In a recent assessment by CBS Sports college football experts, five SEC football teams were mostly rated as ‘sell’ rather than ‘buy’.

Shehan Jeyarajah and Tom Fornelli provided recommendations for Texas, LSU, Florida, Oklahoma, and Auburn. Along with Texas Tech, Miami, Clemson, Penn State, and Illinois, the teams were described as 10 “of the most talked-about programs of the offseason.”

Let’s start with the Auburn Tigers. Hugh Freeze’s Tigers were rated as ‘sell’ by both experts. Fornelli’s take on Auburn was, “I’m not even sure why we’re including Auburn in this story. The Tigers have gone 22-28 in the last four seasons, including 10-21 in SEC play. What’s changed this offseason that is supposed to convince me they’ll improve enough to make up the gigantic gap that exists between them and the top of the SEC?” Jayatajeh gave a slam to Freeze and his staff, “I have very little faith in this staff to get the best out of anyone.”

Any Auburn fans who have wandered into the gloomy takes on the Tigers should not use the CBS and Big Ten affiliation to discredit the assessments. ESPN’s FPI projects the Tigers will likely win more than six games, but it gives the Tigers only a 1.8% chance of becoming SEC champions.

Don’t bank on three SEC football teams

Like Auburn, the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators received two sell recommendations. The LSU Bengal Tigers received a buy and a sell. Fornelli’s sell came with “I’m willing to buy the quarterback but not the team …I’m not a fan of is this team’s defense or its schedule.”

Oddly, the Texas Longhorns received two sells and a buy. Fornelli called it both ways for Texas. He said the Longhorns would not just be good, but “very good.” He added that Texas, like other National Championship contenders, has question marks. Fornelli added that Steve Sarkisian “remains one of the best offensive minds in the sport.” Alabama football fans have not forgotten the beauty of the Crimson Tide’s 2020 National Championship offense, and most will easily agree with Fornelli’s praise of Sark.

Last week, the matchups were released for the 2025-26 ACC/SEC Challenge for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. It’ll be the third year of the series, and the Hokies men will once again get a matchup on the road.

After visiting Auburn in 2023-24, Mike Young’s team hosted Vanderbilt this past season and former teammates Tyler Nickel and MJ Collins. The Hokies are 0-2 through the first two editions of the challenge, and once again, they’ll hit the road next season, heading to South Carolina for a matchup with the Gamecocks for the third year in a row.

South Carolina beat Virginia Tech two years ago in Charlotte, then beat the Hokies in the semifinals of the Fort Myers Tip-Off last November. Now they’ll play in December, and one college basketball writer slammed the matchup.

College basketball writer slams Virginia Tech/South Carolina ACC/SEC Challenge matchup

David Cobb of CBS Sports ranked all 16 matchups, and he slammed dunked on the Hokies/Gamecocks matchup by ranking the 16th-worst game of this upcoming season’s series. There are only 16 games in the challenge.

“Assuming that 6-7 Greek wing Neoklis Avdalas withdraws from the NBA Draft and attends Virginia Tech, the Hokies could be on the upswing following a 13-19 season. Virginia Tech also has four players back who started 17 or more games last season. South Carolina is heavy on transfers again and will need double-boomerang guard Meechie Johnson, Jr. to shoulder a heavy load.” Pick: Virginia Tech

At the time Cobb wrote the article, Neoklis Avdalas was still in the NBA Draft process. However, on Sunday, it was reported that he would withdraw, and if true to his word, he’ll come to Virginia Tech for next season. That would be a huge addition to a team that certainly will be on an upward trend after finishing six games under .500 last season.

Look, is this a matchup that’s going to bring a lot of eyeballs to the TV? No, and the game will likely be buried on the SEC Network with the game being in Columbia, but to say that LSU at Boston College or Georgia at Florida State brings more juice than Virginia Tech at South Carolina is certainly a take. Regardless, this must be a Hokies win if they are looking to take a giant step forward next season.

What Happens at the Bargaining Table?

This is Part II of a two-part series on collective bargaining in college athletics. Read Part I here.

Players’ unions and athletic administrators can first negotiate a wage “floor” with minimum pay scales providing basic income for all athletes. They might also add a bonus plan for teams that win conference championships or post-season competitions. They can agree on year-to-year longevity increases to blunt the chaotic transfer portal and create more attachment by athletes to their schools and their fellow students. At the same time, they can mimic professional sports by allowing individual star athletes to negotiate for name, image, and likeness compensation over and above salary scales in the basic union contract. They can also create a union role to ensure due process and other safeguards for players’ NIL pay arrangements.

Salary scales, pay progression and NIL deals are big subjects, but they are just starters. Other classic bargaining issues would also be on the table. They include hours of work, given the time demands on athletes; health and safety, especially in hard-contact sports with long-term health implications; medical insurance, not only while playing but also when former players live with permanent injuries; compensation and treatment of temporarily injured players; and more.

