Proposal to create new tier for big-money college sports is just a start, NCAA president says
A day after NCAA President Charlie Baker made an aggressive and potentially groundbreaking pitch to allow some schools to pay their athletes, his proposal was met with praise, caution and questions from around college sports.
Kansas AD Jeff Long resigns after Les Miles debacle
Kurt Watson will serve as the interim athletic director as the school searches for both an AD and football coach. โWe will immediately begin our search for a new athletics director. โBut we are making long-term decisions on an athletics director and a football coach, and we cannot sacrifice the quality of a search simply for expediency. โI leave KU with a heavy heart and profound confidence that I have always acted in the best interests of Kansas Athletics,โ Long said in a statement Wednesday night. โWe made strides in academics, fundraising, facilities and diversity and inclusion, among other areas, and I truly believe the best days of Kansas athletics lie ahead.โ
Kansas' record Top 25 run over; Michigan jumps to No. 3
Michigan took advantage of Villanova's loss at St. John's to jump into the top three, Ohio State climbed three spots to No. The Jayhawks began their Top 25 streak on Feb. 2, 2009, when freshman guard Bryce Thompson was 6 years old. โWe have plenty of games to go win and I know this team can do it,โ Kansas guard Christian Braun said. 15, followed by Tennessee, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Creighton and Southern California. The Bruins dropped out, along with Kansas, Florida and Drake, whose 18-0 start was spoiled in a 74-57 loss to Valparaiso.
High court agrees to hear NCAA athlete compensation case
WASHINGTON โ For the first time in more than three decades, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the NCAA and what it means to be a college athlete. The last time the Supreme Court heard an NCAA case was 1984. โThat was a shape-shifting decision that in many ways fundamentally changed economics of college football and college football television,โ said Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane. And now both sides are celebrating the decision by the Supreme Court to hear the case. Now the Supreme Court will weigh in, too.
MAC returns with 6-game football season starting Nov. 4
d FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2019, file photo, members of the Miami of Ohio team hold the champion trophy after the Mid-American Conference championship NCAA college football game against Central Michigan in Detroit. The Mid-American Conference announced Friday, Sept. 25, 2020, that it will have a 6-game football season, meaning all 10 major conferences will play this fall. Just like the other conferences returning to fall ball, the MAC cited advancements in COVID-19 antigen testing as key to the change of direction. Even independent Massachusetts said earlier this week it would attempt to play a small schedule of games this fall. If all goes well, by the first weekend of November, all the FBS conferences will be playing football.
As college leaders meet, football players push to play
Meanwhile, college football players took to social media Sunday to push for the season to go on, led by Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence with a series of tweets. We are ready to play and we want to play.Other players tweeted with the hashtag #WeWantToPlay. The parents of Ohio State football players weighed in, too, posting a letter saying they were confident in the university's plan to keep their sons safe. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said he has heard the same from Fighting Irish football players. They are going to want to know why.___Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.westwoodonepodcasts.com/pods/ap-top-25-college-football-podcast/___More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
Mid-American Conference cancels fall football, more sports due to coronavirus
The Mid-American Conference on Saturday became the first league competing at college footballs highest level to cancel its fall season because of COVID-19 concerns. MAC schools rely heavily on revenue from playing road games against power conference teams. Most of those games were canceled when the Power Five went to exclusively or mostly conference games. Nine of 13 conferences at Division Is second-tier of football, the Championship Subdivision, have already postponed their fall football seasons with an eye toward making them up in the spring. A meeting of its presidents earlier in the week was expected to produce an agreement on how to go about a fall season, but instead some schools pushed to not play.
Division I leagues urge patience from NCAA on fall sports
More than two dozen Division I conferences have urged the NCAA Board of Governors to hold off on making any decision about conducting fall championships until a majority of leagues determine whether to hold regular-season competition during the pandemic. In its letter, the CCA said it was concerned to learn the board is contemplating taking action soon to cancel all fall season NCAA championships because of concerns related to COVID-19. The CCA's letter recommended delaying any decision on fall championships to allow more conferences to make their own decisions regarding regular-season play. In major college football, the NCAA has no say whatsoever. Championship tournaments for mens and womens soccer, for example, take place in November and December, which is the first full month of the basketball season.
Some new college hoop coaches turn to experienced transfers
Forbes has five Division I transfers joining the program, with three added since he took over in April. Hes hoping the older players provide some stability amid these uncertain times for college athletics highlighting the enhanced value of transfers for the coaches who changed jobs after last season and are trying to build new programs. It remains unclear how many transfers will get a waiver to play right away or must sit out a year. It's why ACC Network analyst and former Notre Dame player Jordan Cornette pointed to more than talent and fit with a transfer's value. Coaches are barred from in-person activities such as traveling to meet a recruit or bringing one in for an official visit.
Stephen F. Austin gets postseason bans, forfeits wins
The football team won't be allowed to participate in the 2020 postseason, the men's basketball team can't participate in the 2021-22 postseason and the baseball team will be prohibited from participating in the postseason in the spring of 2021. Stephen F. Austin also agreed to return 50% of its financial share earned from participating in the 2016 NCAA Tournament and forfeited 289 victories in four sports where ineligible student-athletes participated. By vacating those wins, the men's basketball team forfeits three conference championships and its victory in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament. The men's basketball team will lose one scholarship in either the 2020-21 or 2021-22 season. ___This story has been corrected to show that Stephen F. Austin did get postseason bans.
Bye buy games? G5 could lose millions in Power 5 payouts
Guarantee games, or buy games, are essential to many athletic departments that field Division I football teams but have far smaller budgets than those at Power Five schools. This season, 39 major college football schools have scheduled a total of 49 buy games worth an estimated $65 million. The pandemic has made everything about the coming college football season uncertain. If the season is cut short or rearranged, conferences will prioritize playing conference games, which usually have more value both financially and competitively. Kent State, from the Mid-American Conference, has three guarantee games this season with Alabama, Kentucky and Penn State worth $4.95 million.