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Phone: 281-971-3362
Email: paul@westhoustonsf.com
NCAA's last stand upon us?
Earlier this week, the NCAA announced that it was investigating the University of Tennessee for violations of NIL rules. And also darkly threatened that this wouldn't be the only investigation they would have, and they're already after Florida as well.
But the announcement was pretty vague, as if they couldn't pin down precisely what violations they were accusing Tennessee of. They just said it had to do with allegations that Knoxville-based Spyre Sports Group signed QB Nico Iamaleava to an $8 million contract before he got out of high school. That sounds like a booster doing something sketchy -- but is it illegal?
Of course, the NCAA does not have much of an NIL framework, except to lay out some equally vague rules and telling programs that they are to follow THOSE rules and not the regulations set out by respective state laws. So, of course, the NCAA got ignored.
And they will NOT be ignored!
But remember what happened to the crazy chick in fatal attraction? Push the issue too much and you get dead.
A day after the NCAA said it was investigating Tennessee, that university's leadership ripped them publicly. Also, the states of Tennessee and Virginia filed a federal antitrust suit against the NCAA, hoping to strike down the NCAA's existing NIL rules -- which, it should be said, were developed late, developed poorly and, in typical NCAA fashion, have not been enforced uniformly.
This morning, the Big 10 and SEC announced that they were creating a "joint advisory group" to address the "significant challenges" facing college athletics. In other words, NIL. The two conferences said the current mess "compel(s) the two conferences to take a leadership role in developing solutions for a sustainable future for college sports."
In other words, the Big 10 and the SEC are going to be developing (in all likelihood) a regulatory framework for NIL that they believe other conferences will buy into. Which is why the NCAA is supposed to exist.
The NCAA's arrogance and unwillingness to adapt got us to this mess. Now, conferences don't trust them to fix it. With each passing day, it draws greater similarities (on a much smaller and less important scale) to the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Bussey nears the finish line
Wednesday is national signing day, so everyone's wondering about the future of Timpson 5-star and A&M commit Terry Bussey. I can say this pretty confidently right now: barring something going south in a big way, A&M is the favorite to sign him going into the weekend. And he'll be in Aggieland on a visit this weekend, to boot.
LSU remains the big opponent, but I'm not even sure how serious a threat they are at this point. Bussey cancelled an in-home with LSU and took one from Georgia instead. I'm not worried about UGA, honestly. That relationship is too new and that's too far for him from home.
Aggies look like they could add another 4-star WR
It won't make up for Cam Coleman, but the Aggies are on the verge of ending up with a pretty darned good wide receiver recruiting class for 2024 anyway -- and that could come at the expense of nemesis Arkansas.
Missouri City Ridge Point 4-star WR Ashton Bethel-Roman was released from his Arkansas NLI yesterday and has set up a visit to A&M this weekend. He also visited right before the early signing period, but A&M had a lot of catching up to do and Holmon Wiggins hadn't been announced as the new WR coach yet.
But a turnover at WR coach, in part due to Bobby Petrino, at Arkansas may be A&M's good fortune. Kenny Guiton, who had been Arkansas' WR coach and Bethel-Roman's primary recruiter, less than 10 days after the early signing period started. He is now at Wisconsin with Luke Fickell. Bethel-Roman, who hadn't made it to campus yet, decided that without Guiton, Arkansas wasn't the place for him.
So Bethel-Roman will be in Aggieland this weekend with national signing day 3 days after that. That bodes seriously well for the Aggies. If Bethel-Roman signs with A&M, and I now have a futurecast in for him, the Aggies will have a wideout corps consisting of Moose Muhammad, Noah Thomas, Micah Tease, Jahdae Walker, Cyrus Allen, Jabre Barber, Ernest Campbell, Izaiah Williams and Bethel-Roman -- and possibly Bussey.
Bethel-Roman's recruitment a symptom of a bigger (now gone) problem
Firing Jimbo Fisher and running Daymeune Craig out the door cost A&M an elite recruit in Cam Coleman. Mike Elko and his new staff then informed Braylon Hornsby and Debron Gatling that they'd better look elsewhere. So it left the wideout room short-handed, at least temporarily.
But the comments Landyn and I have gotten from some of the 2025 wideouts have been breathtaking, especially about Craig and the lack of effort he was putting in. Players like Andrew Marsh, Kaliq Lockett and Adrian Wilson had barely heard from A&M before the coaching change, and they're 4-stars in A&M's backyard! Now, the Aggies are likely in front for all three.
Craig was a paradox. He was not a good coach, but he could recruit -- when he wanted to. You can see when the hustle was there, but it wasn't every year. It was maybe every other year. And he got away with it.
Even with the massive turnover in coaches over the past couple of months, Craig is still without a job. Odds are that the coaching community already knew what we figured out a little late.
(I had to move the visitor list because it got added to and is now over 10,000 characters. It's below.)
