NIL

‘Why be jealous?’: In the NIL age, a new archetype for a college backfield

Published

4 months ago

September 4, 2025

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — By the end of the longest college football season in history, two pairs of running back teammates had crossed the quintessential position threshold of 1,000 yards gained in a single campaign. One of those duos left Columbus, Ohio, following a national championship to embark on NFL careers this fall. The other is here, on a sleepy Wednesday in late July, doing important but mundane things at the Lasch Football Building.

There is physical testing to establish mileposts before Penn State officially begins practice. There is a confab with their new position coach. There’s an audience with a visitor in a meeting room, which, like most everything else, the pair handles together and with a premium on syllables spoken.

Notably, there is no slate of appearances for various media outlets and league stakeholders inside a casino. The program has sent its starting quarterback, Drew Allar, along with a center and a safety to the day’s Big Ten media day carnival appearance in Las Vegas. This tracks: A defining dynamic of college football in 2025 is Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton being here, and not somewhere else.

And, here, they might have the most successful season a modern college running back can possibly have. They give Penn State’s own national championship talk its legs while having, most likely, no chance to win a Heisman Trophy. They might end up occupying the top two spots on their school’s all-time rushing chart while ending up without any official recognition as the best player at his position in college football this year. While the Nittany Lions will lean into formational creativity and dispatch Allen and Singleton to the field at the same time, to do different things, most of the time it’s one or the other and not both.

And that’s exactly the point. Lots of yards and fewer hits. Diversified skill sets and limited exposure. A year for the ages in college without sacrificing years when they’re aging in the pros. Juxtaposition at one position, on purpose.

Here sits the archetype for a college backfield, literally side-by-side. They can’t be in each other’s way if everything they want is in front of them.

“He pushes me, and I push him,” Allen says. “That’s all that matters, for real.”

An acknowledgement: Elite tandems at the running back position are nothing new.

College football’s history is rooted in mythological backfields of old — Notre Dame’s Four Horsemen, Army’s Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside — and contemporary examples have powered the sport’s recent juggernauts. Reggie Bush and LenDale White gave Pete Carroll’s USC its flash and power from 2003 to 2005. In 2017, Nick Chubb and Sony Michel helped Georgia to a national championship appearance, which the Bulldogs lost to an Alabama team with two future first-round picks at the position in Josh Jacobs and Najee Harris, neither of whom started.

None of them played in an era when staying was harder than going.

Across four years of prep football, Allen and Singleton combined for nearly 11,000 yards rushing. They arrived at Penn State from different places — Allen refined via three seasons at IMG Academy, Singleton going the traditional route at a large Pennsylvania high school — with the same upbringing: They did not have to share much, if at all. They were playmakers. They were given the ball, a lot.

Going on a budget, from there, is not easy. A running back might make that read and juke right out of town to another program. Allen and Singleton have endured and thrived in the same spot, and chose to continue to do so when they could be in NFL training camps at this very moment, like Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, the only other pair of running backs to top the 1,000-yard mark together in the transfer-portal era. That has a lot to do with friendship and history and, yes, the ability to profit as a college player.

It’s also a telling acknowledgement that, at least at this position in this time, less can amount to much more. “You got two guys that want the same thing,” Penn State running backs coach Stan Drayton says. “It can be a bad deal, right? But you make them understand that there’s going to be enough reps, enough touches that they’re going to both get to complement each other. They’re going to keep their tread on the tires for each other. And they’re both going to eat.”

A backfield timeshare, especially one featuring two All-America-level players, does seem like an arrangement college offenses should follow in 2025 if the idea is ensuring the near-and-long-term success of said players. But it is not the only way.

We know this due to what happened in 2024, when Ashton Jeanty recorded a nation-high 374 carries for Boise State, finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting and got drafted sixth overall by the Las Vegas Raiders. In 2025, Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love might be the closest approximation to anything like that, as The Athletic’s No. 6 overall pro prospect and the first back off the board in The Athletic’s recent Heisman Trophy Fantasy Draft. But even Love didn’t record more than 16 carries in a single game as a sophomore. While his 10 carries in a season-opening loss at Miami are currently a point of consternation, there’s nevertheless no plan to grind him into turf pellets even if he’s possibly the best at his position in program history.

