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Machinator

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Machinator

  1. Super K update on Cam. The fact that he's mentioning OU tells me that he's once again out of the loop like he was with Brooks.

    Spoiler

    ***Well, I’ll tread a little lighter today after predicting Bama yesterday on Terrance Brooks.

    ***Although in my defense, the information came from inside the building at Bama. Also, by extension, I was accurate on it not being Texas *eye roll at myself*

    ***So, on Cam Williams, instead of making a prediction about where he is going, I’ll just say that I do not get the sense the pick will be Texas.

    ***Think this one will come down to relationships and his relationship with Oregon and Oklahoma has been longer and stronger.

     

  2. The way I interpreted Harris' post with regard to Williams is that his family is either pro-Texas or thinks it's going to be Texas (if I remember correctly at least one of his parents wanted him to be closer to home), while Roach/Wiltfong/etc. are mostly in the dark because Williams hasn't told either of the coaching staffs his decision yet.

    It bears repeating that the OU mod who CB'd Williams to Texas is friends/roommates with Harris. Probably confirmation that Williams isn't going to OU more than anything else.

  3. Someone asked Harris and Roach if they were starting to lose faith in their sources because of potentially unfounded optimism. This is what Nick Harris posted

    Spoiler

    Wanted to make sure I took some time to answer this thoughtfully. I think what makes our recruiting coverage special at Horns247 is that we attack it from multiple sides. Mike has a lot of the staff sources while I have a lot of recruit/family sources (so does Mike too for that matter). We do that so we have multiple opinions on things. That being said, we try to remain as cautious as possible with our optimism. For me personally, don't take what I say as optimism unless I enter a Crystal Ball or unless I say that I am straight-up optimistic. Let's look at the scheduled commitments for this week as an example. I feel optimistic about Williams and Robertson based on who I have talked to, hence why I have Crystal Balls in. That's the beauty of that feature for me, because it can show you guys what I really think will happen. Does it always happen? Definitely not (shoutout Landon Hullaby), but every L is a learning experience for us all. Recruiting can be very trivial and every recruit is different, and we work tirelessly to try and find trends so that we can better serve you guys. Hope that can help shine some light into our thought processes.

     

  4. Wiltfong on Cam Williams

    Quote

    Another offensive lineman head coach Mario Cristobal and company have been swinging hard for is Duncanville (Texas) High's Cameron Williams who took an official to Eugene the first weekend of June. Williams has long had the Ducks near the top of his list but in-state Texas has made this one very interesting down the stretch. There is now buzz Williams could choose the Longhorns but nothing seems certain at this point other than Oklahoma no longer being in the mix.

     

  5. FCB talks to Bowlsby about expansion

    Spoiler

    Bowlsby was a member of the four-person, Division I working group (along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson) that met over a two-year period and proposed a 12-team CFP format.

    So how quickly could the CFP be expanded from four to 12, considering the current ESPN contract for the CFP runs through the 2025 season?

    “Well, it's not likely to happen in the next year or two,” Bowlsby said. “I’ve seen where some say the earliest it could happen is 2023. But I don't think anybody necessarily forecasts that it’s going to happen in ’23.

    “We're going to take the next four months, and maybe it's five months, maybe it's six months. But we have a CFP board meeting in September and again in January. And there's a lot of moving parts in this. We manage the CFP essentially by unanimous consent. So, if there's one of the signatories who object or a couple of the signatories in the 10 conferences and Notre Dame, this deal could get sideways.

    “Now, we haven't run into any of those things just yet. But as has been said, the devil is in the details. And so the next six months or so, or thereabouts, is going to be an exploration process.”

    The four highest-ranked conference champions would be seeded one through four and each would receive a first-round bye, while teams seeded five through 12 would play each other in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team. (The team ranked No. 5 would host No. 12; team No. 6 would meet team No. 11; team No. 7 would play team No. 10; and team No. 8 would meet No. 9.)

    Under the proposal, the quarterfinals and semifinals would be played in bowl games. The championship game would continue to be at a neutral site, as under the current format.

    “We wanted to make sure that those who had earned it had a crack at getting into the playoff, and so eight just didn't seem like enough, and 16 seemed like too many,” Bowlsby said.

    “And the more we began to delve into it, the more viable it became, and the more we liked the structure and how it could be set up. The real magic in 12 is for the highest-ranked conference champions, if they play all the way to the national championship game, they're only going to play one more game than they would have played otherwise.

    “The only way that you get some of the big numbers (such as 17 games) that have been noted is if you're a low seed, and you've lost in your conference championship game, and you play all the way to the (CFP) championship game.

    “That is fairly unlikely to happen. But you know, it will happen some year. So 12 just seemed like the right balance of access and valuing of conference championships.”

    Critics have said the 12-team playoff format would detract from the regular season. What’s your opinion on that?

