Bucknuts.com’s Steve Helwagen hosted his weekly Chat on Monday night on The Front Row message board. Check out the transcript below.

Programming Note: Steve will again join Ohio State Buckeyes Live at 11 a.m. Wednesday. Check out The Front Row for access details after 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

ButlerBuck: Players may want all they can get as a HS kid.

For hoops, Anthony Davis and Cooper Flagg would have been the #1 draft pick whether they went to a blue blood or not.

For football, getting that development during college is more important since the NFL watches you for 3 years.

Will kids get that idea/does OSU use that as a basketball recruiting pitch from OSU or another pigskin blue blood?

OSU hoops would use that to recruit those 5* players….you’ll be #1 wherever you go.  You just need to get the most playing time you can. You’ll get all the minutes you can play here. At UK and Duke, maybe not

Helwagen: Yeah, lot of ifs in there. Every kid’s upbringing, wherewithal and recruitment is different. Some have to have as much as they can get their hands on as soon as possible. Some are interested in being one and done and on to the league. Some are content to play the long game to prolong their development and maximize their pro value.

So, yeah, you can look at it and say Ohio State can help you get there. But if you watched the NBA Finals, here were the schools of the starters:

Pacers: Pascal Siakam (New Mexico State), Aaron Nesmith (Vanderbilt), Myles Turner (Texas), Andrew Nembhard (Gonzaga), Tyrese Haliburton (Iowa State)

Thunder: Chet Holmgren (Gonzaga), Jalen Williams (Santa Clara), Isaiah Hartenstein (Germany/Lithuania), Lu Dort (Arizona State), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Kentucky)

Only one real blueblood there. You can get there from anywhere, so why not Ohio State? Of course, will need Ohio State to be competitive in the pay department.

foxr2001: Don’t know if you can answer this and has nothing to do with OSU. BTN has aired a few US women’s volleyball games, which has nothing to do with the B1G. I can only imagine its some reciprocal agreement with FOX that they (BTN) air events when FOX doesn’t have room on their schedule or something like that. Any intel on why these are airing on BTN?

Two other completely different questions for you. The Columbus Dispatch said that McGuff was able to drive again, presumably meaning that his license was temporarily suspended. The article didn’t go into much detail about his current status though. Has his DUI arrest already been processed and if so, what penalty(ies) did he receive? Did the university do anything to him or are they going to like suspend him for a few games? Hey, maybe OSU will suspend him in the MIDDLE of the non-conference schedule when we are playing our easiest two games!

Other question, no one here at Bucknuts has mentioned Cleveland getting an WNBA franchise. I imagine you are a Cavs fan, how do you feel with the city sharing the court with a women’s team? Do you think, with the improved success in the WNBA that this franchise will survive, unlike Cleveland’s earlier WNBA franchise?

Thanks Steve.

Helwagen: I was not aware BTN was airing women’s USA volleyball events, but it makes sense if FOX needs an outlet that they do that. ESPN puts some NCAA events it can’t get on ESPN or ESPN2 on SEC Network (usually involving an SEC team). Big Ten is big in volleyball and maybe they rationalized some of the players were from Big Ten schools.

Have not heard anything about McGuff or his status. I assume the judge in his case has granted him work driving privileges. I assume if Ohio State is going to suspend him, it will happen before the season starts. No idea when his next court appearance would be. I will try and check on that. Not sure how he beats the rap if they play the video at trial, unless he can prove he was drugged somehow.

Don’t really have a thought about the WNBA in Cleveland. It seems the league has 10-12 needle movers who draw crowds. People will come there to watch Caitlin Clark and some of the others. But to win and contend you need stars. Those are hard to come by. Good luck and, I agree, I hope it goes better than the last time. Sophie Cunningham’s comments about why would anybody want to play in Cleveland were not the least bit helpful. LOL

ATLANTA — Behind the main podium on the center stage of SEC media days, Greg Sankey gives the media masses before him a reminder of all of the uncertainties facing college athletics.

