
NHL Rank: Counting down from 50 to 1 for 2022-23
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3 years agoon
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ESPN staff
The top 100 NHL players for the 2022-23 season are difficult to rank, given the incredible depth of talent at almost every position.
To create our annual ranking of the NHL’s top 100 players, we asked an ESPN panel of more than 50 hockey experts to rate players based on how good they will be in the 2022-23 season compared to their peers.
The Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche were tied for the most players in the top 100 with six, along with the New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Vancouver Canucks. Only three teams failed to place a player in the top 100 — and the Arizona Coyotes are not one of the three.
Emphasis was placed solely on expectations for the upcoming season and predicting potential greatness, rather than past performance, career résumé or positional value. Hence, long-term injuries to players, such as the season-ending surgery for Robin Lehner of the Vegas Golden Knights, were taken into consideration.
There may be no greater indication of the NHL’s depth than the fact that the center position — the source of the league’s star power for decades — accounted for only seven spots in the top 20. Centers do encompass four slots in the top seven players, however.
After counting down from 100-51, here we present the top 50, including a significant change from last season’s top three:
2021-22 rank: 18
Age: 25
Barzal earned an eight-year contract extension from the Islanders based on past performance — as the team’s perennial leading scorer — and future returns. The center is eyeing an improved defensive game to complement his offensive abilities as an elite playmaker in New York’s system. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 41
Age: 26
Demko showed last season he was more than capable of handling the demands of being a No. 1 by starting 61 games and winning 33 times. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 96
Age: 26
Blazing speed and 30-goal offense define this 26-year-old forward for Detroit. –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: 100
Age: 24
Laine remains one of the NHL’s elite goal-scoring threats, posting his highest goals per 60 minutes average (1.5) since his rookie season in 2021-22. –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: 28
Age: 29
As more teams move to tandems, Hellebuyck continues to be one of those few goalies who can play more than 60 games and still give his team a chance to win every game. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 48
Age: 22
Svechnikov hit the 30 goal mark for the first time last season, many of them without the benefit of a lacrosse move. –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: 44
Age: 21
The 56 points he scored last season were more than his first two seasons combined. Could this be the year that Hughes climbs even higher? –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 9
Age: 34
He’s the player everyone loves to hate. And that only seems to fuel Marchand’s fire. The 34-year-old led Boston with 80 points last season, and eclipsed the 30-goal mark for the fifth time in seven seasons. Deep into his career, Marchand remains one of the NHL’s elite left wingers — and the Bruins will feel his absence deeply to start the 2022-23 campaign, as the veteran continues recovering from offseason hip surgery. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 23
Age: 30
Stone, who played just 37 games last season, could answer all those questions about his back with another 20-plus goal campaign and suffocating two-way performances. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 58
Age: 32
While his postseason was quite porous, Markstrom led all goalies with nine shutouts in finishing second for the Vezina last season. –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: 22
Age: 33
Chicago may be taking steps back, but Kane isn’t. The right winger is a reliable offensive force for the Blackhawks and proved it again last season with a 92-point campaign. What happens this year without Alex DeBrincat by his side, though? Kane will be quick to prove he can rise above losing a coveted linemate. The bigger question is if he’ll still be doing it in Chicago? –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 86
Age: 25
Werenski stepped outside the shadow of Seth Jones and posted his best offensive season (48 points in 68 games) while logging his highest average ice time (25:40). –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: NR
Age: 21
The man they call “Mo” won the Calder Trophy last season after scoring 50 points in 82 games and averaging the second-highest ice time for a rookie defenseman in the last decade (23:02). –Greg Wyshynski
2021-22 rank: NR
Age: 23
Everyone fixates on the 77, points but the two-way game is what makes the 22-year-old a more, well-rounded threat. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 76
Age: 24
DeBrincat has scored the ninth-most goals (160) since coming into the NHL in 2017-18. He is another reason why so many eyes will be on the Sens this season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 31
Age: 25
Scoring 47 goals and 93 points last season made it difficult for anyone to ignore Connor’s place among the game’s most dangerous scorers. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 21
Age: 24
The Bruins’ top-pairing defenseman is the total package — a great skater with good instincts, physical and an excellent puck-mover with an elite first pass. McAvoy’s value may be felt most in how well Boston survives – or doesn’t – the start of this season without him as he recovers from offseason shoulder surgery. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: NR
Age: 29