Notre Dame undoubtedly needs Love to be great in order to be great, period. But Love being great also means Love being available. “Being able to play all game, every game, to me is a successful season,” Irish running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider says. “I don’t put a number on what the stat line is. Because if (Love) is healthy, I think that stat line is going to be high.”

The workhorse is not dead, though he looks a little more like a unicorn. Math is math. More carries mean more opportunities for contact. More contact means more vulnerability to injury, minor or otherwise. Injuries, accumulated over time, can whittle years off a career. If there is a path to minimizing exposure while maximizing production and preserving earning potential, even if it means watching award ceremonies from home, it’s probably worth following.

This assumes, of course, that you can get players accustomed to being the center of the universe to recognize the other stars in orbit.

Both Nick Singleton, above, and Kaytron Allen could surpass Evan Royster’s Penn State career rushing record of 3,932 yards. (Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)

The prevailing line at Penn State is that Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton didn’t need to buy in. They always bought in.

In it together, from the start, as 2022 enrollees thrust into the same spaces on the field and off of it (they’re still roommates four years on). Evidence to support the claim is circumstantial and a little apocryphal, but it does exist. Singleton remembers one grueling sled-pushing session before their freshman season and feeling very much like he didn’t have enough left to get the apparatus across the finish line. Allen then got in his ear and made sure he did. That fall they each broke the Penn State freshman record for rushing touchdowns — first Singleton, then Allen. Most significantly in the age of roster flux and NIL chasing, neither sought a greater share elsewhere.

It has been a little bit of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better all along, but probably closer to anything-he-can-do-I-can-do-too in the final appraisal.

Touchdown Kaytron Allen!!

After review, the TD was upheld.@PennStateFball takes a 17-0 lead. pic.twitter.com/ZgjEaFMX6D

— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) August 30, 2025

“Everybody comes from different things,” Allen says. “Everybody’s struggles are different. So everybody’s life is different. But it’s about, how can we come together to help each other get to where we want to be, as brothers? Of course we’re competing. But at the end of the day, we’re brothers.”

“Early on in practice, they had a couple viral clips where Kaytron is running over players and stuff like that, and Nick feels like he’s gotta go make a play,” assistant running backs coach Charles Walker says. “It’s just day in and day out. And they’ve done it on such a big stage every week. You don’t know if you’re gonna ever be around it again.”

Still, there has to be a reason to add to a combined 1,058 carries and 5,789 yards of tread at the college level, and getting compensated for the effort only goes so far. That spigot will shut off and the next one doesn’t turn on without a good reason to. Time, for a running back, is too valuable a commodity to misallocate.

Kaytron Allen career stats

Season	Carries	Yds	Avg	TDs
2022	167	867	5.2	10
2023	172	902	5.2	6
2024	220	1,108	5.0	8
2025	8	43	5.4	1

Nick Singleton career stats

Season	Carries	Yds	Avg	TDs
2022	156	1,061	6.8	12
2023	171	752	4.4	8
2024	172	1,099	5.4	12
2025	8	19	2.4	2

So what Penn State offered Allen and Singleton in 2025 is something like a post-graduate year, an immersion in an MFA program: Master of Football Arts.

Much of the structure was familiar. Their first year in offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki’s scheme was a rousing success, not least because Kotelnicki had a couple decades of experience with two-back rotations at both Buffalo and Kansas while concluding, almost before he arrived, that Allen and Singleton both needed the ball. That required diversifying their skill sets so they could get those touches in as many ways as possible while also spending a decent amount of time on the field together. “You can’t just take another running back, put ’em on the field and the only thing you do is line them up right next to the quarterback,” Kotelnicki says. “You need to be able to move them.”

So they’d set to work on route-running and blitz pickup and lead blocking and more — extra work on the JUGS machine post-practice was a new habit. In the end, Singleton led the Big Ten in all-purpose yards (1,805) while Allen amassed 1,205 of his own.

As it happens, running backs who can do a lot more than one thing are attractive to NFL roster constructors. At Penn State, the plan wouldn’t change in 2025; the coaching staff more or less takes regular votes to establish a hierarchy for offensive touches, and Allen and Singleton remain atop the list.

