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.
This week, well, we’re a little Utah-centric. You’ll see why.
Mark Harlan Speaks
I was at the BYU-Utah football game in November. So, you know what that means. Let’s cue the tape.
So, yeah, that little constructive criticism cost him a chunk of change in the form of a Big 12 fine and he lost some real respect from Big 12 fans.
Turns out, Harlan hadn’t given an interview since then. But, earlier this week, he spoke to the Deseret News on a variety of topics. And, his post-game tirade came up. Harlan admits he needs some self-improvement.
“I think as we talk about last season, just like Kyle (Whittingham) would say, there’s things that they need to improve in as we head into the next year, I would say the same of myself,” Harlan said. “I think that night, obviously, I reacted emotionally and my frustrations were expressed in a way that was not worthy of a true leader of a program of this stature. And certainly as any leader should, you learn and grow from those experiences.”
He also told the paper that he called BYU coach Kalani Sitake and athletic director Tom Holmoe, along with Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, to apologize the next day.
That might have been the most dissected game in Big 12 football this season. It was an emotional night in Salt Lake City. I didn’t get back to my hotel until 2 a.m. local and there were still folks around campus trying to figure out what happened. Frankly, between that and the Iowa State-UCF game in October, I couldn’t have picked a better pair of games to attend in person last year.
And the best thing about BYU and Utah being in the same conference again is that we’ll get a rematch next year.
Houston is ‘All In’
Per the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Cougars are getting ready to be a full revenue share school when the House vs. NCAA settlement kicks in this July. So far, there have been no real snags in its implementation.
Houston’s athletic director, Eddie Nunez, told Joseph Duarte that the plan is to share to the expected cap of $20.5 million, with a minimum of $18 million.
This should be interesting for a couple of reasons. Houston has the smallest athletic department budget of any power four school, per the Chronicle. For that reason, the university is heavily subsidizing athletics, which makes it a bit of an outlier in the Big 12 (most athletic departments pay their own bills).
And, Houston isn’t a full member of the Big 12 yet, at least in terms of revenue sharing. That won’t fully kick in until 2026, when the Cougars are expected to net at least $40 million.
So, Houston will have to stretch that budget for a year to make it happen. That will be interesting to keep up with next season.
Related: Three Top Takeaways From A Big 12 Perspective on the College Football Semifinal Games
A Collective Closes
Back to Utah …
The House vs. NCAA settlement is going to change plenty in college sports. That includes NIL.
It’s not going away, but the ruling is going to allow schools to do more in the space, something it wasn’t allowed to do before. Harlan told athletic donors and fans that the athletic department would absorb their NIL collective, The Crimson Collective, later this year.
Why? Well, the settlement is going to allow schools to manage NIL operations, including money raised, and pay it out to athletes.
Note: This is NOT the revenue-sharing the settlement is leading to. That’s completely different. NIL becomes, in my view, a sweetener, especially for a school like Utah which intends to share at the full $20.5 million cap in the first year.
I don’t believe this will eliminate the bidding wars in NIL, either. But, only now, the schools are going to lead them. Which should be tons of fun because just about everyone is going to go this direction.
Fun With Graphics
Trying to figure out if the intern working the graphics on this particular ESPN game wasn’t a sports fan or was playing some weird version of the Match Game and lost?
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
