Michigan is off to a slow start in the 2026 recruiting cycle, with the Wolverines just cracking the top-40 on 247Sports last week when four-star tight end Matt Ludwig joined the class. The picture is a little brighter when it comes to On3’s rankings, where Michigan is at No. 19. Still, the rankings are well below Sherrone Moore’s 2025 class.

There’s a lot of information out there about Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal and the money behind his flip from LSU. For many, the transfer portal and NIL deals are cheapening the sport, but it seems like some of those aspects are here to stay. While it’s easy to say kids are just going after the biggest payday, there could be other factors at play for this slow start.

The House Settlement is still pending

It’s tough to speculate when you’re not inside the program, but there’s a settlement pending that many of us have been following for some time — the House Settlement still hasn’t been finalized. The case, among other things, looks at rules for implementing revenue sharing for TV rights. It also includes caps on things like roster sizes, which is the issue that seems to be holding up the judge’s ruling for now.

With the exact amount of money available not immediately known, Michigan — and other programs as well — is in a tough spot and cannot give players all the financial information they need. While it’s nice to have some recruits already committed, there’s a very legitimate chance the coaches are also in a wait and see pattern for some aspects of recruiting until this thing gets resolved.

Michigan didn’t rush the process last season, why would they now?

The Wolverines didn’t move into the top-10 in recruiting rankings until late in the 2025 cycle. While some of that initially seemed tied to Moore’s hiring timeline, maybe the conversations were less about pressuring kids to commit early and more about letting them take in all their options and weigh as much information as they could. It feels like the coaching staff is still focused on finding the right players and culture builders, and they’re okay waiting to get those guys.

The Wolverines hosted a ton of top recruits on official visits last year, and while they did get some commitments during that window, some of the biggest commitments came much later. Bryce Underwood flipped a week before Thanksgiving, and other recruits like Shamari Earls, Jordan Young, Elijah Dotson and Jamar Browder, among others, didn’t choose Michigan until late in the cycle. It’s possible this staff is okay giving players time to make up their mind, instead of seeing them decommit later on after a rushed decision.

There’s less pressure because of the transfer portal

After landing quite the haul this offseason, there’s no doubt Michigan knows how to utilize the transfer portal to fill holes in the roster. Of course, landing top tier players at the high school level will also be valued by the coaching staff, but it’s good to balance things out with the portal, especially in the event they swing and miss on some of their top high school recruiting targets.

We’ll have to wait and see if a similar thing plays out this year when it comes to late-season commitments. NIL deals are certainly changing the game and it’s easy to say people are only in it for the most money. It’s also possible that recruiting is more complex in the changing landscape of football, and it seems unfair to solely blame NIL deals for why programs aren’t getting kids to commit.

What are your thoughts on Michigan’s current recruiting situation? Are you worried about it, or are you okay with waiting things out? Let us know in the comments below!

Major League Baseball is investing in Athletes Unlimited to support its softball league that will debut next month, marking the first time MLB will have a comprehensive partnership with a professional women’s sports league.

MLB said Thursday it was making a strategic investment in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League of an undisclosed amount for operational costs and a commitment to help it gain visibility in various ways, including assistance with content, marketing and sales, events, distribution, editorial, and digital and social platforms. That includes marketing the AUSL and its athletes during MLB’s All-Star Game and throughout the postseason.

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“This is something we’re really excited about,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told The Associated Press. “We studied the space hard. We think it’s a real opportunity and we’re excited to be involved.”

Athletes Unlimited has featured softball since 2020, when it unveiled a unique format that crowned an individual champion. The company will launch a league with a traditional, team-based format starting June 7 and will keep its individual format for the AUSL All-Star Cup that follows.

Manfred noted that interest in women’s sports had “escalated significantly” in recent years and his league had been looking for ways to get more involved, including the possible launch of its own softball league. He said Athletes Unlimited’s overall success and its strong infrastructure helped make the decision to collaborate easier.

“We thought rather than starting on our own and competing, that finding a place where we could invest and grow a business was a better opportunity for us,” Manfred said.

