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Today, in college football news, “Blade Runner 2049” is full of great acting, but may give Sylvia Hoeks, who played one of his main antagonists, an MVP.
Video Games: Clicks Prices Increase
After almost incredibly successful in the EA Sports College Football Series (more on that in more detail in the SEC), I had one big question about the next edition.
Well, a few questions, certainly. I’m also wondering what: When does Dynasty Mode include historical records? Don’t you need to manually track the entire Heisman Streak in Colorado on Google Spreadsheets? Will the FCS team be re-entering the series? Cross-platform dynasty? Intravenous Red Bull for Chris Fowler?
But really, the main thing in my heart was money. Last year, EA paid FBS players $600 (and a copy of the game), allowing them to openly portray real college athletes for the first time.
And, according to an industry analyst, the highly anticipated CFB 25 produced more sales revenue than any other sports video game.
So it’s easy to imagine FBS players thinking this time. I’m a UTEP backup, not Manning, but I can get over $600, right?
That’s why reading today’s new story by Chris Vannini on CFB 26’s expectations and opportunities, this jumped out to me.
“According to the (NIL Group) route, more than 600 soccer players have already signed from schools such as Alabama, Georgia and Oregon, and the group’s goal is to win all scholarship FBS players. Pathway has paid players $1,500 for their rights and its ultimate goal is to negotiate a license deal that is much more valuable than $600, potentially including royalties for each game sold.”
Well, that collective negotiation music?
Also, do you know what I just noticed? If EA can add a CFB head coach at some point, they may not be able to include Bill Belichick, famous for opting out of Madden every year. It will make him the second most famous UNC figure that will only be eliminated from the video game after the Chicago Bulls players 23 himself.
Vannini’s entire story is worth reading, including details about last year’s IRL team. look? Video games are good for you.
Quick Snap
“I’m getting six legal figures at G5 level, especially at quarterbacks.” Antonio Morales and Sam Khan Jr. voted 13 coaches and personnel for the 2025 winners, losers and continuing fees for the Transfer Portal. Ton ponders there.
Rich – From Rodriguez to Bruce Feldman: “I went out into the desert, went out to the bayou, and I was in the Alabama hills and everywhere in between. …This is home.”
week The most technically important GM rental of the week: Senior Bowl Executive Gym Nuggy to Oklahoma. (Time I monitor far more: Master P, former NBA hopeful man, and the most famous music video features Golden Tank at the University of New Orleans on the basketball court.)
One of the top 5 TE recruitments for 2026 will not register until 2027 after the Church of Jesus Christ on the Latter-day Saint Mission. We employ the latest information from him, Alabama, Belichick and more.
Georgia provides examples of how schools split their $20 million player investment in the posthouse world. A portion of that money will be directed towards new scholarships.
For the nfl combine week, our college beat writers did a mock draft. Is Tetaroa Macmillan number 21? It is now a written steeler.
dury Another reason to end the CFB season by mid-January: players from Ohio State and Notre Dame had to prepare for the Post-Iowa Kate Rinklerk Speed ââdraft.
We are so back: Returning the hope and fear of the production
In college football, this is more difficult than ever, not to mention tracking which teams are which.
In addition to constantly reading Athletics, a great and important website, I have been reading Bill Connery for many years. (Braves.) One of his most useful works, the Returning-Production ranking, is now available on ESPN this week ($).
Bill digs into the roster to calculate how much of each team’s output will return for next season, weighting those calculations based on what actually predicts the most success. Bringing lots back is almost always a good sign (even if those players aren’t great), and vice versa.
Looking at the numbers this year, I got two questions about the building.
1. Clemson appears to be loaded with spectacular view. Did someone else take this home right after finishing in the AP Top 15 and win the Power Conference?
“The most successful teams in the past decade (excluding 2021, excluding 2021, when post-Covid eligibility is increased), have returned more than 80% of production the following year:
2018 Michigan (2017-3) 2022 NC (2021-3) 2022 BYU (2021-3) 2021-3) 2024 Oklahoma (2023-4)
“Interestingly, these teams, including the four 2021 teams that created that list, have a total win rate down from 0.733 to 0.606. The strong return production figures are good predictors of improvement (just as poor numbers are predictors of regression), but it seems as if it only works with teams that are not yet broken. It doesn’t necessarily make a really good team even better.”
2. Ten years ago, these numbers usually showed force near the bottom as they had to be reloaded from the initial entries in the NFL Draft. Currently, the chart has been turned over and the G5 team has to do the most reloading thing. Can these teams build any sustainability?
“The best teams still lose a lot, but so are the worst teams. In production that is expected to some extent in the top 7 of my year-end SP+ rankings of last year, five ranks below 101. Meanwhile, of the 19 teams with the lowest current return production rankings, the eight teams ranked 10th in the 100s in SP+, with eight remaining 3-9 last season.
“For some, this culling was intentional. New Mexico’s new head coach (30 transfers) and UMass (28) have overturned the Deion Sanders style of the roster.
“But in some places there is definitely resistance. Take Cron: Joe Moorehead had a rather younger team last year, but improved from 2-10 to 4-8. His reward has seen six of his best players leave for the power conference team. The combination of portals (good things on the net) and money disparity (worse when it’s bad) certainly doesn’t make the difficult job easier.”
Hmm. Rule Suggestion: Every time a G5 team defeats power, a small league steals Big Boy’s CFP money. This time, thanks to NIU, it would have meant that Mac would split Notre Dame’s $20 million.
Elsewhere, the “Until Saturday” podcast had Bill to discuss the unusual stability of the Big 12.
A moment of shining
Speaking of EA Sports and Nir:
If you’ve never become a video gamer, you may not understand how strange it felt to have a 2010s platoon of lawyers suddenly realized that games about university sports were using real player similarities all along. Yes, the 90s Bill Walsh Games had no Charlie Ward at all. Ah, was that bad?
Perhaps the wildest example is an old screenshot of Tim Tebow’s extremely expensive name on DR_DOUGHSTAX on Twitter, which appears in the NCAA Football 10’s Playbooks.
Thank you for reading until Saturday. See you next week. FWD This email will receive 100 newsletter points in emails to people who have been beaten on both CFB 25 and NCAA 14.
Above this week’s leaderboard is Russell, a reader who sent Tuesday’s edition to multiple NESCAC alumni.
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