PDB26

Looks like the hockey coaches prevailed (mostly) and the rule has been amended to five years of eligibility from the time of enrollment provided an athlete is enrolled by the academic year following their 19th birthday.

@Bash Riprock it sounds that way, but I took it not as an indictment on the NCAA’s handling of the issue but an acknowledgment that if the law can’t accommodate the NCAA’s enforcement of this particular rule and this particular punishment, then that’s the end of the NCAA.

I’d say it’s the parents and those looking to profit from the parents that are driving the biggest problems in youth sports today. Another thought: I’d be willing to bet that parent/coach behavior re officiating has only gotten worse as professional and college sports rely more on technology to resolve the grave “injustices” of human error.

I think his coaching days are done. The book is out there on him after the LSU AD’s recent comments. He has the CBS job that fulfills his obligation to LSU and keeps the checks rolling in, and he can play as much golf as he wants.

I wouldn't say I offered any analysis, but there wasn't even a fourth Big Ten team seriously sniffing the playoff last year. Neither Michigan nor SC beat an opponent of note, and neither was particularly impressive in their most important games. However, I would have liked the Big Ten's three against any of the SEC's five, except for, maybe, Oregon in some matchups. Miami was on the bubble because they played, and lost, a terribly undisciplined game at SMU and they let themselves get ambushed by Louisville––one of the classic blunders. The ACC tiebreaker is just the cherry on top of the Miami scenario. ND almost certainly makes the playoff if Miami gets the ACC auto qualifier. I'm not sure how a field of 12 proves anything about one of the best teams being out; it just so happened that some legitimate contenders played themselves onto the bubble. I don't think anyone considered the burst-bubble teams from 2024 as contenders, and I don't think making it safer for top teams is the road college football needs to go down.

Agreed. I didn’t mean to suggest that you didn’t know. I meant to say “tie breakers!!!!!” to indicate my lack of support for the expansion of the conferences, and the playoff, to the point that conference schedules are unmanageable for producing an sensible result. At the end of the regular season, four SEC teams were tied for first and five ACC teams were tied for second—insane.

I know this isn't what they mean by "lack of institutional control," but, damn.

I don't know, with so many options they could get overwhelmed by choosing which two to drop.

This forum can't even appropriately rank Crown Point. The middle of the Big Ten is as good or better than the middle of the SEC, but (4) Michigan and (5) SC would have lost to all of the SEC playoff teams––and Texas, too––with the exception of, maybe, Oklahoma. A 24 team playoff is a joke and will be a disaster for what has made college ball great, even if it incentivizes some sterilized matchups between marquee names, and 16 team field is pushing right up against the limit. If there is any real villain in the 2025/26 season, it's not the CFP committee but the ACC and its tiebreaker system. You see, they play a round robin and the team that wins the most games is the conference cha...sorry, glory days. The answer is tie breakers.

I'm not going to re-litigate ND/Alabama again––ND would have blown their doors off, for what it's worth. Brooks is great, but I don't think we need to cite YouTube "film experts" for why ND, or anyone else, should have been in. The field isn't set based entirely on what a team might do in the playoff––although that is part of it. It should be hard for teams with multiple losses and no marquee wins to get into the playoff. The upshot is that expansion to 16 will resolve that "problem" at the cost of more of the week-to-week stakes from the college football season.

Based on the AP final regular season rankings 1-16 with the theoretical elimination of conference championship games. 2024 Playoff expanded field: Alabama, Iowa State, Miami, Mississippi, South Carolina Miami (10-2) and Iowa State (10-2) would have been in after playing exactly zero playoff teams, and South Carolina (9-3) would have beaten zero playoff teams while losing to a playoff team and a theoretical playoff team. Alabama (9-3) had a playoff win and a playoff loss. Mississippi (9-3) had a playoff win and a theoretical playoff win. Wins against playoff teams (and theoretical playoff teams): 2 (1) Losses against playoff teams (and theoretical playoff teams): 2 (1) 2025 Playoff expanded field: ND, Vanderbilt, Texas, USC, BYU, Utah Texas (9-3) beat two playoff teams, had a theoretical playoff win, and lost twice to playoff teams. Notre Dame (10-2) had a win over a theoretical playoff team and two playoff losses. USC had a playoff loss and a theoretical playoff loss. BYU (11-1) had a win over theoretical playoff team. Utah lost to a playoff team and a theoretical playoff team. Wins against playoff teams (and theoretical playoff teams): 2 (3) Losses against playoff teams (and theoretical playoff teams): 8 (3) I don't think the answer is to expand the playoff field unless you're looking to destroy the uniqueness of the college football regular season and how every week could be a quasi-elimination game. Do we need to expand the field to include teams with a combined 11 losses against the expanded field? Talk about sucking all the juice out of Michigan and Ohio State or Texas and Oklahoma. Texas and Texas A&M? Even the Alabama and Auburn game from this past season, which was a very real and entertaining elimination game for 'Bama, might have been rendered meaningless. Basically any game involving ND under the expanded format is meaningless. I could get behind taking 1-12 with a formula made up of computer polls, but, with so few regular season games, the computer will give you a weird result like ND ahead of Miami despite the head-to-head loss. Expanding to 16 is really going to stretch the seams of what makes college ball great––with so much of the greatness already destroyed by conference realignment––and you might as well set an alarm for December if they expand it to 24.

