Mandel's Mailbag: Could the NCAA's House settlement kill some sports?

New York Times

10-04-2025

Apologies for the inconsistent mailbag schedule recently. I was off last week and spent Monday in a courthouse all day. (As a reporter, not a defendant.)
The plan is still for this thing to run every Wednesday. Except when it doesn't.
With all the money spent this year, is Joey McGuire now in a prove-it year at Texas Tech? — Bill A.
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Absolutely. Those donors didn't pitch in for the No. 1 transfer class in the country – one that got even stronger last week with the addition of Stanford defensive end David Bailey (14.5 career sacks) — to keep going 8-5 or 7-6.
Granted, both of those records are right in line with the historic norm at Texas Tech, which has not won nine games in a season since Mike Leach's final year in 2009. The program hasn't won an outright conference title since 1955! But times have changed. Billionaire booster Cody Campbell, who last year gave star softball pitcher NiJaree Canady an unprecedented (in softball) seven-figure deal, told my former colleague Max Olson the team's backers spent more than $10 million on this year's transfer class. And that was before bringing in Bailey, who surely commanded seven figures on his own.
Then on Wednesday, All-American basketball player J.T. Toppin announced he's returning to the Red Raiders. I'm told that deal is for more than $3 million. It must be nice to have a whale who recently sold his oil company for $4 billion.
Throw in all the money they must have spent to retain their current players and it's not a stretch to think the Red Raiders' 2025 roster is making as much, or more, than Ohio State's $20 million national championship team last season. No one is expecting Tech to reach that pinnacle, but it should have the pieces to win double-digit games.
But there remains one unresolved question: Can McGuire pull that off? We know the longtime Texas high school coach can recruit. Three years in, though, it remains a question whether he can break through as a college head coach. I'll say this: Tech went 6-3 in a tough conference last year, beating both Big 12 title game participants, ASU and Iowa State. But the Red Raiders weren't consistent enough to contend themselves. We'll see if he can address that with a more talented roster.
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You were at the House settlement hearing on Monday. It seems like the judge is inclined to accept the settlement. Do you think that's correct, and what sports will be the first to become extinct at the D-I level? — Jesse K
That was my takeaway, yes. Especially since, after listening to a day-long parade of objectors, Judge Claudia Wilken flat-out said, 'Basically, I think it is a good settlement.' She does have concerns and gave the parties a week to address them. Regardless, the whole thing felt like a formality. The judge, the plaintiffs and the defendants all know there's a ticking clock and that coaches need certainty over what their world will look like come next school year.
Is the settlement 'correct?' No, I wouldn't use that word. It's deeply flawed. I still don't see how you can resolve an antitrust suit with more restrictions — both a salary cap ($20.5 million per school) that the athletes did not negotiate and a third-party clearinghouse that could squash outside NIL deals it deems above 'market value.' But Wilken basically said that's not her problem. All she's trying to determine is whether the settlement is a fair compromise for the two sides.
And as the NCAA's primary lawyer, Rakesh Kilaru, kept saying: It's a better system than the one we have now.
As for the last part of the question, no one can say with any certainty what the unintended consequences will be. Entire sports programs going away seems fatalistic, but we know not everyone will be able to afford this new model. Especially the farther you go down the ladder.
I just hope the Power 4 programs don't use this as an excuse to cut sports. They can afford them. They just have to stop burning money on raises for mediocre coaches with no leverage and the enormous buyouts that follow them.
Recently, analysts like Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal have come under fire for potentially being too negative when discussing the NBA, and they have been posited as a reason for why the league's ratings have declined. Where does CFB reside here? Do you think we get enough optimism about the state of the game from the media? Do we get enough healthy criticism? — Jessica S., Los Angeles
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Great question. It's something I keep in mind. It's not my job to promote college football, and I'm not afraid to give critical opinions about various aspects of the sport when warranted. But it does feel at times like I'm more bullish about the future than some of you who post comments on my stories.
Anyone who regularly reads this column knows I'm a big fan of the 12-team College Football Playoff, and that I do not hold alarmist views about NIL and the transfer portal. For all the griping, I think they've been net-positive for college football. But you also know I'm deeply concerned about the effects of realignment and the potential to alienate diehard fans of disaffected teams. I get the sense many of my peers on the national beat feel similarly.