    “With six weeks to go in the season, there'll be 35 or 40 teams that have a legitimate claim to be in the playoffs,” Bowlsby said.

    “And with three weeks to play, they'll probably be 20 or 25. So that's good for in-stadium attendance. That's good for fans. It's good for TV. It's gonna bring a lot of interest to the second half of the regular season. And I think all of those were best accomplished with a 12-team model.”

    The knock on the 12-team format is the potential for one or more schools to play up to 17 games in a single season. Should at least one non-conference game be removed from college football’s regular season to lessen the strain on student-athletes who could be playing between 14 and 17 games under a 12-team format?

    “I was the chair of (the NCAA) football oversight (committee) for a number of years, and we we talked about the regular season,” Bowlsby said.

    “We talked about whether or not we wanted to build two byes into the season. And in order to do that for everybody, you would have to start the season a week earlier. And we kind of revisited that conversation in conjunction with the playoff.

    “The challenge with moving the start of the season a week earlier is also moving up preseason camp. Some schools would be starting camp on the 20th of July, and that seemed pretty early. It shortens the summer significantly.

    “I think there can be a conversation about whether 12 (regular-season) games is the right number of games. I think programs like ours in the Big 12 have gotten highly reliant on being able to play seven home games - sometimes eight home games. That revenue is vital to their financial stability.

    “So I think while it's a good academic discussion to have, being able to walk away from a full game of revenue is easier said than done. But I think over time, we'll look at it.

    “That's one of the beauties of this. I don't believe that the 12-team model weakens the regular season. I think on the contrary, it greatly strengthens the regular season and keeps a lot of people close to the flame.”

    What are the steps involved in redoing the broadcast rights for an expanded CFP before the current $470 million contract with ESPN expires?

    “We have to go back and talk to our TV partners at ESPN,” Bowlsby said. “And we are having those conversations in a rapidly changing media environment.

    “The migration to digital carriage is much more rapid than it was forecast to be. The cable universe is shrinking rapidly - more rapidly than it was forecast to shrink.

    “So we're going to have to talk with them. And we're going to have to ascertain what their bandwidth is, because we're talking about going from three games to 11 games (for the CFP). It's not a small change.

    “It's especially complicated to do it around an expanding NFL schedule, because we’re not going to put games in direct conflict with the AFC and NFC Championship games as an example.

    “There's a lot of media stuff to go through. We also have partnerships with our New Year’s Six bowls, and we have to go back to them. In the case of the Big 12 and the SEC, we have a contract with the Sugar Bowl, where we're signatories to the television contract, and it's a very large contract - it's 10s of billions of dollars.

    “Similarly, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have a contract with the Rose Bowl for the same thing. We have structured this so that we have some of our traditional bowl partners on New Year's Day with quarterfinal games. So we've tried to respect the bowl environment. But we've also struck a balance with some games on campus.

    “So, it's got a lot of moving parts, and we don't want to try and shove a 10-pound ham down a funnel. We want to include our partners. We want to value their contribution and their traditions. But we also have a desire to get this done and to make it work.

    “So, aspirationally, our board is going to have another crack at it in terms of approving it. And if we come back and say, ‘Well, here's the deal,’ and there are elements of it that people don't like, then we may or may not get there.

    “I think what has come out of our meetings is that we think the 12-team model is a good model. We don't know yet about the feasibility of all of those aspects, and we'll go through the process. If it turns out that it's not doable in the near term - in 2023 or 2024 or whenever before the end of the contract, then I think what you'll see is we’ll probably stay relatively committed to the 12-team model, but won't implement it until the end of the contract.”

    What were the deciding factors in going with a 12-team model as opposed to an eight-team model?

    “I think that's probably the the the seminal question that has been asked of us,” Bowlsby said. “When you look at eight, and if you believe that there's an opportunity to, or perhaps a necessity, to provide more participation opportunities, all of a sudden you get to the point where you say, well, ‘Are we going to have six automatic qualifiers and two at-larges?’ That just didn't seem like it was enough.

    “You could certainly look at it and say, ‘Well, the A Five has brought most of the value to the College Football Playoff. Let's go with the five A Fives and three at-larges or maybe five and the highest-ranked Group of Five, it didn't seem right that we would have automatic qualifications.

    “This needs to be an eat-what-you-kill environment and needs to be based on strength of schedule and the like. And so we pretty well got ourselves to the point where we wanted to value conference championships. And that's evident in the model.”

    What would the impact of a 12-team playoff be on the non-New Year’s Six bowls?

    “It's a fair question to ask,” Bowlsby said. “Does it does it hurt some of the traditional bowl games that have been around? Right now, we don't know what bowls will be involved in the playoffs.

    “We'll be talking with lots of them over the next three or four months to determine the feasibility of it. But the fact is, there are a lot of bowl games and it's a good thing for players and coaches and institutions to play in the postseason.