If anything, a year of data and experience would help soup up the vehicle. The finer Allen and Singleton’s skills, the more elaborate Kotelnicki could get in his scheming. “How much I’ve been able to put on their plate and how they’ve handled it — it’s been really impressive,” Kotelnicki says. “Like, we’ve been doing some sh— with them.”

Head coach James Franklin’s solution to a potential stick in the spokes — running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider taking the job at Notre Dame a month after Allen and Singleton announced they’d come back to Penn State — was an old head who could lean into NFL-like structures and demands and create an enticing value for a couple of players who had reason to expect it upon their return.

Stan Drayton was available after a three-seasons-and-out tenure as Temple’s head coach and three decades with running back instruction as his primary medium. Previous experience with high-level two-back rotations at Ohio State and Texas, plus a pair of stops as an NFL assistant, recommended him as a hire who could create some constructive discomfort for a pair of established stars.

Almost immediately, Drayton identified nuanced flaws. Allen and Singleton absorbed too many hits from safeties. They weren’t identifying blitzers quickly enough to meet them at the line of scrimmage. And so on. The critiques might’ve sent Allen and Singleton’s eyebrows to the ceiling. But Drayton had done this before, with Ezekiel Elliott and Carlos Hyde at Ohio State and Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson at Texas. The Penn State stars knew those names. So they knew enough to listen.

“No one is perfect,” Singleton says. “You’re always trying to find ways every year to get better. Calling us out for all that just shows there’s still work to be done.”

Drayton has required them to pick up a dry-erase marker, walk to the front of the meeting room and draw up plays he calls out. It unnerves and challenges a pair of accomplished players in a productive way. “Right now,” Drayton says, “they are being trained to be coordinators.”

It demands they know the roles and responsibilities of all 11 players in the formation, and how a defense might react to them, which should speed up their in-game information-processing … and thereby potentially reduce wear-and-tear if they can predict who’s coming from where.

And yes, it’s what NFL front offices will expect Allen and Singleton to do next spring in the pre-draft process. Might as well go through dress rehearsals now. It all amounts to a value-add beyond instruction on blitz-pickup technique or running a crisper route from the slot.

“There’s a timing to every play,” Drayton says. “And if you are processing it, you’re going to play slow and take hits. But if you are studying it to slow the game down, then the game will slow down. And you’ll play fast and you’ll play past hits.”

In all, it’s a convincing argument to be happy.

Envy is a blight, and Penn State’s otherwise taciturn tailbacks demonstrate something like a flinch of anger at the suggestion that it ever crept into their shared space. “Why be jealous over your brother when he’s always got your back?” Allen says.

But a human nevertheless needs reasons to be satisfied. And a very good running back in 2025 needs to understand why splitting time with another very good running back makes sense. A redefinition of success — shooting for the intercept of production and longevity — has to take.

Here, right where Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton are, it evidently has. They will get touches. They probably will make a lot of those touches. To wit: Both recorded eight carries in a season-opening rout of Nevada, accounting for three touchdowns combined, with Singleton adding a 22-yard reception to the mix. Penn State may win a lot more games, maybe even a national title, as a result of the arrangement. Its star tailbacks will then presumably have a chance to make a lot more money, and possibly for a lot longer than they might if they had to do this alone.

Why run from that?

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)

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Miami WR Malachi Toney Announces Career News Amid College Football Season

Published

5 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The No. 10 seed Miami Hurricanes defeated the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies 10-3 in the first round of the College Football Playoff. It was a defensive battle, ultimately decided by a late fourth-quarter score and red-zone interception by Miami.

With the score tied at 3 and 1 minute, 44 seconds left in the game, Hurricanes wide receiver Malachi Toney scored on an 11-yard touchdown pass thrown by quarterback Carson Beck.

Up next for the Hurricanes is a Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic matchup against the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes. It’s an uphill battle, as ESPN’s matchup predictor gives the Hurricanes a 29.5% chance of winning.

Miami Hurricanes wide receiver Malachi Toney (10).© Robert Myers-Imagn Images

Before his heroic performance, though, the wide receiver revealed an exciting Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) update. In a joint Instagram post, Toney revealed a new NIL partnership with Hellstar, a popular clothing brand that has a sports training component.

