Battle for 2025 & 2026 College Football Playoff format continues
700 episodes of College Football Enquirer later, Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger and SI's Pat Forde are somehow STILL talking about the College Football Playoff format. Ross returns from Dallas, Texas with the latest news from the CFP Management Committee on impending changes to both the 2025 & 2026 playoff structure. These two playoffs are separate events but the decisions surrounding them are linked as the Big 12 and ACC try to leverage the power they DO have in the 2025 playoff into greater concessions from the SEC & Big Ten when they take control of the 2026 playoff. From potential changes to the quarterfinal bowl games, to a switch to straight seeding, to additional automatic qualification—Dan, Ross & Pat cover it all.
Pat dives into his recent article about a gambling ring that allegedly tampered with obscure men's basketball games including the likes of Temple, East Carolina, Mississippi Valley State and more. Finally, the People's Court attempts to answer the oh-so-important question: which SEC team has the most fans currently incarcerated?
(2:29) CFP format discussions continue
(48:02) CBB point shaving scandal
(55:05) Most incarcerated SEC fanbases
Follow Dan @DanWetzel
Follow Pat @ByPatForde
Follow Ross @RossDellenger
🖥️
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
College athletics is about to change forever
Hello everyone, I'm Dan Lucy on the Ozarks First digital desk. Friday night a federal judge approved a $2.8 billion dollar settlement that paves the way for colleges to pay their student-athletes. Starting July first, the old college formula of amateur athletes getting scholarships and meal money is gone. This is all the result of grant house. Grant was a swimmer at Arizona State University who said athletes invest a lot of their time and bring a lot money to the university, and they ought to get a cut of that. He sued the NCAA. And after nearly five years of bickering, both sides agreed to a settlement. And Friday a federal judge approved the deal. Out of that $2.8 billion dollars, colleges and universities will be allowed to pay out as much as $20 million dollars a year to their student athletes. That means about 50 percent of the school's sports revenue will pay athletic salaries. A cut of that money will also pay former athletes who missed out on name, image and likeness money. Where will they get all of that money? They'll try to solicit donations from alumni. And some sports economists say they'll have to make some cuts to things like coaches' pay, facilities and maybe even non-revenue-bearing sports. Richard Paulsen/Michigan Sports Management Professor: 'Another place you might see cuts is Olympic sports…. And now if more money is going to the athletes and football, let's say, that's less money that can be used to cover, you know, scholarships and some of these other sports.' Because of this settlement, teams will have roster limits instead of scholarship limits. That means there may not be any room for walk-ons. Another concern, the big power conference schools will just get richer and bigger. And who decides how much the athletes will get paid? The plan is for the conferences and universities to set the pay scale. One of the biggest and powerful conferences is the Southeastern Conference. Mizzou and Arkansas are a part of that super conference. And SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey reacted to the decision. And he says ultimately it'll be a good thing for college athletics. Greg Sankey/SEC commissioner (it's a good thing…but there will be growing pains) This settlement, and all the money involved was one of the driving forces that moved Missouri State from the Valley to Conference USA. We'll have to wait and see how this all pans out. One things for sure. The old days of college sports in the 50's and 60's is long gone. For more sports watch Ozarks First news at nine and ten. And I'll see you then. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Miami Herald
5 hours ago
- Miami Herald
SMU Football Preview 2025: The Mustangs Are Built To Do It Again
Well that last season, SMU hadn't won a regular season game against a Power Five-now-Power-Four program against anyone by TCU since an all-time bet-on-yourself move, SMU became a part of the ACC, but without taking a dime of TV revenue until 2032. It was looking to raise the school's profile with a long-term plan, and it helped get the alumni fired up and ready to write and Cal were the higher-profile gets for the ACC, SMU was expected to be a nice scrimmage for the established programs, and then ... probably didn't belong in the expanded College Football Playoff - technically, a case could've been made for BYU instead with an 18-15 win over the Mustangs in Dallas - but let's start with this. If last year at this exact time, you were told SMU would be in the CFP discussion ... X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN2025 SMU PreviewSMU Offense BreakdownSMU Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to SeasonSMU almost pulled off a