2026 NCAA Pro Football

Other sports & leagues
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Happy New Year to you all early folks.

With the second expanded College Football Playoff to begin next week, I might as well bring over a post I did this morning to continue this old thread.

Stay In NCAA Pro Football, Guys

Well the legal battles continue by some players to obtain FIVE years of top division eligibility in the NCAA,
with full incentive for most such athletes who won’t be having an NFL or NBA career waiting after year five,
to stay in “school” and cash in for all four or five of those years as “big man on campus.”

The evidence is mounting for these young NCAA Pro Football players with more incentive than EVER to stay in school, except for the “1%-ers” who can manage to be drafted, and with the exception perhaps of SOME of the specialty players like kickers, punters, and long snappers.

Coming in 2026 is also an expanded College Football Playoff, mind you, and I would not bet against yet another expansion before too long given the vast sums that post-season generates well beyond those other stupid jackass bowl games.

Some of the narrative being pandered by the likes of Dave Naylor and some spring football fanboys is dying off, as in this notion that the UFL is a great option for such players not going to the NFL, with the common exception of kickers, punters, long snappers, and the occasional return specialist.

All recent signs are pointing to the UFL being made into essentially a meat squad camp for the NFL, save for the specialty positions noted above and the occasional return specialist. Cost-cutting now for players in the UFL is huge after big cuts for both management and coaches!

Then there are those like sportswriter Jonathan Clink, originally from Winnipeg, who have it right:

Those who disagree can keep on with that “UFL option / spring football is expanding” narrative until we actually see MORE money for players, and I would not be holding your breath there for the troubled UFL.

The choices for professional college football players otherwise are as follows and much as they were even before the likes of the UFL and full-gridiron spring football predecessors since 2020:

  1. Go for it as a longshot undrafted free agent in the NFL, which many specialty players indeed do.

  2. Continue to train at your own expense, aside from any time able to break into an NFL camp as a member of the meat squad, as you look north to Canada and then
    .
    .
    .
    .

  3. UFL or some indoor football league or Europe

  4. No more football

This is the current score for guys aged 23 or 24 or so, one year removed from pro college play, who either retain that NFL dream or just simply want to keep playing as long as they can manage to do so, but pro football, like any pro athletics, is a year-round job any way one slices it.

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One thing I was shocked to learn about the UFL is that all the teams/players run out of the same city (I wanna say Arlington) and just fly to the games whether they’re the home or away team. That’s one thing the CFL has as a leg up that when players come to play in our communities they live and train in our communities and that’s a recipe for fan engagement in a way the UFL will never have on their current model.

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I think the bigger competition for CFL-level guys is not the UFL or CFB but the NFL PR expansions. Prior to 2014 the PR was 8 players. Now its 16+1 international. That doesn’t seem like a lot until you remember that there’s 32 NFL teams so that expansion over the last decade is 288 players who might’ve otherwise taken option 2 above who are now going to be going for option 1 just a little bit longer knowing there’s more opportunities to make more on an NFL PR than starting in the CFL on a rookie deal.

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I am calling BS on the whole premise of this take. The UFL—XFL, USFL, pick your rebrand—was always a developmental league for the Godfather. @Paolo_X has been calling this as long as I have been on this forum. And that is hitting half a decade plus of minus. It was never going to be some magical third power like the 1980s USFL or a rogue league taking on the NFL. The whole model from day one was, “Come here, put tape out, and hope you get a camp invite.” Remember the Rock and Player 53 or whatever the number was? What’s changing now isn’t the function of the league, it’s just that a businessman with a real budget and ROI discipline is running the show instead of a guy still checking in from the Fox NFL broadcast desk between takes.

I like Moose Johnston, but let’s not kid ourselves—he wasn’t out here selling sand to Bedouins. The man was a face, not a closer. This isn’t personal, it’s operational. The UFL is getting leaner, meaner, and more aligned with reality. This is a tryout league on TV. Always has been. Now it’s just got someone treating it like a product, not a passion project.

Roepel might not be a household name yet, but you’ve got to give the guy credit—he’s already made some smart moves. Getting out of deadweight markets like Memphis and shifting teams into better venues, like moving the Houston squad into the MLS stadium instead of sticking with the concrete tomb at UH, shows a level of operational awareness that’s been missing. Same with cutting deals to get into soccer stadiums—lower overhead, tighter visuals, and a more intimate crowd experience. Maybe he’s just trimming fat and buying time, or maybe he actually knows how to scale this thing into a viable feeder league with clean optics and national reach. Jury’s still out, but at least it feels like there’s a plan now.

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Well we sort of disagree and agree so much that we are back to generally agreeing, or so I think.

We’re bleeding over into the spring football talk, and a new thread is looking for the 2026 UFL 4.5 but give it some time now.

