NIL

Why Georgia hasn’t slipped amid college football’s changes — it starts with Kirby Smart

Published

1 week ago

December 30, 2025

Kirby Smart’s first college coaching stop was at tiny Valdosta State back in 2000. The team’s strength and conditioning coach was Michael Doscher, who was asked two decades later what Smart was like then, which may have foretold what he would become. Doscher thought for a couple beats, then answered.

“He was humble,” Doscher said.

Valdosta State was a budding cradle of future big-time head coaches — Hal Mumme, Mike Leach, Dana Holgorsen, Will Muschamp — and they all had some “it factor” about them. And for the 22-year-old Smart, fresh off an All-SEC playing career, it was the way he carried himself.

“Kirby was a little more personable about it, more friendly and had that way about him,” Doscher said.

Maybe it’s hard to consider the current Smart — the 10th-year Georgia coach who rants and rails on the sideline, who has six national title rings as a head coach and defensive coordinator — as humble. Yet, it’s also a bit of the secret sauce.

It was for Nick Saban, the man who hired Smart away from Valdosta State and into his vortex, and is now off the stage — essentially replaced by Smart as the accepted best coach in the sport. And while they’re not the same person or coach, the reason they got to the top and stayed there may be the same: The flexibility to adjust when the world around them changes.

Saban, the defensive mastermind and offensive traditionalist, adjusted late in his career to the up-tempo, passing revolution. Smart made the same adjustment, but also to changes in the sport: unlimited transferring, paying players, the flattening of the talent pool such that the Georgias and Alabamas can’t hoard talent like the old days.

Eleven months ago, Smart’s program seemed to be falling back to the pack. The Dawgs were soundly beaten by Notre Dame in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, ending a season that had an SEC championship, but also three losses and more close calls. When it ended, Smart declined to make any changes to his coaching staff, to the concern of many in Georgia’s fan base.

And a month into this season, Georgia suffered its first home loss in six years and needed the help of a missed field goal to win at Tennessee. The Dawgs didn’t look like a great team anymore.

Now here they are: SEC champions again. Playing their best ball going into the Playoff, one of three betting co-favorites to win the national title. The Playoff could always re-ignite questions. However, right now, entering Thursday’s Sugar Bowl tilt against Ole Miss, Georgia as an elite program seems inevitable, for a simple reason: The head coach knows what he’s doing.

Staff management

Some saw it as stubbornness. Smart saw it as stability.

Georgia was coming off a rough offensive season in 2024, especially in blocking. Quarterback Carson Beck regressed, receivers dropped passes and there was almost no running game. That was despite three offensive linemen being good enough to be drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL Draft.

And yet Smart opted to bring back offensive line coach Stacy Searals and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo, who was Smart’s college teammate and close friend. To the critics, Smart was allowing personal relationships to cloud his professional thinking. To Smart, he was counting on two veteran coaches with longer track records.

“We’ve built our program around retention,” Smart said in the spring. “I think we’ve got the most stable, not only staff, but stable organization in all of college football. I think that’s what we’ve hung our hat on, is we have stability. We have retention. We have a great foundation. We’re built to last.”

And built, it turns out, to validate Smart’s gamble.

Gunner Stockton and the Georgia offense have soared this season, validating Kirby Smart’s bet on continuity. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Georgia’s offense may be the reason it made the Playoff, winning early-season shootouts against Tennessee (44-41) and Ole Miss (43-35). New quarterback Gunner Stockton ended up seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting. The running game was a strength. Bobo was named a finalist for the Broyles Award, which goes to the nation’s top assistant.

The defense was realistically the bigger worry until late in the season, when the old Georgia defense showed up again, smothering Texas, Georgia Tech and Alabama.

Still, it goes further than that: Georgia’s special teams have always been an underrated strength, and Smart has put Kirk Benedict in charge of that for several years.

And off the field, the longtime guiding force remains Scott Sinclair, who has been the strength and conditioning coordinator throughout Smart’s tenure. The two are wrapping up their 10th season together.

“This league will chew you up and spit you out,” Smart said, mentioning how other teams have player and coaching turnover, while his program is among the best at retention. “I take a lot of pride in that, and I think that’s one of our weapons.”

Smart in charge (still, with help)

Georgia’s talent advantage isn’t what it was in the pre-2021 days, when unlimited transferring and NIL arrived. The Bulldogs no longer can stow blue-chip recruits on their bench for a few years, then unleash them as starters. It has been a hit to the team’s depth, and occasionally left weak spots on the field.