thriller of a comeback in a 34-31 loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship, and it got its shot. In the ten years of the College Football Playoff, no two-loss Power Five/Four program would've been left out of an expanded 12-team model - it had to be done. SMU had to be what that the Mustangs were outplayed and outclassed in a blowout loss at Penn State. They made it. Everything the school could've dreamed of came true. SMU made the (bleep)ing College Football Playoff. Texas A&M hasn't done that. Neither has Baylor, Texas Tech, or Houston. Take it outside of the football-mad state - Wisconsin, Florida, Ole Miss, Auburn, Missouri, USC, Utah, and Iowa have yet to make the last year, Penn State and Tennessee hadn't been in, it wasn't a fluke. Okay, so the ACC was fourth among the Power Four conferences by about a gajillion miles. SMU hung up 66 on TCU, walloped Florida State 42-16, took out a good Louisville squad, and in all, beat six teams that went bowling, and again, almost took out Clemson. All head coach Rhett Lashlee has done is go 22-6 over the last two seasons and 29-12 since taking the job in recruiting class was terrific, the staff kept around everyone important, crushed the transfer portal for key positions, the depth is better, and the starting 22 will be more talented than last year's schedule is tougher - Florida State will likely rebound, Miami is on the slate this time around, and good luck with those road trips to TCU and Clemson - and the team will be the hunted, but after last year, you're insane to think SMU can't do it all again. SMU Offense BreakdownSMU Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season © 2025 The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.


USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
'I always expect to be in the NCAA Tournament': Texas A&M coach previews season ahead
'I always expect to be in the NCAA Tournament': Texas A&M coach previews season ahead After a tremendous kickstart to the Bucky McMillan era at Texas A&M, the first-year head coach sat down with college basketball insider Jon Rothstein to talk some ball this afternoon. McMillan comes to Bryan-College Station, Texas, after leading Samford to historic success over the last few years, including the program's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000. Now, he is looking to lead the Aggies' men's basketball program to new heights with no signs of slowing down his preparations anytime soon. Here is everything McMillan said on Rothstein's podcast on the CBS Sports College Basketball YouTube channel: Q: How did Henry Ward McMillan III become Bucky? "I was called that since birth, my dad's name was Bucky. I don't know why it's not on my birth certificate because they knew they were going to call me that. My dad was called that so I don't know. If it wasn't so hard to get a name change, I might do it. My dad was named after a baseball player named Bucky Harris back in the day so there you go." Q: Does life feel like a movie right now for Bucky McMillan? "It's gone so fast, I haven't had time to really think, but I mean, basketball is basketball. Someone asked me that the other day. Coaching at Texas A&M is awesome, but still the same feeling I had coaching JV basketball in terms of treating every job like that's your group, that's your team and let's go. I know when I coach JV basketball, this is the world I live in and this is the most important thing in my sports world. Now, the SEC is the most important thing in my world and Texas A&M being my focus." Q: If your life were a movie, who would play Bucky McMillan? "The guy from Punk'D. Ashton Kutcher that guy." Q: What was it like connecting being the Samford head coach, to then getting offered the job at Texas A&M? "There's a lot of similarities in Texas to the Alabama people, like real chill, down-to-earth people. I love College Station. It's just an easy town to kind of acclamate to. People are welcoming and it's great being undefeated. When you're undefeated everybody loves you. I haven't had to pay for a dinner yet so I need to push this season back as long as possible. It's a great place and I think it's got everything it takes to win in every sport here and have success in every sport. The new era of college athletics, I don't think every university is going to be able to do that. They're going to have to pick and choose. This place can compete for championships in every sport in the SEC I believe." Q: When the job opened, did you say to yourself I think this is one I am going to have a chance at? "You never know. In the South, you never know how the dominoes will fall. I know it's one that I would have to take and I'd want. I talked to our athletic director, obviously the coaching carousel moves and there's opportunities you're involved with. My athletic director at Samford, a guy named Martin Newton, who's a big guy in my life. There's been jobs I've asked him about he said besides the money, I don't know about that one for you. When we talked about Texas A&M, he was like, I don't want to see you go, but man... that's a place you could