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New York Post
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Nick Saban's rumored coaching return floated by ex-Alabama QB
Nick Saban could be making a return to the gridiron. That's what the Alabama coaching legend's former quarterback and current ESPN commentator Greg McElroy floated Monday on his radio show, citing a 'notable' source. 'This is a little bit out of left field, but the question was asked of me … a very much in the know person that I have a lot of respect for and have spent a lot of time around and just really, really admire,' McElroy said Monday on 'McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning,' where he was joined by Paul Finebaum. 5 Nick Saban coaching the Crimson Tide as his quarterback, Greg McElroy, walks the sideline in November 2009. Getty Images 5 Former Alabama QB Greg McElroy. Getty Images 'They seem to think Nick Saban's not done coaching. I had a similar reaction. He's pretty adamant that he thinks Nick Saban will be coaching again. … Look, if it wasn't someone notable, I'd never say a word.' Saban, 73, retired from college coaching in January 2024 after 17 seasons at Alabama, where he won six national championships, and 28 years coaching college football. He then pivoted to sports media, joining ESPN's 'College GameDay' a month later as an analyst. 5 Nick Saban on College Gameday. AP 5 Former coach Nick Saban golfing. Getty Images Former Washington coach Kalen DeBoer was named Saban's successor. Although the idea of a Saban return is buzzy, both McElroy and Finebaum expressed doubt about the chatter, given the former coach is 'literally having the time of his life.' 'Greg, you know Nick Saban better than I do, but I ran into somebody the other day who spends time with Saban in Florida – you can imagine where – and said that he is literally having the time of his life,' Finebaum said. 5 Nick Saban while coaching Alabama. Getty Images 'When you have everything you want and you start playing golf at the best golf clubs in America, and you start making friends who belong to even better golf clubs and you make a lot of money for doing very little work on TV, the interest in doing what he walked away from is not very high.' Regarded as one of the best coaches in college football history, Saban finished his career with a 292-71-1 record and 11 SEC titles. DeBoer recorded a 9-4 record overall in his first season at Alabama.
New York Post
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Kirk Herbstreit ‘not a fan' of open fandom from ESPN colleague Elle Duncan — who claps back at him
Elle Duncan didn't appreciate catching a stray from her ESPN colleague earlier this week. During a podcast appearance on 'Net Positive with John Crist,' 'College Gameday' panelist Kirk Herbstreit sounded off on sports broadcasters who can't hide their fandom, mentioning Duncan, who is a die-hard Georgia Bulldogs fan, as an example of what not to do behind the mic. 'If you are a personality, like a Bill Simmons, or a Pat McAfee or a Stephen A. Smith… part of their schtick is kind of that… That's why Ohio State fans probably don't care for me, I treat Ohio State like any other team,' Herbstreit said during the interview. Advertisement Kirk Herbstreit sits on the set of ESPN College GameDay prior to the College Football Playoff first round game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Tennessee Volunteers in Columbus on Dec. 21, 2024. Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images 'It might be different if you're in the studio, but if you're calling games and let's say you're an Alabama fan — and I'm calling an Ohio State-Alabama game — how the hell can you take what I say seriously if I'm saying, 'We, almost caught…' I would never do that. I don't think you can cheer when you do games on a national level… You watch 'SportsCenter' and Elle Duncan is sitting there cheering for Georgia, openly cheering. I'm not a fan of that personally. I think it hurts your credibility…' Duncan, who has been a 'SportsCenter' anchor since 2016, was seemingly caught off guard by Herbstreit's comments. Advertisement 'Didn't have this on my bingo card for today but my fandom doesn't impact in any way what or how we talk about teams on air. Ever. I… Also **whispers** I'm not the only one. So why I get singled out?' Duncan wrote on X on Friday. Elle Duncan is seen leaving her hotel on the way to the Disney Upfronts 2025 on May 13, 2025 in New York City. GC Images Despite his views on objectivity in sports media, Herbstreit admitted that he got emotional after his alma mater, Ohio State, won the football national championship in January. Advertisement 'Don't start with me,' Herbstreit said when Scott Van Pelt asked him a question on 'SportsCenter' after the Buckeyes' win over Notre Dame. 'I'm a little emotional. I'm just fired up for these guys. When I call these games, I'm incredibly objective. I love all of these Ohio State teams, but this team, because of what they went through to get to this point, you're just happy.' Herbstreit has also recently been defensive over Ohio State head coach Ryan Day and the football program, which has previously struggled to get over the hump on the big stage.