Gaudreau used last season to remind the NHL he is one of the game’s most dangerous wingers. He will look to do the same now that he is in Columbus after eight years in Calgary. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 16
Age: 23
Pettersson hit career-highs in goals (32) and points (68) last year and is committing to an improved defensive game, which includes being stronger on the puck and adding some physicality. That’s the balanced approach the Canucks need from their top center. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 50
Age: 23
He’s a 30-goal scorer who appears to be on the brink of potentially more for a Senators team that looks like it could be a serious problem this season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 99
Age: 23
Robertson took a promising rookie campaign and went off for 40 goals in his second full season. He’s still young, but he’s already averaging nearly a full point per game in his career. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 72
Age: 27
Saros was already important to the Predators. But his value was nearly immeasurable in 2021-22 when he went from being part of a tandem to a near-nightly fixture with a league-high 67 starts. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 26
Age: 23
Heiskanen might not score a ton of points like some of his contemporaries on the blue line. But his two-way prowess means he can be trusted in practically every situation throughout an entire game. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: NR
Age: 28
Getting his first 40-goal, 40-assist season elevated his place among the game’s premier left wingers. And he did that in just 69 games. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 19
Age: 26
Five straight 20-goal seasons and he is a reliable two-way center who can play in all situations. Again, there is a reason why Tampa Bay continues to remain in contention. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: NR
Age: 26
Everyone has seen what a fully healthy Eichel can accomplish. Now it is a matter of seeing what he can do on a team with heavier expectations for a full season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 12
Age: 26
Rantanen might not receive attention like MacKinnon and Makar, but he finds himself in the running for the NHL’s top right winger because he is a threat to score at least 30 goals and have 50 assists. Is this the year he gets the elusive 100-point campaign? –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 8
Age: 24
Already a Norris winner, Fox is one of the players at the vanguard of the young, puck-moving defenseman movement that is making a mark in the NHL. Fox is more than just offense and he is also someone who can be trusted in every situation, having averaged nearly 24 minutes of ice time last season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 29
Age: 25
Is it the six straight 20-goal seasons? The continued offensive growth? Or the consistent defensive contributions? Regardless, it makes Aho one of the NHL’s more complete centers. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 25
Age: 26
If Pastrnak can sidestep any distraction over his yet-to-be-finalized contract extension, then the Bruins’ top goal-scorer should be in line for another impressive season. Pastrnak paced Boston in goals last year (40) and averaged over a point-per-game with 77 in 72 games. David Krejci being back in Boston should help, too. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 55
Age: 32
Remember those discussions about how much Stamkos has left? Well, his response was posting his first 100-point season while finishing tied for the league lead with 11 game-winning goals. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 49
Age: 24
His 104-point season a year ago was the exact number he had in his previous two seasons combined. So how will it all work now that he’s in Florida? –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 13
Age: 30
There are times when it feels like he can score at a moment’s notice. But what makes him arguably more lethal is the fact that McDavid and Patrick Kane are the only players with more assists since Panarin debuted in the 2015-16 season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 15
Age: 37
The Great 8 produced another 50-goal campaign last season — the ninth of his career — and will continue to chase Wayne Gretzky’s all-time mark of 894 goals scored (Ovechkin enters 2022-23 with 780). It’ll be fascinating to watch how Ovechkin can adjust his game to maintain that blistering scoring pace. Even at 37 years old, he has showed no signs of slowing down. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 30
Age: 29
Zibanejad scored a career-high 81 points while showing he could be trusted in every situation imaginable for the Rangers. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 42
Age: 29
Huberdeau cemented his status as one of the game’s best creators with a league-high 85 assists in 2021-22. Only McDavid has more assists since the 2018-19 season. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 24
Age: 32
He scored 96 points, played in every situation and was on the ice for nearly half the game. There is a reason he finished a close second to Makar for the Norris. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 11
Age: 35
Even at age 35, Crosby’s still got it. The Penguins’ band leader and ultimate student stayed healthy and hit elite numbers last season (31 goals and 84 points in 69 games) and there’s boundless potential for Pittsburgh’s top line when Crosby is centering Jake Guentzel and Rickard Rakell. The team’s core is intact for another run, and it’ll be Crosby’s elite two-way play and unparalleled commitment to excellence driving the bus. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 14
Age: 25