    “There are also a lot of the bowl games that are not strong financially and are not greatly anticipated. They don't have long traditions, and so it's not clear exactly what will happen with some of the bowl architecture. But we certainly have made the decisions with those thoughts in mind, and some of that’s just going to have to play itself out.”

     

    • Hook 'Em 1
  6. FCB

    Spoiler

    BOWLSBY TELLS HORNS247 NAME, IMAGE, LIKENESS (WHICH STARTS JULY 1) WON’T BE ‘END OF THE WORLD’

    As of today (July 1), student-athletes are now able to profit from their name, image and likeness, and deals are already starting to be announced.

    Last Stand Hats announced July 1 that it has merchandising deals with Texas outside linebacker DeMarvion Overshown that features gear bearing Overshown’s nickname “Agent 0” and with Texas cornerback Josh Thompson featuring gear with Thompson’s moniker “Humble Beast.”

    The worlds of college football and college athletics are undergoing seismic changes with a proposed, 12-team College Football Playoff gaining traction and with student-athletes being able to profit from their name, image and likeness beginning today (July 1).

    Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby has been right in the middle of both of those issues and sat down with Horns247 to discuss everything from why he thinks a 12-team model enhances the college football regular season and how quickly it could be implemented to how new NIL legislation won’t be the end of the world.

    “If you want to be a professional athlete, there's a place you can go and be a professional athlete, but it's not college,” Bowlsby said.

    “On the other hand, there's an acknowledgment in the changes in the NIL rules that student-athletes have some inalienable rights to their own name, image and likeness. And if they want to promote the fact that they're giving tennis lessons, and getting paid for it, they ought to be able to do that.

    “They ought to be able to go out and make speeches for compensation. They ought to be able to make appearances. They ought to be able to run summer camps. An offensive lineman ought to be able to sell a package online that tells aspiring high school offensive linemen what to eat and how to train and those kinds of things.

    “Where it gets dicey is in the social media environment and making sure that there is appropriate payment for appropriate involvement and that the institution is not involved in making those arrangements.

    “They won't be brokering deals for kids, but they'll be helping them to learn about financial sustainability and proper business management and how you file your taxes and what kinds of things you can do and can't do.

    “Student-athletes are going to be able to have representation. They'll be able to have an agent working with them that's out working every day to help them promote.

    “But the thing that has to be remembered is there's going to be very few student-athletes that make a lot of money. There's going to be quite a few that make a little bit of money, and then there's going to be some that just aren't willing to work hard enough at it to make any money or don't perhaps have the profile to make any money.

    “So we thought it was going to be the end of the world when we had fueling stations, because we couldn't decide whether you could have cream cheese on your bagel or not. And we thought it was the end of the world when we went to full cost of attendance, because there would be differences between schools. In our league, we have cost of attendance between $3200 and $6500, and you never hear it come up on the recruiting trail.

    “So the reports of this being the end of the world are not accurate. The fact is there will be people that use this to cheat. There'll be inducements that are illegal now, impermissible now, and they'll be impermissible in the new day. But that doesn't mean there won't be institutions that do it.

    “You're not going to eradicate the bad actors - that's for sure. But the time has come when some things that have been previously impermissible are now going to be permitted. And it sort of makes compliance officers' heads explode. But there are some things we're just going to have to let go of.

    “You may have a kid driving a new car around campus, because they've developed a relationship with a car dealer where they're a spokesperson, or they're going to do autograph sessions every once in a while. But this is intended to have disclosure. The student-athlete has to file paperwork with the institution to let them know what they're doing.

    “It's not an approval process, but it's an acknowledgement that they have a deal. Who's in on the deal, who's representing them, how much are they getting paid? How long does it last? Those kinds of things need to be on file with the institution.

    “So, this is going to be an evolving environment for several years to come. And it will just become a part of the way college athletics operates. But it's important that we separate that which is institutional intellectual property and what is student-athlete intellectual property. We're going to have to find our way on that a little bit.”

    Bowlsby said things like a student-athlete starting a GoFundMe for personal gain won’t be permitted by NIL guidelines.

    “They can't do that under the NCAA plan,” Bowlsby said. “But you could do a GoFundMe for a charity or for an elementary school that's trying to raise money or those kinds of things.

    “I don't think we're going to be willing to live with, ‘I'm going to do a GoFundMe page for my little sister's rehab or because my dad just got laid off.' I don't know that those kinds of things are envisioned as being permissible.

    “There are those who are being told, ‘Oh, well, you've got 40,000 followers on Instagram. That is worth X number of dollars.’ Well, it doesn't work that way. You're gonna have to be willing to produce content and to do it all the time so that people can get their appetite satisfied for the content. And it's a lot of work.

    "I have a daughter-in-law who’s a fashion influencer on a variety of different modalities. And she works 80 hours a week on it. And so it's not just saying, ‘Well, I got some followers, I'm going to really make a lot of money.' It doesn't exactly work that way.”

     

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