With college football season approaching, fans speculate about the playoff format

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) – The Gator athletic season for 2024/25 is now history and we’ll have to wait a couple of months before a new one begins. But what a difference a year makes! You remember what was happening a year ago, don’t you? Gator Football Coach Billy Napier was on the hot seat, and many called for Athletic Director Scott Stricklin to be replaced. Funny, don’t hear much about those two things this year. The football team is in most preseason top 25 polls and the guy that Stricklin hired as the men’s basketball coach, Todd Golden, is coming off winning a national championship. Funny what winning does.

We’re heading into the end of June with still no resolution as to what future college football playoffs will look like and some are getting antsy about it. Call me one of them. Why can’t these people come up with a plan that checks all the boxes? Sure, that’s not easy with egos, power, and money on the line but we don’t even know if the SEC will play another league game and we don’t know how many teams will be in a future playoff. Heck, the current model hasn’t been totally ruled out; but time is running out. The hope is they will finally get this right and we can all see a formula for how teams get into the playoff without as much controversy and uncertainty about the process.

The ink is hardly dry in the house settlement when we have a lawsuit to deal with, and it comes from the University of Wisconsin who is suing the University of Miami for breaking the law by allegedly tampering with one of its football players. The lawsuit says a player that had signed a two-year contract with the badgers met with Miami representatives and that Miami broke the law by knowingly compelling the player to break his agreement with Wisconsin. This could prove interesting in the courts because players are not technically considered to be employees of a school. Further, the contract stipulates that a school is only paying to use the player’s NIL rights and is not being paid to play football at the school. We shall see where this goes but a ruling here could once again change the nil landscape.

We are right smack in the middle of the Major League Baseball season and some of the storylines have been interesting. Who would have thought the first player to reach 30 homers this year would be one Cal Raleigh…Remember him Gator fans? He was a catcher for FSU, watched him play a lot doing radio games and while I thought he would be a big leaguer, he’s absolutely crushing it this year. He is the first switch hitter ever to have 30 home runs before the all-star break…Too bad you don’t see him on TV much because he plays in Seattle, but he’s having a historic season.

Finally, kudos to Anthony Richardson for having a youth camp here over the weekend. In the sweltering heat, AR had a ton of young people to come out and learn football skills but also learn about some life lessons as well. Great to see him, or any athlete, give back to their community and this camp was an excellent example of that…Very cool thing to see. I’m Steve Russell, that’s the Russell Report!

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