Marner is coming off a career year in 2021-22 (35 goals and 97 points in 72 games) that highlighted how the Leafs’ forward has matured his overall game. The winger (mostly) rode shotgun with Auston Matthews on Toronto’s top line and projects to do so again, where Marner’s elite playmaking ability will be on full display. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 32
Age: 26
Meet the man who looks to overtake Vasilveskiy as the NHL’s top goaltender. Shesterkin is the reigning Vezina winner who could use this season to take the Rangers farther, claim another Vezina and potenitally walk away with the Hart too (where he finished third last season). –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 10
Age: 28
Vasilevskiy continues to maintain his position as the No. 1 goaltender in the game for a reason. But there is competition for that title. Still, he has five straight seasons of more than 30 regular-season wins and is one of the key reasons why Tampa remains a perennial contender. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 4
Age: 27
Barkov has long been the standard pick for “NHL’s most underrated player” and that needs to stop. Florida’s captain can put on a clinic any night. He tallied 39 goals and 88 points in 67 games last season while remaining one of the league’s most consistently dominant defensive forwards. Barkov’s skill lets him do it all with ease, from creating offense to blocking shots to lifting sticks and getting pucks back. Nothing “underrated” about it. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 7
Age: 31
Hedman apparently gets better with age. Tampa Bay’s blue-line stalwart does it all: a perennial Norris Trophy finalist who’s as dependable and consistent with his defensive details as he is at producing offense. Hedman has used that booming shot from the point to score 45 or more points in seven straight seasons. The Lightning’s defensive personnel might change, but Hedman is the consistent anchor holding the group together. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 20
Age: 25
Scoring 27 goals and averaging nearly a point per game as a rookie set the stage. Scoring 47 goals and 108 points the following season has allowed Kaprizov to climb the rankings while mounting a serious Hart Trophy challenge. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 6
Age: 27
The Oilers’ (other) top forward has been an offensive stalwart for years — with and without that McDavid guy by his side — but Draisaitl has evolved into more than just a regular 100-plus point producer. Since winning the Hart Trophy in 2020, Draisaitl has emerged as an upper-tier defensive center, trustworthy in all situations and as effective on the penalty kill as the power play. And his gutsy performance playing hurt throughout the playoffs last spring showed his commitment to guiding these Oilers back to contender status. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 17
Age: 29
Let’s say he plays a full 82-game season last year. Kucherov would have been on pace to score 120 points and finish three points shy of the scoring lead. Yeah, he’s pretty good. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 2
Age: 27
Even MacKinnon admitted he needed time to find his way. Once he did, he turned into an NHL superstar who is one of the reasons why the Avs could parlay their collective success beyond just one Stanley Cup. –Ryan S. Clark
2021-22 rank: 3
Age: 25
Matthews hit the 60-goal mark last season, joining an elite group of just nine NHL players who’ve accomplished that feat in the past 30 years. And Matthews’ 106 points in 73 games put him on par with Alex Ovechkin as the only active player to go for 60-plus goals and 100-plus points in a season (Ovechkin did it in 2007-08). What will Toronto’s top-line center do for an encore? Matthews’ unmatched release makes his shot dangerous, and that 6-foot-3 frame cuts an imposing figure on the ice. Is there any limit to his potential from here? –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 5
Age: 23
There hasn’t been a Hart Trophy-winning defenseman in the NHL since Chris Pronger in 2000. Makar, entering his fourth pro season, could realistically be next. He earned a Norris Trophy last spring for his 28-goal, 86-point regular season, and followed that by winning Conn Smythe honors for a 29-point effort during Colorado’s Stanley Cup run. Makar, 23, is an elite skater with excellent offensive ability that complements a sound defensive game. He’s a threat everywhere, on every shift, with an uncanny ability to make the competition look silly. –Kristen Shilton
2021-22 rank: 1
Age: 25
McDavid’s play can’t be adequately described. But it simply can’t be missed. “He’s the most exciting guy to watch in the league,” Washington goaltender Darcy Kuemper said. “Whenever [Edmonton] is on, it’s kind of much-watch TV.” Case in point: McDavid scored a hat trick in Edmonton’s season opener to seal a comeback victory over Vancouver. Because, of course. Oilers’ coach Jay Woodcroft calls McDavid “otherworldly,” and that about sums up what McDavid accomplished last season, hitting 44 goals and 123 points in 80 games. That’s a 1.54 points-per-game pace. Edmonton’s captain has a more well-rounded game than ever, which drives his production and leaves little doubt, night in and night out, about who is the best player in the league. –Kristen Shilton
Honorable mentions
Frederik Andersen, G, Carolina Hurricanes
Jesper Bratt, LW, New Jersey Devils
Brent Burns, D, Carolina Hurricanes
Pierre-Luc Dubois, C, Winnipeg Jets
Marc-Andre Fleury, G, Minnesota Wild
Roope Hintz, C, Dallas Stars
Nico Hischier, C, New Jersey Devils
John Klingberg, D, Anaheim Ducks
Darcy Kuemper, G, Colorado Avalanche
Anders Lee, LW, New York Islanders
Elvis Merzlikins, G, Columbus Blue Jackets
Max Pacioretty, LW, Carolina Hurricanes
Tyler Seguin, C, Dallas Stars
Nick Suzuki, C, Montreal Canadiens
Shea Theodore, D, Vegas Golden Knights
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Sports
Book excerpt: Does the future of college football need a commissioner?