The program, nonetheless, has also managed it well enough that it still has plenty of talent. Georgia signed 21 of its 24 starters in the SEC championship in one of its past four recruiting classes, all of which ranked in the top three nationally.

And when the program badly needed a difference-making receiver, it got him via the transfer portal. USC’s Zachariah Branch has become such a focal point of the offense that with 73 catches, he’s four away from setting Georgia’s single-season record.

In an age when many programs are hiring a general manager, Georgia already has one: Smart. He has always been the de facto GM, the one in charge of roster procurement. There isn’t a person in charge of it who reports to Smart. There is a football chief of staff — Mark Robinson — and director of player personnel — Will Myers. Still, as the portal and NIL became prominent, Georgia didn’t have to expand its personnel staff. It was already pretty robust.

“We’ve got a lot of people in charge of roster management, including myself, including our football office staff (who) are involved,” Smart said. “Our operations slash player development, player personnel staff, everybody gets involved in that.”

This was what Saban did: He revolutionized college football coaching at Alabama in the late 2000s by hiring analysts, which critics pilloried as staff-bloating, but it was Saban who wanted extra eyes on his team and extra hands in recruiting. Saban was not arrogant enough to think he could do everything.

That’s the formula for Smart in this era: Lots of eyes, ears and mouths involved, then he makes the final call.

“It’s a team effort,” Smart said. “We reorganize and restructure some things in terms of what falls under whose duty and whose aspects. But at the end of the day, I’m not ready to run off and go hire somebody that’s just going to make all the decisions for what goes on the football field. I think I’ve got to stay involved in that heavily. We’ve got the capacity and the quality of people in the areas that I think we need.”

Georgia’s 117 wins since Kirby Smart took over in 2016 are second-most in the country behind only Alabama’s 121. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

Internal culture in the age of NIL and the portal

Georgia has dealt with too many bad headlines over the last few years, with a couple dozen players arrested since the January 2023 car crash that killed a player and staff member. However, Georgia people — administrators, staffers, players — put those issues in a separate category from what they see as a strong internal culture. There is a dichotomy: Players getting in legal trouble is something Smart has had to handle, adjusting his level and manner of punishment. Yet, when it comes to team-building and chemistry in the age of NIL and the portal, not much has changed.

“NIL hasn’t impacted what we’ve been doing,” said Drew Brannon, a sports psychologist who has worked with Georgia since 2018, especially starting with the 2021 national championship season. “The things we’ve built in terms of program DNA have certainly had a positive impact given the ramifications of NIL, but we haven’t done things differently due to NIL, portal, etc.”

Georgia has been practicing skull sessions — when players in small or large groups discuss personal issues or desires — since 2021. Smart has also given Brannon the floor to introduce motivational exercises, such as before the second national championship, using the Netflix and Blockbuster story.

There have been some challenges, especially last year, when players said the connection among teammates, especially on offense, wasn’t as strong. Still, there was also optimism from existing players about the returning 2025 core.

“I’ve got a lot of faith in them,” linebacker Smael Mondon said last February. “They’ve got a good leadership class, and I feel really good about it.”

That’s been borne out. The quarterback change also helped. Beck was quieter and on his own, while Stockton’s personality and playing style endeared him to teammates. Teams often feed off the personality of their quarterbacks. This year’s team pulled off comeback wins over Tennessee, Auburn, Ole Miss and Florida — and it did that last year too. This time, though, it improved as the season continued and looks much better heading into the CFP.

“We do our best to enhance our efforts each year with tweaks, but the fundamentals don’t change, and I think that has a lot to do with why our players and staff don’t flinch when they encounter challenging situations,” Brannon said. “Coach Smart does an incredible job of modeling this from the top, which is what you see in the highest-performing organizations in the world.”

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Rodriguez Names Trickett Director of Player Evaluation

Published

4 minutes ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez announced that Chance Trickett has been hired as the director of player evaluation on the Mountaineer coaching staff.

“Chance has built an outstanding resume of scouting, evaluating and recruiting experience at the FBS, Power Four and NFL levels,” Rodriguez said “His wide-spread experience and knowledge in these areas, along with being a West Virginia football legacy, will make an immediate impact in our program.”

