Nearly everything that head college football coaches do comes with purpose. Whether it is the lack of answering a question (with a ramble that flips to different subjects), a rant on NIL representatives or even the most mundane things like a weekly schedule, it is calculated.

That is why paying attention to what coaches say, and how it can be interpreted, is worth looking into and understanding, especially in this volatile transfer portal climate.

So when West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez opined about the Mountaineers’ depth in the secondary and their need to add more players when the spring transfer portal window opens, there are varied ways to view it.

The settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA and its most powerful conferences this year was supposed to cap the amount of money schools could pay athletes and establish stricter guidelines for name, image and likeness payments.

But the introduction of direct revenue sharing with athletes and new reporting requirements hasn’t stopped increased spending, according to coaches, athletics directors and general managers. Even President Donald Trump noted the high price for college talent recently in the Oval Office, and it’s not clear that anyone — in the pursuit of championships and on-field glory — can help themselves.

“Loopholes have won the day,” NC State football coach Dave Doeren said Wednesday. 

The result is a continuing financial race across college athletics, especially football and men’s basketball, with seemingly no end to increasing costs at a time when the NCAA has abandoned or been forced to abandon its amateurism rules under a barrage of legal challenges and moves toward a professional model. Programs and conferences are working with private equity and trying to find new revenue streams amid the financial challenges. 

Meanwhile, athletes are in their fifth year of being able to profit from their names, images and likenesses (NIL). And looser transfer rules implemented at the same time have enabled the movement of athletes akin to free agency in professional sports.

“Let’s make no doubt about it: We’re in a professional era,” University of North Carolina football general manager Michael Lombardi told reporters during a press conference this month.

The settlement in House v. NCAA — named for lead plaintiff Grant House, a former Arizona State swimmer — led to direct revenue-sharing between schools and athletes. And it came with a cap: $20.5 million per school to be divided as they see fit among programs and athletes. 

The number equaled 22% of average athletic revenue across teams in the four biggest, most powerful conferences and brought total spending on athletes to roughly 50% of revenues, including scholarships, travel, food and other expenses.

House and other athletes sued college sports’ governing body and the NCAA’s major conferences — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC. The athletes argued that they deserved damages for not being allowed to monetize their NIL as the NCAA has allowed since 2021. They also wanted future broadcast revenue to be classified as NIL, opening the door to potential revenue sharing. The major conferences and the NCAA make the majority of their revenue through selling broadcast rights for football and men’s basketball. After several years, the dispute wound up with a proposed settlement.

The NCAA and member schools have pushed for federal legislation to allow them to codify some of the settlement and thwart some legal challenges, but that effort hasn’t produced a bill able to pass either chamber.

NIL spending

In addition to revenue sharing, the settlement allowed for outside compensation for the use of athletes’ names, images or likeness, but any deal above $600 would have to go through a new system, called NIL Go, designed to weed out abuses through the new College Sports Commission.

More than 12,000 deals for a total value of $87.5 million have been cleared by NIL Go as of Nov. 1, according to the College Sports Commission. Almost 400 deals worth $10 million haven’t been cleared since the launch of NIL Go on June 11. In October, more than 3,300 deals were cleared worth about $25 million – an average of $7,418 per deal.

The College Sports Commission initially said that NIL collectives — groups created to raise money to pay players for individual schools — wouldn’t meet the group’s “valid business purpose” criteria, a move designed to stop pay-to-play payments masquerading as contracts requiring nominal work or appearances. Within weeks, the commission reversed course, meaning NIL could continue to function as it has in addition to the new revenue sharing.

Collectives rushed to beat the implementation of the coming revenue-sharing cap by frontloading deals for athletes for the 2025-26 academic year so they wouldn’t count against that figure.

Texas Tech, which will play in this season’s College Football Playoff, is the most public example with billionaire boosters helping spend more than $28 million on its roster, including $7 million on its defensive line. Virginia, which reached the ACC title game, got at least $20 million from an anonymous donor to upgrade its football roster. 

“You get what you pay for sometimes – most of the time,” said Doeren, who is completing his 13th season at NC State and is among the longest tenured coaches in major college football. “So that’s what people are doing to rebuild. Some of the schools have more than others. I don’t understand how we can say there’s a cap though, if there’s not.”

