In a landmark decision on Friday, Federal Judge Claudia Wilken approved a sweeping $2.8 billion antitrust settlement between the NCAA, its most powerful conferences, and thousands of Division I athletes. This ruling will significantly reshape the structure and governance of college sports, signaling a formal end to the NCAA’s century-old claim to amateurism.
For decades, the governing body maintained the illusion that college athletes were students first and foremost. Now, universities will soon be permitted to directly compensate the very athletes who fuel a multibillion-dollar industry.
While many fans have grown accustomed to the post-2021 world of NIL compensation, where collectives and boosters write the checks, this marks a fundamental shift: the money will now come directly from the institutions themselves. However, what should be a major step forward for athlete empowerment has been clouded by skepticism.
The NCAA and its partners have simultaneously introduced new layers of regulation, including the College Sports Commission (CSC), a newly formed enforcement arm, headed by former MLB executive Brian Seeley. Alongside it, Deloitte will operate the "NIL GO" clearinghouse, a watchdog entity tasked with evaluating the legitimacy of NIL deals.
On paper, these initiatives are being framed as tools for restoring integrity to college sports. In reality, they appear to be yet another attempt by universities, coaches and administrators to regain control of a system that is evolving without them. These organizations will review NIL agreements to determine whether they meet a “valid business purpose” and are not simply pay-for-play disguised as marketing.
Here’s the critical issue: despite promising to compensate athletes, the NCAA and its member institutions remain firmly opposed to recognizing these athletes as employees or granting them collective bargaining rights. That alone creates a gaping hole in any claim of fairness or equity.
In professional sports, salary caps, free agency restrictions and contract terms are considered legal because they are the result of collective bargaining agreements negotiated between leagues and recognized player unions.
Furthermore, in the professional realm, there is no "enforcement entity" monitoring or questioning the legitimacy of endorsement deals—what NIL agreements essentially are—no matter how much money an athlete earns or where those payments originate.
In college sports, no such union exists. And if the NCAA and its member schools get their way, athletes won’t have any say in how compensation structures or transfer limitations are created or enforced moving forward, either.
That’s by design. Their ultimate goal is to ensure that athletes are never classified as employees, even though a school directly paying an athlete to compete on its behalf strongly resembles—if not outright constitutes—an employer-employee relationship, or at least a contract labor agreement.
Many observers believe the House settlement brings college athletics one step closer to formalizing this relationship, aligning the dynamics between athletes and universities with those that have long existed between schools and their highly paid coaches.
Athletes must retain the freedom to transfer between schools and earn from their NIL without arbitrary limitations. To do otherwise is to double down on an exploitative structure that has benefited schools and coaches at the expense of the players who have generated the product for the last century.
Coaches sign multi-million dollar contracts with guaranteed pay, leverage job changes without restriction and enjoy all the protections of employment. Athletes? Most are locked into one-year renewable agreements, offering no security and minimal leverage in a system where billions are made from their labor.
Let’s be clear: the fear that fair pay and open player movement would bankrupt college athletics is a MYTH. Revenues from media rights have soared. Conference realignment, driven purely by television dollars, is thriving.
NIL is not killing college sports—greed and control are the true culprits (if you subscribe to the popular theory among the people that run the sport that they're dying in the first place).
I, for one, don’t believe it for one second.
And if the CSC or Deloitte begin enforcing rules that restrict athlete earnings—especially if those rules are not collectively bargained—you can expect a fresh avalanche of litigation. The NCAA has lost nearly every courtroom battle of the last decade, and nothing in this new arrangement suggests a change in that trend. Courts have repeatedly affirmed the rights of athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, and to move freely between schools to bolster their earning power.
That's how things work in a free market—your value is determined by the amount someone is willing to pay for your services, and negotiation determines the parameters by which you enter into, or dissolve, a contract between parties.
If schools truly want structure and competitive balance, the answer is not more regulation or opaque oversight bodies. The answer is to allow athletes to unionize and create a true collective bargaining process. That would bring legitimacy to salary caps, transfer policies and enforceable agreements—just as it has in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and beyond. Without this, the legal standing of the NCAA’s restrictions will remain on shaky ground.
Judge Wilken’s ruling offers a powerful moment of change. But it’s only the beginning. If universities and coaches seek to impose rules that limit athletes without also offering them the status and protection of employment, then they are once again placing themselves on the wrong side of history.