Throughout his career, Trickett has experience leading player evaluation, roster construction and long-term talent strategy at the college and NFL levels. He has proven his ability to build multi-year roster plans, aligning evaluation with financial strategy, integrating and leveraging analytics and networks to identify top prospects and cultural long-term fits. He has a strong network across high school, college, financial and agency circles with a track record of identifying undervalued talent and maximizing roster efficiency.

Trickett joins the WVU football staff after spending almost 10 years as a college area scout in the Los Angeles Rams organization. He served one year as the director of football recruiting at Louisiana Tech and was at Florida State for two years as a recruiting assistant.

While with the Rams, he led comprehensive player evaluations integrating film, analytics, verified measurables and psychological/cognitive components to support draft board construction and roster strategy decisions. He also produced in-depth positional value assessments and roster impact reports for multi-year draft planning and contract strategy. He developed internal valuation reports and roster strategy that models and mirrors current NIL/college market structures. He also integrated advanced scouting technology to enhance accuracy in player projection and long-term roster planning.

Trickett was awarded the BART List Award for scouting excellence in 2025 and given the “inside the league” scout/agent organization’s Best Draft Award in 2024.

A native of Morgantown, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Florida State in 2011.

Trickett, and his wife, Ashley, have two children, Tristan and Matthew.

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$665K QB faces scrutiny after decision to stay in college football

Published

57 minutes ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

The decision to head to the NFL instead of returning to college can be a complicated choice. Massive NIL payouts, potential NFL landing spots, and the solidity of a returning team are several factors that go into the stay-or-go calculus.

But with the 2026 NFL Draft QB class looking a bit thin already, some are second-guessing one QB’s plan to return to school.

Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss is in the middle of requesting another year of college eligibility from the NCAA. Chambliss is claiming that he missed the 2022 season due to respiratory health issues and is thus seeking one more year to play. His NIL value is likely to end up at several times the $665,000 estimate from On3sports.

ESPN broadcaster Chase Daniel second-guessed Chambliss’s decision to return to school. “Trinidad Chambliss should absolutely think abotu entering the draft after the way he’s played in the #CFBPlayoff,” Daniel Tweeted. “Light QB draft,” he also noted.

The 2026 NFL Draft class is highlighted by Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza and, should he enter, Oregon’s Dante Moore. Many are projecting both of those quarterbacks at or near the top of the Draft. But after Mendoza and Moore, things get increasingly cloudy.

Alabama’s Ty Simpson has indicated his plan to enter the Draft. Other veteran QBs like Carson Beck and Cade Klubnik figure to be in the picture. But it’s entirely plausible that NFL teams could view Chambliss as the No. 3 or No. 4 QB prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft class.

Chambliss rose to prominence seemingly from nowhere in 2025. He sat for two years at Division II Ferris State and then played mostly as a reserve in 2023. In 2024, though, he passed for 2,901 yards and 26 scores while rushing for 1,019 yards and 25 scores on the ground while leading Ferris State to the national title.

He began 2025 as the backup for Ole Miss’s Austin Simmons. But an ankle injury in Week 2 gave Chambliss a chance to play and he didn’t relinquish the job. Chambliss wound up passing for 3,937 yards and 22 touchdowns against just three interceptions. He ran for an additional 527 yards and eight touchdowns.

Of course, an adverse NCAA ruling might leave Chambliss with no real choice but to go pro. He has inked a tentative NIL deal with Ole Miss based on the premise that he will be given eligibility. That deal has been indicated as likely worth several million dollars. But Daniel thinks even better NFL money could be in Chambliss’s future… if he seeks it.

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Lane Kiffin due $500,000 payout from LSU after Ole Miss College Football Playoff run

Published

2 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

Thursday night, Ole Miss’ run in the College Football Playoff came to an end. The Rebels fell to Miami in the final seconds of the Fiesta Bowl.

With the loss, Lane Kiffin will officially receive a $500,000 payout from LSU within 30 days of the end of Ole Miss’ campaign. That was the amount he was due from Ole Miss, per the terms of his contract, and LSU said it would honor it in his deal with the Tigers. The school included “ancillary benefits” in Kiffin’s agreement after his high-profile departure from Ole Miss.

Ole Miss’ advancement in the College Football Playoff bracket increased Kiffin’s payout, which LSU is due to pay 30 days after the Rebels’ postseason run ends. It would have gone up even more if Ole Miss won the title. Here is how the structure is written out in his deal at LSU.