UNC paid $4 million over two years for quarterback Gio Lopez, a transfer from South Alabama, ESPN reported. Duke reportedly paid $8 million over two years for quarterback Darian Mensah, a transfer from Tulane who was the top passer in the ACC for Duke, which won its first outright ACC title since 1962. NC State quarterback CJ Bailey will likely have lucrative offers this offseason from teams in need.

Trump said NIL “is a disaster for sports.”

“You can’t pay a quarterback $14 million to come out of high school,” Trump said. “They don’t even know if he’s going to be a very good player. Colleges cannot afford to pay the kind of salaries you’re hearing out there.”

Salaries, particularly for high school players, haven’t reached that amount yet. But Trump suggested that colleges won’t be able to stop.

“They’re going to get wiped out, including ones that do well in football,” he said.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest schools won’t stop. LSU reportedly guaranteed new coach Lane Kiffin $25 million annually for his roster. Other schools, too, have promised their coaches millions for talent acquisition and retention, above and beyond the revenue-sharing cap.

“Tell me the numbers and the plan for what the money is for the players because that’s everything in that area to me,” Kiffin said at his introductory press conference, claiming he was unaware of his $13-million a year salary. “Not what I make, what they make, to understand how you can build this.”

Arms race

Officials from across the country are paying attention to reports of millions for rosters — and trying to square that with the new rules.

“The numbers you’re hearing and the numbers we know that are out there don’t compute with the cap number,” Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua said at a press conference last week. “I think we have to be honest and forthright with ourselves and have a set of rules that are realistic and reflect what’s happening, reflect major college football in 2025 and beyond.”

The revenue-sharing cap is $20.5 million, but the first $2.5 million of additional athletic scholarships across the department is supposed to count against the cap, something that could change moving forward. The cap goes up 4% annually.

North Carolina allocated $13 million to football, $7 million to men’s basketball, $250,000 to baseball and $250,000 to women’s basketball, roughly accounting for how the department generates its revenue. Bevacqua said some schools allocate up to $16 million of the cap to football.

“I think the cap’s too low, and I think if we keep operating under this rule of where the cap is, most major programs are going to have a heck of a time going backwards because you read the same news reports that I do,” Bevacqua said. “You read and know about the same roster numbers for NIL and compensation that I do. Instead of making pretend that doesn’t exist, let’s deal with it and come up with a set of rules that can be followed and then hold people’s feet to the fire.”

Before revenue sharing, programs were committing dollars that had been raised — or needed to be raised. Direct revenue sharing brought some certainty as to where the $20.5 million would come from. But the  “above the cap” spending comes from outside dollars.

NC State’s OnePack NIL Collective, a group that helps fund NIL payments for Wolfpack, raises money by selling membership packages to fans and supporters, who get access to a variety of perks including newsletters, gear, autograph sessions and personalized tours from athletes. 

North Carolina has adopted a corporate model, seeking to partner with companies to funnel more money toward its players. Sponsorship money that comes directly to the athletic department would count toward the revenue-sharing cap, Lombardi explained, while a corporate sponsorship deal with a player wouldn’t.

“Part of this job is still fundraising because the teams that you’re competing against – the Clemsons, the Florida States, the Virginias – they’re operating on a different level,” said Lombardi, who traveled to Saudi Arabia before the football season to meet with a potential donor for the UNC program. 

“Everybody has a different level of financial money and you’ve got to be able to be competitive within that environment. Texas, Texas A&M, the Southeastern Conference schools, everybody gets $20.5 million. How it gets divided up is different, but everybody else is out fundraising through corporate dollars, which will then be allowed to go to the players.”

New model

As of 2021, players, at last, could get money to sign autographs, appear in commercials or for the sale of their jerseys. The market, quickly and predictably, expanded into talent acquisition and retention. In 2025, it is an accepted part of recruiting for high school players and college transfers.

Lombardi said every freshman signing with schools is getting a revenue share contract and that each comes with an acquisition cost in a highly competitive environment. UNC brought in 38 freshmen as part of its 39-man early signing day class in December.

“You can argue the order, but what’s your academic curriculum and what’s your NIL situation are two questions that got to get answered,” Lombardi said. “Maybe the second one goes first.”

Lombardi said the Tar Heels under coach Bill Belichick, who won six Super Bowl titles in the NFL but is new to the college game, needed time to get up and running to compete against others who have had a plan for several years.

They’re not alone. Coaches, general managers and programs have to figure out what numbers are real and what they can do within their own budget.