Published
6 hours agoon
August 25, 2025By
admin
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Bill ConnellyAug 25, 2025, 07:40 AM ET
Close- Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.
Editor’s note: On Sept. 2, ESPN writer Bill Connelly’s book “Forward Progress: The Definitive Guide to the Future of College Football” will be released. This edited excerpt looks at whether the sport needs central leadership like professional leagues.
In 1920, professional baseball was in crisis. The Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox — star outfielder “Shoeless Joe” Jackson; co-aces Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams; four other starters (first baseman Chick Gandil, shortstop Swede Risberg, third baseman Buck Weaver, and outfielder Happy Felsch); and a key backup infielder (Fred McMullin) — were indicted and accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, had, along with allegations of other fixed games, shaken the sport to its core. Baseball had been governed by a National Commission consisting of three parties with extreme self-interest: National League president John Heydler, American League president Ban Johnson, and Garry Herrmann, president of the Cincinnati Reds team that had beaten the White Sox in the World Series. Its leadership proved lacking in this moment, and its questionable independence severely damaged perceptions. Herrmann resigned from the commission in 1920, and the commissioners couldn’t agree on a new third member.
In early October 1920, days before the start of that season’s World Series between the Brooklyn Robins and Cleveland Indians, leaders of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, New York Giants, and Pittsburgh Pirates proposed a tribunal of, in the words of the New York Times, “three of America’s biggest men, with absolute power over both major and minor leagues.” A letter sent to every major and minor baseball club said, “If baseball is to continue to exist as our national game (and it will) it must be with the recognition on the part of club owners and players that the game itself belongs to the American people, and not to either owners or players.”
The letter stated that “the present deplorable condition in baseball has been brought about by the lack of complete supervisory control of professional baseball,” that “the only cure for such condition is by having at the head of baseball men in no wise connected with baseball who are so prominent and representative among the American people that not a breath of suspicion could be ever reflected.” It concluded, “The practical operation of this agreement would be the selection of three men of such unquestionable reputation and standing in fields other than baseball that the mere knowledge of their control of baseball, in itself, would insure that the public interests would first be served, and that, therefore, as a natural sequence, all existing evils would disappear.” This tribunal would have the power to punish players, strip owners of their franchises, “establish a proper relationship between minor leagues and major leagues,” you name it.
This proposal, first discussed by Cubs shareholder A.D. Lasker, became known as the Lasker Plan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of clubs — particularly, those in the American League still loyal to the strong-willed Johnson — initially balked at the idea, to the point where the National League considered beginning an entirely new league with a few insurrectionist AL clubs, including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. But all necessary parties eventually came to the table, and figures as grand as former president William Howard Taft, General John J. Pershing and former treasury secretary William G. McAdoo were under discussion for the tribunal.
The search pretty quickly began to revolve around a single figure: Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A known baseball fan and an occasional showman on the bench, the 54-year-old Landis was known primarily for his antitrust judgment against Standard Oil, issuing the corporation a $29.2 million fine in 1907, equivalent to almost $1 billion today. (The U.S. Court of Appeals would eventually strike down the verdict.) He was regarded as tough but thoughtful, a grand figure but a supporter of the everyman. He would go on to serve as the sport’s first commissioner, a one-man tribunal, until his death in 1944.
