ATLANTA (AP) — The early betting favorite to win next year's national championship: Ohio State.
The question nobody can really answer at this time: What sort of sport will the Buckeyes or anyone else return to when they kick it off again seven months from now.
A program that won the title by spending lavishly (a reported $20 million) and used the transfer portal judiciously ( QB Will Howard and RB Quinshon Judkins were the headliners) joins everyone else in not knowing exactly what the rules will be in this rapidly changing game when next fall rolls around.
The landmark legal settlement that allows schools to pay players directly while also cutting down on roster sizes (but increases the number of scholarships available) is set to take effect for next school year.
Before that, the schools need to see how Title IX regulations fit into everything. They will haggle over a transfer portal that almost everyone agrees is out of control. They will find out if the 12-team playoff that debuted this season will remain as is or receive a tweak or two.
“There are so many unknowns,” said Gloria Nevarez, commissioner of the Mountain West Conference. “We're trying to track it all to the best we can and offer solutions. But we've got to see what the ‘it’ is so that we can determine how it affects us.”
Playoff expansion benefited a well-constructed Ohio State team
The Buckeyes, listed by BetMGM Sportsbook as a 9-2 favorite to win it all next season, adjusted as well as anyone to the landscape for 2024.
Yet their most fortunate twist of fate had nothing to do with planning or roster building but simply the expansion of the college postseason from four to 12 teams. An ugly loss to Michigan in November knocked them out of the Big Ten Conference title chase and would've been their last game of their season in years past.
This time, they got a second chance after being ranked sixth by the College Football Playoff selection committee and seeded eighth thanks to a system that allowed conference champions (Boise State of the MWC and Arizona State of the Big 12) to leapfrog past them and earn byes.
It would take a unanimous vote of 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua to change the seeding system that many agree is worth tweaking.
“I think there will be a good, honest conversation, are there any changes that we ought to make from this year to next year to make something that's worked really well work even better,” Bevacqua said over the weekend. “Will there be changes? I don't know. I'm just one person.”
Uncertainty still exists about schools paying players
It's a given, though, that there will be changes in the way name, image and likeness (NIL) payments are doled out to players. Under terms of the House settlement, schools are allowed to pay the players directly by sharing up to $20.5 million in revenue.
The general thought is that the lion's share of those funds would go to the players whose sports generate the most money — football and basketball (men's and women's). A government memo released last week, however, placed some of that in question by suggesting that paying an outsized portion to men could run afoul of Title IX rules.
The new administration sworn in Monday could change that, but the clock is ticking. The settlement is set to be approved on April 7 and its rules are due to go into effect to start the next school year.
“It's been five years of every day being different than the day before it, and adapting and adjusting and being maleable,” said Grant House, the Arizona State swimmer who is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that's triggering all these changes. “No one has all the answers right now, but we're looking for solutions.”
Would a commissioner untangle college football's many issues?
Maybe what college football could really use is a commissioner to sort out all these problems.
Whether it would be former Alabama coach Nick Saban or someone else, it's a suggestion that keeps coming up when the topic turns to anything from the playoff to scheduling to paying players to the transfer portal, which has become a flood of players looking for better deals at different places.
“It would help the fans’ enjoyment of the game,” said ESPN's Chris Fowler, who called Ohio State's win over Notre Dame on Monday night. “You need some centralized scheduling, you need a more level playing field. You need better enforcement. You need an entity that can enforce what’s going to happen when you go to revenue sharing, because that opens a whole new potential of rule breaking.”
2025 top teams projected as a who's who of college powerhouses
Even with the portal and all the new money changing things — see, the $8 million quarterback at Duke and NFL coaching great Bill Belichick at North Carolina — the list of next season's favorites looks like the usual cast of college football's best programs.
—LSU pulled what's widely regarded as the best haul out of the transfer portal.
—Texas will start the season with Arch Manning, grandson of Archie, at quarterback.
—At Georgia, Gunner Stockton is expected to replace Carson Beck, who committed to Miami.
—The Hurricanes also nabbed Xavier Lucas, a defensive back from Wisconsin who never officially entered the portal, thus raising a whole slew of new questions about tampering and how this system works.
Meanwhile, the champs will look to Julian Sayin, a five-star recruit who transfered to the Buckeyes from Alabama before playing a down of college ball, to replace the NFL-bound Howard.
Coach Ryan Day — his very job threatened after the loss to Michigan — will celebrate briefly. Asked if the pressure has dialed down now that he has a national title, Day already was thinking about next year's opener, Aug. 30 against Texas in The Horseshoe.
“Try losing the first game and see how that goes at Ohio State,” Day said. “We’ll see about that.”
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