NIL

Nick Saban expected to co-chair Trump administration’s commission on college football, per report

USATSI Former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas businessman Cody Campbell, founder of Texas Tech’s Matador Club NIL collective and chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents, are expected to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission into college athletics, according to The Athletic. The news comes after Trump met with Saban to discuss potential name, image […]

Published

3 weeks ago

May 8, 2025

Your Sports Nation

USATSI

Former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas businessman Cody Campbell, founder of Texas Tech’s Matador Club NIL collective and chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents, are expected to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission into college athletics, according to The Athletic. The news comes after Trump met with Saban to discuss potential name, image and likeness reform.

The commission would examine prominent issues facing college sports like the transfer portal, unregulated booster compensation that goes directly to athletes, the employment of college athletes and Title IX, among other hot-button topics, according to Yahoo Sports.

Trump was also recently in Tuscaloosa to deliver the University of Alabama’s commencement speech.

The president is also considering an executive order aimed at greater scrutiny towards NIL deals, though any executive order would likely still need congressional action, NCAA president Charlie Baker told Dennis Dodd in April.

President Donald Trump considering executive order for NIL after meeting with Nick Saban, per report

Cameron Salerno

Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who previously had stints as the coach at Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech and Cincinnati, also said he spoke with the Trump administration about NIL.

“College football is the heart and soul of America — but it’s in danger if we don’t level the playing field,” Tuberville posted on social media.

Saban, a seven-time national champion who retired from coaching in January 2024, has remained a prominent figure in college football. Upon his decision to step away from Alabama, he was hired as an analyst on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”

He also maintains an office inside Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and works in an advisory role to Crimson Tide athletics.

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NIL

Five Buckeyes are CSC Academic All-District Honorees

Five members of the Ohio State softball team – Morgan Frye, Kami Kortokrax, Sami Bewick, Taylor Cruse and Skylar Limon – have been named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.50 grade-point average at her current institution […]

Published

15 minutes ago

May 27, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Five members of the Ohio State softball team – Morgan Frye, Kami Kortokrax, Sami Bewick, Taylor Cruse and Skylar Limon – have been named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.50 grade-point average at her current institution and must be in at least their second collegiate season.

Academic All-District honorees were considered for advancement to the CSC Academic All-America ballot. First, second and third-team Academic All-America honorees will be announced June 17.

Frye spent one season with Ohio State after graduating from Berry College and made the most of it. On the field, she hit .379 with 12 home runs, 38 RBI, 26 extra base hits and a .790 slugging percentage. In the classroom, she earned a degree in environmental assessment and will soon be enrolled in Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law.

Like Frye, Bewick transferred to Ohio State from Maimi University and started all 60 games this past season at third base. A .330 hitter, she scored 54 runs, hit nine homers and drove in 34 runs. She’s majoring in finance.

Kortokrax, a Westerville native, graduated in May with her degree in communications. She started all 217 games in her Buckeye career and finished with 213 hits, 39 home runs, 144 RBI and 142 runs scored.

Curse and Limon made up two thirds of the Buckeyes’ starting outfield. A sophomore, Cruse earned second team All-Big Ten and second team All-Region honors as she hit .308 with 16 home runs and 54 RBI on the year. She’s majoring in marketing. Limon, meanwhile, had the third-highest batting average on the team – .361 – and drove in 29 runs. She’s a psychology major.

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As Texas Tech rises across the board, the nation is becoming more jealous than ever

There’s no question that it has been a strong 2024-25 athletic year for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders captured eight total Big 12 championships, the most of any team in the conference. In addition, the Red Raider men’s basketball team reached the Elite Eight and came within a blink of playing in the Final Four […]

Published

30 minutes ago

May 27, 2025

Your Sports Nation

There’s no question that it has been a strong 2024-25 athletic year for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders captured eight total Big 12 championships, the most of any team in the conference.