New York Post
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Pat McAfee rips fans' response to why he has missed WWE Raw commentary duties
Pat McAfee has notably been missing from WWE's 'Raw' for the past three weeks, and he explained on Monday what has him on the sidelines. 'I was getting pretty exhausted there,' he said on Monday's 'The Pat McAfee Show' episode as the reason for his absence. But many fans were not interested in what he had to say, or whether or not he appeared back on the show at all and caused McAfee to lash out a bit. Advertisement 3 Pat McAfee talks before a finals game between the Pacers and Thunder, as he was a familiar face throughout the Indiana's NBA Finals run. NBAE via Getty Images 'I was getting pretty exhausted,' the former All-Pro Colts punter posted Wednesday to X. 'I produce/host a 5 day a week show, have been on the go every week since Dublin last year before College Football.. plus I run my growing company with 14 employees and have a 2 year old daughter.' ''YOU'RE NOT EXHAUSTED ENOUGH BITCH.. NEED YA TO TAKE A DIRT NAP' ~ The IWC (Internet Wrestling Community),' McAfee added on an X post, imitating the wrestling fans who came for him after he revealed his exhaustion. Advertisement McAfee then added 11 screenshots of fans on X tearing him apart for his absence, clearly not missing him. 'Trust us [McAfee] no one cares that you are gone,' one user said. 'In fact we are enjoying it.' 'We're also pretty exhausted when he is on commentary,' another said. Advertisement McAfee has been the lead color commentator for Raw since the show debuted on Netflix this year, joining Michael Cole in 2025 directly after the college football season ended, as he had been a host for ESPN's 'College Gameday.' WWE is a 52-week a year schedule for Raw, plus premium live events. 3 Pat McAfee speaking before the NFL Draft in April. AP All the while, the former Indianapolis Colt continued hosting his daily self-named show, which also took a bump in busyness with the Indiana Pacers making a run to the NBA Finals. Wade Barrett filled in for McAfee the first week and Corey Graves took the chair next to Cole the past two weeks. Advertisement 3 Pat McAfee has also appeared as a wrestler for the WWE in the past. USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con While he didn't confirm, McAfee hinted on Monday that he may be back for Saturday's 'Night of Champions' show in Saudi Arabia. 'Thank you all so much,' McAfee humorously concluded his X post addressing his absence to the haters. 'Excited for the future of my life.'
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
How a new bus service illustrates the Cougar Collective's role at WSU in the wake of the House settlement
Jun. 12—PULLMAN — Justin Mills had just about seen enough. A 2018 graduate of Washington State, Mills knew what it was like to experience WSU football gamedays at their best, RVs flooding the town and a packed Martin Stadium roaring and empty Fireball shooters scattered around the stands by nightfall. But now, with the Cougars' attendance dropping as their conference affiliation shook the entire university, he understood one thing. He couldn't sit on his hands. So one day in late March, he fired up his X app and sent a direct message to Hurley Media Group's Brian Hurley, who had put out a call for WSU supporters willing to help set up a new bus service to games. Brian put Mills in touch with his wife and fellow media expert Cassie, who was leading the charge on that front. A project manager based in Spokane, Mills had a background in organizing efforts like these, so things came together relatively smoothly. In order to make it easier for fans in Spokane and the Tri-Cities to attend WSU games — Pullman hotels drive up prices for game weekends so much that would-be attendees are forced to stay in the surrounding areas, or not come to games at all — he connected with a bus operation called Starline, which has a branch in Spokane. The Starline representative, a woman named Tracy, stayed in touch with Cassie and Justin via group chat. Tracy and Starline eventually agreed to help Mills, Hurley and the entire Cougar Collective arrange a series of bus trips to and from each of WSU's six home games this fall, with one route via Spokane and the other via Kennewick, Pasco and Richland. "I'm gonna give him props, too, because he stayed on me," Cassie said of Justin. "He was like, 'Hey, any updates? Any updates?' " "I wanted to help out any way I could," Justin said. "I wanted the experience for other people to be how I had it at WSU, so I want them to have the same experience I did." The best part: It came at a reasonable cost for the collective, which would get 10% of the proceeds, which would then go on to benefit WSU athletes, a crucial development as coaches try to fend off poachers from other schools. But the part that may excite