Landis proved ruthless and uncompromising when he felt he needed to be. Despite all of the indicted “Black Sox” being acquitted in a criminal trial, Landis still banned them from baseball for life, stating, “Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ball game; no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ball game; no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing ball games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.” For better or worse, he stuck to that decision through the years despite both legal and emotional appeals.
Landis wasn’t a ruthless traditionalist, however. The All-Star Game was created under his watch in the early 1930s and proved to be a big hit, and while he didn’t seem to approve of the development of farm systems, in which minor league clubs developed affiliations with major league clubs to develop and promote their talent through the ranks, he also didn’t stop it, choosing only to step in on a case-by-case basis. He was far from infallible — you can certainly find inconsistency in some of his decisions, and Lord knows baseball didn’t exactly speed toward integration under his watch. (Jackie Robinson’s major league debut came two and a half years after Landis’ death. He might not have stopped that from happening had he still been in charge, but he certainly wasn’t pushing owners to become more progressive in this regard.) But he provided as steady a hand as possible, and both the trust in and popularity of baseball grew under his watch.
Absolute power? A dictatorial hand over the sport you’ve loved since childhood? Man, sign me up. That sounds amazing. Sure, I’ve never issued a billion-dollar fine to anyone, and my strongest bona fides regarding my general incorruptibility probably stem from the time I went on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and proclaimed that Cincinnati should have ranked higher than the SEC’s Texas A&M in the 2020 College Football Playoff rankings. But that qualifies as speaking truth to power, right?
In 2017, while at SB Nation, I indeed decided to run for college football commissioner. Granted, there was no such election and no such position, but it felt like a good use of time all the same. “College football needs someone to make long-term decisions,” I wrote. “College football needs someone who can reflect the interest of programs at every level: Alabama, Alabama-Birmingham, North Alabama, and all.”
There was an explosion of commish talk in 2016, thanks to a number of issues like College Football Playoff selections, conference schedules (mainly that some conferences play eight conference games and others play nine), and high school satellite camps, an issue that was all the rage for a few months and then vanished from consciousness altogether, to the point where I don’t even feel the need to define it here. “There needs to be somebody that looks out for what’s best for the game,” Alabama‘s Nick Saban said at the time, “not what’s best for the Big Ten or what’s best for the SEC or what’s best for Jim Harbaugh, but what’s best for the game of college football — the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it. That’s bigger than all of this.” (Harbaugh was at the center of the satellite camp issue that I’m still not going to explain further.) But even with Saban’s high-visibility comments, nothing came of it. Nothing ever comes of it.
Through the decades the only thing everyone has seemingly agreed on in this sport is the need for a commissioner figure.
“Charley Trippi, one of the all-time greats in college and professional football … said college football today needs a national commissioner to direct the game on a national basis. Trippi … charged that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is ‘controlled by the Big Ten.’ He said he felt no conference in the nation should have any kind of monopoly in the game.” — Macon News, 1958
“You don’t think we need a commissioner and a set of rules to make things even? We’re the only sport in America that doesn’t have the same set of rules for everybody that plays … Everybody goes to their own neighborhood and makes their own little rules.” — Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher, 2016
“I think there’s a perception with the public that perhaps college football doesn’t have its act together because there are so many different entities pulling in different directions.” — former Baylor head coach Grant Teaff, 1994
“… If you’re biased by a specific conference or if you’re impacted by making all your decisions based on revenue and earnings, then we’re never going to get to a good place.” — Penn State head coach James Franklin, 2024
“What this business needs is a commissioner who has the best interest of the game in mind. There needs to be somebody who creates a structure in which people just don’t cannibalize each other. … The NCAA president doesn’t have any legal authority to do much, in his defense, because they’ve given away that authority over the course of the last 60 years.” — West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck, 2011