There are growing pains with the industry’s new revenue-sharing concept, the latest of which puts the entire enterprise in a murky situation. The NCAA’s governance model is undergoing change, too. The future structure of bowl games is a bit unknown and so too are NCAA eligibility standards that are under attack in court from players themselves.

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“There’s a lot going on,” Sankey espoused from the stage.

But perhaps the most noteworthy of those items, certainly the one drawing the most attention from football fans, is a little thing called the College Football Playoff.

Though Sankey didn’t reveal much groundbreaking or new about the future of the playoff — the format starting next year remains unclear — his time spent on the issue is a good reminder of how important and divisive the subject is.

Here’s the gist: The CFP’s original 12-year contract with ESPN ends after this season, and a new six-year extension struck with the network last spring begins in 2026 with, what was believed to be, a new, potentially expanded playoff. An important note to this is that the SEC and Big Ten hold authority over a future format and must agree on a model before it moves forward, according to CFP director Rich Clark — the result of a memorandum signed by the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame last year.

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Here’s the problem: The SEC and Big Ten, thought at first to be aligned behind a format with multi-automatic qualifiers for a single conference, is not aligned after all. And it’s unclear if they will get aligned before Dec. 1 — the date ESPN executives gave to CFP leaders as a deadline for any decisions for the 2026 playoff.

As Sankey noted in his comments here Monday — the kickoff to the four-day SEC media days extravaganza in downtown Atlanta — there is a real possibility that the playoff remains, at least for next year, at its current 12-team format and not the 14- or 16-team model that’s been discussed. “That can stay if we don’t agree,” Sankey said.

But why don’t they agree?

Well, many thought they were close to agreeing on what’s been deemed a “4-4-2-2-1” format that grants twice as many automatic qualifiers to the SEC and Big Ten (4 each) as the ACC and Big 12 (2 each). Though many of its athletic directors supported the Big Ten’s multi-AQ model, SEC coaches spoke against it enough in May during the league’s spring meetings that the focus, at least for the SEC, shifted toward a format with a bigger at-large pool, such as what’s termed a “5+11” format: five automatic qualifiers for conference champions, plus 11 at-large selections.

Big Ten administrators have noted gripes with this format, including the fact that the SEC plays one fewer conference game (eight) than its own league (nine) — a potential advantage in playoff selection for a postseason with a big at-large pool.

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Is the simple solution the SEC moving to nine conference games, both leagues then agreeing on a 5+11 model and then everyone going about their business? Perhaps.

But enough SEC coaches and administrators are against a move to nine conference games without a change to the criteria that the CFP selection committee uses to make its at-large picks.

And many of them believe that the SEC’s eight-game conference schedule is just as tough or more difficult than the Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule — something Sankey even suggested from the podium Monday. Every SEC team plays a ninth game against a power conference team — a conference requirement that, Sankey noted, not everyone else has (the Big Ten does not have that requirement).

Round and round, this goes. Where it ends, no one seems to know.

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CFP officials are in the midst of making adjustments to the selection criteria used by the committee. Here in Atlanta, more specifics were revealed on those two changes.

For one, CFP staff proposed to commissioners an adjustment to the committee’s strength-of-schedule ranking that gives more weight to games played, for instance, against the top 30-40 programs in the country.

Secondly, a new data point, “strength of record,” has been created, Sankey said, that grants more weight to good wins and doesn’t penalize programs as much for losses against ranked or top teams.

“If we’re talking about win-loss records, they’re not all the same, based upon what conference you’re in and who you play,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “What’s the selection process going to be? That will generate the answer to the other questions — how many teams (in the playoff) and what your conference schedule looks like.”

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Are these changes enough to convince SEC officials to move to a ninth conference game? It’s uncertain, but that decision likely needs to be made for 2026 by the time this football season kicks off. It’s why many believe the league continues to lean toward remaining at eight SEC games and, thus, the playoff may remain at 12.

“Much more work is needed,” Sankey said of the criteria changes. “We have to see the homework, but the direction of the discussion is viewed positively with the need for timely decision making.”