WSU fans most has to do with what can happen on the bus trips. Thanks to a series of $15 permits Mills worked to acquire, bus riders can drink alcohol on their way to the games. Riders get their ID checked upon boarding, which allows them to drink any alcohol they bring. "I've seen other people, like students, saying, 'I wanna make a trip to Spokane just to take the bus back down to Pullman,' " Mills said. "So, you know, it sounds like very positive feedback." With all of that complete, only a few loose ends had to be tied up. Ol' Crimson Booster Club coordinator CJ McCoy, who is also responsible for setting up people to fly the WSU flag at College Gameday, helped coin the name Ol Crimson's Back Home Bus. Cassie and Mills also worked with a travel service called Wanderlie to put the $65 tickets online for purchase, and the Hurley Media Group produced a promotional video for the new bus operation. "Everything we do is for the love of WSU. It's a passion project," Casse said. "For us, it started back with the Pac-12 collapse, because we're like, 'We're getting left behind, and it really, truly hurts our hearts.' We love WSU, and it's so special, and we want everybody to know how special it is. It's a Coug thing, and we all know how special it is." It's a compelling story about WSU alumni working together to resurrect the bus service (the first iteration died around the time of the coronavirus pandemic) and give nearby fans easier ways to attend football games, a longtime struggle because of small-town Pullman's lodging limitations. But it fits into the bigger picture of WSU's main NIL group, the Cougar Collective, which is finding ways to adapt to a system that changed forever last week. Last Friday, a judge gave final approval to the House vs. NCAA settlement, paving the way for athletic departments to begin directly paying athletes via an annual revenue-sharing pool, which will be capped at $20.5 million in the first year, which begins on July 1, the same start date as WSU's fiscal year 2026. The settlement comes with two other meaningful impacts. It requires the NCAA and its Power Five members (WSU could remain under that umbrella in a legal sense) to pay some $2.8 billion in damages, or "back pay," to compensate athletes for the denial of NIL opportunities under prior eligibility rules. It has also prompted NIL collectives around the country to rethink their approaches now that institutional NIL will be the norm. In January, Colorado shuttered its collective in anticipation of the House settlement's effect. Louisville's will be turned into a marketing agency of the university. Ohio State is merging its two prior collectives into one broader one, which will be associated with the school. "But we're certainly not gonna go anywhere," said Tim Brandle, the Cougar Collective's treasurer and legal counsel. The Cougar Collective is here to stay, not vanishing with the House settlement's approval. The team will still enter into NIL contracts with players, same as it has for the past couple of seasons, and those agreements will come with the same stipulations that Brandle and the team began installing recently. If an athlete hits the transfer portal or leaves WSU early, they're responsible for paying back those funds, a buyout provision to protect the collective from players breaking their contracts haphazardly. But plenty is also changing for Brandle and the Collective. The House settlement requires that deals more than $600 must be reported to a new clearinghouse called NIL Go, run by accounting firm Deloitte, which will in turn attempt to determine if those agreements are "fair market value" — an arbitrary threshold not entirely based on athletic ability — and if they aren't, they can get sent to arbitration or scuttled entirely. But that only applies to contracts signed after the settlement's approval, meaning many of the Cougars' newcomers — the team signed 13 transfers in the spring window and will welcome 26 incoming freshmen this summer — may not be subject to those restrictions. That's a key reason why many schools around the country, WSU included to a lesser extent, prioritized signing transfers this spring. They could avoid the incoming limitations and combine with institutional NIL to maximize player profits. This is where WSU might benefit in a subtle way, though. The Cougar Collective has made strides in recent months — last winter, the group put together an NIL package of around $1 million to try and retain quarterback John Mateer, who turned it down and transferred to Oklahoma — but the organization isn't always in a position to offer deals that would get flagged as above fair market value anyway. Even if those offers did, the Cougars' program may not face the same type of scrutiny than that of other Power Four operations, which are much better equipped to dole out the types of contracts that would warrant