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Kim Ng, a former Major League Baseball executive, signed on as an adviser with the AUSL and was promoted to commissioner in April. Ng is the former general manager of the Miami Marlins, the first female GM in any of the major U.S. pro sports leagues, and has three World Series rings from a combined 21 years in the front offices of the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

“As the process moved forward and it looked like we were going to make an investment, they hired Kim, and we had a long relationship with Kim, and it just added additional comfort to the idea of making the investment,” Manfred said.

Athletes Unlimited co-founder Jon Patricof said MLB’s commitment to increasing the AUSL’s visibility is as important as the financial investment.

“They’re committed to really elevating the AUSL,” he said. “It’s probably about one of the most difficult things for any sports league to do which is to get visibility and break through to new audiences, and I think MLB is already doing that for the AUSL, and there’s going to be a lot more to come.”

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Women’s pro softball leagues and independent teams have come and gone over the years, but none have offered a consistent option for women to have a stable future in the sport.

It appears that might change, with the help of softball greats Cat Osterman, Jennie Finch, Jessica Mendoza and Natasha Watley as AUSL advisors. On June 7, the Bandits and Talons will open with a three-game series in Rosemont, Illinois, and the Blaze and Volts will start off with a three-game series in Wichita, Kansas. The four teams will play 24 games this season as touring properties that will play games in 12 cities. The top two teams will compete in the AUSL Championship, a best-of-three series July 26-28 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Patricof said the league plans to expand to six teams next season and be city based.

MLB already supports several women’s softball and baseball initiatives, including a partnership with USA Softball and operation of the MLB Develops girls baseball pipeline. It is not involved with the upstart Women’s Professional Baseball League, which plans to launch in 2026 as the first pro baseball league for women since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League — of “A League of Their Own” fame — folded in 1954.

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Manfred said he sees a bright future ahead for AUSL.

“I fully expect that they will expand, and we hope that we will end up with a league that is sustainable on its own, a good investment for us, and a partner in growing diamond sports internationally,” he said.

Patricof said the partnership with MLB and the already existing relationship between the Athletes Unlimited and USA Softball combine to help give the AUSL stability.

“As we announce MLB coming into the fold formally into what we’re doing with the AUSL, you really see a full alignment of this sport behind this league, and that I think is exciting for everyone,” Patricof said. “People who have sat on the sidelines or maybe have watched pro softball from a little bit of distance — everybody’s now jumped in, and I think that is an exciting moment for people who’ve been around this sport.”

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© Marc Weiszer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

At the SEC spring meetings on the Florida panhandle this week, a lot of pertinent topics in college football and recruiting were broached, NIL being one of them, of course.

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Georgia coach Kirby Smart made some waves in Miramar Beach when he told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger something striking about the NIL landscape.

MORE SEC: Peach State commitment predictions | SEC programs primed for a big June in recruiting

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TRANSFER PORTAL: Full coverage | Player ranking | Team ranking | Transfer search | Transfer Tracker

RIVALS CAMP SERIES: Rivals Five-Star heading back to Indy | Rivals Five-Star roster | Schedule/info

According to Smart, some collectives (none in the SEC, of course) are compensating high school players upward of $20,000 per month to remain committed and then eventually sign with their school.

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“Teams that are usually good at recruiting right now are doing it,” Smart said. “Kids are getting money but if you decommit you owe that money back. These are high school kids getting money from an entity not affiliated with the university but is a collective of the university.”

How one wants to define affiliated is up to them but it’s pretty well-known that coaches often talk to collectives to determine which players to target with their money and what will be needed to land their commitment.

Smart has taken a different approach than many other coaches who clearly have a pay-for-play model when it comes to recruiting. He made his comments just about two weeks after five-star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell chose Miami over the Bulldogs.

Cantwell talked highly about his relationship with Miami coach Mario Cristobal and position coach Alex Mirabal and how that was the deciding factor. But in the background was super agent Drew Rosenhaus working a reported $2 million-per-year NIL deal for the Nixa, Mo., standout.