Non-discrimination is also a bedrock bargaining subject. Unions and universities would be negotiating in light of Title IX, Title VII, and state-level anti-discrimination laws, but also in light of moves by the federal and some state governments to undermine these protections. They could simply incorporate legal requirements into their collective bargaining agreement and sort things out through arbitrations and lawsuits. But we hope that players’ unions would seek contractual provisions to uphold equality between men’s and women’s teams and men and women players.

Institutional interests on each side are also important subjects of bargaining. Athletic directors will certainly insist on traditional decision-making powers such as who makes the team and who gets cut, who starts and who subs, who plays which positions, the game plan and play calling, and so on. Management will doubtless seek no-strike guarantees while the contract is in effect, and players would likely agree – they are athletes who want to play, after all – typically combined with binding arbitration for unresolved grievances.

For their part, unions will seek rights and protections for players elected to union leadership positions to carry out their union functions, and union representatives’ access to facilities to meet with players. Also important are union security clauses providing for dues payments from union members and agency fee payments from players who choose not to be members (under U.S. law, no one can be forced to join a union, but to address the “free-rider” problem, a collective bargaining agreement in the private sector can require agency fees from represented non-members). 

Further complications arise involving distinctions between private and public universities, sometimes in the same athletic conference, and whether they are located in “agency shop” states that allow mandatory agency fee payments by non-union members or in “right-to-work” states that prohibit agency fee clauses. Also relevant is the Supreme Court’s Janusdecision, which allows individual public employees in any state to opt out of agency fee obligations. These intricacies are too plentiful to address further here, but they are not insuperable problems. Unions and universities have long dealt with them for their already established campus bargaining units for blue collar workers, clerical and technical workers, graduate student workers, and others. 

Continuity will be an important institutional challenge on the union side, as athletes come and go over time spans as short as a basketball player’s “one and done” year and up to six years with under extended eligibility rules. Unions should work to include freshmen and sophomores in leadership and in bargaining, who can pass the baton later. Full-time external union representatives, as with staffers of professional sports unions, can stay with the union for sustained periods to provide stability and institutional knowledge.

The Ivy League might be the best test for collective bargaining. All are private sector entities subject to NLRA and NLRB jurisdiction and located in Northeast states that do not block agency fee contract clauses. Their athletic departments are similar in size and budgets, and they compete on a level playing field across multiple sports. Moreover, collective dialogue already happens in Ivy sports. Late last year, athletic directors and administrations accepted a proposal from the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, made up of 17 athletes in 12 sports from all 8 institutions, to allow their league football winner to play in the post-season FCS championship. The agreement ended a 70-year prohibition on post-season football play.

A league-wide basic bargaining agreement could protect competitive balance, while coaches and players at individual schools might set other priorities in supplemental agreements. And agreements can let the occasional Ivy League superstar – more likely in gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse or wrestling than in football or basketball – negotiate individually for NIL compensation.

We think university administrations should get ahead of the curve and embrace collective bargaining as the right framework for college sports. They could voluntarily recognize unions where players show majority support, or forego anti-union campaigning and let an NLRB election decide majority status. This way, they can avoid reliving the years of turmoil that accompanied resistance to union organizing among now established and accepted campus bargaining groups. They can also avoid being put on a yo-yo by alternating Democratic and Republican majorities at the National Labor Relations Board and their shifting decisions on employment status and coverage under the NLRA. And as noted at the outset, universities can avoid the potentially devastating consequences of ongoing and future antitrust lawsuits, since collective bargaining gives them their long-sought exemption from antitrust law.

Some points in closing. First, we know our argument can be seen as just a pie-in-the-sky thought experiment, subject to pooh-poohing by hard-headed realists who can always say “what about this?” and “what about that?” We don’t pretend to have all the answers. Nor should we – it’s for the athletes and administrators and coaches to find their answers. We would only note that there was a historical point in every workplace and industry when unions and collective bargaining were seen as pie-in-the-sky, never-gonna-happen fantasies. And then they happened.

Second, we know it is asking a lot of university administrations and athletic department managers to move to a collective bargaining system. For many of them accustomed to controlling players in an unequal power relationship, it will take a profound philosophical shift to sit across a bargaining table from players as equals. But this is the history of labor relations in professional sports. The parties have learned to work together, the value of franchises has multiplied exponentially, and owners, managers, and coaches still make key operational decisions. Neither side gets everything it wants, but the compromise resulting from good-faith bargaining is a better outcome than either side getting everything it wants. 

Finally, we believe in an even deeper justification for the collective bargaining solution: it’s a fundamental human right. All workers are entitled to a say in the terms and conditions of their work. College athletes, too, are entitled to a genuine voice at work, found in the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing under U.S. law and international human rights standards.

U of L finally gets to be part of the festivities again for the first time since 2019.

OMAHA, NE. — Standing inside Rocco’s Pizza & Cantina, where foil seals from thousands of Jell-O shots adorn the concrete floor like stickers, feels a bit strange. Almost surreal. 

OMAHA, NE ― Don’t tell the teams in the 2025 College World Series that paying transfer portal prospects top dollar in NIL money is necessary to be here.