The next phase of this transformation must be rooted in transparency, shared governance and respect for the athletes who make the entire machine run. Without those pillars, no amount of commissions, clearances or settlements will fix what’s broken in college sports.
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Jason Watkins is the founder and publisher of HOF Media Group. He can be reached at jw@hofmedia.us
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The SEC transition has been harsher on Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners than anticipated, with a tough 1-4 start sparking fan concerns over Venables’ leadership.
Despite glimpses of offensive progress in their latest 26-14 loss at Ole Miss, Oklahoma’s 4-4 record has fueled doubts about Venables’ ability to steer the program through the SEC’s relentless competition. While injuries to key offensive players have created challenges, Venables’ hesitance to address coaching issues and poor communication within the offensive staff have only deepened the Sooners' struggles.
The failure of the offensive staff to communicate effectively and Venables’ hesitance to manage his coaching staff proactively have compounded the difficulties presented by mounting injuries.
Hesitancy on Display: The 4th-Down Decision
Venables' hesitation was encapsulated on Saturday, just six days after finally relieving Littrell of his duties as offensive coordinator: the 4th-and-4 timeout against Ole Miss late in the third quarter. Trailing by two scores, Oklahoma needed a jolt to stay in the game.
The situation was critical, but hardly complex. Coaches make these calls instinctively, often without a second thought. Instead, Venables used a timeout — only to ultimately bring out the punt team, a decision that deflated the offense and left fans scratching their heads.
If the choice was to punt, Venables could’ve delayed the game for a mere five yards instead of burning a precious timeout. If he intended to go for it, why not get his new play caller’s best play for the situation and make the call confidently?
Even if the Sooners fail to pick up the four yards, it would have signaled a willingness to take a chance — or give one — to an offense that has been less-than-inspiring all season.
In that one instance, Venables’ hesitation was as costly as a missed play. With the momentum squarely in favor of Lane Kiffin’s Rebels, burning that timeout only to punt sent the wrong signal to a young group on offense that is in serious need of someone who believes in them. Instead, he proved he didn’t trust them to get a measly four yards and extend a drive to get back into the game.
OU’s Identity Crisis on Offense
What we’re witnessing with OU’s offense is not merely a slump — it’s an identity crisis. Oklahoma fans are accustomed to high-powered, fast-paced offenses that can score almost at will. Littrell’s offense was anything but explosive for seven weeks, and Joe Jon Finley had a lackluster, scoreless latter half of Week 8, too.
To say the Sooners struggled to establish consistency would be an overwhelming understatement.
OU has struggled with untimely penalties and turnovers and suffered through a complete lack of innovation and creativity. The plays feel uninspired, lack direction and are devoid of explosive results.
As a unit, this offense is drawing comparisons to the infamous John Blake era, and has the numbers to back the comparison up. ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
There’s no other way to say it but bluntly … OU has no clear identity with its offense on the field.
The offensive woes go beyond play-calling; they’re structural. Reports from inside the Switzer Center suggest that there have been significant communication breakdowns within the offensive staff. Coaches have reportedly been on different pages regarding even the most fundamental elements, like blocking schemes. If those rumors are reaching the public, it’s safe to say Venables has known about these issues for some time.
A head coach — even a defensive-minded one like Venables — cannot allow such dysfunction to persist. These aren’t minor misunderstandings; they’re symptoms of a team struggling to find cohesion. Venables needed to address these issues early, before they became embedded in the team’s culture, but his delay in doing so has turned what might have been small fires into an inferno.
Mailed-In Hire: The Problem with Littrell
When Venables hired Seth Littrell, it felt like a placeholder decision. It wasn’t the bold, visionary hire that programs like Oklahoma should be making. Littrell’s track record showed some promise, but he had yet to prove himself as the kind of offensive mind that could elevate a program to championship contention.
Looking back on the decision to elevate Littrell and Finley, the hire seems more like an afterthought, a half-measure rather than a commitment to offensive excellence.
The results have been glaringly obvious. The offense lacks explosive creativity that OU fans are used to seeing, and that lack of energy has translated into downright unacceptable performances on the field, as evidenced by the Sooners’ historically bad statistical rankings in FBS football.
