Speaker 1: Eleven thirty one Sports Talk seven ninety. It is the
Matt Thomas Show, Wood Ross and we are very pleased
to be joined by the best dressed sports writer in America.
Great fedora game. Uh what are other types of headwear?
It is a Sam Con weard. Did you think have
you seen Samon fa on TV doing some appearances here
and there?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think he had one of those cheese graders, the
anti pas. No, no, no, he's is at a cagle before.
What are you wearing right now? Sam Con? I'm not
talking about your hat.
Speaker 3: I'm wearing sweat because I just walked my dog out there.
Speaker 2: Just a tad.
Speaker 3: Tad warmer than you would expect for January. But but yeah,
I'm were in sweat right now.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you on the show. Thank you, friend.
He's the University Houston graduately is a fine young man.
He's also covers college football, especially with an emphasis on
roster management and transfer portal. Sam con Junior s k
sam con Junior on Twitter. So you are externally busy?
Was your timeline as crazy as mine was on Sunday?
With players going left and right from one score the next?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean really a lot of it was the
build up to the opening of the portal on Friday.
A bunch of players hit really at midnight when the
clock struck.
Speaker 2: Mint and on Friday, I think we were at a thousand.
Speaker 3: Players in within the first hour, and a lot of
that I think was done ahead of time and just
ready to go as soon as we started. But yeah,
the Sunday was especially busy because a lot of players
made their initial visits on Saturday. And these visits are
not like traditional recruiting visits where you go spend forty
eight hours at a place as a high school recruit.
These are more like NFL free agent type visits. You're
in there for a day, they do your physical, you know,
maybe you get a quick tour, talk to the coaches,
and then you know, you talk contract and get it done.
So yeah, Sunday was a pretty fast and furious and
I wouldn't say that it slowed.
Speaker 2: Down a lot.
Speaker 3: It's a lot has happened since then as the domino
start to shift, but.
Speaker 2: A busy first few days with I think more than
I think a.
Speaker 3: Few thousand FBS scholarship players in the portal, and even
more when you add the FCS in there as well, So.
Speaker 2: It's definitely been hectic.
Speaker 3: We've got about a week and a half left. Next
Friday is when this thing closes, but a lot of
activity going on, for.
Speaker 2: Sure, Sam.
Speaker 1: I know many of these young men, maybe all of
them are being represented by agents, and Ross and I
were talking earlier. Some are with legit agencies and some
are with friends of friends of friends. How many have
you dealt with and what is it like talking to
these representation this representation group talking about getting eighteen nineteen
twenty year olds multimillion dollar deals to go from one
school the next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think it's just like anything did
you come across. There's actually a lot of pretty good ones,
and then there's someones who are not initialily the most
qualified or maybe you're not going to get the best
guide in. I would say most of the ones I've
dealt with are pretty solid. And you do have more
NFL agents, NFL player agents coming to the college side.
I've come across paths with a lot of guys who
represent NFL players and are now stepping into the college game.
Speaker 2: Even with the bigger agencies.
Speaker 3: You know your CAAs your athletes first, You're you know
some of the big ones out there that people know
they're getting into this game as well. So I think
it really depends on what kind of choice. Obviously, obviously
the families and the recruits are making the choices on.
Speaker 2: Who represents them.
Speaker 3: But I will say there is a cry amongst the
coaches and the staffers who are managing this of they
wish there was some type of certification. Like in the
NFL level, you have to be certified by the NFLPA,
and there is no real baseline for that. In college
some states have certification requirements that you have to do
to be able to represent someone, but not every state does,
and I think there is the desire for across the
board certification to just establish some minimum standards that people
have to meet to be able to represent a player.
Speaker 4: Do you think there will be change coming with that, Sam?
As far as I mean, what exactly is the solution?
I know NCAA tries to keep their hands off of
this stuff so they can still claim amateur athletics, But
you do you think there will be some kind of
solution coming with that or like federal legislation.
Speaker 1: What would it take?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he would have to be either the CSC,
the College Sports Commission, which was established by the powerful Conferences,
which is supposed to be managing all the salary cap
and the enforcement of everything that's going on. I think
you would have mixed results and different claims on how
well that's going so far. Or I think some federal
legislation possibly could be in the mix for that as well.