“I think we need to have a … commissioner. I think football should be separate from the other sports. Just because our school is leaving to go to the Big Ten in football … our softball team should be playing Arizona in softball. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball. … And they’ll say, well, how do you do that? Well, Notre Dame’s independent in football, and they’re in a conference in everything else. I think we should all be independent in football. You can have a 64-team conference that’s in the Power 5, and you can have a 64-team conference that’s in the Group of 5, and we separate, and we play each other. You can have the West Coast teams, and every year we play seven games against the West Coast teams and then we play the East — we play Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia — and then the next year you play against the South while you still play your seven teams. You play a seven-game schedule, you play four against another conference opponent, division opponent, and you can always play against one Mountain West team every year so we can still keep those rivalries going. … But I think if you went together collectively, as a group, and said there’s 132 teams and we all share the same TV contract, so that the Mountain West doesn’t have one and the Sun Belt doesn’t have another and the SEC another, that we all go together, that’s a lot of games, and there’s a lot of people in the TV world that would go through it. … But I think if we still do the same and take all that money … that money now needs to be shared with the student-athletes, and there needs to be revenue sharing, and the players should get paid, and you get rid of [NIL], and the schools should be paying the players because the players are what the product is. And the fact that they don’t get paid is really the biggest travesty. Not that I’ve thought about it.” — UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, 2023
Kelly’s spiel, spoken at a pace faster than his fastest old Oregon offense at a press conference before UCLA’s LA Bowl appearance, made waves. In a way, he was basically calling for a College Football Association of sorts, an all-of-FBS league that could negotiate a huge television contract to be divvied out in a fair manner. In a perfect world, maybe that’s what would exist. But as with any other “In a perfect world …” construct, the real world prevailed instead.
The waves continued after Kelly’s comments. In January 2024, Nick Saban retired in part because he was frustrated with all the different demands of the NIL era. In February, Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low, “If my voice can bring about some meaningful change, I want to help any way I can, because I love the players, and I love college football. What we have now is not college football — not college football as we know it. You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist.” A company man until the end, Saban suggested that either SEC commissioner Greg Sankey or Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne might make a good commissioner for the sport. (“They would be more qualified than I am. They’re in it every day and know all the issues.”) In December 2024, Penn State head coach James Franklin expressed frustration with the state of the college football calendar and the fact that his backup quarterback, Beau Pribula, felt he needed to hop into the transfer portal before the Nittany Lions’ College Football Playoff journey began to make sure he had a solid home for the winter semester. His solution? “Let’s get a commissioner of college football that is waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night making decisions that’s in the best interest of college football. I think Nick Saban would be the obvious choice if we made that decision.”
Did anything come of that? Of course not. But that just means I’m still a candidate, right?
Back in 2017, my campaign platform consisted of nine pillars intended to maximize both the athlete’s experience and the fan’s enjoyment of the sport:
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A student-athlete bill of rights to ensure proper health care options, guaranteed undergraduate scholarships, and freer transfer rules.
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A modernized definition of amateurism that allowed players to profit off of their name, image, and likeness.
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The return of the EA Sports video game. (Hey, you have to throw some red meat to the base, right?)
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A fairer recruiting landscape that allowed players easier releases from their letters of intent if a coach left and explored changes to signing periods and regulations surrounding official visits and other recruiting rules.
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A system of promotion and relegation that incorporates actual merit into the sport’s power structure. (This one’s always on my mind.)
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An expanded playoff.
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Ditching unequal conference divisions in favor of a system of permanent rivalries and a larger rotation of opponents.
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Increasing creativity and flexibility in nonconference scheduling. (One idea: a “BracketBuster Saturday” in November in which everyone in FBS gets paired off based on in-season results.)
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Changes in clock rules that stemmed the recent increases in average game times, which had reached nearly three and a half hours per game.
It’s been about eight years since I put that list together, and damned if I haven’t gotten a lot of what I wanted: We’ve seen either partial or complete success for items No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9. That’s a hell of a success rate, especially considering how hard it is to actually institute change in this sport at times. But it feels like a lot of the forces I was responding to at the time — mainly, massive disorganization within the sport and an ever-increasing imbalance between haves and have-nots — have only gotten worse since 2017. Why? BECAUSE WE STILL HAVE NO COMMISSIONER! Any change that could have produced progressive outcomes only made the imbalance worse because when no one’s in charge, that really means that the most powerful and self-interested figures in the sport are in charge. And their only goal is to reinforce the power structure.