go and I think you'd be really, really successful there. When he kind of gave me the go-ahead that would be a place where I'd fit and it fit me, I was all-in to being out here." Q: What exactly is "Bucky Ball"? "When I was coaching high school basketball in Alabama back in the day, all the coaches in the suburban schools they played in the 30s and 40s. Really slow, ran the flex, no shot clock, shoot it after a minute and I was committed to, if I coached, I would never do that. We were going to trap until they shot the ball, shoot as quickly as possible, take a lot of threes and so a lot of old-school coaches in the area use to say that as a negative. Like it wasn't disciplined if you played fast and shoot threes. We started winning a lot and it became known as a positive in the community where I lived in. Basically, up-tempo basketball and shoot a lot of threes. You see more and more of it today, but 15 years ago some people thought a three-point shot would be a bad shot. We've always been a high-volume three-point shooting team, up-tempo team. Q: What coaches did Bucky McMillan study to learn his own offensive system? "I played for a great college coach in Duane Reboul who was the coach of Birmingham-Southern, they were in the Big South at the time. He won two NAI National Championships before that. He was kind of the same way, early three-point shooting before that was popular, spacing the floor and so I studied him a lot. There's some college coaches now that are my competitors, I can't say too much about. I can't hurt myself in the recruiting game, but there's some guys that I'm friends with in the business, one of them had a similar route to me. Nate (Oats) at Alabama, I'll go ahead and say it. I've watched them analytically and we're kind of into the anayltics before the analytics were the analytics." Q: What are the impressions of the roster you've put together at Texas A&M? "We did as good as we could possibly do when we got hired. Our staff, when we got everybody in place, supporting us and the way we had to go about this. I am not saying that this will be the best team we will ever assemble, but I will say is I am very proud of what we were able to do based on when you're looking at the supply and demand chain at the time we got hired." Q: What most excites you about the talent you've assembled in College Station? "That we're a good shooting team. That's what I see when I watch them. We have a lot of good shooting and when you have that you're capable of beating anybody. You want more than that obviously or you're capable of losing to anybody, but I certaintly think it's a team you'll see make 20-plus threes in some games this year. If it became between one or the other, like a team that could lose to some teams but also a team that could knock off some the best team in the country, give me that team because we all know to make a run to the tournament you're going to have to pull that. We know the goal of what this is. Basketball is a postseason sport, a tournament sport. If we can do our job getting to the tournament, it's your path. You just got to have one of those two games where you shoot it extremely well and these guys we have their capable. We have multiple guys that I think could shoot over 40% from three-point land." Q: What are your feelings knowing that you're a couple of months away from being a head coach and competing in the SEC? "It's a great league to be in because of what you said. You're goal is to get in the NCAA Tournament and you're goal is to win the NCAA Tournament. If you can compete at a high level in the SEC, which was the best league in college basketball last year and arguably the best league ever assembled, you got a chance certaintly when the majority of the teams are making it to the tournament. If you're in this league, iron sharpens iron. If you can compete at a high level in this league it's special, but if you get in the tournament after being in this league, you're going to be tournament ready." Q: What crumbs can Buck McMillan share on Texas A&M's non-conference schedule for the 2025-2026 season? "We're going with the 8-5 model, so we will play five Power Five teams total and eight non-power fives." Q: Based on the personnel that you've assembled after one shooting workout, is making the NCAA Tournament a realistic goal for the Aggies coming up here in 2026? "Yeah I certaintly think it is. People forget sometimes, A&M was playing for an SEC Championship and in the championship game. Like you said 14 of the 16 teams got in, and this year it's just going to be about this team coming together. I always expect to be in the NCAA Tournament. When I was in mid-major I was expecting to be in the NCAA Tournament. I dang sure to be in it at Texas A&M and I expect when we get there, to win there. I think all these guys we recruited expect the same way." The finishing touches on the Texas A&M men's basketball schedule are yet to be implemented, but the newly transformed roster is geared up and raring to hit the court in Reed Arena. Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Dylan on X: @dylanmflippo.