LUBBOCK, Texas – Texas Tech senior outside linebacker David Bailey and senior linebacker Jacob Rodriguez were both named first team All-Americans by the Walter Camp Foundation on Friday evening during the Home Depot College Football Awards Show on ESPN.

This is the first career All-America honor for both Bailey and Rodriguez, who became only the third set of Red Raider teammates to collect first team All-America honors in school history. Texas Tech had both linebacker Zach Thomas and defensive back Marcus Coleman represented on an NCAA-recognized All-America team in 1995, while the quartet of wide receiver Michael Crabtree, quarterback Graham Harrell and offensive linemen Rylan Reed and Brandon Carter were all recognized in 2008.

The Walter Camp All-America teams kick off the list of NCAA-recognized organizations that determine the NCAA’s annual consensus and unanimous All-America teams. The Associated Press All-America team will be unveiled Monday followed by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) on Tuesday, the Sporting News on Wednesday and the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) on Thursday.

Now in its 136th year as the nation’s oldest All-America team, the Walter Camp Foundation had not previously recognized a Red Raider since tight end Jace Amaro was a unanimous selection to the first team in 2013. Rodriguez joins Thomas (1994-95) and Thomas Howard (1976) as the only linebackers in program history to receive first team All-America honors. Bailey, meanwhile, became the third Red Raider defensive end or outside linebacker to be recognized on the first team, joining two other greats in Montae Reagor (1998) and Tyree Wilson (2022).

The All-America honor only adds to a memorable week for Rodriguez, who was also named the winner of the Bednark Award Friday evening during the ESPN broadcast. Rodriguez has collected the Butkus Award (nation’s top linebacker), the Bronko Nagurski Trophy (nation’s top defensive player), the Lombardi Award (nation’s top lineman or linebacker) and the Pony Express Award (nation’s top duo with Bailey) in the past week alone.

Rodriguez has been the most-disruptive player in college football this season as he enters the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl as the FBS leader with seven forced fumbles and ranks among the top-15 players nationally with 117 tackles. He is the first FBS player since 2005 to record at least five forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and four interceptions all in the same season.

His impact has bolstered a Texas Tech defense that leads the nation with 31 takeaways and ranks third nationally in scoring defense at 10.9 points per game. Rodriguez was responsible for nine takeaways himself — all in Big 12 play – thanks to his ability to punch the ball out and also read the quarterback in coverage. Rodriguez is currently the highest-rated player in all of college football, according to Pro Football Focus, grading out at 93.3 overall so far this season.

Bailey, meanwhile, leads possibly the best defensive line in college football this season with 13.5 sacks, which leads all power conference players and ranks second overall nationally entering bowl season. Bailey, who is also third in the FBS with 17.5 tackles for loss, is in the midst of his most-productive collegiate season after arriving from Stanford this offseason with 14.5 sacks for his career at the time, one more than his total this season under head coach Joey McGuire and outside linebackers coach C.J. Ah You. He is 1.5 sacks shy of the Texas Tech single-season sacks record of 15.0 that was set by Brandon Sharpe in 2009.

 

Pro Football Focus has credited Bailey with 74 pressures this season, easily the most in college football as Adam Trick of Miami (Ohio) ranks second with 66. Louisville’s Clev Lubin is the next-closest power conference player to Bailey with 61 pressures of his own. Bailey’s ability to get to the quarterback has also caused three forced fumbles, a pass breakup and a fumble recovery.

 

As a team, Texas Tech is the only team in the country to rank in the top five nationally for not only scoring defense and total defense but also total offense and total offense. The result has pushed Texas Tech to its first Big 12 Conference title and a 12-1 record, marking the most wins in a season in school history.

The Red Raiders await the winner of the College Football Playoff opening round game between No. 5 Oregon and No. 12 seed James Madision in the Capital One Orange Bowl. Kickoff on New Year’s Day is set for 11 a.m. CT with coverage provided on ESPN and the Texas Tech Sports Network.

Two Georgia football players were arrested Friday and charged with misdemeanor theft by shoplifting.

Starting offensive guard Dontrell Glover and running back Bo Walker were booked into the Clarke County Jail after 5:30 p.m. and released before 8 p.m, according to the jail’s online booking report. The arresting agency is the Athens-Clarke County Police.

Amid all the complaints about the current state of college football, be it the College Football Playoff or NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal, the only solution that has any consensus is the overwhelming desire for a “commissioner” to create and enforce rules and regulations across the sport.

And, whenever the topic of a college football commissioner comes up, one name always seems to be connected: Nick Saban. Of course, the 74-year-old former Alabama head coach-turned-ESPN College GameDay analyst has repeatedly shot down any such suggestion when it inevitably comes up.