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Georgia had to fight tooth and dollar until the end to get the recommitment of five-star quarterback Jared Curtis from Nashville (Tenn.) Christian. UGA beat out Oregon, which has all the Nike money to land players and hasn’t been shy about it in the past.

Whether right or wrong, Smart’s approach has not been to blow the Georgia money stack on one superstar player but to spread his bets around to multiple players. There has also been a hesitancy to promise massive money upfront but not shy away from paying more once production has been shown in the early years in Athens.

After reading Smart’s comments, lawyer Darren Heitner, who deals with NIL issues, took to social media and said: “The only reason Kirby Smart is complaining about high school players receiving compensation is that Georgia is losing out on players. You don’t hear criticism from the schools winning the recruiting wars and the athletes who are benefiting in the process.”

That has not been necessarily true in Georgia’s case although there have been some recruiting battles that even people inside the building were uncertain of how they’d go down the stretch because opponents have come in with big bags late. Cantwell was one. Georgia wasn’t certain on Curtis until right before decision time.

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Like Smart said on a different topic this week, there’s no complaining from the yacht. The Bulldogs are hardly struggling.

Georgia has the No. 10 recruiting class right now in the 2026 class. In the last four recruiting cycles, the Dawgs have finishes of No. 1, two No. 2s and a No. 3 class. In 2021 and 2022, Georgia won back-to-back national championships for the first time in a decade since Alabama did it in 2011-12.

When then-Alabama coach Nick Saban called out then-Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher for buying players in the Aggies’ 2022 class that finished atop the Rivals team rankings one spot ahead of the Crimson Tide, it set off a firestorm of back-and-forth bashing and ridicule. Fisher went off on Saban, who finally dialed it back but the message was sent.

In only those few short years, the NIL landscape has transformed college football recruiting in many ways. What was once illegal is now perfectly fine.

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Change is most likely coming with the House settlement and revenue sharing in many ways. One reason Saban left the game was because of NIL, no doubt, as players came into his office asking what he was going to give them. Enough was enough.

Smart might not be at the end of his rope just yet but there are certainly frustrations. Right or wrong, he’s going to do things his way and whether he lands the next Cantwell or not, we’ll see if the NIL tide causes waves too big to handle.

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Brian O’Connor (Photo by Samuel Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Mississippi State has zeroed in on longtime Virginia skipper Brian O’Connor to become the ninth head coach in program history, multiple sources familiar with the situation told Baseball America. O’Connor quickly became a primary target for Mississippi State athletic director Zac Selmon following the school’s dismissal of former coach Chris Lemonis in April.

O’Connor, 54, is one of the nation’s most accomplished active head coaches, having guided Virginia to seven College World Series appearances, including in 2015 when it won the national title. Three of O’Connor’s last five Virginia teams reached Omaha, and he was recognized as the ACC coach of the year on five different occasions from 2004-14.

One of the longest-tenured active head coaches in the nation, O’Connor has been at the helm with the Cavaliers since 2004. After missing the NCAA Tournament this year, he was promised increased resources for baseball but ultimately chose to pursue an SEC opportunity.

A deal is not yet completed for O’Connor’s hiring, but one is expected in the coming days. O’Connor’s buyout with UVA is $800,000.

“We will be in a much-improved scholarship situation moving forward,” O’Connor told reporters on Monday regarding his expectations for resources at Virginia. “That exact number I don’t have, but that’s being continued to be worked on. The NIL situation is totally up in the air for all of college athletics.”

Mississippi State’s decision to hire O’Connor comes with championship expectations and nothing less, a reality that was made clear throughout the hiring process, according to multiple sources.

Those expectations come on the heals of the Bulldogs’ late-April decision to fire Lemonis, who won the national championship in 2021.

Lemonis’ tenure at Mississippi State began with great promise as he led the Bulldogs to back-to-back College World Series appearances in 2019 and 2021, culminating in the program’s first national title. However, the years that followed saw a significant downturn, with Mississippi State struggling to maintain its place among the SEC’s elite. After a last-place SEC finish in 2022 and a missed postseason again in 2023, the Bulldogs’ continued inconsistency in 2025 proved too much to overcome.