investigation. If a player from another school were to have their deal rejected and their university files a lawsuit, it might stand to reason that development would occupy more of Deloitte's resources than something happening at WSU. That isn't to say the Cougars would be getting away with illegal deals — "I would turn them over, upload them," Brandle said, "be like, here you go, check this out" — but rather a reflection of WSU's position in the bigger picture of college athletics, in the traditional Pac-12 and outside it. The Cougs have always been in the business of doing more with less. For those reasons, Brandle and the collective team remain focused on the same things they were focused on before the House settlement was finalized — recruiting new members to their 1890 Club, a nod to WSU's founding year that asks patrons to donate $18.90 per month, and getting creative with new ways to raise money. One of the more significant developments helped the collective secure the name for its new bus service. The Ol' Crimson brand has allowed the collective to use its trademark, which led to the Ol Crimson's Back Home Bus branding, as well as the coffee and beer products that bear the Ol Crimson branding. It's not clear how much the collective will augment WSU's institutional NIL. The Cougars are expected to commit around $4.5 million in revenue-sharing dollars to the football team this year, athletic director Anne McCoy said in January, but she also indicated that number includes scholarships and stipends, making it unclear how much true revenue-sharing money will go toward the program. Whatever the number , the Cougar Collective will remain a part of the NIL picture at WSU. In fact, Brandle said, the team is more aligned now with the university than it has been before. It's the new world of college athletics, where dollar signs play a more prominent role, forcing collectives and administrations to figure things out on the fly. "All that is to say our modus operandi is not just asking people for money," Brandle said. "It's providing value and showing people that we have a coffee, we have a beer. "Soon, we're gonna have several other different products that we're rolling out."
USA Today
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Gene Wojciechowski praised by ESPN stars after announcing 'last official day'
Gene Wojciechowski praised by ESPN stars after announcing 'last official day' Show Caption Hide Caption Jeremiah Smith, Ryan Williams on cover of EA Sports College Football '26 EA Sports chose Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith and Alabama's Ryan Williams to be on the cover of College Football '26. We talk to the athletes about what this moment means to them. Veteran sports writer and "College Gameday" contributor Gene Wojciechowski's three-decade run at ESPN is officially over, he announced. Wojciechowski wrote on social media on Saturday, May 31 that it was his "last official day on the books" after more than 27 years at ESPN and thanked several ESPN stars, including "College Gameday" host Rece Davis, former "College Gameday" host Chris Fowler, former ESPN and current FOX Sports reporter Tom Rinaldi and former ESPN president John Skipper. Wojciechowski was technically let go by ESPN during the network's layoffs in 2023. It could mean this past weekend represented the end of his contract or severance compensation with ESPN. OPINION: College Football Playoff debate gives SEC's Greg Sankey chance to be hero That, however, did not stop an array of ESPN personalities from offering tributes and thanks for Wojciechowski's contributions at the network, despite his time on air there ending almost two years ago. "Tremendous reporter. Brilliant writer and storyteller. Better man. Unsurpassed as a loyal friend. Legend in the business," ESPN "College Gameday" host Rece Davis wrote on X. "Appreciate your commitment to the show and the respect you always showed to the people involved in the show," Kirk Herbstreit added in his own social media reply to Wojciechowski's tweet. "As loyal and good of a teammate I've ever had!" "You could do it all and make it look effortless," wrote ESPN's Dan Wetzel, the former Yahoo! national sports columnist. Wojciechowski is the author or co-author of nine books and joined ESPN back in 1998 after working for the Chicago Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, and the Los Angeles Times. He wrote for the now-defunct ESPN the Magazine and later began writing columns for His human-interest features and commentary also became a regular part of "College Gameday." The University of Tennessee graduate currently serves as a professor for the School of Journalism & Media at his alma mater. ESPN announced previously in April that Lee Corso would be retiring from "College Gameday" after his final headgear pick during Week 1 of the 2025 college football season.