“I can’t tell you how many times I heard [former Big Ten commissioner] Jim Delany say two things,” former Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson said. “One: ‘You didn’t bring the Rose Bowl, or the Orange Bowl, or the Sugar Bowl, or the Fiesta Bowl, so [you get] whatever we decide you are worthy of.’ He also used to say, ‘The world cares more about 6-6 Michigan than 12-0 Utah, and until you realize and understand that and accept that …’ and I got it. But we always seemed to find a way to work together for the good of the cause, the good of the overall enterprise. Great, you started the Rose Bowl, but was it all bad that TCU beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl [in 2011]? That Utah beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl [in 2009]? Did the enterprise come crumbling down? No. We’re trying to look at the good of the cause and what’s best for the second most popular sport out there, and what I always had in the back of my mind trying to protect was how we could make sure that people give a damn about college football.”
For somewhere between 10 and 30 years, Delany was the sport’s most powerful figure. He kick-started multiple runs of conference realignment, and the Big Ten’s creation of the Big Ten Network turned out to be a game-changer. But college football’s most powerful figure was also doing everything he could to keep other conferences’ ambitions in check, to almost limit the sport’s potential growth in other areas of the country.
“When people talk about wanting a commissioner, what they’re really asking for is someone whose job it is to look out for the betterment of the sport as a whole,” said NBC Sports’ Nicole Auerbach. “I know it sounds really pollyannaish and idealistic, but you don’t have someone whose job it is to look out for the greater good. So you have competing interests. You have an NCAA president who has certain motivations and goals — and major college football is not even under their purview. And then you have all these different commissioners, and it makes a lot of sense that we ended up in a position where conferences started hiring outside of college sports. They hired businesspeople, they hired media executives, and then those people believe that their goal is to advance the interest only of their conference because that’s how those jobs work.”
“Lately, it seems like we’ve morphed into, ‘I’ve gotta feed the beast,'” said Thompson. “‘I’ve got 18 schools, 16 schools …’ In 2023, there were five autonomous conferences with an average membership of 13 schools each. Now we’ve got four autonomous conferences with an average membership of 17. We’ve gone to that consolidation, and a commissioner is paid to protect his 14, 16, 18 school interests. But, man, it just doesn’t seem like we care as much about how we just keep this thing going, how we keep 80,000 people, 50,000 people, hell, even 30,000 people coming to games.”
Now, professional sports have proven rather definitively that you can be disorganized and inequality-friendly with a commissioner atop the organizational chart. Just look at the last 35 years for most of Europe’s biggest soccer leagues or large swaths of Major League Baseball’s history — baseball had all the inequality a fan of capitalism could possibly crave, especially in the 1990s. And, hey, having an occasional tyrant like David Stern in charge didn’t stop the NBA from basically being ruled by three teams for decades — from 1980 to 2002, the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, and Chicago Bulls won 17 of 23 titles. Even in the NFL, all the parity measures in the world couldn’t stop the teams that employed either Tom Brady (New England, then Tampa Bay) or Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City) from winning 10 of 24 Super Bowls from 2001 to 2024.
It’s also not hard to see how a dictatorial figure like the Landis-style commissioner I dream of becoming could get corrupted. (I wouldn’t, of course — you can trust me — but others might.)
You can obviously manage things quite poorly with a commissioner in charge. But the only thing worse might be not having one. Professional organizations have commissioners, and at its highest level college football is now a professional organization of sorts. But a quote from Notre Dame president Father John J. Cavanaugh from the late 1940s still rings impressively true: “The type of reformers I refer to are those who play with the question for public consumption, who seem to say that an indefinable something has to be done in a way nobody knows how, at a time nobody knows when, in places nobody knows where, to accomplish nobody knows what. I wonder if there are not grounds to suspect that the reformers … protest too much, that their zeal may be an excuse for their own negligence in reforming themselves.”
Of course, there’s no place for a commissioner in college football’s structure. There’s no National College Football Office for him or her to occupy. England has spent the last few years working toward an “independent football regulator” (IFR) to oversee soccer as a whole in the country — in a lot of the same ways we’re talking about here — and it might create an intriguing model to follow. Or it might prove to totally lack independence from either partisan government or financial influence. We’ll see.