Businessman indeed is Repole.

I just don’t think this “local player and coach” angle is going to go over well for players after pro college football.

It’s no longer 1995 when sports on cable TV was such a main draw for fans, and in general in most towns, far fewer football fans care about former college stars who go pro let alone more college fans than ever don’t give a hot damn about other pro football, including especially in the American South where fans basically have less or no interest in pro football after pro college football.

At the end of the day, the NFL will have the feeder league it wants, damn the antics and strategy, but let’s not get over ourselves like those fanboys that this is going to be some massive national success on its own accord as we had hoped and especially the way things are going after those cuts of general managers and coaches.

Or of course there can be some other strategy that does not involve Repole to make it so, as the owners had hoped to do in the future at the start of 2025, but for spring football that sort of success remains an elusive unicorn.

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I’m biased because they were my team but getting rid of the Michigan Panthers was a bad move. They couldn’t use Ford Field anymore, but Eastern Michigan offered their field and the league said no because they thought the field itself looked bad on tv.

A consistent playoff team, and the team that grew the most in attendance in 2025. They didn’t even try to keep the team around. There’s a soccer stadium being built in Detroit they could’ve used after a year at Eastern Michigan

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Good new thread here about NIL itself

https://discourse.cfl.forum/t/name-image-likeness-compensation-seriously/104?u=paolo_x

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This would be an even better tracker were it to list the ages and alma mater of the players trying out, so then we would know how long removed they are from their time in the NCAA:

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The Scam of Private Equity In Pro College Football

https://youtu.be/G9x8RvXJFdo?si=CoTXlKuUDqr0mNKl

(9-minute video on YouTube via David Samson of DraftKings Network)

The matter of issues associated with investment via private equity as described in this context, legal as it is, is not unique to college football and not at all some new strategy.

Broadly speaking, private equity is at the heart of any capitalist society or society otherwise with elements of capitalism, but here we are on a deeper and insidious level.

Some of what I am hearing in this outstanding video by David Samson reminds me of two historic eras in the US and beyond that ended in terrible consequences years after private equity was allowed to run rampant with few, if any, restraints.

  1. The Great Recession and Global Financial Collapse of 2007 through, in some places like Florida and Nevada, well into even 2013, which included a heavy real estate and mortgage debt collapse AND

  2. The infamous “skim” by especially the Chicago Mob, though they were connected nationally, in Las Vegas in especially the 1950s and 1960s, when essentially hordes of cash in paper grocery bags and cardboard boxes were hauled east to Kansas City, Chicago, et cetera from the count rooms on the Strip.

THIS segment may as well be used in every single business school for the freshman / first year students. And it should be used again right before graduation. That’s before we get into any ethics courses, insert optional laugh track.

What is wrong with this situation in pro college football, long before we get even onto what is will be on the field of play with regards to the “greater-haves” and the “have-lesses”, is that we have a legal scam in which

  1. Profits are to some degree are fully privatized, with virtually guaranteed minimum returns if not also securing collateral

  2. The risk of loss, and mounting losses, are stuffed into the budget of a university that is PUBLIC and funding by the state and federal government.

Ah, there it is in the second item, THAT PART, for PUBLIC means taxpayers pay for that crap, including even those not in the State of Utah in this example, for public universities also accept vast amounts of federal funding, and yes for those healthy sceptics of you, even now via the current politics.

When one area of a PUBLIC university bleeds, well folks, other money has to flow in, however all that internal accounting goes, to stop the bleeding - at the expense of the PUBLIC and not private equity, of course!

Private equity I do not think will be the ruin of pro college football as some pessimists are already at it, not without good reason, but it certainly will screw things up even more for a good while (long enough to me to never care any more than I care less about college football now, chiefly only some CFP and rivalry game interest any more), lest there is some strict intervention by the federal government, which I do not see coming so long as certain wealthy folks invested heavily into private equity are cashing in big at the expense of the public.

But as stated, that political-financial reality and such a scam at the expense of the general public is nothing new!

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@Stickweld21

As it’s a long off-season even before the Super Bowl in those long two weeks in the winter, and as things develop for the UFL and whatever arises for pro college football expansion plans going forward, in 2026 we’ll probably have to have some public sparring sessions here or in a new UFL thread to keep things interesting, just like in the Unrest of 2022 with the Trash Hub League USFL 2.0, as we so fondly remember from the old place.

:smirking_face:

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Wow would you look at this train wreck!? And that’s the head coach mind you!

Now for a bit of law in the US for those not familiar with such matters.