Ole Miss first-round game participation: $150,000
Ole Miss quarterfinal appearance: $250,000
Ole Miss semifinal appearance: $500,000
Ole Miss CFP national championship appearance: $750,000
Ole Miss CFP national championship win: $1 million

With Thursday’s loss, Ole Miss’ season ended in the College Football Playoff semifinal. As a result, Kiffin is due $500,000. If the Rebels pulled off a win, that figure would have grown to $750,000.

“Coach will be entitled to receive a payment in an amount equal to the amount Coach would have been entitled to receive had he remained Head Coach at Coach’s immediate prior employer and coached the prior employer’s football team through the 2025-26 CFP,” Lane Kiffin’s contract at LSU reads. “… If applicable, the payment under this section may be paid from affiliated foundation funds and shall be paid within 30 days following the prior employer’s team being eliminated from the 2025-26 CFP.”

Miami holds on to beat Ole Miss in Fiesta Bowl

Ole Miss trailed Miami 17-13 at halftime of the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl, but mounted a charge in the fourth quarter. The Rebels were able to capitalize on multiple Hurricanes miscues and took their first lead of the game, 19-17, with seven minutes to play.

Miami responded with a touchdown from Malachi Toney, but Ole Miss punched back. After a pass interference penalty extended the drive, Trinidad Chambliss hit Dae’Quan Wright for a touchdown and got the two-point conversion to make it a 27-24 Rebels lead with 3:13 to go.

The Hurricanes didn’t go down easily, though. Carson Beck ran in the go-ahead touchdown with 18 seconds left to make it a 31-27 Miami lead, giving Ole Miss one more shot. But Chambliss’ final Hail Mary fell short, sealing the Hurricanes’ victory and sending the program to the national title game.

However, Miami won’t have to go far for the championship game. The game will be at Hard Rock Stadium Jan. 19. The Hurricanes now wait to find out if they will play Oregon or Indiana.

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The Transfer Portal Era and Pursuit of NIL Money Is Messy. Are There Solutions?

Published

3 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

A quarterback reportedly reneging on a lucrative deal to hit the transfer portal, only to return to his original school. Another starting QB, this one in the College Football Playoff, awaiting approval from the NCAA to play next season, an expensive NIL deal apparently hanging in the balance. A defensive star, sued by his former school after transferring, filing a lawsuit of his own.

“It gets crazier and crazier. It really, really does,” said Sam Ehrlich, a Boise State legal studies professor who tracks litigation against the NCAA. He said he might have to add a new section for litigation against the NCAA stemming just from transfer portal issues.

“I think a guy signing a contract and then immediately deciding he wants to go to another school, that’s a kind of a new thing,” he said. “Not new kind of historically when you think about all the contract jumping that was going on in the ’60s and ’70s with the NBA. But it’s a new thing for college sports, that’s for sure.”

Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. said late Thursday he will return to school for the 2026 season rather than enter the transfer portal, avoiding a potentially messy dispute amid reports the Huskers were prepared to pursue legal options to enforce Williams’ name, image and likeness contract.

Edge rusher Damon Wilson is looking to transfer after one season at Missouri, having been sued for damages by Georgia over his decision to leave the Bulldogs. He has countersued.

Then there is Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who reportedly has a new NIL deal signed but is awaiting an NCAA waiver allowing him to play another season as he and the Rebels played Thursday night’s Collge Football Playoff semifinal against Miami. On the Hurricanes roster: Defensive back Xavier Lucas, whose transfer from Wisconsin led to a lawsuit against the Hurricanes last year with the Badgers claiming he was improperly lured by NIL money. Lucas has played all season for Miami. The case is pending.

Court rulings have favored athletes of late, winning them not just millions in compensation but the ability to play immediately after transferring rather than have to sit out a year as once was the case. They can also discuss specific NIL compensation with schools and boosters before enrolling and current court battles include players seeking to play longer without lower-college seasons counting against their eligibility and ability to land NIL money while doing it.

Ehrlich compared the situation to the labor upheaval professional leagues went through before finally settling on collective bargaining, which has been looked at as a potential solution by some in college sports over the past year. Athletes.org, a players association for college athletes, recently offered a 38-page proposal of what a labor deal could look like.

“I think NCAA is concerned, and rightfully so, that anything they try to do to tamp down this on their end is going to get shut down,” Ehrlich said. “Which is why really the only two solutions at this point are an act of Congress, which feels like an act of God at this point, or potentially collective bargaining, which has its own major, major challenges and roadblocks.”