Mississippi State said it will conduct a national search for its next head coach, emphasizing the program’s stature within the sport.

“Mississippi State is the premier job in college baseball,” Selmon said in April. “The tradition, the facilities, the NIL offerings and the fan base are all second to none. Dudy Noble Field is the best environment in the sport, period.”

While O’Connor has emerged as the favorite to take over the program, Mississippi State’s season is still alive under interim coach Justin Parker.

The Bulldogs were tabbed the No. 3-seed in the Tallahassee Regional, where they’ll face Florida State, Northeastern and Bethune-Cookman.

She’s rewriting what’s possible for women in sports!

When NiJaree Canady stepped away from Stanford University last summer, she didn’t just transfer schools, she changed the game. The reigning USA Softball National Player of the Year, known for leading Stanford to back-to-back Women’s College World Series appearances, made headlines when she announced her move to Texas Tech, ESPN reports. But what truly shook the foundation of college athletics was the historic NIL deal that followed for Canady, one set to the tune of $1,050,024. That number wasn’t just a contract, it was a declaration.

The deal, offered by Texas Tech’s Matador Club, made Canady the first million-dollar athlete in college softball history. It included a symbolic nod to her jersey, $1 million for her name, $50,000 for living expenses, and $24 to represent the number she wears on her back. In a sport where women have long been overlooked, Canady became a lightning rod for change.

Still, her decision wasn’t made lightly. “I feel like people thought I heard the number and just came to Texas Tech, which wasn’t the case at all,” Canady said. “If I didn’t feel like Coach Glasco was an amazing coach and could lead this program to be where we thought it could be, I wouldn’t have come.”

Coach Gerry Glasco knew what was at stake. Just days after taking the job at Tech, he made Canady his top priority. He poured over charts, handwritten lineups, and made promises not just about the mound, but about the plate. Because while the world saw Canady as the nation’s top pitcher, Glasco saw something more: a full-fledged athlete who missed hitting, who could carry a team on her arm and her bat.

The pitch worked. It didn’t hurt that Patrick Mahomes — yes, that Patrick Mahomes — called Canady personally to convince her to join the Red Raiders. “Patrick Mahomes, I have his number, I can reach out to him. So I think that’s cool,” she said. That kind of hometown star power, paired with Glasco’s passion and a family of supporters ready to invest in women’s sports, created the perfect storm.

And Canady has delivered. This season, she led the nation with a jaw-dropping 0.81 ERA and was named Big 12 Pitcher of the Year. She went 26-5, helping Texas Tech secure their first-ever Big 12 regular-season and conference titles. The Red Raiders are now hosting their first NCAA regional, with Canady at the center of it all.

“She definitely put Texas Tech softball on the map,” said Tracy Sellers, one of the program’s longtime supporters who helped fund the deal. After meeting Canady, she knew this was bigger than just softball. “She is a wonderful human being… I left that meeting and thought, this is who I would love to put a lot of effort into because of who she is.”

For Canady, who grew up in Topeka, Kansas, dominating in everything from basketball to tackle football, Lubbock felt like home. “Lubbock reminds me more of home,” she said. “I think that was the biggest shock to me, just about how much sports matter here in Texas.”

Even off the field, she’s embracing the culture, learning the science behind tossing tortillas at Tech football games and making time to sign autographs for the next generation of athletes. Her dreams don’t stop at championships. She wants to open her own facility and teach girls to pitch, to hit, and to dream without limits.

“I hope someone tomorrow comes in and builds it even more,” Canady said. “There are a lot of male athletes who get that and it’s not a headline anymore. I hope that happens for women’s sports, too.”

With her million-dollar deal, her powerhouse performance, and her heart for the game, NiJaree Canady isn’t just making headlines, she’s opening doors. For girls who pitch, who swing for the fences, and who dare to believe that their talent is worth just as much as anyone else’s.

Thanks to NiJaree Canady, the future of women’s sports just got a whole lot brighter.

Cover photo: NiJaree Canady Makes History as First Million-Dollar College Softball Player/Photo credit: USA Softball