“I don’t want to be in that briar patch of being a commissioner,” Saban told the Associated Press in late August. “But I do want to do everything I can to make it right.”

But now the call is coming from inside the house. This week, Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule openly championed for Saban to accept the yet-to-be-created position during a discussion about the untenable current college football calendar on his House Rhules podcast.

“I can tell you this, I know most coaches, I know me, if that was one the table, I’d certainly vote yes,” Rhule said during Thursday’s episode of his podcast, House Rhules. “Because he’s been in the trenches, he has experience, he has the vision. And you also have to have someone who has the guts and the toughness to make hard decisions, because you’re not going to make everyone happy. That’s why the NFL has Roger Goodell, he’s going to do things, even if people don’t like them, he’s going to do what’s right for the game. And they protect the league.

“For us, our conferences are our leagues, so everyone is protecting their own conference, which is why things end up being maybe a little disjointed as a result,” Rhule concluded. “So, shoot, come on Coach Saban, do it, man. We need you.”

Saban has long been a proponent of more regulation and structure in the sport, especially after this summer’s passage of the House v. NCAA settlement that ended the NCAA’s outdated “amateur” model. The settlement ushered in revenue-sharing across college athletics, allowing programs to pay as much as $20.5 million to their student-athletes, with football teams expected to receive roughly 75% of that total annually. Of course, that has only created more issues, so much so that Congress is now getting involved.

“For years and years and years as coaches, and when we were players, we learned this, we’re trying to create value for our future,” Saban told the AP. “That’s why we’re going to college. It’s not just to see how much money we can make while we’re in college. It’s, how does that impact your future as far as our ability to create value for ourselves?”

That said, if Saban really wants to be part of the solution to what ails college football, Rhule knows the perfect way for him to make the biggest impact.

CLEMSON — While Clemson continues to prepare to play Penn State in the Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 27, there are things happening inside the program that will help shape what takes place next year.

The next month is going to be the most important month Dabo Swinney’s program will have in a very long time.

Why?

There is a lot going on, whether it be through the transfer portal, NIL or coaching. There are a lot of moving parts right now and it is all important to next year’s team.

Though Swinney will not talk about next year’s team until this season is over, we can.

As we have reported, there are and there will be more changes to the coaching staff. There will also be more changes to the personnel.

The transfer portal officially opens on Jan. 2, and, as you know, several Tigers have already given their intentions to enter the portal. Four underclassmen have declared for the NFL Draft, as well.

Clemson welcomes 19 freshmen to the team, most of them will enroll in January. However, the Tigers will have two weeks to bring in some more talent from the portal.

How Swinney and the coaching staff attack the portal will be paramount to the 2026 team’s success?

It has been well documented Clemson has not handled the NIL and portal as well as other schools. You only need to look at the four previous seasons to see what I am talking about.

Since 2021, the Tigers are 37-16 (.698) with one College Football Playoff appearance. Granted, the Tigers did win ACC Championships in 2022 and ’24, but it is obvious the program has slipped a notch in this new era of college football.

Can the Tigers reach the top of the mountain, again?

I am not sure.

Let’s be honest, the NIL has hurt Clemson. Part of that is Clemson’s fault, part of that is just the way things are. It’s hard for Clemson to compete in the third-party NIL world with schools that can. That is one reason why the Tigers cannot sign 5-star prospects anymore.

While Clemson continues to struggle with the NIL, other schools within the ACC, continue to have success. ACC Champion Duke is a perfect example of this.

Before the NIL, Duke was irrelevant in football and there was no way they could compete with the Clemson’s and Florida State’s. These days, the Blue Devils own a two-game win streak against the Tigers.

Why?

Because they are more successful with the NIL.

Virginia is another example. Tony Elliott went to the portal and pulled 30 new players on a team that made it to the ACC Championship Game. He used revenue sharing and NIL funds to get the best players he could.

As we mentioned before, the changes in college football are very reminiscent of how new rules in college baseball affected the Clemson baseball program some 15 years ago. Clemson baseball has never fully recovered.

Will Clemson Football?

To do that, Clemson must change its philosophy when it comes to paying players from the portal.

This is like free agency in the NFL. You must go and pay for the best.

You must do what is best for the program, not worry if you hurt the feelings of a current player on the roster.

Look at it this way, Clemson is losing, potentially, three first-round picks—Peter Woods, Avieon Terrell and T.J. Parker—and one second-round pick in Antonio Williams. Those guys are all underclassmen. Who are the Tigers replacing them with?