The transfer portal, which Lombardi has equated to NFL free agency, opens Jan. 2, though many players have already announced their intent to transfer and schools, no doubt, have lined up deals with them.

“It’s a mess right now,” Doeren said. “You just got to do the best you can. I know, as a program — [athletics director] Boo [Corrigan] and I’ve met — we’re going to do everything we can to be as aggressive as we can in this space.”

Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday while honoring the “Miracle on Ice” 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team, President Donald Trump called NIL a “disaster” in college sports. He also further signaled his willingness to get involved.

Trump has been vocal about settling the landscape in college athletics. He signed an executive order earlier this year called “Save College Sports” to prohibit third-party, pay-for-play payments and directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify that athletes are amateurs and not employees.

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But as dollars continue to fly through NIL and revenue-sharing, Trump called for a “strong salary cap” and said colleges are putting themselves in tough financial shape as a result. He stressed the need for action and reiterated he’d step in, if necessary.

“You’re going to have these colleges wipe themselves out, and something ought to be done,” Trump said. “And I’m willing to put the federal government behind it. But if it’s not done fast, you’re going to wipe out colleges. They’re going to get wiped out, including ones that do well in football.

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“They can’t pay $12 million, $14 million, $10 million, $6 million for players. They won’t be able to stop. There’ll always be that one player, they only have that player, they’re going to win the national championship. And they’ll have 100 colleges thinking the same thing. Colleges cannot afford to play this game. It’s a very bad thing that’s happening.”

Donald Trump: Schools ‘putting too much money into football’

President Donald Trump’s assessment of college athletics centers around Olympics sports, which he has said multiple times are caught in the middle of the current landscape. He said Friday schools have been cutting those non-revenue sports, calling them “training grounds” for the Olympics. For example, UTEP dropped women’s tennis while Grand Canyon cut men’s volleyball ahead of the House settlement.

As things currently stand, Trump argued schools are starting to divert more dollars toward football. As a result, other sports could be impacted.

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“I think that it’s a disaster for college sports,” Trump said of NIL. “I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics. We’re losing a lot of teams. Colleges are cutting their, they would call them, sort of the lesser sports. They’re losing them at numbers nobody can believe. And they were really training grounds, beautiful training grounds. Hard-working, wonderful young people. They were training grounds for the Olympics, and a lot of these sports that were training so well would win gold medals because of it. Those sports don’t exist because they’re putting all that money into football.

“And, by the way, they’re putting too much money into football because colleges don’t make – even the most successful universities don’t make that much money. … I think the NIL is a disaster for sports. It’s horrible for the Olympics. I think it’s actually horrible for the players. And you’re losing all of these great sports. They’re not college football.”

At least in Utah, going to bowl games remains a very big deal.

The college football bowl season is undergoing an assault, with plenty of teams opting out of invitations to play in the postseason. The reasons vary, but the movement is tracking and threatening the bowl business.

But locally, the bowl train is heading down the track. The bowl thoughts are positive, and events remain as anticipated fun, a reward and an opportunity to shine.

It’s carnival time. Break out the travel plans.

Utah, BYU, and Utah State are locked in. It’s game time, show time, a rally point in December.

The 10-2 Utes can’t get enough of this season after the 2024 funk. The offense is rolling, Kyle Whittingham must be celebrated and this is his final game in Uteville.

For the Crimson faithful, this is a season that needs milking. Las Vegas is just a few Maverick and 7-Eleven stops away, and Dec. 31 is plenty of time to plan. Plus, Utah will kick Nebraska from Allegiant Stadium back to the corn fields.

In Logan, Bronco Mendenhall has the Aggies playing in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise Dec. 22. This is a celebration of Mendenhall’s remarkable, gutsy entry back into Utah and a team that made impressive strides.

How can players, coaches and fans not want to see their Aggies take on future Pac-12 opponent and 6-6 Washington State and give this season one more run?

In Provo, Kalani Sitake got his contract extended. This means more support for his assistants, continuity for returning players and a time to salute their “player’s coach.”

It’s also a chance to get 12 wins and shoulder that chip after the College Football Playoff snub. They see this as Alamo Bowl and Colorado Part 2.

The biggest opt-out is Notre Dame. Shunned by the CFP committee, the Fighting Irish made a very public statement by refusing to play BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando. It was a shot at ESPN, essentially telling the network “We’re not letting you make money (an estimated $50 million) off our brand when you snubbed our royal keisters.”