And what of the Big Ten? The league holds its football media days next week in Las Vegas, as well as meetings among their athletic directors where, surely, the playoff discussion will be a topic.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, meanwhile, has remained mostly quiet during this summer of playoff drama. He did record a 30-minute interview with Fox’s Joel Klatt last month where Petitti re-emphasized his support for the 4-4-2-2-1 as a way to eliminate the subjectivity of the selection committee, incentivize more top-25 non-conference matchups among the power leagues and hold play-in style conference games at the year’s end.

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“We are not asking to be handed anything,” Petitti told Klatt. That’s a reference toward those who claim that the 4-4-2-2-1 format unfairly preordains qualifying spots. “We want to play tough play-in games. We want to create incentive for schools to schedule (tougher) non-conference games. … I think fans want to see more of these non-conference games earlier in the season. Everybody is pointing to Texas-Ohio State (this year). We want more of that.”

Last week from Big 12 media days in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, commissioner Brett Yormark publicly “doubled down” on his support for the 5+11 model and suggested that the Big Ten’s proposal is a professionalized concept that would negatively impact college athletics.

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“We continue to believe the 5+11 model is the right playoff format,” Yormark said. “We want to earn it on the field. We do not need a professional model. We are not the NFL. We are college football and we must act like it.”

Yormark says ACC commissioner Jim Phillips agrees with him as well and that he plans to publicly join him in the argument during ACC media days next week in Charlotte.

Meanwhile, back here in Atlanta, the CFP’s future format and the SEC’s future conference football schedule lingers over this four-day event as it has for years now.

It seems again the SEC holds the proverbial cards on the future of the CFP. Sankey gestures towards Yormark’s comments last week on “doubling down.”

“That’s part of the gambling the experience,” he said. “You always want to have a good hand to play. I think we have the best hand.”

Marc Kendrick is here, a new softball assistant coach at Montana, because after three seasons working at Tennessee Tech, the lure of moving to and coaching in a true college town was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
 
That’s the trouble with coaching in Cookeville, with the Volunteers 100 miles to the east, the Commodores 80 miles to the west. The shadows loom large from both directions.
 
“We’re the only thing in town, but since it’s Tennessee, people are either a University of Tennessee fan or a Vanderbilt fan,” Kendrick said. “We never had that true atmosphere. That’s something I’m excited about, being where there is only one team that matters, where the expectation is to win.
 
“Stef said, once you get out here and visit, you’ll understand. When I got out there, I was like, okay, I understand.”
 
He’s also here because of head coach Stef Ewing, who has a reputation as a program builder, who told Kendrick during the interview process: The defense? It would be yours, all yours. Make us great.
 
“I’m a defense-oriented person. Stef giving me the reins of the defense, that’s my strong suit. Let me go at it,” he said. “I’m constantly thinking, how do I defend this or how do I defend that? I’m always looking for that little edge.”
 
He’s been in this position before as an assistant coach, Tennessee Tech going 6-44 in his first season with the program in 2023, nearly mirroring Montana’s record of 8-42 this past spring.
 
The Golden Eagles bettered their record to 23-24 in Kendrick’s second year at the school, making Tennessee Tech the nation’s most-improved program in 2024, going in the right direction by 18.5 additional wins, topping D1Softball.com’s list of “Quick-Change Artists.”
 
“I know a little bit about Stef’s history, how she took (Cal State) San Marcos, which wasn’t very good, and got them to the World Series and winning 40 games in a season,” he said. “I know her track record is to take programs and turn them around in a short period of time.
 
“Overall, the environment, the vibe, the way Stef and (pitching coach Megan Casper) and I got together, it was, how do I not say yes to this?”
 
He’s here, in the world of softball, this coach who was once a baseball-loving kid in Southern California, who dreamed of one day breaking Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive-games-played record, who played at Long Beach Polytechnic High, who spent weekends at his grandma’s side, going to Angels games before settling into a 9-to-5 job in Orange County, because how could he say no to family?
 