“We are so proud to announce our first Hellstar Sports College Athlete NIL signing – Malachi Toney🌟.,” the post caption read. “We had the privilege to coach @malitoney10 while he was apart of our high school 7 on 7 program, so now seeing him shine on the collegiate level we couldn’t be more proud.”

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What Colorado’s Athletic Department Valuation Says About Buffaloes’ Growth

Published

6 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

In the growing landscape of college athletics, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals play a vital role in sports. Some programs are set up better than others based on a program’s valuation. Programs with higher valuations can help some of the top-performing teams stay successful.

CNBC released its valuation rankings for the country’s athletic departments, showing their growth from the 2024 fiscal year. The Colorado Buffaloes are ranked No. 47 in the nation, a rise from No. 55 in 2024.

Colorado Buffaloes valuation NIL transfer portal Deion Sanders Coach Prime Big 12 College Football Basketball Folsom Field — Nov 25, 2023; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion ‘Coach Prime’ Sanders on the field against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Creveling-Imagn Images | Christopher Creveling-Imagn Images

Breaking Down Colorado Buffaloes’ Valuation Ranking

Colorado’s 2025 valuation is $574 million, with a year-over-year value change of 22 percent. The program’s 2024 revenue is set at $147 million, with a 16 percent year-over-year revenue change.

A program’s valuation determines its monetary worth, and it is important to look at the growth, which shows that Colorado is trending in the right direction. It is also important to note that the valuation rankings are based on all of the athletics, not just the football program.

Where Colorado Ranks In The Big 12

When focusing on the Big 12 conference, several of the programs are in the same vicinity with their valuation ranking.

No. 39 Kansas: $620M
No. 41 Oklahoma State: $600M
No. 42 Baylor: $585M
No. 46 Iowa State: $575M
No. 47 Colorado: $574M
No. 49 Texas Tech: $570M
No. 50 TCU: $568M
No. 55 Arizona: $529M
No. 57 BYU: $500M
No. 58 West Virginia: $481M
No. 60 Utah: $451M
No. 62 Kansas State: $435M
No. 63 Arizona State: $430M
No. 68 Cincinnati: $280M
No. 70 UCF: $262M
No. 73 Houston: $222M

MORE: Colorado Gets Hit With Biggest Transfer Portal Loss Yet

MORE: Michael Irvin Gets Real On Blame Surrounding Shedeur Sanders

MORE: Deion Sanders Faces Recruiting Problem After Omarion Miller Transfer News

While from the top valuation of Kansas to the bottom, which is Houston is a significant difference in the Big 12, the conference teams are still in a similar vicinity overall. With it having to do with all athletics, the programs that have consistently strong teams, such as Kansas’ basketball team, make sense to have a higher valuation.

Looking at the Big 12 as a whole shows that the Colorado Buffaloes are in the top five for their valuation and trending upward.

Calling Back To Deion Sanders’ Comments On Fairness

While valuation is not the same as revenue, seeing the difference in the conferences does call back to Colorado coach Deion Sanders’ comments on the fairness between programs. The schools in the top five for their valuation are either in the Big Ten or the SEC, and all are in the billions.

“You talk about equality,” Sanders said during the Big 12 media day. “All you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent, and you understand darn near why they’re in the playoffs. It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25, $30 million to a darn freshman class.”

Although the valuation is on the programs’ overall athletics, Sanders has been outspoken about money when it comes to building the football program. With the Buffaloes facing a mass exodus through the transfer portal, Sanders has highlighted that several players are leaving because of money.

The positive side is that the Buffaloes’ valuation is growing with a 22 percent increase. This shows that the school’s athletics overall are being valued higher, and will help lead to more money poured into the program. With more money, the Buffaloes can put more of an emphasis on NIL as they look to build their roster and compete in the Big 12.

Insider Reveals Biggest Reason Behind Colorado’s Transfer Portal Mass Exodus

Published

7 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

From a player retention standpoint, the first few weeks of the offseason haven’t been kind to the Colorado Buffaloes.

Several key Buffs have announced their intentions to enter the college football transfer portal when it opens next month, including wide receiver Omarion Miller, safety Tawfiq Byard and freshman defensive end Alexander McPherson. While every situation is unique, one Colorado insider believes money has been a common denominator among players’ reasons for leaving Boulder.