In just ten months on the job, Littrell and his offensive staff failed to the tune of numbers nobody in their right minds would have predicted following the Sooners’ 2023 season that saw the offense rank in the Top 5 in both Total Offense and Scoring Offense, and alone at the top of the Big 12 Conference in Points, Yards and Yards Per Play.
This despite having two of the most electric quarterbacks from their respective recruiting classes in the fold:
2023 5-star and Elite 11-winning Jackson Arnold of Denton Guyer, the 2023 Gatorade National HS Player of the Year and twice a Class 6A State Finalist in Texas.
And former Allen and Frisco Emerson (Texas) superstar Michael Hawkins, Jr., a Sooner legacy trained by Kyler's father Kevin Murray, and who, as a senior, accounted for 55 touchdowns and just three turnovers, leading Emerson to within a game of playing for a Texas State Championship in Class 5A.
Neither were able to sustain success under Littrell's tutelage, and rumors have swirled this week about none of OU's QBs feeling as though been properly developed by the now-fired Littrell as the QBs coach.
Both started a games after being inserted for the other following ineffective play, and both came into their first appearances under Littrell with confidence and swagger that appeared missing by the time they were pulled from games after committing three turnovers and allowing the Sooners to fall behind teams they likely could have beaten were it not for the turnovers they committed.
In other words, Seth Littrell had to go.
Saturday’s loss leaves Oklahoma at 4-4, staring down a potential losing season -- the second for Venables since he arrived after the abrupt departure of Lincoln Riley to USC.
These are unacceptable at Oklahoma, a school with one of the richest football traditions in the country. What makes it even more alarming is that no longer can OU fans blame the losses on a ineffectice, suoddr defense — OU seems to have mostly turned the corner on that side of the ball — but to say the fan base is frustrated, would again be a massive understatement.
Oklahoma fans don’t want excuses; they want results. And for a head coach like Venables, the time for excuses is running out.
The Next OC Hire: BV’s Defining Moment
After Finally punting the Littrell experiment — once again needing more time than most believe he should have — Venables again finds himself in the market for a new offensive coordinator — for the third time in three seasons.
This time, though, the choice Venables makes will ultimately define his second tenure in Norman, possibly his entire future as a head coach in college football. Mailing it in would be tantamount to a dereliction of duty in the eyes of Sooner Nation.
Venables MUST get this one right. He has to bring in someone with a proven track record of offensive success, someone who can bring energy, innovation, and a clear identity to the offense. Anything less than a home-run hire will only deepen the cracks in Venables’ foundation as head coach.
If Venables fails to find the right offensive coordinator, his job security will slip through those cracks, and his tenure as the Head Ball Coach of the Sooners will die in a whimper. Even if he builds a defense that resembles the ’85 Bears, it won’t matter if OU’s offense can’t score points.
The OU fan base is patient to a degree, but they expect excellence. For Venables, this is a make-or-break moment.
Either he finds the right offensive coordinator and proves he can lead a balanced, championship-caliber team, or he risks being shown the door in a year or less.
The Venables Paradox: Championship Defense, JV Offense
The irony of Venables’ situation is that, in many ways, Oklahoma has become Lincoln Riley’s reverse image. Under Riley, the Sooners fielded prolific offenses but were plagued by a porous defense that could never quite get them over the championship hump.
With Venables, it’s the opposite: the defense has shown promise, but the offense is currently in full-on spiral.
The head coach role, especially at Blue Blood OU, requires more than defensive expertise or recruiting prowess. It demands a complete vision, a well-rounded team, and an unwavering commitment to excellence on both sides of the ball.
For Venables to truly establish himself as a championship-level head coach, he has to be willing to delegate offense to someone who can make people forget he’s a defensive guru and simply call him “Coach.” To reach the heights that Oklahoma fans demand, Venables needs to be remembered not as a defensive mind but as a leader who fields a complete team. That requires taking risks, making tough decisions, and, most importantly, holding his staff to the highest possible standard.
It requires a decisive, confident vision for a championship future. The clock is ticking on Brent Venables’ tenure in Oklahoma, and his window for turning things around is narrowing.
Being the head coach at Oklahoma is an honor, but it’s also a responsibility. Venables needs to rise to that responsibility, or he and Lincoln Riley might both be in the job market this time next year.
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Jason Watkins is the Publisher at HOF Media Group and the Host of the HOF College Football Podcast. Reach him at jw@hofmedia.us