The NCAA has been lobbying for years for limited antitrust protection to keep some kind of control over the new landscape — and to avoid more crippling lawsuits — but bills have gone nowhere in Congress.

Collective bargaining is complicated and universities have long balked at the idea that their athletes are employees in some way. Schools would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation. And while private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state; virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.

Ehrlich noted the short careers for college athletes and wondered whether a union for collective bargaining is even possible.

A harder look at contracts

To sports attorney Mit Winter, employment contracts may be the simplest solution.

“This isn’t something that’s novel to college sports,” said Winter, a former college basketball player who is now a sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry. “Employment contracts are a huge part of college sports, it’s just novel for the athletes.”

Employment contracts for players could be written like those for coaches, he suggested, which would offer buyouts and prevent players from using the portal as a revolving door.

“The contracts that schools are entering into with athletes now, they can be enforced, but they cannot keep an athlete out of school because they’re not signing employment contracts where the school is getting the right to have the athlete play football for their school or basketball or whatever sport it is,” Winter said. “They’re just acquiring the right to be able to use the athlete’s NIL rights in various ways. So, a NIL agreement is not going to stop an athlete from transferring or going to play whatever sport it is that he or she plays at another school.”

There are challenges here, too, of course: Should all college athletes be treated as employees or just those in revenue-producing sports? Can all injured athletes seek workers’ compensation and insurance protection? Could states start taxing athlete NIL earnings?

“What’s going on in college athletics now is trying to create this new novel system where the athletes are basically treated like employees, look like employees, but we don’t want to call them employees,” Winter said. “We want to call them something else and say they’re not being paid for athletic services. They’re being paid for use of their NIL. So, then it creates new legal issues that have to be hashed out and addressed, which results in a bumpy and chaotic system when you’re trying to kind of create it from scratch.”

Employment contracts would not necessarily allow for uniform rules with an athlete able to go to transfer when terms have been met. Collective bargaining could include those guidelines.

“If the goal is to keep someone at a school for a certain defined period of time, it’s got to be employment contracts,” Winter said.

Photos You Should See – December 2025

TOPSHOT - This aerial view shows people carrying images of the Virgin of Guadalupe during the pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe through Paso de Cortes, near Amecameca, Mexico on December 9, 2025. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / AFP via Getty Images)

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NIL contracts with Bison athletes a comprehensive, binding document – InForum

Published

4 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

FARGO — North Dakota State athletic director Matt Larsen says “never in a million years” did he foresee his position getting into legal agreements like Name, Image and Likeness contracts with student-athletes. Well, a million years suddenly became 2026.

Another step in the different world of college football is alive and well with the Bison, whose players are required to sign either one of two contracts with the athletic department: a student-athlete participation and publicity agreement that allows the university to use the student-athlete for marketing and promotional purposes and a more comprehensive NIL license agreement that is tied to funds players receive directly from the Green and Gold Fund, the collective that pays student-athletes from the athletic department.

Almost 80% of NDSU football players are part of the latter.

Contracts like NDSU’s are most likely the standard in college football these days.

“I don’t know about every school but I think if you’re doing any sort of in-house institutional NIL, these are the types of things you need to do,” Larsen said. “There are probably varying degrees to how extensive they are. We just felt like we wanted to do it right on the front end.”

NDSU’s NIL license agreement is nine pages of legal language. For instance, there are stipulations that do not allow the athlete to enter into a third-party agreement with a competitor of an athletic department or university sponsor (which is nothing new), such as Under Armour, Scheels, Gate City Bank or Sanford Health, among others.

They are not allowed to represent industries related to alcohol, tobacco, anabolic steroids, gambling or sexually-oriented businesses.

Not all football players are paid and not all are paid the same, with preference given to starters or veterans who contribute the most on the field. The contract specifies the student-athlete have a degree of confidentiality with the exception of the student-athlete’s authorized representative, immediate family members, tax adviser or legal counsel.

The contracts between student-athletes and the university are not subject to open records, mainly because of student privacy rights like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

“It’s a completely new world,” Larsen said. “It’s not something I ever thought I would do yet here we are.”

Larsen didn’t want to get into how enforceable the contracts are, although it’s a general assumption that a multi-million dollar agreement with a Power Four athlete is vastly different from a contract with an FCS player.