Let me ask you this. How many first-round picks will next year’s roster have?

This is an important off-season. Swinney must make the right choices in the portal.

The Tigers cannot afford to go 4-4 in the ACC again, which is possible if you look at next year’s schedule.

Clemson will play Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina and Virginia at home in 2026. As well as visit California, Duke, Florida State and Syracuse. Look at that schedule, do you think the Tigers, with the current roster, can win the ACC next season?

This is why the next month is going to be so big for the Clemson Football program.

College football has always been an expansive and complex entity and it has shifted even further in that direction in recent years with the introduction of NIL deals and the expansion of the transfer portal. Oddly enough, it is those same alterations that play a part in the Oregon Ducks becoming such an attractive destination.

They landed five-star wide receiver Dakorien Moore last recruiting cycle and he has been everything that the school and scouts hoped he would be. He is dealing with a knee injury currently, but he had recorded 443 yards and three touchdowns in just eight games before his stellar season was disrupted.

Moore has been so impressive that reports surfaced yesterday that he is signing an NIL deal with Red Bull, an energy drink manufacturer. No details have emerged about how much it is worth, but the true freshman wideout added yet another partnership to an already strong package of NIL contracts.

Senator Ted Cruz joined OutKick’s Dan Dakich for a wide-ranging interview that touched on everything from saving college sports to making sure betting on prop bets doesn’t lead to corruption of integrity to the one-liners of Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy.

As I said, wide-ranging, and you can check out the interview in its entirety on the Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich YouTube channel.

One of the biggest stories in sports these days has to do with the state of college sports and how it has been impacted by NIL. Sen. Cruz talked about how, while it’s good that athletes can make some money off of their name, image, and likeness, the bidding wars we see are going to threaten the existence of college sports.

“So look, I think there’s an absolute crisis in college sports. I think the current situation [is] the Wild West,” the Republican senator from Texas said. “Every school is in a bidding war. It keeps going up and up and up. With the transfer portal, you’ve got people jumping from school to school to school, and I don’t think any of this is good for college schools.

“I think we’re on a path where, if Congress doesn’t act, we’re going to see a handful of schools, maybe 30 [or] 40, schools that are ‘super schools’ that survive… But a whole bunch of other schools on the current path — I think division two schools, division three schools, and even a bunch of division one schools — this bidding war is pricing them out of being competitive. That’s not good for sports.”

Cruz also talked about how sports that don’t typically earn income for their schools are going to be in a lot of danger because of the current system, and how that could take away incredible opportunities for those student-athletes.

“I’m really worried about all the kids that this is their only hope to get an education,” Sen. Cruz said. “To learn the discipline and teamwork and all the skills you get playing sports that then help you in life, help you get a job, help you build a business, help you provide for your family. And so I think there is an urgent need for Congress to step in.”

Another major issue impacting sports that Dakich and Sen. Cruz discussed has to do with sports gambling. Specifically, prop bets and how easy it can be for players to manipulate them, thereby threatening the integrity of the game.

“I can tell you, I’ve recently sent oversight letters to the NBA and Major League Baseball inquiring, getting the facts about how many, how many complaints I’m particularly concerned about prop bets,” Sen. Cruz said. “If you can bet on whether the first pitch in a game is going to be a ball or a strike, well, you know what? The pitcher can’t necessarily guarantee it’s a strike, but 100% of the time, he can guarantee it’s a ball, and that just invites corruption.”

Sen. Cruz mentioned that he has talked to leagues and gambling platforms about this issue and is exploring ways Congress might be able to help maintain the integrity of games.

“I don’t think anyone wants to see sports where you don’t trust the outcome, where you think it’s rigged, where you have an athlete throwing a game because he wants to make a buck,” the senator said. “That’s a bad outcome, and I do think we need to work to prevent it.”

And finally, Dakich and Cruz hit on a lighter topic, and those are the legendary one-liners of Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy.

“That judiciary committee hearing where John Kennedy leaned forward into the microphone and he says, ‘Christmas tree ornaments and Jeffrey Epstein: two things you know, didn’t hang themselves.'” Sen. Cruz recalled. “I always fell out of my chair. I’m like, Wait, how was that out loud?”

How great is that? It would’ve made a perfect Carnac joke back in the day.

Dakich then mentioned that one of his favorite Sen. Kennedy lines, “She’s not the dumbest person in the country, but she better hope the dumbest person doesn’t die.”

“John is essentially a stand–up comedian,” Sen. Cruz said, before bringing up an all-time Kennedy gem. “He said things like ‘AOC is why they put instructions on shampoo.’”

…

Be sure to check out the entire interview on the Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich YouTube channel.