That said, I do notice more complaining from ex-coaches and players on television. Everyone from Kirk Herbstreit to Nick Saban to Joel Klatt to Scott Van Pelt has gone on an NIL and/or transfer portal rant at some point, and theirs are the opinions that go viral.
One big difference between the NBA and college football: You don't often hear notable NBA coaches and players (save for Draymond Green) complaining about their sport. So they get more annoyed by the TV commentary. Meanwhile, every college football coach hates the sport's current model and will gladly say as much in front of a camera and microphone.
Most importantly, NBA complaints are generally about the league's product — the players are soft, they shoot too many 3-pointers, blah, blah, blah. The product of college football is thriving. Tens of millions of people watch it every week. The problem is … everything else.
Who could be considered sleeper Big Ten title favorites? (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, etc.) — Sarah K.
It might be time to recalibrate expectations when it comes to conference titles. With 18 teams and no divisions, I don't know that any former West division team will be capable of unseating Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State/Oregon. Still, the Big Ten could certainly produce a sleeper Playoff team, just as it did last season in Indiana.
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Start with Illinois, which is coming off a surprise 10-win season and has 18 starters returning, an extreme outlier in the era of little continuity. And that was before adding three former Wisconsin defensive starters: Curt Neal and James Thompson Jr., both D-linemen, and linebacker Leon Lowery Jr. Plus, the Illini play a seemingly manageable schedule, with Ohio State and Indiana the only ranked teams from last season.
Washington also intrigues me. Jedd Fisch managed to field a bowl team in Year 1 despite the Huskies losing nearly every key player from their 2023 run to the national title game. Dynamic quarterback Desmond Williams Jr. takes over full-time after shining at the end of last season, and he gets a new target in Penn State transfer wide receiver Omari Evans. Star running back Jonah Coleman and established receiver Denzel Boston are back, too. Admittedly, the defense lost a ton of production and will rely heavily on transfers.
And finally … I wouldn't assume Indiana immediately falls back into the pack. Yes, Curt Cignetti lost a lot of production from last year's 11-win team, most notably QB Kurtis Rourke, but the guy has quite a track record of reloading at his previous stops. Cal transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza has a lot of experience and may finally get some pass protection, what with IU bringing in ex-Notre Dame center Pat Coogan and Ohio State tackle Zen Michalski. The main issue, of course, is that the Hoosiers may have to face more opponents with a pulse this year.
Will the SEC be able to build on its success as a basketball conference to become nationally competitive in football? — Michael M.
I don't know, it could be a long road. In the meantime, though, if you think the SEC dominated in basketball, you should check out the current baseball and softball rankings. The conference's teams at least have that going for them.
With Nick Saban no longer in coaching, who do you consider 'The Godfather' of college football now in terms of head coaches? — Marc U.
I suppose it depends on the criteria. Kirk Ferentz, now entering his 27th season at Iowa, has been doing it the longest of anyone by a healthy margin. (Utah's Kyle Whittingham and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy are next at 21 seasons each.) Clemson's Dabo Swinney is arguably the most accomplished, with two national titles and six Playoff berths, though you could make a similar case for Georgia's Kirby Smart, who has two rings, four CFPs and eight straight top-10 seasons.
When I picture Saban as 'The Godfather,' I mainly think of his insane coaching tree. He truly was a figurative father to two decades of college head coaches, from Smart to Jimbo Fisher to Lane Kiffin to Steve Sarkisian and more. Ferentz doesn't really have one. Swinney's is small (mainly Virginia's Tony Elliott, ex-USF coach Jeff Scott and Florida's Billy Napier), which has not been particularly successful so far.
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So I think you have to go with Smart, who can claim Oregon's Dan Lanning, South Carolina's Shane Beamer, Arkansas' Sam Pittman and Syracuse's Fran Brown. (I assume he's disowned Mel Tucker.) Not bad for a guy who, as wild as this sounds, is only now entering his 10th season as a head coach.
Stanford has turned over the football program to Andrew Luck, and now donors at Cal want to do the same with Ron Rivera. Is it smart to keep the highest-profile part of most major athletic programs, which typically serves as the main financial engine, siloed off from everything else? — Dan G., Los Angeles
It's quite a unique twist to the rivalry.
Stanford not only named Luck as general manager and put him above the head coach (whom he recently fired), but also he reports directly to the president of the university, not the athletic director. (Stanford does not have one at the moment.) So yes, a silo. And as of this moment, an entirely unique one in college football.