042225.S.FF.SunderlandOffice9.jpg — North Dakota State athletic director Matt Larsen explains the details of the renovated Sunderland Family Football Office Complex, located inside the Fargodome, on April 21, 2025, during a press conference and ribbon cutting that unveiled the space.

It’s doubtful a school like NDSU would legally go after a player making $10,000 in NIL as opposed to the University of Washington suggesting this week it may take legal action against quarterback Demond Williams Jr., who signed a million-dollar NIL contract last week with the school but said he was entering the transfer portal this week.

All 425 NDSU student-athletes sign the participation and publicity contract, which grants NDSU to use them for promotional purposes. There is no revenue exchanged with the parties.

Both contracts didn’t come about overnight. NDSU met with multiple lawyers, including an external Title IX attorney and the North Dakota University System assistant attorney general, over the summer in creating the agreements.

Football players get paid between two and four times a year depending on their situation with the payments of NIL funds to NDSU athletes being done through a company called Teamworks LLC, an operating system that distributes funds. The company advertises that its platform helps with tax obligations and offers tools for savings and business accounts.

Larsen calls it a general manager tool. More than that, Larsen has become more than a director of his athletic department. Add general manager to that title, too.

“A lot of our terms are all pretty standard,” he said.

Standard, in 2026.

Jeff Kolpack, the son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he’s covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995. He has covered all 10 of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written four books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough,” “Covid Kids” and “They Caught Them Sleeping: How Dot Reinvented the Pretzel.” He is also the radio host of “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” April through August.

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Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr reverses transfer decision

Published

5 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Your Sports Nation

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Demond Williams Jr., a college football player who ignited controversy by entering the transfer portal just days after signing a lucrative name, image and likeness deal with Washington, announced late Thursday that he will remain with the Huskies. The abrupt reversal comes amid reports that the university was weighing its legal options to enforce the contract.

Williams, 19, signed an NIL deal on Jan. 2 to remain as Washington’s quarterback for the 2026 season, a contract reportedly valued at around $4 million. Days later — on the same day as the memorial service for Washington women’s soccer player Mia Hamant, who died in November after a long battle with kidney cancer — Williams announced his intention to enter the transfer portal.

Demond Williams Jr. of the Washington Huskies arrives for the game against the Oregon Ducks at Husky Stadium on Nov. 29, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Blake Dahlin/ISI Photos/ISI Photos)

The decision, and the timing of Williams’ announcement, was met with both shock and backlash.

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The fallout of that announcement led Williams’ agent, Doug Hendrickson, to drop the quarterback, citing “philosophical differences.” Williams then retained Florida-based attorney Darren Heitner amid reports that the university was exploring legal action to enforce the contract.

But in a shocking reversal, Williams released a statement Thursday confirming that he would be staying with Washington.

“After thoughtful reflection with my family, I am excited to announce that I will continue my football journey at the University of Washington. I am deeply grateful to my coaches, teammates, and everyone in the program for fostering an environment where I can thrive both as an athlete and as an individual,” his statement posted to social media read.

“I am fully committed and focused on contributing to what we are building.”

Demond Williams Jr. of the Washington Huskies celebrates a touchdown against the Oregon Ducks during the second half at Husky Stadium on Nov. 29, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

AGENT DUMPS WASHINGTON QUARTERBACK TRYING TO BREAK $4M CONTRACT DAYS AFTER SIGNING

Williams also apologized that his initial announcement “coincided with the celebration of life for Mia Hamant, a beloved member of our University community. I never intended to call attention away from such an important moment.”

In his statement, head coach Jedd Fisch acknowledged the strain caused by the situation and said the program would work with Williams to repair relationships and rebuild trust within the Husky community.

“Over the last few days, Demond and I have engaged in very honest and heartfelt conversations about his present and future. We both agree that the University of Washington is the best place for him to continue his academic, athletic, and social development,” he said in a statement provided by the university.

Demond Williams Jr. of the Washington Huskies passes against the Oregon Ducks during the first half at Husky Stadium on Nov. 29, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

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“I appreciate Demond’s statement. I support him, and we will work together to begin the process of repairing relationships and regaining the trust of the Husky community.”

Williams is a dual-threat quarterback who threw for 3,065 yards with 25 touchdowns and eight interceptions, while also rushing for 611 yards and six scores during his sophomore season at Washington.

Fox News Digital’s Scott Thompson contributed to this report.

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