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Florida Gators (official thread)
- College Football
- 1583 Replies
$5.2M combined? Feels like a steal this year.
Coach Jon Sumrall takes away Gators logos to push new team
One of Jon Sumrall's first moves as Florida coach had echoes of Hall of Fame coach Urban Meyer's approach in 2005, which paid off with two national titles in his first four seasons.www.espn.com
Coach Jon Sumrall takes away Gators logos to push new team
Jon Sumrall had no idea one of his first major moves as Florida's football coach had been done before in Gainesville more than two decades ago.
Sumrall gave his players shorts, shirts and other gear without any Gators logos. It was reminiscent of Hall of Fame coach Urban Meyer's approach in 2005, which paid off with two national titles in his first four seasons at Florida.
"Gotta earn it. Gotta earn the logo," Sumrall said. "We ain't earned it yet. We haven't earned a damn thing. All we've got is our name. ... To wear the Florida Gator logo, to wear the Gators across your helmet, to wear the Gator head, you got to earn that."
Sumrall said he is unsure how or when the players can earn logos.
"I haven't thought about that yet," he said....
Florida hired Sumrall in late November, days after it became clear to athletic director Scott Stricklin that top choice Lane Kiffin was headed to LSU. Sumrall signed a six-year, $44.7 million deal to replace Billy Napier and potentially get the once-proud program back to national prominence.
Sumrall's coaching résumé includes four consecutive league title game appearances. He won back-to-back Sun Belt championships in two seasons (2022-23) at Troy and then led Tulane to the American title game in both his seasons (2024-25) there. The Green Wave won the league last season and earned a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Sumrall's first steps included keeping five top-tier players in Gainesville: linebacker Myles Graham, running back Jadan Baugh, defensive end Jayden Woods, and wide receivers Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson. Some of them considered hitting the transfer portal, but all ended up back at Florida -- at a combined cost of $5.2 million -- for Sumrall's debut season.
"Clearly, the most important thing to me was trying to retain our best players," Sumrall said. "Not going to keep them all, ever. There's a coaching change. There's going to be some change and some transition, but that part was critical for us to have any opportunity to have success next year."
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Should semipro/college players be paid, or allowed to sell their stuff? (NIL and Revenue Sharing)
- College Football
- 1664 Replies
Sen. Ted Cruz against idea of college athletes as employees
Sen. Ted Cruz told ESPN it's critical that any federal law related to college sports includes a provision that prevents athletes from being deemed school employees.Sen. Ted Cruz against idea of college athletes as employees
Sen. Ted Cruz said it is "absolutely critical" that any federal law related to college sports includes a provision that prevents athletes from being deemed employees of their school.
The Republican from Texas, who holds a key position in advancing NCAA legislation as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, told ESPN in an interview Wednesday that Congress might run out of time to act if it can't find a bipartisan solution in the coming months. During a yearslong effort to restore order to the college sports industry, Republicans and Democrats have remained largely divided on whether college athletes should have a future avenue for collective bargaining, which would require them to be employees.
"Clarifying that student athletes are not employees is absolutely critical," Cruz told ESPN. "Without it, we will see enormous and irreparable damage to college sports."
Cruz and NCAA leaders say many smaller schools would not be able to afford their teams if athletes had to be paid and receive benefits as employees. However, as lawsuits over player contracts and eligibility rules continue to mount, a growing number of frustrated coaches and athletic directors from major programs say they are open to collective bargaining as a solution.
"I've always been against this idea of players as employees, but quite frankly, that might be the only way to protect the collegiate model," Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, a longtime defender of amateurism, said at a news conference last week.
The NCAA and its members have spent millions of dollars in the past several years lobbying Congress for a bill that would grant the association an antitrust exemption, supersede state laws related to college sports and block attempts to gain employee status for athletes. Despite more than a dozen Capitol Hill hearings and a long list of proposals, no bill has reached a full vote in either chamber of Congress to date.
Senate Commerce Committee staff told ESPN that Cruz and a bipartisan group of senators have made significant progress on a new draft of a bill but are at an impasse on the employment issue. Cruz said Democrats and labor unions are concerned about setting a broader precedent for other industries by closing the door on college athlete employment, which has led to the stalemate.
"From a political perspective, you have labor union bosses that would love to see every college athlete deemed an employee made a member of a union and contributing union dues to elect Democrats," Cruz said. "It's terrible for college sports, but I get that there's some partisan appeal to it."
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said in a statement to ESPN that she also sees "growing bipartisan interest" for Congress to act. She has proposed separate college sports legislation that doesn't advocate for athletes to be employees but leaves the door open for employment or collective bargaining in the future. She told ESPN that the committee "should move the ball forward with a hearing on this [topic]."
The large and expanding gap between the top tier of college teams and the rest of the NCAA has made it difficult to find a fair solution for all parties.
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Pretty good indication that athletes being employees is probably the right idea.