Meanwhile, the MHSAA (Michigan) has nearly twice the number of total members, almost as many members with enrollment <400 as make up the entire IHSAA membership, about the same number of administrative staff in the governing body of the IHSAA, and they still manage to run a co-op program. They also require all PBA deals to be submitted to the governing body along with being reviewed by the member school.

The key distinction, in my mind, is that the NCAA and its members were found to be engaging in interstate commerce and therefore the membership is subject to the Sherman Act. Because of the recruiting element, the members were essentially price fixing their labor costs by agreeing to rules like no full cost of attendance scholarships. NIL has been rolled into that general framework. Would Indiana courts want to import that same framework into high school athletics, I doubt it. Since recruiting is not a part of the game, there can be no price fixing argument.

My guess is autographs fly so long as the athlete, or their handlers, don’t acquire, sign, and then sell memorabilia related to the school. Wearing school colors in a commercial or promotion seems almost certainly violates the rule.

For a few reasons, I think not. The rule covers non-affiliated groups acting for the benefit of a school. It’s an enforcement issue at that point, but the rule is there.

A nitpick, but that’s being generous to the NIC.

Good question. Here is the framework: in general, each year a small group of players can and will play in college directly out of their u18 season. These guys get drafted in their u18 year, a portion of them will represent their country, typically the US, once or twice at World Juniors while they are in college, and many of them will not play four years of college hockey because they're already close to prepared to play professional hockey. Players from this group form a steady stream of talent to a small group of programs, and these programs are traditionally and almost always "young" relative to the rest and especially the bottom third of D1. The rest of the field will attempt to season as many less-talented recruits as they can in the junior hockey system for as long as they deem necessary––or as long as they can without losing them to another program––to build an older roster to level the playing field. Add in the possibility of a redshirt and/or a medical year and a program could have at least a few actual men on the team. This effect is graduated and most pronounced when you get to the bottom third of D1 hockey programs. Basically, it's about pitting men vs boys, and it's sort of the M.O. among conference bottom feeders and teams in relatively bad conferences like the CCHA and Atlantic Hockey. ANSWER 1. The proposed rule will prevent teams from employing a strategy that lets them field more competitive teams by aging less-talented players longer in junior hockey as a way to counter the overwhelming talent of the younger teams in division 1. I can't remember exactly when, maybe 10 years ago, Michigan and some of the other blue bloods were campaigning for a maximum freshman age to limit the effectiveness of aging rosters. ANSWER 2. It looks like ND would have had two ineligible players this year with two more on the margin depending on when they graduated high school. Somehow, ND managed to be both not very old and also terrible, so that's really something in the college game. There is a lot to research here, and the best source also makes computers want to die under the weight of ads, so I've given up going through too many rosters. Army and Ferris would have had around 10 ineligible players this season under this rule. Bentley got the Atlantic Hockey tournament qualifier, and they would have had 10 players ineligible or in danger depending on their graduation date. This would likely be the case for the bottom third of D1. Teams in the middle would have a smaller number of these guys. Finally, it's been a while, but Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting essay about the concept of relative age in hockey and how the best players frequently come from those born in the early months of the calendar year.

Oh yeah, I don't think this rule affects any players whose professional rights are owned, but the eligibility clock starting at the earlier of high school graduation or a 19th birthday will certainly squeeze the many programs that rely on fielding an older roster to compete with the few programs. For example, Michigan has 11 players aged 20 or younger, while Notre Dame has 3. Ferris State has 6 players under 22.

Division 1 hockey coaches are losing their minds over this.

Yes, exactly.

What was reported was that two families with links to Mexican cartels paid their tution with money transfers out of Mexico. Apparently these families were on a list that should have precluded IMG taking those payments. Probably more country club sport families if I had to guess.

In junior hockey you get a lot of "programs" with multiple teams that are for sure using fees from the lesser players chasing opportunities and scholarships to subsidize their best players. I imagine there's plenty of subsidizing going on at IMG.

They're certainly paying income taxes on NIL income earned in any jurisdiction. They're probably also being subjected to jock taxes for games––or they will be.

Last time I checked, the vast majority of states tax income at something like 4.5%, although there are a couple of jurisdictions approaching relatively Canadian levels of income tax––as you have noted. Sure, but the NFL and other leagues don't have anything to do with how the players are taxed. Jurisdictions just don't want to lose out on additional tax revenue that they can justify getting at.

*definition for INCOME not wealth.