While Rivera has the same title at Cal, and also reports directly to the chancellor, it does not appear he has oversight of head coach Justin Wilcox, whose boss remains AD Jim Knowlton. This has miffed the folks at Cal's collective, who are threatening to withhold donations unless Rivera is given the same level of authority as Luck.
In general, it makes sense to me why a modern college football program might be structured like an NFL franchise, with the general manager in charge of roster construction and the coach charged with getting the most out of that roster. Most coaches did not get into the profession to negotiate NIL deals. They're more comfortable yelling at the right tackle for bad technique in a practice drill.
I do, however, question the concept of said GM having no real oversight. There's no equivalent to the team owner in college. You could say the university presidents, but they're a little busy running the institution to get immersed in the day-to-day of the football team. In Cal's case, is Rivera the primary fundraiser for football while Knowlton only gets to do that for the other sports? We're talking about a former NFL head coach here, not an experienced capital development professional.
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Ultimately, we're still in the infant stages of this new era of college football, and I'd expect these types of models to keep evolving. If the Stanford version takes hold, though, and schools start giving increased autonomy to football, it raises an obvious question: Why doesn't the entire sport of football break away from the others?
As long as I can remember, you have only covered college football and college hoops. If that was no longer an option, would you rather shift to those sports but at the professional level or keep covering college sports exclusively? — Todd B.
Were that to happen, I would immediately shift to my new favorite sport, college softball. I got my first few reps in last year.
Also, as I learned last weekend, college dodgeball is a thing. I feel like I could dominate that beat.
I want to change beats. https://t.co/7HxhsQGwpz
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 6, 2025
How does the SEC get away with setting a conference-wide 85 scholarship limit for football? Isn't the House settlement supposed to eliminate scholarship limits for rosters? Has any other conference set scholarship limits post-House? — G M M.
That is partially correct. The settlement will set roster limits for every sport (105 in football) but also requires that the NCAA eliminate all scholarship limits.
While the Power 5 conferences were also defendants in the lawsuit, there is nothing that says they can't implement similar rules. I'm no antitrust lawyer, but my understanding is that a conference-specific rule is not considered anticompetitive because the athletes have alternative options outside the SEC. That doesn't mean someone couldn't challenge the rule, but they'd have a better case if the other conferences all imposed the same rule and there was proof they colluded with each other.
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At this point, no other conference has a similar policy, and I'm hearing some schools in those leagues plan to go above 85. However, new scholarships count toward each school's $20.5 million spending cap, and many schools may need to add them in other sports to address Title IX concerns.
Florida just became the only school with three men's hoops national titles and three football titles. How many years until the Gators get their fourth football title? — Gene S.
I'm bullish on quarterback DJ Lagway and the 2025 Gators, but a national title? I think we'll sooner see Jaden Rashada finally get some of that $13.85 million.
I think the extra COVID year of eligibility has run its course. What were the pros and cons? What are the implications going forward? — Kevin, St. Louis Mo.
There's actually one more year before expiration. True freshmen in 2020 are entering their sixth season this year. If they redshirted at some point, they would still have eligibility. But it's probably not a significant number of players.
The extension had tremendous implications. You can go back and play all kinds of sliding doors scenarios. Michael Penix Jr. would not have remained at Washington for the Huskies' amazing 2023 season. Dillon Gabriel would not have had the chance to lead Oregon to a No. 1 seed in last year's CFP. Miami wouldn't have Carson Beck for this coming season, and even a favorable judge might not have saved Diego Pavia's last season at Vandy. (Technically, he might not have even made it to 2024.)
And that's just the quarterbacks. Lots and lots of super seniors at other positions have played key roles on lots of good teams.
Important caveat, though: This one-time extra year happened to coincide with the dawn of NIL. You can't unwind them. Does Penix use his sixth year if he's not getting a seven-figure deal to put off the NFL? Probably not. Even among non-NFL prospects, there are probably guys who might have otherwise moved on with their lives but had a chance to make $80,000 if they came back for one more year.
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The biggest implication going forward is that the powers-that-be have been talking for years about just giving everybody a blanket five years of eligibility rather than deal with waivers and redshirts. Perhaps the normalization of longer college careers helps put it over the top.
Why can't the Big 12 have nice things? Did the refs really need to hand the SEC a natty in bball? — Themanebro!
It didn't seem like the Gators needed help, given that a Houston player left the ball right there on the court for them.