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Should semipro/college players be paid, or allowed to sell their stuff? (NIL and Revenue Sharing)
- By ScriptOhio
- College Football
- 1664 Replies
Sen. Ted Cruz against idea of college athletes as employees
Sen. Ted Cruz told ESPN it's critical that any federal law related to college sports includes a provision that prevents athletes from being deemed school employees.
Sen. Ted Cruz against idea of college athletes as employees
Sen. Ted Cruz said it is "absolutely critical" that any federal law related to college sports includes a provision that prevents athletes from being deemed employees of their school.The Republican from Texas, who holds a key position in advancing NCAA legislation as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, told ESPN in an interview Wednesday that Congress might run out of time to act if it can't find a bipartisan solution in the coming months. During a yearslong effort to restore order to the college sports industry, Republicans and Democrats have remained largely divided on whether college athletes should have a future avenue for collective bargaining, which would require them to be employees.
"Clarifying that student athletes are not employees is absolutely critical," Cruz told ESPN. "Without it, we will see enormous and irreparable damage to college sports."
Cruz and NCAA leaders say many smaller schools would not be able to afford their teams if athletes had to be paid and receive benefits as employees. However, as lawsuits over player contracts and eligibility rules continue to mount, a growing number of frustrated coaches and athletic directors from major programs say they are open to collective bargaining as a solution.
"I've always been against this idea of players as employees, but quite frankly, that might be the only way to protect the collegiate model," Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, a longtime defender of amateurism, said at a news conference last week.
The NCAA and its members have spent millions of dollars in the past several years lobbying Congress for a bill that would grant the association an antitrust exemption, supersede state laws related to college sports and block attempts to gain employee status for athletes. Despite more than a dozen Capitol Hill hearings and a long list of proposals, no bill has reached a full vote in either chamber of Congress to date.
Senate Commerce Committee staff told ESPN that Cruz and a bipartisan group of senators have made significant progress on a new draft of a bill but are at an impasse on the employment issue. Cruz said Democrats and labor unions are concerned about setting a broader precedent for other industries by closing the door on college athlete employment, which has led to the stalemate.
"From a political perspective, you have labor union bosses that would love to see every college athlete deemed an employee made a member of a union and contributing union dues to elect Democrats," Cruz said. "It's terrible for college sports, but I get that there's some partisan appeal to it."
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said in a statement to ESPN that she also sees "growing bipartisan interest" for Congress to act. She has proposed separate college sports legislation that doesn't advocate for athletes to be employees but leaves the door open for employment or collective bargaining in the future. She told ESPN that the committee "should move the ball forward with a hearing on this [topic]."
The large and expanding gap between the top tier of college teams and the rest of the NCAA has made it difficult to find a fair solution for all parties.
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continued
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Florida Gators (official thread)
- By ScriptOhio
- College Football
- 1583 Replies
Coach Jon Sumrall takes away Gators logos to push new team
One of Jon Sumrall's first moves as Florida coach had echoes of Hall of Fame coach Urban Meyer's approach in 2005, which paid off with two national titles in his first four seasons.
Coach Jon Sumrall takes away Gators logos to push new team
Jon Sumrall had no idea one of his first major moves as Florida's football coach had been done before in Gainesville more than two decades ago.Sumrall gave his players shorts, shirts and other gear without any Gators logos. It was reminiscent of Hall of Fame coach Urban Meyer's approach in 2005, which paid off with two national titles in his first four seasons at Florida.
"Gotta earn it. Gotta earn the logo," Sumrall said. "We ain't earned it yet. We haven't earned a damn thing. All we've got is our name. ... To wear the Florida Gator logo, to wear the Gators across your helmet, to wear the Gator head, you got to earn that."
Sumrall said he is unsure how or when the players can earn logos.
"I haven't thought about that yet," he said....
Florida hired Sumrall in late November, days after it became clear to athletic director Scott Stricklin that top choice Lane Kiffin was headed to LSU. Sumrall signed a six-year, $44.7 million deal to replace Billy Napier and potentially get the once-proud program back to national prominence.
Sumrall's coaching résumé includes four consecutive league title game appearances. He won back-to-back Sun Belt championships in two seasons (2022-23) at Troy and then led Tulane to the American title game in both his seasons (2024-25) there. The Green Wave won the league last season and earned a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Sumrall's first steps included keeping five top-tier players in Gainesville: linebacker Myles Graham, running back Jadan Baugh, defensive end Jayden Woods, and wide receivers Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson. Some of them considered hitting the transfer portal, but all ended up back at Florida -- at a combined cost of $5.2 million -- for Sumrall's debut season.
"Clearly, the most important thing to me was trying to retain our best players," Sumrall said. "Not going to keep them all, ever. There's a coaching change. There's going to be some change and some transition, but that part was critical for us to have any opportunity to have success next year."
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.
.
continued
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