RETALIATION, or even ATTEMPTED RETALIATION, itself in the workplace, school, hospitals, et cetera or otherwise in public matters, such as after somebody reports a matter to government or applies for benefits and so forth,

  • EVEN BEFORE any other alleged misdeeds are committed
  • IRRESPECTIVE of any further action by government
  • IRRESPECTIVE of qualification or not for government benefits

is in itself ILLEGAL.

They repeated this point recently to us in training at work, for apparently a whole lot of folks think the retaliation part itself is okay so long as ultimately they are found to be in the right.

As a more minor example, I had even cited the matter of at least attempted retaliation, opening a window with a mound of evidence into an investigation into actual retaliation, from a former account manager where I used to work to her supervisor and to human resources, for it happened one business day after merely applying for state benefits, given her veiled threats and inappropriate comments as I had documented.

You bet I spoke with an attorney that week too and loaded them with the evidence collected so as to give them prior notice in the event the illegal conduct continued or any other adverse actions against me. They got REAL quiet fast. Even my immediate supervisor was afraid to speak to me and when she did, it was right to the business point and nothing else.

They did not hesitate to pay out what I was due upon departure with a two-week notice. I now work for a competitor who is better as well. And they now must stay mum for years on anything associated with me or doing the same to anybody else, for I am happy to testify as a witness to misconduct against others or in a class action, for otherwise anything associated with me, the case at hand can re-open from where we left off.

Yeah, retaliation is a real thing that happens too often to average people going about routine business.

In the US, you DO NOT retaliate for any reason without breaking the law yourself.

I suppose on the front of retaliation in Canada, comparisons with that serious mess in Toronto in 2023 and 2024 could be at hand for some other day.

Then in this particular case in Michigan after merely the retaliation, there’s the whole rest that is alleged that was done, including felony home invasion under the law in Michigan!

We have a victim with damages yet to be determined, and what a mess here for the University of Michigan as well.

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The ACC is now slamming the barn door shut after the stampede in a lightning storm.

What a bunch of idiots.

That door was open for years due to that concocted sacred “conference champion” bullshit.

Easy solution - just pick the champion based on the conference record and get rid of the conference championship game, which is an innovation of the 1990s thanks to ESPN that precedes the College Football Playoff and does not serve it.

But they won’t do that though, too much money to lose from conference homers and wealthy alumni and Disney, so they’ll make up some other new BS that will simply promote one of the more “popular” teams each season.

This comes on the heels of Duke’s shocking ACC Championship win as a 5-loss team that caused chaos for the College Football Playoff. Duke’s victory over Virginia in the ACC title game sent James Madison to the CFP as the fifth-highest ranked conference champion, with Miami making it as an at-large team that didn’t play in the ACC Championship Game. The ACC did not offer any specifics right now about what will be changed, but simply that the new tiebreaker policy will be announced at some point before next season.

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Probably good advice not to retaliate that applies everywhere, including this forum.

What’s the old Chinese saying? Something like before you set out on the path to revenge make sure you dig two graves.

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So this captured internal memo of the UFL is most telling with regards to NCAA Pro Football, for it lists the schools included for their new stupid regional draft.

But did the schools named buy into this scheme in any OFFICIAL capacity? I see nothing on that front.

Note also for the regional draft the unequal allocation of budding football talent, who are players included amongst those not cracking an NFL practice roster any more or who either don’t want to play in Canada or who otherwise don’t qualify for the CFL.

It looks to me like they stacked the deck for Birmingham, Columbus, Dallas, and Orlando for the regional draft and especially gave St. Louis the shaft, with I suspect no accident and an old axe to grind as pushed by a friend of the NFL there.

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So uh the College Football Playoff.

:face_with_symbols_on_mouth:

Reddit and other social media are ablaze, especially since this is the second year after the disaster in the inaugural season before the semifinals.

https://www.reddit.com/r/billsimmons/comments/1prujjo/the_cfp_organizers_should_be_ashamed_of_themselves/

Two primetime games on a holiday weekend and we’re watching basically Week 1 level football where hilariously overmatched G5 teams get their ass handed to them by schools with 10x the resources and talent.

I would respect it somewhat if there was some history or standards, but since the entire “CFP” is a moveable feast and blatant cash grab, why not just maximize it for entertainment instead?

Whatever they decided on is just embarrassing.

Now I don’t of course fully agree with this take either, but indeed we have seen what has happened before during the bowl era as well for many of the most underwhelming and least interesting major bowl games ever. Those days are long gone, and fewer than ever care about all the other stupid bowl games, but the selection committee has managed to replicate that forlorn past shitty bowl game experience even with a College Football Playoff!

As I noted years ago, the divide between the pro college football audience and the NFL and other pro football audience has been widening, for these fan bases do not overlap like in the heyday of cable television any more.

Good on the NFL to just keep going with their schedule to go against these lame games, because yesterday Saturday 20 December is where we are.

