Stewart Mandel
@slmandel
Husband. Dad. I write about college football for The Athletic and talk about college football on The Audible. Tips? Compliments? Email [email protected].
Curt Cignetti, asked about Indiana dropping tough non-conference games, comes armed with data about all the FCS teams the SEC plays, with 8 league games instead of 9. “We just figured we’d adopt an SEC scheduling format.”
Yep, pretty much.
This is absolutely insane, by the way. Just to be super clear, Ohio State and the Big Ten's messaging is "we won't schedule quality out of conference games unless they don't matter".
The fight over whether collectives are a "valid business" that I wrote about last week has already been resolved. The collectives won.
Attorneys have resolved a dispute over how the College Sports Commission handles NIL collectives, sources tell @YahooSports, revising its approach to treat them like other businesses - a major move that paves the way for continued collective operations bit.ly/4kVo5od
Ryan Day, in supporting Tony Petitti’s CFP plan, says they would continue to schedule a 10th game against a P4 foe if there are four AQs. If not, “then I don’t think it makes sense to do that.”
Ryan Day says everyone is operating in a “gray area” in recruiting right now due to uncertainty over how third-party deals will be cleared/not cleared. “Looking for some clarity.” He also said Ohio St players have had had some deals approved and some denied by NIL Go so far.
Tony Petitti: "To be clear, any (CFP) format that increases the discretion and role of the CFP selection committee will have a difficult time getting support from the Big Ten."
We are going to be seeing more numbers like this and Texas Tech’s $55M because of the front loading to beat House. Collectives paid for 2 football seasons in one fiscal year.
Texas A&M student-athletes received a combined $51.4 million in NIL compensation from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, according to figures received through open records . Men's sports received a combined $49.2M. Women's sports received a combined $2.2M: theeagle.com/sports/college…
This is my third straight year going to Vegas for a conference media days. For 3 different conferences.
Realignment never ceases to one-up itself in absurdity.
✍️ Sources: Memphis has tried to SMU its way into the Big 12, proposing to take no money, plus provide upwards of $200 million in sponsorships with Memphis partners like FedEx and Lowe's. But it hasn't garnered enough interest. More: nytimes.com/athletic/65056…
Per @byAustinMeek, Tony Petitti wrote a letter to the Committee on Infractions arguing Michigan should receive no further sanctions in the Connor Stalions scandal. (That will not happen.) nytimes.com/athletic/65064…
Such a great idea and execution by @MattBakerCFB, especially in the wake of the crazy NBA sales prices. Would someone pay $2.3B for the Texas football program? nytimes.com/athletic/65005…
I guess Brendan Sullivan was not the answer for Tulane.
SOURCE: Former BYU QB Jake Retzlaff is expected to transfer to Tulane. He led the Cougars to an 11-2 season in 2024 but left BYU after being informed he would have to serve a 7-game suspension for violating the school's Honor Code.
It’s always a blast coming up with the preseason “I can’t believe these guys are still in college” team. Story w/ @skhanjr nytimes.com/athletic/64809…
I guess now we can all go back to having never heard of Astronomer.
As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met. Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and…