I don't sense I think it is something that is desired.
I don't sense that it is the highest priority on
the list though. I think there are other things that
people want to solve before they get to that. But
I do think at some point it is possible, but
it would take either either the CSC or sometime federal
legislation we get there.
Speaker 4: I think Sam Khan Junior of the Athletic with us
here on Sports Talk seven ninety and I kind of
need this explained, Like I'm five, Sam, Like we're talking
about these agents and these players and they hit the portal, Like,
what what are the you can go through the legal
and then maybe the illegal procedures. If if there is
a player who has an agent and they're thinking about
hitting the portal, I mean, how much of that is
negotiated or talked to other teams as far as tampering
with other schools before deciding to enter the portal. Also,
you have guys who enter the portal when it figures
out that maybe somebody else is coming, so they're gonna
their playing time is gonna go down. Like it just
seems like a big mess from that standpoint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it absolutely is.
Speaker 3: And again when I talked about the CSC, everyone hasn't
agreed to what the enforcement model looks like. Like there's
you know, we have a body and we have you
know that their task was trying to enforce this stuff.
But they sent out an agreement for everybody to sign,
and not everybody signed it and it doesn't go intoffect
unless everyone signs it. So at this point we don't
have an enforcement all the real piece yet and so
tampering run has been running rampant for years and continues
to do so.
Speaker 2: Many of these players.
Speaker 3: The portal didn't until Friday, but many of these players
announced either after their regular seasons were over sometime in
December that they were going into portal. And I can
promise you and I know because I've been talking to
these people. As soon as some of the bigger names announced,
they were going in, we already heard where they were
likely going, and that that is an issue that I
think coaches and general managers complain about, but there also
doesn't seem to be anybody really stopping it at this point.
I think that the tampering issue is probably one of
the top complaints you get, and it is these are
things that happen right away, And to your point about
a player having to jump in if somebody happens, I
talked to an agent last I who said he had
a client at an ACC school who was a tight
end and he was gonna stay, he was gonna resign
our repshare contract to come back for twenty twenty six,
and then his team took a tight end in the portal.
He's like, well, now I got to get in. Now
I could get in the portal because now my playing
time is gonna be getting eaten into. And that's what's
gonna be fascinating to me, especially as we get outside
the portal window, because this year we only have the
winter portal window. There is no spring window. So to me,
I'm curious to see what happened when we get to
spring football and depth charts are getting set and you
find out, Well I'm not where I thought I was going.
Speaker 2: To be on the depth chart. Well, there's no spring
portal window anymore.
Speaker 3: So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna stick
it out? Are you gonna withdraw and then hope you
can end up enrolling somewhere else? But there's no really
guarantee you can end up somewhere else at that point.
So it is very messy at this point. And that
is what I think makes it so difficult, not just
for the people involved, but even the fans to follow,
is that these things can change in a blank and
the guy who may be your star quarterback today may
be on your rival school tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Sam, if you were in Times Square yesterday, you happen
to see a big billboard video of Brandon Sorosby welcomed
to Lubbock and Texas Tech after assigning his deal going
to there. Take me through the process. So Brandon Sorosby's
quarterback at Cincinnati and Ward travels that he is open
for free agency. Does Cody Campbell, when he's the most
recognizable nil donor probably out there in the college courts today,
does he lab a phone call to Soorsby's representation says Look,
I know the school can't give you the money directly
because they can't give you five million. They could, but
that's a budget that they don't want to spend. But
I'm going to put you in terms with my group,
with my collective, and we're going to make sure that
five million dollars reaches your client's piggybank by the time
he arrives in Lubbock.
Speaker 3: So that that is the part that is a little
bit unclear at this point with some of the bigger
deals because the what is the divide between the rest
share pool in the aisle pool, Because as we know,
the rest sharepool is capped at roughly.
Speaker 2: Twenty million dollars.
Speaker 3: It'll go up a little bit this year by four percent,
but it's still going to be around twenty one twenty
two million dollars. And that's for all sports, not just football. Right,
So a Power four roster is probably somewhere in the
fourteen to seventeen million dollar range. So if you are
suspend five on a quarterback, that only leaves maybe nine
to twelve for the rest of your roster, which is
a lot. So certainly, but if you are trying to
compete for a national Championship, it's not enough.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest.
