Just one year ago, Colorado was one of college football’s most talked-about success stories. 

The Buffaloes finished 9–4 in 2024, riding national attention, high-profile transfers, and head coach Deion Sanders’ star power into bowl relevance and Big 12 respectability. 

As a result, expectations entering 2025 were significantly higher, with the belief that continuity and experience would push the program forward.

Instead, the season collapsed: Colorado stumbled to a 3–9 record, managing just one conference win and struggling on both sides of the ball.

The Buffaloes routinely found themselves outmatched, and the optimism that defined the previous year slowly gave way to frustration as the team lost its final five games, including back-to-back conference losses to Utah and Arizona, both of which saw Colorado allow 50-plus points.

Adding insult to injury, former blue-chip recruit Kam Mikell announced his decision to enter the transfer portal on Wednesday, becoming the 34th Colorado player to leave the program since the end of the season.

A highly regarded, four-star recruit (No. 2 ATH in the 2024 class by 247Sports) when he arrived, Mikell was initially viewed as an offensive chess piece capable of contributing at wide receiver or in the backfield.

In 2025, Mikell’s role shifted primarily to the run game as Colorado searched for offensive answers, appearing in 10 games and totaling 75 rushing yards on 19 carries (3.9 yards per carry), along with two receptions for 5 yards.

Despite his athletic upside, a defined role never materialized, ultimately leading him to pursue another opportunity elsewhere.

More concerning, however, is that his exit reflects a broader exodus that has rapidly reshaped the roster.

More than 30 scholarship players have entered the portal, highlighted by leading receiver Omarion Miller (808 yards, eight touchdowns on 45 receptions) and leading tackler Tawfiq Byard (79 total tackles), along with several linemen and depth contributors.

The volume of departures is among the highest in the country this cycle.

This level of churn is not entirely new under Sanders, who, since arriving at Colorado in 2023, has aggressively leveraged the transfer portal to rapidly overhaul the roster with experienced college players and high-profile recruits.

To his credit, those exits have been paired with incoming talent, as Colorado has already added 22 transfers, including Texas linebacker Liona Lefau, Missouri offensive tackle Jayven Richardson, and Notre Dame cornerback Cree Thomas.

Still, the scale of departures following a losing season is far from ideal.

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UCLA has landed a transfer who could hasten Bob Chesney’s rebuilding efforts.

Wayne Knight verbally committed to following Chesney from James Madison to Westwood on Wednesday, giving the new Bruins coach a high-quality running back to pair with quarterback Nico Iamaleava.

Showing what he could do on a national stage last month, Knight ran for 110 yards in 17 carries against Oregon in the College Football Playoff. It was the fifth 100-yard rushing game of the season for Knight on the way to being selected a first team All-Sun Belt Conference player.

Combining excellent speed with the toughness needed to break tackles, the 5-foot-6, 189-pound Knight led the conference with 1,357 rushing yards. He also made 40 catches for 397 yards and averaged 22.3 yards on kickoff returns and 9.5 yards on punt returns. His 2,039 all-purpose yards were a school record, helping him become an Associated Press second team All-American all-purpose player after ranking third nationally with 145.6 all-purpose yards per game.

Knight, who will be a redshirt senior next season in his final year of college eligibility, becomes the seventh player from James Madison to accompany Chesney to UCLA, joining wide receiver Landon Ellis, defensive back DJ Barksdale, tight end Josh Phifer, edge rusher Aiden Gobaira, right guard Riley Robell and offensive lineman JD Rayner.

UCLA also has received verbal commitments from Michigan wide receiver Semaj Morgan, Florida wide receiver Aidan Mizell, San Jose State wide receiver Leland Smith, Iowa State running back Dylan Lee, Boise State offensive tackle Hall Schmidt, Virginia Tech defensive back Dante Lovett, Iowa State defensive back Ta’Shawn James and California edge rusher Ryan McCulloch.

But no incoming player can match the production of Knight, whose highlights included a career-high 211 rushing yards — including a 73-yard touchdown — against Troy in the Sun Belt championship game, earning him most valuable player honors for the Dukes’ 31-14 victory.

Knight will join a group of running backs that includes senior Jaivian Thomas (294 yards rushing and one touchdown in 2025), redshirt senior Anthony Woods (294 yards rushing in 2025) and redshirt freshman Karson Cox (nine yards in two carries during his only appearance as a true freshman).

With Knight on board, the Bruins presumably have their starting running back in Year 1 under their new coach.

Former Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby took over the title as college football’s most-expensive player after reportedly inking a $5 million agreement with Texas Tech, according to On3’s Pete Nakos. Sorsby formally committed to the Red Raiders on Sunday night over heavy interest from LSU and new head coach Lane Kiffin.

According to Nakos, Sorsby’s deal with free-spending Texas Tech will make him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in college football in 2026 after former Georgia QB Carson Beck signed a $3-3.5 million deal with Miami last offseason that could reach $5-6 million with incentives. Duke quarterback Darian Mensah earned $4 million this past season after transferring from Tulane.

