6.3.24 Football Football

aubiefifty · June 3

al.com

Observations and honest truth from SEC spring meetings

Updated: Jun. 02, 2024, 10:24 a.m.|Published: Jun. 02, 2024, 5:56 a.m.

7–9 minutes

Alabama AD Greg Byrne meets with reporters at the 2024 SEC spring meetings in Destin.Michael Casagrande | mcasagrande@al.com

By

Michael Casagrande | mcasagrande@al.com

Can we be honest for a minute?

While nobody ever accused those in my profession of tangible intelligence, I left this week’s SEC spring meetings in a weird place.

Confused, even.

The myriad of issues spiderwebbing from the ongoing legal settlement involving athlete compensation is enough to jam up a lawyer. We’re talking about the intersection of anti-trust law, safe harbors, Title IX, collective bargaining, and every other big word on this side of interception and touchdown.

Don’t take it just from me.

“There were a bunch of questions coming in,” Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel said. “Probably more coming out of it.”

We’re talking dense and frankly boring stuff.

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It’s not really the kind of thing that interests sports fans, but it is foundational to the uniquely American phenomenon that is the collegiate sporting model.

We’re talking major shifts in structure and execution—the kind you’ll be able to see, unlike with some other changes.

Distilling this whole puzzle into a readable, understandable, bite-sized form is the challenge. That’s true for a few reasons.

The House vs NCAA settlement isn’t yet a public document. There have been leaks with broad strokes of what it contains but not enough for anyone outside the negotiations to understand fully.

Everyone has an angle.

Competing interests are scrapping for the inside track; however, the dust settles, so the people with the information are already in spin mode.

First, for some background.

The SEC spring meetings are this annual rite of, well, summer, as league officials, coaches and administrators hole up in a Destin resort to discuss the business of the times. In the past, they’ve tackled relatively mundane issues like scholarship over-signing, satellite camps, cost-of-attendance scholarships and court storming.

“It’s pretty nice when you’re just talking about eight or nine conference games or cream cheese on bagels, right?” Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said after emerging from a few hours of meetings Wednesday, referencing the headlining battle of the 2023 SEC spring meetings. “There are obviously much more significant items now that need to be discussed and that’s what we’re doing.”

To be clear, while reporters are in Destin covering the meetings, we are not physically in the meeting rooms. Most days there are spent loitering in lobbies, waiting for coaches and administrators to exit. Those with something to say will stop for interviews.

Florida AD Scott Stricklin spent at least 45 minutes in a press scrum giving his perspective on the complicated matters.

At the end of each day, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey gives a press briefing of 30-40 minutes, during which carefully selected words convey the league’s message on legislative matters ranging from conference bylaws to laws they’d like to see passed by the United States Congress.

Separating fact from spin is more challenging than normal when so much of the baseline material remains not just confidential, but incredibly complex and confusing.

See Heupel’s quote above.

Understanding where everyone stands is important for context when reading any story, digesting any quote from someone at these meetings or involved in these processes.

Schools and administrators are entering the athlete compensation era not because they want it but because it is now legally required.

Administrators want you to know (or think) that this new financial burden will be monumental to overcome. According to the reporting, schools will be able to spend up to 22% of their annual revenue under the settlement’s known parameters.

Athletic departments are designed to spend as much of their revenues as possible already. Those revenues are set to jump next year with an expanded College Football Playoff and the SEC’s new television deal with ESPN. Alabama’s Byrne said it’s not as simple as adding those new chunks of income and subtracting the new athlete compensation. And while I’m not the accountant in this household, I’d be interested in a deep dive with these schools to see how balance sheets shake out in this new reality.

The House vs. NCAA settlement isn’t the silver bullet to pull college sports out of the quagmire. They’ll still need more legal protection to shield itself from the peril of lawsuits. That’s where anti-trust exemptions, safe harbors, and the begging in Washington come in. Nobody sounds optimistic for a law to pass the legislative and executive branches of our federal government in an election year.

The November balloting will go a long way toward determining the balance of power here, too. A Republican majority and White House would be more favorable for college administrators, while Democratic wins would likely be more favorable for athletes.

Questions about how the new pool of money for athletes will be distributed.

Roster sizes could shift here too. The idea of football walk-ons is up for discussion and coaches aren’t ready to trim rosters of up to 120 players down to 85.

We’ve made it this far without talking about NIL and the collectives that become the unintended consequence of the concept. But that’s all part of this. Who knows that means, though. “If anybody tells you they know exactly what’s going to come of the collectives, they’re a lot smarter than I am,” Byrne said, “which isn’t saying much but when you read the settlement, there’s going to be potential governance of fair market value and that could impact what collectives do. I can’t sit here and tell you where that will end up but I do think you at least need to be paying attention to it.”

School administrators oppose collective bargaining entering the revenue-sharing space and are even less interested in athletes getting employee status. “To have collective bargaining, you have to be in an employment situation,” SEC commish Sankey said. “I haven’t had a student-athlete come to me and say they want to be taxed like an employee.” Athletes, to be clear, are already taxed on their NIL earnings.

Everyone has an angle, again.

We could go on and on all day with how one thing leads to another but you shouldn’t be punished further for reading this far as a smooth-brained sports writer tries to explain smart-guy stuff instead of depth charts and box scores.