Insider Reasons Colorado Transfer Portal Exodus Buffaloes NIL Deion Sanders Alexander McPherson Tawfiq Byard Omarion Miller — Oct 25, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver Omarion Miller (4) is tackled by Utah Utes defensive back JC Hart (14) during the second half at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

“The super majority of those people, I’m talking 95 percent, are going to be leaving for a bigger bag,” Thee Pregame Show’s Uncle Neely said on his YouTube channel. “This ain’t transferring in 1990. This ain’t transferring in the year 2000. This is 2025. This is business now. This isn’t, ‘Oh, I don’t like the coach. Oh, I don’t want to be treated the way they treat me.’

“This doesn’t mean something is wrong. These are business decisions now. But what we like to do is run with the narrative that woe is me, something must be wrong, something must be going on. How are all these people leaving?”

The NIL (name, image and likeness) era has rocked college football, and the depressing truth is that schools with more money will ultimately land the best players. In the Big 12, no school better exemplifies that trend than new conference champion Texas Tech.

Who’s Leaving Colorado?

As of Sunday, 16 Colorado players will enter the transfer portal next month. That group includes 12 defensive players, six members of the Buffs’ 2025 high school signing class and a few other Buffs who spent only one season in Boulder.

Below is an updated list of Colorado players who plan on entering the transfer portal:

Safety TJ Branch
Defensive lineman Jehiem Oatis
Cornerback Noah King
Cornerback Teon Parks
Linebacker Mantrez Walker
Safety Terrance Love
Safety Tawfiq Byard
Wide receiver Omarion Miller
Defensive tackle Brandon Davis-Swain
Offensive lineman Carde Smith
Defensive end Alexander McPherson
Offensive lineman Tyler Brown
Defensive tackle Gavriel Lightfoot
Defensive tackle Christian Hudson
Defensive tackle Tawfiq Thomas
Wide receiver Dre’lon Miller

Uncle Neely shared his take that Colorado’s losses should be replaceable via the transfer portal.

“Have you ever stopped to say, what am I actually losing by those people leaving?” Uncle Neely said. “Have you ever looked at the numbers production-wise of who has announced that they’re getting up out of here and what you’re actually losing by them leaving?… Is it replaceable via the portal? And in this business in college football, is it replaceable cheaper? I would wager to say the answer is yes in all regards.”

MORE: Colorado Gets Hit With Biggest Transfer Portal Loss Yet

MORE: Michael Irvin Gets Real On Blame Surrounding Shedeur Sanders

MORE: Deion Sanders Faces Recruiting Problem After Omarion Miller Transfer News

The college football transfer portal will open on Jan. 2 and close Jan. 16. Colorado coach Deion Sanders and his staff can begin adding players from the portal at the start of that period.

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Report: LSU finalizes deal to hire Ole Miss’ Kevin Smith, puts him among highest paid RBs coaches

Published

8 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Lane Kiffin is bringing another Ole Miss assistant with him to LSU. According to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, the Tigers have finalized a deal to hire Rebels running backs coach Kevin Smith for the same role.

Smith is reported to have a salary of close to $1 million, which would make him one of the highest-paid running backs coaches in the country. He is the sixth Ole Miss assistant to follow Kiffin to Baton Rouge.

The other coaches joining Kiffin at LSU are offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., tight ends coach Joe Cox, receivers coach Joe McDonald, inside receivers coach Sawyer Jordan and quarterbacks coach Dane Stevens. So far no defensive assistants from the Rebels have made the jump to Baton Rouge.

Smith worked with Kiffin as a running backs coach at Florida Atlantic form 2017-19 and joined his very first staff at Ole Miss in 2020. He stayed for the next two seasons in Oxford before leaving to take the running backs coach position at Miami in 2022.

Smith’s stint with the Hurricanes was a short-lived one as he returned to Ole Miss in 2023 and stayed through this season. Now he’ll look to continue the success he has enjoyed with Kiffin while building up the running backs room at LSU.

Smith helped to develop running backs such as Quinshon Judkins and Kewan Lacy during his time in Oxford. This past season, Ole Miss ranked fifth in the SEC with 185.6 rushing yards per game as Lacy led the conference with 21 rushing touchdowns and ranked second with 1,366 yards.

Ole Miss had its best season in program history this year to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time. However, Kiffin was not granted permission from the school to finish out the season with the Rebels after he accepted the LSU job.