“I got talked into it by my cousin, who asked me to come out and help coach softball. Um, no,” he told her. But it was his god-daughter’s team, she told him. You’re really going to say no to that face? “She pulled that card on me.”
 
That led to a rec championship, which led to a high school job – wait, I can get paid for this? – which led to getting his foot in the door of travel ball, with Batbusters. “Okay, this is something I’m passionate about and love doing. At first it was something I did, then it was God saying, go be a coach.”
 
If the brass ring was the college game, he knew he needed to go back to school and get his degree to become marketable, an AA coming from Santiago Canyon College in 2018, a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Cal State Fullerton in 2020, a master’s degree from Cal Baptist in 2022, where he was a graduate assistant for the softball team.
 
Was it too much to pack into a single day, all he was trying to do? Not for this son of the military, born in San Diego, then coming of age in Long Beach, then San Pedro, the Navy keeping the family moving but never out of Southern California.
 
“I didn’t move around a lot, but I definitely have those military aspects in my blood, if you will, that mentality of how to go about things a certain way,” he said.
 
All that time in and around softball in Southern California, and he never did cross paths with Ewing, who was at San Marcos from 2019 to ’24.
 
“We were probably three levels of separation,” Ewing says. “When I saw the people on his list of references, I said, I know all these people. It was hard for me to believe we’d never met.”
 
She read through his resume, his list of references, then started reading through his letters of recommendation, starting with the usual voices, the coaches with whom he’d worked, then getting into the unusual, written testaments from former players.
 
“It was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen from an assistant coach, these letters from previous players stating why they liked him so much, not just letters from professionals,” Ewing said.
 
Done as a GA at Cal Baptist, he got on with first-year coach Danielle Penner at Tennessee Tech prior to the 2023 season, rode out the 6-44 first year before being part of the nation’s best turnaround in 2024, doing the less-visible work of solidifying the team’s defense, all aspects of the sport right in his wheelhouse.
 
“You can tell when someone has the softball sickness if it’s all they talk about,” Ewing said. “He has it. It’s exciting for me to bring someone in to bounce ideas off of, not hire a yes-man. I want him to push me as a head coach and bring me his ideas.
 
“Let’s brainstorm, let’s get to the drawing board. Let’s figure out what’s best for the team, how we are going to make it better. He was looking for that in his next role, to have his voice heard and to be able to bring ideas.”
 
Was he ever. “The fact she’s very open-minded, okay, let’s figure this out, I love that,” Kendrick said. “One day when I’m a head coach, that’s how I want to be. I want to have a bunch of coaches around me who go back and forth and figure out the best way. That’s something that drew me to Stef.”
 
Kendrick replaces Tyler Jeske on Ewing’s staff, Jeske departing his position at season’s end, right when Kendrick was beginning his own search in earnest. He never would have guessed Montana but he’ll be in Missoula next month, coaching his new team shortly after the fall semester commences.
 
“When Stef brought me up for my interview, with everything the University of Montana has to offer, it was, how do I not say yes to this offer?” Kendrick said.
 
Ewing will move to the offensive side of the ball full-time come the fall, with Kendrick taking over a defense that ranked 232nd nationally last season with a fielding percentage of .952. Casper will have an improved pitching staff to work with, and Makena Strong goes from player to graduate assistant coach.
 
“On the field, he’ll be another source of energy for us,” said Ewing of Kendrick. “With Makena, all of a sudden we’re four people strong and will be able to do a lot more at practices.
 
“I loved a lot of the things he had to say. He’s a worker. He can throw batting practice, he loves to do camps, he comes from a military family, so he’s on top of things and very organized. He checks a lot of boxes. I think he’s going to bring a lot to the program.”
 
And he opens up a new recruiting area, with Montana looking to expand its reach beyond the West. “More and more young women reach out to us from the Midwest, Texas, the South,” says Ewing. “He brings knowledge of a different region of the country. It allows us to cast a wider net.
 
“He’s passionate about recruiting, which will be huge for us. That’s the name of the game. It doesn’t matter how good of a coach you are if you can’t find good kids.” Or good assistant coaches.