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But before the oil money-backed Red Raiders raised the financial bar, LSU and Kiffin reportedly offered Sorsby a financial package much more in line with the Mensah deal last year, proposing a $3.5 million offer, according to documents obtained by Yahoo! Sports insider Ross Dellenger. LSU’s Sorsby offer included a third-party NIL marketing deal through the Tigers’ multi-media rights partner, Playfly Sports Properties, that would be exempt from counting against the school’s revenue-sharing cap, per Dellenger.

The 11-page NIL contract between Playfly and Sorsby, obtained by Dellenger, was never signed and is purely a proposed service agreement. Though it does provide an interesting look at how schools are utilizing outside NIL agreements to develop a compensation package without exceeding college football’s $20.5 million salary cap that stems from the House vs. NCAA settlement in June.

Dellenger also points out that the proposed contract would be, in theory, only a portion of Sorsby’s total compensation. The NIL deal even includes certain language suggesting LSU also planned to compensate Sorsby through direct revenue-share payments from the school, likely in the range of at least $1 million for a total figure that would be competitive with Texas Tech‘s $5 million package, per Dellenger.

The $3.5 million NIL deal is a marketing guarantee created by Playfly through NILSU MAX, an independent, self-sustaining collective formed in conjunction with LSU athletics and Playfly to “identify and secure NIL opportunities for Tiger student athletes,” according to the university’s website.

As Dellenger points out, the Sorsby contract obtained by Yahoo! Sports “shines a light on the method in which universities — not just LSU — are assembling financial packages for some athletes: with a portion of direct university revenue-share payments, plus a portion of NIL third-party guarantees that have been promised yet not cleared.”

How big did ESPN crash with its unfettered bias in promoting the SEC for postseason play?

Well, it’s hovering around a face plant.

The network’s favorite horses for college football’s greatest prize have mostly faltered.

Only one SEC team is left in the playoffs.

And what this all means is the SEC has been caught by the rest of college football. It is no longer, in a competitive sense, light years or even a bright blinking stop light, ahead of the rest of the Power Four conferences.

If the ACC’s Miami beats the SEC’s Mississippi Thursday night, ESPN and the CFP committee greasing of the SEC pathway was felonious piracy of playoff money.

When the SEC loses one of its biggest foghorns in Paul Finebaum, you know that storied, propped-up league is in the doldrums and exposed in the era of NIL, where everybody else can pay their players.

Finebaum, a longtime Alabama radio host and national TV personality, went on ESPN’s “First Take” on Tuesday and admitted, even he, voted by Awful Announcing.com as the most biased personality in college football, could not defend the SEC this season and its limitless hypothetical victories.

The CFP committee gave the SEC five of the 12 playoff berths. The SEC is 2-7 in bowl games this postseason.

No. 9 Alabama, gifted a berth after almost losing to two-win (SEC) Auburn got annihilated by No. 1 seed Indiana. No. 8 Oklahoma, No. 7 Texas A&M, No. 3 Georgia have all been eliminated. Only No. 6 Mississippi remains and plays No. 10 Miami Thursday night.

Here’s Finebaum’s admission.

“There’s no way to defend the SEC,” Finebaum told “First Take” with Stephen A Smith. “It’s been terrible.”

“I kept wrapping my arms around Alabama and saying, ‘Stephen A. remember what they did, they went through that gauntlet in the middle of the year,” said Finebaum.

“Well, a lot of those teams they beat really weren’t very good after all. They lost in bowl games, and they looked terrible. So it’s a rough year for the SEC. Ole Miss is it, regardless of the Lane Kiffin story, which I know we’re going to talk about. But if Ole Miss loses Thursday night and I’m sitting around having to defend this league to you, Stephen A. saying ‘No big deal that it’s three years without an SEC team in the national championship game’ there’s no defense. It’s been rough,” Finebaum admitted.

Writing for ESPN, longtime college football pundit Dan Wetzel put it this way:

“It’s not that the SEC isn’t still “good” or even capable of winning a national championship — Ole Miss might very well do it. Top to bottom, it might still be the best league, with the majority of schools all-in on football.

“That said, the days of complete domination, all-SEC national title games or deep, juggernaut teams are clearly gone, perhaps forever. This isn’t the same.”

What’s happened is both good and bad.

Good because college football television viewership is skyrocketing. It’s never been so popular to follow, watch and get involved in what’s going on between the sidelines.

It’s bad because of all the chaos, movement, gaudy money numbers and purchase of talent.

For the SEC, revenue sharing, NIL and the transfer portal has spread around talent to other programs and hurt the depth of their own teams.

Alabama used to be the king of talent. So was Georgia.

Now we’re seeing those storied programs get pushed around, ran past and chased down and tackled.

Illinois coach Bret Bielema told ESPN this week, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in coaching because you know you’re on a more equal playing field. The introduction of the portal, NIL, and revenue sharing is the most game-changing development in my 32 years of coaching.

“It’s hard when you would do what you have to do as long as you possibly could and in the end, sometimes it just didn’t matter,” Bielema explained about recruiting back when he was at Arkansas and Wisconsin.