But the bigger point is worth noting: These are tricky and confusing times and everyone is jockeying to have their interest win the day.

More will come into focus as the summer drags on and we get closer to playing games on the field instead of in beachside boardrooms.

Keep your head on a swivel, and we’ll do our best to cut through the spin and keep you conscious because these are crucial times in our grand experiment of intercollegiate athletics.

Confused yet?

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.

aubiefifty · June 3

al.com

Carlton Davis: ‘Haven’t been this excited since 2020’

Updated: Jun. 02, 2024, 8:10 a.m.|Published: Jun. 02, 2024, 8:00 a.m.

5–6 minutes

Sports

Lions cornerback Carlton Davis: ‘Haven’t been this excited since 2020, when I won the Super Bowl’

Detroit Lions cornerback Carlton Davis III (23) runs a drill during an NFL football practice in Allen Park, Mich., Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)AP

By

Mark Inabinett | minabinett@al.com

Cornerback Carlton Davis’ six seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers included a victory in Super Bowl LV. The former Auburn standout has that championship feeling again for 2024, but not with the Bucs.

“I’m really excited about the personnel, the coaches, the environment,” Davis said about his new NFL team, the Detroit Lions. “Haven’t been this excited since 2020, when I won the Super Bowl. So much talent on this team. A really competitive environment. And so far, it’s been really good.”

The Lions traded a third-round draft choice for Davis and two sixth-round picks in March. The trade was a “shock” for Davis, but earlier in his career, it would have felt like an exile.

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“I had played the Lions maybe three times before, and I would come into the stadium and it would be like no energy,” Davis said. “The third quarter, I was probably on the bench or something. And that first time when we played them in Tampa Bay (in 2023), it was a different energy, a different team, you could tell. They really play with that grit mentality. But it’s preached here every day. (Coach) Dan (Campbell) talks about it every day. And in the playoffs, the home crowd was crazy. …

“It was definitely something to look forward to, knowing the grit that they had. Even when we played them in the playoffs -- both times actually – it was like you could tell it was a different Detroit team that season, and something to really be excited about knowing is this team has longed for a Super Bowl for so long and we have a chance to do it this year.”

The Lions defeated Tampa Bay 20-6 on Oct. 15 and 31-23 in the playoffs on Jan. 21. After defeating the Buccaneers in the postseason, Detroit lost to the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in the NFC Championship Game.

Detroit did not re-sign its top two corners from last season – Cameron Sutton and Jerry Jacobs – after the Lions yielded 4,205 passing yards, the sixth-most in the NFL in 2024.

In addition to trading for Davis in March, Detroit signed cornerback Amik Robertson as a free agent after he started 12 games for the Las Vegas Raiders last season, then used its first two draft picks on cornerbacks in April, taking Alabama’s Terrion Arnold at No. 24 and Missouri’s Ennis Rakestraw Jr. at No. 61.

They join holdovers Kindle Vildor and Khalil Dorsey, who started two games apiece last season, and former Alabama standout Brian Branch, back for a second season after excelling in multiple roles, including slot corner, for the Lions as a rookie.

“Always makes everybody better,” Davis said of the competition for playing time at cornerback. “The cream always rises to the top no matter what. And it’s great competition. That’s what we want. We play football, we play a competitive sport and we want to push each other. We want great competition in there. We want to become the best versions of ourselves, so it’s exciting.”

Davis has a clear vision of why Detroit traded for him, though.

“I’m about to lock some No. 1 receivers up,” Davis said. “Get my hands on some balls, get the ball back to our offense and play physical and bring the energy.”

As a veteran of 85 NFL games, Davis said he’s glad to share his experience with the Lions’ young cornerbacks, including Arnold, Detroit’s first-rounder from the other side of the Iron Bowl rivalry.

“I love teaching,” Davis said. “I love giving the knowledge I have. I can’t keep it forever. I might as well pass it along. I would love just to see (Arnold) grow as a player. He’s got so much talent, and he hasn’t been out there too much, but you can just tell by moving around and his charisma and his confidence that he has the tools to be a great player, so I want to help him reach that goal. …

“I’m happy to be the vet. I’m happy to come in here and teach these young guys and help them grow.”

The Lions have six practices remain during their offseason program before breaking until training camp.

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.

aubiefifty · June 3

aubiefifty · June 3

aubiefifty · June 3

Morning folks.Still slow for football. i will check in again later....................

aubiefifty · June 3

auburnwire.usatoday.com

Where does Auburn's 2025 recruiting haul rank among SEC teams as June begins?

Taylor Jones

4–5 minutes

The month of May was a great one for Auburn football in terms of recruiting.

The Tigers landed the commitment of three-star cornerback Dante Core, who joined Auburn’s 2025 haul on May 18. Core is the No. 66 corner for the 2025 cycle, and is the No. 80 recruit from Florida. Auburn’s top pledge, Malik Autry, also received great news as 247Sports upgraded his ranking to five-star status last month.

Auburn is getting off to a hot start in June by welcoming six targets, including three-star commit Tai Buster, are on campus this weekend for official visits. Ahead of the weekend, Auburn received predictions from both 247Sports and On3 to land four-star cornerback Blake Woodby, who recently de-committed from Ohio State.

How does Auburn stack up with the rest of the SEC following a successful May? Here’s a look at where each SEC team stands in 247Sports’ rankings as June begins.

Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports