What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
Four Stories I Thought About This Week
I went through our site and found four stories I thought were interesting this week, and I wanted to redirect readers to them and share my thoughts. I’m only doing four this week out of respect for Jayden Daniels.
Ah, Eligibility
The NCAA won in court. I’m not kidding. I’m being totally serious. The NCAA won in court. Not a final victory, but a win nonetheless.
On Friday, the NCAA got a stay in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on a preliminary injunction previously awarded in a Colorado district court. That’s the case that awarded a blanket extra year of eligibility to students in the Class of 2022 who played only four years. Some of those players have found their way to Big 12 schools since the ruling. With this stay, some of those players are no longer eligible — for now.
That includes UCF linebacker Cole Kozlowski and Texas Tech basketball player Donovan Atwell, who were attempting to return for a fifth year under that ruling. But other athletes are still eligible, such as Oklahoma State defensive lineman Iman Oates. The devil is in the details — or more importantly, where the case is filed.
The Wisne case in Colorado was an antitrust case that offered all student-athletes a blanket waiver nationwide pending appeal and final ruling. It was broad, and some felt the NCAA might have an opportunity to strike it down. This stay doesn’t strike it down, but it renders those student-athletes who are leaning on that ruling ONLY inert from an eligibility standpoint.
Oates has his own case cooking in a Payne County, Okla., court. Stillwater is the county seat in case you’re wondering. Oates sought a temporary restraining order last month that would have allowed him to play. Oates is not impacted by the stay in Colorado because he has an injunction in his state case and because he’s seeking a fifth year under a different legal argument.
The same goes for another Oklahoma State athlete, basketball player Parsa Fallah, who is part of a case in California.
If this all sounds messy and ridiculous, it is. But let’s be clear. The NCAA could have solved 90% of this by simply giving those Class of 2022 players who played just four years an extra year of eligibility and waiving their scholarships and NIL against current limits for one season. The NCAA could have done the easy thing and chose the hard way. Eventually, they’ll lose.
You’ve probably also read about a couple of players in NFL training camps trying to come back. These are players who were four-year players, signed NFL training camp contracts, and have already been waived.
To me, the NCAA is fighting the wrong battle. The battle it should be fighting in court is barring those who have signed pro contracts from returning. The NCAA keeps lumping all the 2022 student-athletes into this argument about “professionalism,” and it’s disingenuous and gross. But they’re doing it strategically, so you’ll get frustrated with the athletes and their lawyers.
Don’t be. Get frustrated with the NCAA, which doesn’t have a strategic bone in its body and can’t find its way out of a paper bag. It’s nonsense, and they’re just hoping everyone gets exhausted with this.
The Doctors’ Warning
This must be a sponsorship first — a doctor’s warning.
Earlier this week, a group of doctors petitioned the Big 12 to rescind its partnership with Monster Energy drinks on the grounds that it was not in the best interest of young people’s health.
USA Today broke a story involving a group of doctors and scientists concerned about “the youth-visible promotion of a stimulant.” The doctors asked that the Big 12 suspend the partnership, remove the branding, conduct an “independent health review, including pediatrics and cardiovascular medicine,” and take the matter to the entire Big 12 board before moving forward with football and basketball branding partnerships.
Yeah, none of that is gonna happen. The doctor’s note is nice, but this isn’t going anywhere. The Big 12 is not backing out of the sponsorship, and neither is Monster. The doctors are better off taking the message to parents who have a better chance of limiting their children’s energy drink consumption than the Big 12.
Cosmo’s Appearance Fee
I think we can all agree BYU’s mascot, Cosmo, is one of the coolest mascots in college sports. I mean Cosmo jumps through fire on a regular basis. But BYU is monetizing Cosmo in a way that I think surprised a lot of people.
Earlier this week, they announced game experiences where fans at BYU games can pay for certain things. Want a pre-game photo shoot on the field? That’ll be about $250. Want to get on the front row at the Cougar Walk so you can fist bump head coach Kalani Sataki? That’ll set you back about $160 bucks.
If you want Cosmo to come to your seat and say, “Howdy,” that’s gonna cost you $1,600. I mean, you’ve got to really love Cosmo for that. You’ve also really gotta love BYU athletics for that.
Here’s a hack. Just wear a T-shirt for the opposing team, let all the fans treat you great for four or five hours, and get a selfie with Cosmo for free. It’s a whole lot less hassle. And the folks in Provo are really friendly.
Art Briles, Longhorn?
Man, talk about the road not taken. On3’s Brett McMurphy ventured out to New Mexico to do a long-form story on Art Briles, who is now the head coach at Eastern New Mexico. He may never coach at a power-conference school again, but a dozen years ago he had the chance to replace Mack Brown as the head coach at Texas.
Now, for a kid who grew up in Rule, Texas, and coached high school football his entire life before moving on to college, that’s a dream job. That’s like Urban Meyer growing up in Ohio and becoming the head coach at Ohio State, which he did eventually. It doesn’t get any better than that. In fact, he had already accepted the job. So why didn’t Briles go? This is the insane part. He told McMurphy he didn’t go because Baylor lost in the Fiesta Bowl that year.
That was the first season of the College Football Playoff. Baylor went 11-2 and finished tied for first in the Big 12 with TCU. Both teams were passed over for the CFP. Baylor lost to UCF in the Fiesta Bowl, and apparently it didn’t sit well with Briles. He decided to stay at Baylor so he could continue building the program and turned Texas down.
That decision altered a lot of things. Charlie Strong was Brown’s replacement. Briles was out at Baylor two years later. I’m sure Briles did what he thought was right at the time. But could you imagine Texas with Briles as head coach and what he could have done at that program with those resources? Man, that’s a revisionist history best left to Philip K. Dick.
