Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic’s college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.
Hello there, and happy Friday.
Patch Things Up: This season’s biggest visual change
A few days ago in The Pulse, our world-leading newsletter on all of sports, I wrote about this college football season’s changes that await fans just now catching up on the offseason.
There aren’t many, for once, other than transfers and Lane Kiffin’s most recently confirmed whereabouts. The Playoff remains parked at 12 teams, and some G6 conferences shuffled teams, now including North Dakota State and Sacramento State.
But everyone will immediately notice all those new jersey patches for Notre Dame, Ohio State, LSU, Wisconsin and many more, especially when the Buckeyes are bringing in $17 million for theirs and the Irish are loudly earning up to $20 million. Amateur sports! That was a thing people used to say. I was never totally clear on why.
Why are jersey patches surging? New NCAA rule, officially kicking in tomorrow, Aug. 1. (There are regulations.)
This was bound to happen at some point. Long before players could be paid legally, schools were scrambling for every dollar they could scrape up, and lots of pro leagues have had jersey sponsors for years.
Still, pointing at newly rising roster-compensation costs will serve as the rationale as to why this is happening now.
Before we sprint through some news, here’s what it’ll look like once a school crams in emblems for its personal sponsor, apparel company, bowl game and team captaincy, all alongside the beloved Monster Energy Big 12 logo:
Quick Snaps
🏛️ “All they wanted was for Congress to give them and/or the NCAA the authority to set rules without getting sued to oblivion. Instead, they got a pair of Senators who want to dictate how much money Ryan Day can spend on a defensive end.” What it took to unite the Big Ten and SEC.
🐮 OK, maybe not that united. At this week’s Big Ten media days, Curt Cignetti said, “When we fall short, we say we fell short. We don’t cry a river, whine and complain. And that’s why we’re the best.” Otherwise in the B1G …
📰 News elsewhere:
Throwback: Oh right, the NCAA
These days, it’s almost easy to forget the NCAA even exists. The association spends most of its time in local court cases over individual players, I think, while the NIL-“regulating” College Sports Commission, the College Football Playoff committee and the Big Ten/SEC duopoly take turns as college football’s de facto governing bodies.
Ten years ago, the NCAA was still riding high, dominating the landscape with stickler-y headlines along the lines of “NCAA suspended Tennessee football player over $400 NFL Draft-related flight.”
Rarely hear about that ticky-tack amateurism crap these days, not when some players are getting paid 10,000 times that much money and the Big 12 has renamed itself after gamer fuel.
Yet that punishment is what’s going on right now for Vols linebacker Arion Carter, “suspended the first two games of this season by the NCAA for accepting a $427.48 flight from an agent during the NFL pre-draft process,” even though the preseason All-SEC third-teamer withdrew from the draft amid injury and paid back the agent, per his school.
Vintage NCAA, which still distinguishes between NIL-negotiation agents and turning-pro agents.
Carter will miss a gimme against Furman, but also a night trip to Georgia Tech.
Mandel’s Mailbag
From Stewart Mandel’s new mailbag, a portion on the news of the week:
Stew, I haven’t seen Bill Belichick on many preseason hot-seat lists. However, with Mike Lombardi being placed on administrative leave, do you really think they both survive the 2026 season? — Luigi M.
Even before that news, the only person I would have had higher on a hot-seat list than Belichick was Florida State’s Mike Norvell. It was apparent within the first few games last season that the NFL legend’s hire — forced on then-AD Bubba Cunningham through a back-room board of trustees coup — was an all-time misfire. And his loyalty to Lombardi — who my colleague Bruce Feldman called “without question, the worst general manager in college sports” on “The Audible” podcast — has done him zero favors.
- Even if we give Belichick/Lombardi a complete pass for Year 1 — they got a late start on the 2025-26 portal class, they didn’t have the high school relationships yet, etc. — that doesn’t explain the Tar Heels signing the 52nd-ranked portal class on 247Sports in Year 2. Not exactly the NFL’s 33rd team. They did sign a top-25 high school class, but it’s unlikely more than a couple will be immediate stars.
- On top of all that, UNC’s schedule is harder than last year’s, when the Heels went 4-8 overall and 2-6 in the ACC. They open against TCU in Dublin in Week 0 and also face Notre Dame out of conference. They host Miami, Louisville and Duke and visit Clemson, Pitt and Virginia. Even if we assume the Blue Devils and Cavaliers, last year’s ACC championship game opponents, regress, I don’t see more than three or four wins on the schedule.
It was never realistic for UNC to pull the plug on Belichick after one year, both because of optics (lots of important people having to admit they were wrong) and, more importantly, money. It would have cost around $29 million to buy out its head coach and his staff.
Unfortunately, that number won’t go down for another two years, as UNC fully guaranteed his first three years.
But at some point, the price tag becomes secondary to the continued reputational stains, fan apathy and, now with Lombardi, legitimate internal issues. Worth noting: Cunningham retired after last year, and his replacement, Steve Newmark, should be fully empowered to make whatever changes he deems necessary.
More Mandel here on another hot seat (Wisconsin), the expansion of college fantasy football and more.
Also, more UNC:
And a listen for the weekend: “The Audible” on a bunch of CFB stuff, including which team most needs a successful 2026 in order to keep being viewed by 16-year-old recruits as a top-tier blue blood. Things change fast! 🐘
Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.