Big 12 brothers Iowa State (8-4) and Kansas State (7-5) are eligible for bowls, but declined. ISU lost head coach Matt Campbell to Penn State and players voted for health and safe practice reasons to decline. Similarly, K-State just had head coach Chris Klieman retire and uncertainty with staff, recruiting and health led the program to decline.

Both teams will be fined $500,000 for this decision.

Teams with 5-7 records were approached to go bowling, but many declined, including Baylor, UCF and Kansas.

That makes five Big 12 teams that turned away bowl invitations.

This places a cloud over the entire bowl industry when teams refuse to come and party in your cities, accept your gifts and use the event as a positive experience for the team and fans.

It’s a commentary more on the possible gloom settling around many teams in December because of the transfer portal, players bound for the NFL opting out and NIL money simply making the risk of injury or bad performance not worth it.

Players have their coin. They don’t need another PlayStation or Xbox.

NIL hasn’t caused a complete collapse (the delayed 2026 portal window helped stabilize many rosters), but it amplifies devaluation in the expanded CFP era.

Non-playoff bowls are increasingly seen as optional, with opt-outs rising from individual players to entire teams. If unchecked, this threatens the bowl system’s long-term viability, especially for mid-tier games.

In the future, we may see many NIL/revenue share deals that include contracts requiring bowl participation. Bowl organizers have discussed NIL incentives including direct payments to players to boost appeal, but most lower-tier bowls lack the budget to do that.

Critics argue NIL erodes tradition, turning bowls into “glorified scrimmages,” while supporters say it empowers players in a monetized sport.

Locally, Whittingham, Sitake and Mendenhall have all spoken in the past how important the extra practices for a bowl are for a team. They provide an extra period of time to develop players and foster competition.

Bowls also provide an event that many seniors deserve because some, if not most, will never play football again. It is also a chance to win another game and add to the momentum gained during the season as programs head into offseason workouts, the weight room and recruiting.

It would seem defections to the portal loom as a legitimate threat for many teams as they see their rosters depleted and their priority is loading up not with players directly out of high school but seasoned Division I athletes who have been through training programs and the next level and can step in and fill the gaps.

This, sadly, is the state of college football today. Bowl games, outside the CFP, are becoming endangered events.

Big 12 participating bowl teams (Texas Tech will play either Oregon or James Madison in the Orange Bowl on January 1 as part of the CFP):

Dec. 27 — Pop Tarts Bowl, BYU vs. Georgia Tech

Dec. 27 — Texas Bowl, Houston vs. LSU

Dec. 30 — Alamo Bowl, TCU vs. USC

Dec. 31 — Sun Bowl, Arizona State vs. Duke

Dec. 31 — Las Vegas Bowl, Utah vs. Nebraska

Jan. 2 — Holiday Bowl, Arizona vs. SMU

Jan. 2 — Liberty Bowl, Cincinnati vs. Navy

Nick Saban might be done patrolling a sideline, but he isn’t done challenging the sport he helped define.

Now an analyst on ESPN’s College GameDay, the seven-time national champion is pushing a simple, sweeping idea: college football needs a real boss. Not a committee, not a loose alliance of conferences—a single commissioner with authority over the entire sport, backed by a competition committee that can standardize how the game is run.

‘We don’t have that right now’

In Saban’s view, the mix of NIL money, constant transfers and conference realignment has pushed college football into a gray area where everyone has power and no one has control. He argues that without a centralized voice setting rules and expectations, the sport drifts.

Saban contrasted the current setup with an earlier era in which scholarship agreements spelled out academic standards, transfer expectations and long-term commitments between players and schools. Those guardrails, he believes, have been eroded to the point that the sport is flirting with chaos. If you’re not backing stronger structure, Saban suggested, you’re effectively siding with “a little bit of anarchy.”

The focus and money surrounding the College Football Playoff, in his mind, have only masked deeper structural problems.

Is Saban the obvious choice?

Saban isn’t alone in calling for a commissioner. Last year, James Franklin—then at Penn State and now at Virginia Tech—publicly argued for exactly that role and even floated Saban as the ideal candidate, saying college football needs someone who wakes up and goes to bed thinking only about what’s best for the sport.

Whether the job ever exists, and whether Saban would actually want it, remains an open question. But his message is blunt: college football is at a crossroads. For the former Alabama coach, the next era can’t just be about bigger TV deals and a larger playoff. It has to start with someone finally grabbing the wheel.