Speaker 3: Things that you see big time programs trying to do
in this cycle is take money off the cap, and
doing that is through the third party nil beast. The
interesting part about that is the CS just sent out
guidance in the last couple of forty eight hours that
they're saying that if you promise someone nil money ahead
of time from the third party, whether it's from your
in house multimedia rights deal or whatever other collective that
you have, that cannot be counted, that cannot be taken
off the cap. If you promise it, it's got to
be counting toward the cap, whether or not you pay
them out of your rep share pool. Now again I
go back to is that going to be enforced? And
they send out that guidance with it being backdated to
December first, so saying that basically, if it's anybody in
this portal window, that you can't take money off the
cap that way. So I don't know how that's going
to work out. I don't know if they can even
enforce it, but that is the way that a lot
of programs that are operating above the.
Speaker 2: Cap, they're doing it that way.
Speaker 3: Is trying to figure out, Okay, how much do we
put into third party nil and how much do you
guarantee through refshare because you've got ultimately they're going to
do whatever they got to do to get the player.
Speaker 1: So a big picture, I know you've got still another
week or so left of the portal. Who is killing it?
Obviously when you get the number one quarterback and texta
tech is not afraid to spend money. We've already seen
it in the last couple of years. Beyond Tech, is
there anybody else is in your mind, has really made
a lot of significant movement by grabbing kids in the
portal because of the money they're offering.
Speaker 3: In Indiana, Indiana did really well. They landed there, the
TCU quarterback, Josh Hoover, the landed Nick marsh the Michigan
State receiver, a couple edge rushers from Kansas City who
are really really talented. I mean, they're the number one
team in the country right now and clearly paying at
a high rate. I think Josh Hoover's deal, from what
I understand, is set in the similar ballpark to Brendan
Swaresby in that high four to five million dollars range.
So they definitely broke the bank to get Hoover, and
I think he's a really good system fit for them. Tech,
as you mentioned, has done really well. I think Texas
A and M has had a really quietly. They haven't
made a bunch of splash editions, but made a lot
of really solid additions, and they didn't really lose a lot.
They were tinged a lot of their guys. They only
lost I believe one full time starter into the portal
this year, so they're in good shape. And the other
one is Oklahoma State. Eric Morris, who we know was
the coach at North Texas and took them to the
conference championship game.
Speaker 2: He went up there to Oklahoma State.
Speaker 3: He's brought his quarterback Drew Messimaker, his running back Kaylea Hawkins,
his top receiver y Young, and several others with them.
That's a team that was one and eleven last year,
maybe had one of the worst rosters in the Power
for and they look like a much improved team so
far on this first weekend. So they've done that. All
those schools have done pretty well. I would add Penn
State to that list too, since Matt Campbell got over there.
Speaker 2: Obviously he's brought a lot of his.
Speaker 3: Iowa State guys with them too, But I think Penn
State has made some waves early in the first few.
Speaker 2: Days of the portal.
Speaker 4: Sam conn Junior of the Athletic with us here more
of a general question. Sam, We've talked a lot on
this show, myself and Matt and argued about donor fatigue,
and I thought it was going to come pretty soon.
It doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. But I
guess to ask you to predict the unpredictable. I mean,
for example, Cody Campbell, as Matt mentioned, shelling out a
bunch of money. I mean, if he's not seeing the
results year after year, how much does he continue to
pour millions? And these other schools as well, whether it
be Texas or A and M. Where do you see
as far as I mean, just the the long term
economic ecosystem of this nil money potentially drying up or
it just keeps It seems like it's a full steam ahead.
Speaker 3: I think it becomes a case by case basis on
a couple of factors. One, what does your institutional want
to how badly do you want to win? And and
by proxy, how badly do.
Speaker 2: Your donors want to win? Two?