Phone: 281-971-3362
Email: paul@westhoustonsf.com
NCAA's last stand upon us?
Earlier this week, the NCAA announced that it was investigating the University of Tennessee for violations of NIL rules. And also darkly threatened that this wouldn't be the only investigation they would have, and they're already after Florida as well.
But the announcement was pretty vague, as if they couldn't pin down precisely what violations they were accusing Tennessee of. They just said it had to do with allegations that Knoxville-based Spyre Sports Group signed QB Nico Iamaleava to an $8 million contract before he got out of high school. That sounds like a booster doing something sketchy -- but is it illegal?
Of course, the NCAA does not have much of an NIL framework, except to lay out some equally vague rules and telling programs that they are to follow THOSE rules and not the regulations set out by respective state laws. So, of course, the NCAA got ignored.
And they will NOT be ignored!
But remember what happened to the crazy chick in fatal attraction? Push the issue too much and you get dead.
A day after the NCAA said it was investigating Tennessee, that university's leadership ripped them publicly. Also, the states of Tennessee and Virginia filed a federal antitrust suit against the NCAA, hoping to strike down the NCAA's existing NIL rules -- which, it should be said, were developed late, developed poorly and, in typical NCAA fashion, have not been enforced uniformly.
This morning, the Big 10 and SEC announced that they were creating a "joint advisory group" to address the "significant challenges" facing college athletics. In other words, NIL. The two conferences said the current mess "compel(s) the two conferences to take a leadership role in developing solutions for a sustainable future for college sports."
In other words, the Big 10 and the SEC are going to be developing (in all likelihood) a regulatory framework for NIL that they believe other conferences will buy into. Which is why the NCAA is supposed to exist.
The NCAA's arrogance and unwillingness to adapt got us to this mess. Now, conferences don't trust them to fix it. With each passing day, it draws greater similarities (on a much smaller and less important scale) to the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Bussey nears the finish line
Wednesday is national signing day, so everyone's wondering about the future of Timpson 5-star and A&M commit Terry Bussey. I can say this pretty confidently right now: barring something going south in a big way, A&M is the favorite to sign him going into the weekend. And he'll be in Aggieland on a visit this weekend, to boot.
LSU remains the big opponent, but I'm not even sure how serious a threat they are at this point. Bussey cancelled an in-home with LSU and took one from Georgia instead. I'm not worried about UGA, honestly. That relationship is too new and that's too far for him from home.
Aggies look like they could add another 4-star WR
It won't make up for Cam Coleman, but the Aggies are on the verge of ending up with a pretty darned good wide receiver recruiting class for 2024 anyway -- and that could come at the expense of nemesis Arkansas.
Missouri City Ridge Point 4-star WR Ashton Bethel-Roman was released from his Arkansas NLI yesterday and has set up a visit to A&M this weekend. He also visited right before the early signing period, but A&M had a lot of catching up to do and Holmon Wiggins hadn't been announced as the new WR coach yet.
But a turnover at WR coach, in part due to Bobby Petrino, at Arkansas may be A&M's good fortune. Kenny Guiton, who had been Arkansas' WR coach and Bethel-Roman's primary recruiter, less than 10 days after the early signing period started. He is now at Wisconsin with Luke Fickell. Bethel-Roman, who hadn't made it to campus yet, decided that without Guiton, Arkansas wasn't the place for him.
So Bethel-Roman will be in Aggieland this weekend with national signing day 3 days after that. That bodes seriously well for the Aggies. If Bethel-Roman signs with A&M, and I now have a futurecast in for him, the Aggies will have a wideout corps consisting of Moose Muhammad, Noah Thomas, Micah Tease, Jahdae Walker, Cyrus Allen, Jabre Barber, Ernest Campbell, Izaiah Williams and Bethel-Roman -- and possibly Bussey.
Bethel-Roman's recruitment a symptom of a bigger (now gone) problem
Firing Jimbo Fisher and running Daymeune Craig out the door cost A&M an elite recruit in Cam Coleman. Mike Elko and his new staff then informed Braylon Hornsby and Debron Gatling that they'd better look elsewhere. So it left the wideout room short-handed, at least temporarily.
But the comments Landyn and I have gotten from some of the 2025 wideouts have been breathtaking, especially about Craig and the lack of effort he was putting in. Players like Andrew Marsh, Kaliq Lockett and Adrian Wilson had barely heard from A&M before the coaching change, and they're 4-stars in A&M's backyard! Now, the Aggies are likely in front for all three.
Craig was a paradox. He was not a good coach, but he could recruit -- when he wanted to. You can see when the hustle was there, but it wasn't every year. It was maybe every other year. And he got away with it.
Even with the massive turnover in coaches over the past couple of months, Craig is still without a job. Odds are that the coaching community already knew what we figured out a little late.
(I had to move the visitor list because it got added to and is now over 10,000 characters. It's below.)
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