In addition, the Red Raider men’s basketball team reached the Elite Eight and came within a blink of playing in the Final Four before a late collapse cost them a win against eventual National Champion Florida.

Off the field, the Texas Tech success has been evident as well. That’s especially true in the case of the football program, which has brought in a historic transfer class, one that is rated by some recruiting services as the No. 1 transfer haul in the country.

Of course, all of that winning was topped off this past weekend when the softball program qualified for the Women’s College World Series for the first time in its history. That remarkable accomplishment was powered by Texas Tech’s unprecedented NIL investment in softball, a non-revenue sport. The money poured into that program brought star pitcher NiJaree Canady to Lubbock for a reported $1 million per season and changed the trajectory of Tech softball almost overnight.

Now, as the Red Raiders prepare to play in this week’s world series in Oklahoma City, the attention the softball program and the entire athletic department is receiving has ramped up, and the conversation for most around the nation is about the success that Tech has had via the NIL market. But, as one might expect, not everyone is happy to see the rise of the Red Raiders.

Fans across the nation are jealous of Texas Tech’s success

Almost as soon as Tech recorded the final out of last weekend’s Super Regional victory over No. 5 national seed Florida State, criticism from jealous fans across the nation began to flow freely on social media. It wasn’t just Seminole fans that were angry, though.

Rather, fans of schools from all corners of the nation tried to claim that Tech’s World Series run is less legitimate than the accomplishments of the other World Series participants simply because of the NIL investment that Tech made in the program. Claiming that Tech was guilty of just buying a World Series appearance, those fans showed that there is going to be pushback against Texas Tech’s efforts to improve their standing in the highest-profile sports by using the current system that the NCAA has in place.

What’s fascinating is that many of those speaking out against Texas Tech are supporters or alums of universities that have used money to gain unfair advantages for decades. Long before NIL allowed athletic departments to openly compensate athletes above the board, untold numbers of schools were using back-channel methods to funnel under-the-table money and benefits to recruits and athletes.

That system was fine for those who managed to use it effectively. Now, though, Texas Tech is the face of the new era in college athletics, an era in which compensating athletes is done in the light, and for some reason, that is not sitting well with many fans.

The reason for this angst against Texas Tech is that it is a non-traditional power that has started to rise up via the NIL market. Were it Texas, Ohio State, Tennessee, Alabama, Michigan, Southern California, or some other long-time name-brand athletic department that was leading the NIL movement, few people would bat an eye. In fact, many of those schools are also paying big money to win in various sports, but none are getting the criticism that Texas Tech is.

Because little ole Texas Tech is threatening the status quo across multiple sports, those who have enjoyed sitting on the throne for years are now fearful as a new challenger rises on the scene. Remember, college sports have always been tribal in nature, not communal, the way professional sports are set up.

In the world of college athletics, it has always essentially been every school for itself. Thus, the rise of a new contender is not welcomed as it would be in the professional ranks. Rather, it is feared by those who have perched atop the hierarchy for decades, as there is a new threat to their dominance.

The ironic part of all of this is that many Tech fans initially feared that our school wouldn’t be able to keep up in the NIL era after struggling to play on the big stage for most of the athletic department’s existence.

Fortunately, though, a group of well-funded and highly motivated boosters has seized this opportunity to bring the Red Raiders to the forefront in multiple sports. Now, the nation is taking notice, and many outside of West Texas aren’t happy about it.

That shouldn’t bother Texas Tech fans, though. After all, irritating those who think they are better than the rest of us has been what this university has been about since the day it was founded. Why stop now?

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On3 Includes Seven Big 12 Teams in Way-Too-Ealy Top 25

Share Tweet Share Share Email The Big 12 Conference is getting set for an incredible year in 2025-26 on the basketball court, and many teams are expected to earn Preseason Top 25 rankings. Those lists won’t officially drop for another few months, but many experts in the space have taken their shot at predicting what […]

Published

32 minutes ago

May 27, 2025

Your Sports Nation