“Now you just come to work every day knowing that blue blood, red blood, orange blood, whatever, everybody’s got a chance, man.”

Before Texas Tech’s tires blew out against Oregon, we saw the Red Raiders purchase themselves a Big 12 championship and berth in the CFP.

We’ve seen Indiana, check that, Indiana, become the nation’s darling and No. 1 team in the country and favorite to win it all.

Ohio State is home. Oklahoma is home. Texas is watching from home with Georgia and Alabama and Penn State.

The door is open.

Yes, it’s all kind of a mess.

But recent chaos has become the game’s equalizer.

It has also exposed the raw brand worship and advancement of SEC teams by the media, especially ESPN, the owner of CFP television rights for all the games.

ESPN’s interest? Is it really determining a fair field? Or advancing its ratings by picking brands for increased revenue?

The fact the SEC gets an unfair advantage in preseason polls, then rides that with questionable scheduling and far too much credit for intra-conference wins, has been exposed.

It is a mess that’s taken the SEC off its high saddle ride and made the rest of the cowboys eligible to enjoy the roundup rodeo.

ATLANTA — Ahead of the College Football Playoff semifinal matchup between No. 5 Oregon football and No. 1 Indiana, the sometimes prickly and often witty and snappy personalities of head coaches Dan Lanning and Curt Cignetti shined Jan 8 at the College Football Hall of Fame down the road from Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The coaches traded barbs about friendly competitions throughout the week, like signing footballs before the press conference, and discussed the transfer portal, affairs surrounding collegiate athletics and the upcoming Peach Bowl Jan. 9 in Atlanta.

The college football transfer portal opened on Jan. 2, and things have already gone wild.

In fact, on the very first day of the transfer portal being open, over 4,500 Division I football players entered their names. This portal window will close by Jan. 16, so we’re not yet halfway home. 

There have absolutely been winners and losers, though. Let’s start with the winners and go from there. 

Winners so far in the college football transfer portal

Indiana Hoosiers

There’s a trend happening in college football among the programs that have seemingly figured out the NIL and transfer portal era: bringing in established quarterbacks for a one-year run. 

That’s what the Indiana Hoosiers did with Fernando Mendoza, and now they’re doing the same thing with TCU transfer quarterback Josh Hoover, who threw for 3,472 yards and 29 touchdowns compared to 13 interceptions this season.

Michigan State’s top wide receiver, Nick Marsh, also transferred to Indiana, as did Turbo Richard, who was Boston College’s leading rusher this past season. 

Curt Cignetti may be building a powerhouse for years to come.

Texas Tech Red Raiders

The Texas Tech Red Raiders are another college program that has embraced the NIL and transfer portal era, and they’re building yet another transfer class that could be considered among the best in the nation. 

The top quarterback target this cycle was Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby, and the Red Raiders threw the bag at him to bring him in via the portal. 

Sorsby threw for 2,800 yards and 27 touchdowns compared to five interceptions this past season for the Bearcats. The Red Raiders are hoping he can be the quarterback that puts them over the top.

Penn State Nittany Lions

The Penn State Nittany Lions have a new head coach in Matt Campbell, and it’s no surprise that the former Iowa State Cyclones head coach is bringing a ton of his old players with him to Happy Valley.

In fact, Penn State has already landed 23 players in the portal, 20 of whom have come from Iowa State.

That includes quarterback Rocco Becht, who threw for 2,584 yards and 16 touchdowns compared to nine interceptions. 

Losers so far in the college football transfer portal

Iowa State Cyclones

If Penn State is a winner in the portal because the Nittany Lions poached a ton of players from Iowa State, then it stands to reason that the Cyclones are one of the losers worth mentioning

Again, 20 players followed Campbell out the door, but in all, new Iowa State head coach Jimmy Rogers is going to have to replace 50-plus players (and perhaps counting) who have bolted into the transfer portal.

North Texas Mean Green

The North Texas Mean Green finished 12-2 this season and played in the American Conference title game.  

It was a banner year for North Texas, but the new reality for Group of Five schools is that good years will lead to a ton of poaching.

Head coach Eric Morris was tabbed as Mike Gundy’s replacement at Oklahoma State. Following him were star quarterback Drew Mestemaker, star running back Caleb Hawkins and star wide receiver Wyatt Young.

Mestemaker led college football with 4,379 passing yards this season, and he was tied for second place with 34 passing touchdowns. Hawkins rushed 231 times for 1,434 yards and 25 touchdowns. Young caught 70 passes for 1,264 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Losing those three players, in particular, will cripple North Texas in 2026.

Auburn Tigers

The Auburn Tigers have had a tough go of things, even after hiring Alex Golesh from USF to be the new head coach.

Many felt that freshman quarterback and former five-star Deuce Knight was the future of the program, but he entered the transfer portal and is now one of the top quarterbacks available.

The Tigers also lost sophomore wide receiver Cam Coleman to Texas, who caught 56 passes for 708 yards and five touchdowns this season.