If there is expansion for the College Football Playoff next season, we’ll see how they screw that up or not, but we do know now that so long as only Alabama has three losses, they are in no matter what, but other schools with 3 losses, well, “we’ll have to think about it” no doubt. :fu: Paul Finebaum and ESPN.

:unamused_face:

Then there is the following business reality, and I do think it’s what the fans want rather than this shit, but in the meantime, maybe pro college football will just formally form a Super League, for that’s what we’ll have anyway via the reforms of the College Football Playoff in time by the end of this decade.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannimalloy/2025/12/20/how-college-football-playoff-revenues-change-if-data-ran-cfp-selection/

The structure of the College Football Playoff may appear fixed, but this analysis makes clear that the method used to select teams has major financial consequences. Depending on whether selections are based on human judgment (as in the CFP committee) or predictive models like SP+ and FPI, millions of dollars shift across conferences. This year, the SEC benefits most under the current system, while data-driven approaches tended to redistribute payouts more evenly across conferences. As debates over playoff expansion and selection criteria continue, it is crucial to consider the significant size and scale of the monetary implications of both existing and proposed systems.

This is a fine article with regards to the increased used of analytics, but as glaringly omitted in all that “data analysis,” c’mon, when ESPN owns one of the metrics known as FPI, we know that there is a major conflict of interest such that of course any given means of calculation can be manipulated. ESPN is the ONLY reason that Alabama made the cut with three losses, but hey, Alabama came back to win and here we are for at least that single compelling game as they go to face #1 Indiana next.

But we’ve been there done all this already via the old Bowl Championship Series system via a purported “computer calculation” in those bygone days, which was generally a failure unless it was a team in the SEC.

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There are many reasons why I stopped watching NCAA football and this is one.

I got sick of small teams always being locked out. Every now and then a team like Boise State had an amazing season and was rewarded by a non-championship game.

They need to just put the have nots - the WAC, the MAC, the Sun Belt, etc. - into a lower level so they can get a chance at a title there and have only the money schools at the higher level.

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So I will point out one positive observation about the second year of the College Football Playoff.

Noting the location of each of the quarterfinal games, the committee did make sure to have all teams in the quarterfinals well away from their home base and to minimize the chances of any degree of home field advantage.

With the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and the three teams that were in that part of the 12-team bracket, it was going to be a southern affair any way one slices it, but at least Tulane did not pull off the upset so as to secure what would have been a home field advantage.

Had Texas A&M won, they would have had a partial home field advantage way over in Dallas.

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Well Indiana certainly is FOR REAL. I watched the whole game.

Let me tell you nobody saw Nick Saban after the pre-game, when he and Desmond Howard predicted Alabama would win. SCREW YOU NICK SABAN. Alabama did not belong there, but they got their charity from ESPN with those three losses of course like usual.

Interestingly, including after a wild Sugar Bowl comeback by Ole Miss, Indiana was the only team with a bye that won in the quarterfinal round.

The semifinals are on Thursday and Friday night, so as to off course avoid conflict with the NFL playoffs all weekend.

I also like that they made Oregon fly out to Atlanta and Ole Miss fly out to near Phoenix, so as to negate any regional advantage for the fan bases.

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Maybe somebody else has more insight into the matter of TV ratings for the College Football Playoff.

The dominant audience for college football is most definitely not that of NFL football, even though it includes especially many males under 35 or so who have gambling habits.

Even the advertising is targeted vastly differently though at about the same lower intelligence level. I’ve noticed for years now that far more of the ads during NFL football definitely skew far more towards general audiences and more towards women as well.

For the semifinals, well I’m not so sure this is a great recipe for record ratings, but we shall see.

“60 Minutes” running a puff-piece on Indiana University football, something they have been doing for years at CBS as basically as a disguised informercial to promote their college football rights and not at all a new ploy in US media, probably helped with promotion via an audience who otherwise would not pay attention, which includes those in the generation of my parents in their ‘80s.

Of the remaining teams via all the promotion, I think it is Indiana and their undefeated story in this season who have the most national appeal of the remaining teams, and I never imagined ever in my life writing such a sentence.

But generally speaking, via Oregon, Indiana, Ole Miss, and the University of Miami (FL) aka “The U”, without bloated promotion that’s all generally regional appeal, though “The U” often does draw a national audience in big games like these.

That SEC bunch in the South certainly will be watching their otherwise general rival Ole Miss and cheering for them simply because “it’s a southern thing” with those unsufferable people. EAT IT ALABAMA.

And then of course the record number of gambling ads raises the overall profile these days, so we shall see.

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Ufl 2026
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I’m sure the media is praying for Miami-Indiana. Indiana as the Cinderella story and Miami as the villain.

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