vital access to football-crazed Texas.

In our view, leverage remains with the Pac-12: The Bobcats would be foolish to pass on the chance to join a conference with Boise State football and Gonzaga basketball, especially when the annual media rights payments likely will triple or quadruple what they receive in the Sun Belt.

But it’s not entirely clear to the Hotline that anyone in the Pac-12 will receive a full share, at least in the traditional sense. The conference is considering a revenue distribution model that rewards and incentivizes success, much like the ACC has implemented.

Exactly how it will be structured, we cannot say.

The conference could use postseason revenue (NCAA Tournament and CFP) to fund an unequal distribution of cash. Or it could include a portion of the media rights revenue in the pot, as well.

What do you think about NIL and its impact on college football and basketball. And just a tad on the rest of the sports, too? I believe it will be the end of college sports as we’ve known it for so long. — Bo L

The impact of NIL, especially when combined with the transfer portal, has been momentous across many sports. Texas Tech’s success in softball, fueled by the arrival of million-dollar-pitcher NiJaree Canady from Stanford, is all the proof you need.

To the extent that amateurism mattered to your enjoyment of the competition, maybe this era marks “the end of college sports as we’ve known it.”

But the Hotline doesn’t know many college football and basketball fans who are no longer watching or attending  because players are getting paid.

As the late, great Chris Dufresne, of the LA Times, used to say: “Everyone has an alma mater.”

And that’s true whether your quarterback is getting $2 million in NIL or nothing in NIL.

Media deal timeline for the Pac-12? @TonyOnly_

One month after the lawsuits are resolved.

I hope that’s specific enough for you, because it’s as specific as the Hotline can possibly be.

Think about the situation from the standpoint of ESPN, The CW or Fox executives:

Why commit tens of millions of dollars over time to a conference that has two major lawsuits unresolved — lawsuits that could impact the membership structure, competitive success and overall outlook.

What if the Pac-12 and Mountain West end up with a court trial?

What if the Mountain West takes the Pac-12 to the cleaners?

We view those outcomes as extremely unlikely. But why would network executives take the chance? It would be tantamount to financial malpractice.

They want legal clarity and financial certainty.

The court-ordered stay of the poaching penalty lawsuit expires July 15, so we expect resolution to the mediation by that point. From there, the media rights piece should wrap up fairly quickly.

If the Pac-12 had played an eight-game conference schedule from 2014-23, would it have avoided the endless cannibalism and gotten a team in the playoffs consistently enough to still be around today in its original form? — Will D

Admittedly, the Hotline has not plowed through 10 seasons of data to offer a definitive answer. But our hunch is that yes, swapping a conference game for a non-conference cupcake might have resulted in the extra win for a given team in a given season and propelled the Pac-12 champion into the CFP more often than was actually the case.

Pac-12 teams participated in the four-team event in 2014 (Oregon), 2016 (Washington) and 2023 (Washington) and just missed on several other occasions.

If Stanford had played Sacramento State instead of Oregon in 2015 … if Oregon had played Idaho instead of Arizona State in 2019 … the Pac-12 might have been better represented in the CFP.

(Also, idiotic scheduling strategies, like asking teams to play Friday night road games after Saturday road games, contributed to a multi-year competitive malaise.)

Would more CFP teams have saved the conference? We aren’t so sure.

USC and UCLA likely would have left for the Big Ten anyway. And it’s unrealistic to think ESPN’s media rights offer would have been substantially higher in the fall of 2022 based on one or two additional playoff bids in the pre-COVID era.