Speaker 3: Do you have someone to that degree? Because there are
I think a lot of the SEC and Big ten
programs are going to be in okay shape because of
where they are in terms of their media rights and
how big their budgets are just from the start. But
it's your when you get to your maybe middle tier
power for lower to your power forwards. Do you have
a booster like a Cody Campbell? Like if you're Kansas
and you have David Booth, you're in good shape. But
if you're Iowa State who is struggling to reach the
revenue revenue share cap, they're not operating over the cab.
They're They're having a hard enough time just trying to
get to the cap which they are at. That's hard
enough for them. They don't necessarily have a Cody Campbell
in their back pocket to help them. So I think
in a case by case issue with them as far
as do I see donor fatigue long term? Maybe in
some spots, but I'll just say this this. We are
in twenty twenty five, almost forty years ago SMU got
busted for paying players and got the death penalty.
Speaker 2: It was nineteen eighty six, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3: That was almost forty years ago, so if and that
was obviously a different era. But paying players or trying
to do the most to get the best players on
your team is a tradition, as it's a tried and
true tradition in college football for as long as college
football has existed, alumni have always won. Boosters have always
wanted to get players for their teams and wanted to
make sure they had the best team to whether it
was coaches, whether it's facilities, whatever the mechanism was that
they told you how to do it. For as long
as I I can remember, and as long as I've
been covering this sport, there's always been somebody who's wanted
to push the envelope to do that, and.
Speaker 2: I don't see that changing long term. Now. With the
money getting as high.
Speaker 3: As it is, could it get a little bit unsustainable, Certainly,
I do think there is a degree to that, But
I don't think we're ever gonna come to a point
where people say, well, I don't care about my school
enough to pay.
Speaker 2: This money for this player. There's always gonna.
Speaker 3: Be Cam Coleman, that everyone receiver in the pointal right now, everybody,
everybody in on Earth wants that guy. And I cannot
see a donor saying no, I'm gonna walk away because
he's not that important. Ultimately, these guys want their teams
to win on Saturday, and they're going to want to
do what it takes to get the players to make
that happen.
Speaker 1: I got forty more questions for you, but I'm gonna
leave you with this, and I thank you so much
for your time. Daleen Austin's a guy that no one's
ever heard of, and at least here. He was a
cornerback at Oregon. Didn't play a whole lot. Apparently numbers
are just okay, but he did play. He didn't have
an iront this year for the Ducks. Ducks are still
playing for a chance International Championship, and he's leaving. He's
going to leave the team because he.
Speaker 3: Entered the portal.
Speaker 1: It may be a much more high profile name that
does is. But I have a feeling, and this is
kind of the sickening. Part of the spirit of trying
to win and compete is we're going to have other
players like this down the road. Do you agree or
disagree that we're going to see kids that are still
playing for a national championship or in a deep playoff
run saying you know what, I got four million dollars
waiting for me to school down the road.
Speaker 3: I think having it happen with starters is not going
to be something that becomes a trend.
Speaker 2: I think it's more.
Speaker 3: Going to be typically guys who are backups or who
are guys who don't have as big roles and they
stand to make a lot of money and get a.
Speaker 2: Bigger role on another team.
Speaker 3: But I will say this, we long didn't think a
coach would do it, and Lane Kiffin has done it,
and so once you kind of cross that threshold threshold,
I think anything goes. So I wouldn't say I would
never say never on that front, but I do think
having a starter do it, if it were a starting
quarterback or starting n back or starting corner, I find
that would be very either rare or unlikely to happen.
But with backup players, and we already saw it last
year both Privula the backup quarterback at Penn State, when
once Drew Aller decided he was coming back, he went
ahead and gotten the poro and obviously ended up starting
in Miszoo last year, so that part has already been
going on with some playoff teams. It's not again, not
high numbers. It's only really a small handful. But I
do think that the reserve players that stand to have
bigger roles at other teams that I don't think is
going to stop.
Speaker 2: I do think seeing.
Speaker 3: Star players do it. I think it would be a
real shock to the system if we saw it. But again,
Lane Kiffin did it, so who knows?
Speaker 1: All right, Sam, how are you a gift card to
a hat store, my friend? Thank you so much for
the time. Happy New Year and thank you and we
look forward to seeing many more articles on the athletic
website very soon.
Speaker 2: No problem, Thanks for having me.