Other assistants, including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., were allowed to complete the playoff run with Ole Miss. The Rebels defeated Tulane in the first round and will face No. 3 Georgia, which they lost to earlier this season, in the quarterfinals.

As of right now, it looks like most of the Ole Miss offensive staff will follow Kiffin to Baton Rouge. The defensive side keep defensive coordinator Blake Baker, who has been on staff at LSU since 2024.

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Former 4-star QB announces plans to enter college football transfer portal

Published

12 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The quarterback market is expected to be extremely competitive this offseason.

A ton of experienced signal-callers have announced their decisions to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal, including Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt, North Texas’ Drew Mestemaker, Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby, and TCU’s Josh Hoover, among countless others.

The right move can benefit young quarterbacks, as players such as USC’s Jayden Maiava and Oregon’s Dante Moore benefited from transferring early in their careers.

An offseason coaching change has led one former blue-chip recruit to explore his options in the portal.

Former Four-Star Quarterback Expected To Enter Portal

On Sunday, Memphis true freshman quarterback Antwann “AJ” Hill announced his plans to leave the program after one season, per On3.

Hill appeared in two games in 2025, earning a redshirt. His most extensive action came in a 31-24 loss to UAB on October 18. Hill entered the contest after starting quarterback Brendon Lewis went down with an injury. In roughly two quarters of action, he completed 13/25 passes for 176 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception.

On the season, Hill connected on 19/32 passes for 223 yards with 1 touchdown to 1 interception.

Hill is transferring after Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield was hired away by Arkansas. The Razorbacks don’t have a ton of depth at quarterback. Redshirt freshman KJ Jackson holds the most experience on the roster with five appearances and one start last season.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Arkansas is involved in Hill’s transfer recruitment.

Hill was one of the highest-ranked prospects in program history to sign with Memphis. He was regarded as the No. 15 QB and a top-200 recruit in the 2025 class. Hill chose the Tigers over Florida following official visits to both schools.

During his prep career at Houston County High School, Hill compiled over 11,000 passing yards and led his team to at least one playoff victory in all three seasons as a starter.

Overall, Hill completed 800-of-1239 passes for 11,020 yards with 123 touchdowns to 20 interceptions. He added six more scores on the ground.

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound quarterback is expected to have four seasons of eligibility remaining.

Former Carolina wide receiver set for WWE main roster debut

Published

12 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Former South Carolina wide receiver Matrick Belton is reportedly going to get a real shot on the main roster in the WWE. Belton, who goes by Trick Williams in the top professional wrestling and sports entertainment company, joined WWE in 2021 in the NXT brand. Now, he’s going to move up to either the Raw or Smackdown roster.

NXT is basically the developmental arm of WWE while Raw and Smackdown – shows on Mondays and Fridays, respectively – are considered the main roster. According to this report from PWInsider.com, Belton will make an appearance on the upcoming Smackdown, which was pre-taped.

Whether Belton moves to Raw or Smackdown is to be determined. Here’s the reporting from PWInsider:

Former WWE NXT and TNA Champion Trick Williams will debut on Smackdown on 12/26 with the storyline being he’s a free agent looking to sign with the brand. We are told Williams has not been officially listed internally on a brand yet, so he could appear on Raw in the upcoming weeks as well, but he’ll be moving to the main roster in 2026.

Belton is a two-time NXT champion and also held the TNA World Championship for 140 days earlier this year. Belton, a former SEC football player who was in the Philadelphia Eagles’ minicamp in 2018, recently got engaged to another former SEC athlete – women’s basketball player Anriel Howard, who played for three years at Texas A&M and her final year at Mississippi State.

Belton, a Columbia native who played for Keenan High School, joined the program in 2014 after spending his first two years out of high school at Hampton University. After sitting out due to NCAA transfer rules, Belton played in every game for South Carolina in 2015 and made five starts. He caught 11 passes for 121 yards his first season on the field.

As a senior in 2016, he played primarily on special teams, appearing in nine games. He played in 21 games over the course of his two-year career with the Gamecocks and made five starts.

Belton also spent time in training camp with Philadelphia Eagles. However, he decided to take a chance on pro wrestling and started training at the Combat Zone Wrestling Academy in New Jersey.

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