The creation of the College Football Playoff as an entity might have produced an opportunity for a leadership structure of sorts — imagine a situation in which schools must opt in to CFP membership (which features a set of rules and protocols you must follow) to compete for the CFP title — but it doesn’t appear we’re anywhere close to that at the moment. Among other things, expanding the CFP’s governance potential would again require a vote from Sankey and Petitti to strip themselves of power. “It could come through the CFP,” Auerbach said. “They already have a governance structure. In theory, they could build that out and add all of the bureaucratic pieces they would need to truly govern the sport. But you would need the people who are powerful now to be willing to give up some of that power for the collective good of the sport — you would need to have a willingness from the SEC and Big Ten commissioners, or those schools in their leagues, to give up power to have a collective, centralized, powerful figure. … It’s just hard to imagine that that would happen.”
“I think any governance system probably has to shift power away from the presidents,” said Extra Points’ Matt Brown, “… That could be a centralized commissioner. That could be a different board.” Right now, however, it’s nothing. And without anyone atop the pyramid, any change that could be good for the sport just exacerbates the haves-versus-have-nots divide that already exists.
Writing about the possibility of interleague play in Major League Baseball in the early 1970s, Roger Angell wrote, “The plan is startling and perhaps imperfect, but it is surely worth hopeful scrutiny at the top levels of baseball. I am convinced, however, that traditionalists need have no fear that it will be adopted. Any amalgamation would require all the owners to subdue their differences, to delegate real authority, to accept change, and to admit that they share an equal responsibility for everything that happens to their game. And that, to judge by their past record and by their performance in the strike, is exactly what they will never do.” He was right and wrong: it did come into existence, but it took 25 years to do so. We’ve been talking about a college football commissioner for far longer than that, and there doesn’t yet appear to be much of an appetite for subduing differences or delegating real authority. And it’s hard to imagine that changing without some sort of Black Sox-level emergency.
Then again, we can only envision what we know to envision. “Our imagination is bound by our experiences,” The Athletic’s Ralph Russo said. “And that’s making it hard to see where all this could possibly go. I feel like there’s a conclusion here that nothing in our collective experience could have brought us to. There’s just something, some other event, that is going to influence college football, probably an outside event. I say that because the history of college football is riddled with outside events totally influencing the power structure. It’s demographic movement — where the population goes within the United States. It’s wars. It’s segregation and desegregation. All of these things. So is the next thing something that completely disrupts the university system? Is it something that disrupts the U.S. government?”
At best, a commissioner figure could for the first time give the sport a vision to follow and a steadying hand for guidance. At worst, he or she would reinforce the divides and inequality that have already been established, furrowing his or her brow and talking about how great and deep college football is and how hard it is to satisfy everyone before simply giving the SEC and Big Ten whatever they want.
Regardless, I’m keeping my hat in the ring. CONNELLY 2025 (or 2036, or 2048, whatever it ends up being).
Sports
Sarkisian’s advice for Manning: ‘Just go be you’
Published
6 hours agoon
August 25, 2025By
admin
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Dave WilsonAug 25, 2025, 02:59 PM ET
Close- Dave Wilson is a college football reporter. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.
As the No. 1 Longhorns head to Columbus to face No. 3 Ohio State in what coach Steve Sarkisian called an “epic matchup,” all eyes are on Texas’ new starting quarterback, Arch Manning.
Manning, the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite according to ESPN BET, has made just two starts in two years — against UL Monroe and Mississippi State last season — and this will be his first start on the road or against a ranked team.
With all the noise, Sarkisian said his message to Manning has been just to be himself.
“We’re not asking any superhuman efforts of you to do anything that is extraordinary,” Sarkisian said Monday about what he told Manning. “Just go be you. What you’ve done is good enough to get us to this point and to get him to this point in this juncture of his career. Now go play the way he’s capable of playing to the style that he’s comfortable doing it.”
Manning threw for 939 yards with nine touchdowns and two interceptions in spot duty last season, also rushing for 108 yards and four touchdowns. His best performance was off the bench against UTSA last year, when he replaced Quinn Ewers and threw for 223 yards and four touchdowns on 9-of-12 passing while adding a 67-yard touchdown run — the longest by a Texas quarterback since Vince Young in 2005.
Now that he’s got the job full time, he said he won’t take the opportunity for granted.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” Manning said Monday. “I spent two years not playing, so I might as well go have some fun.”
The game marks just the second time since the AP poll debuted in 1950 that two top-3 teams will meet in their season opener, according to ESPN Research. The last time was 2017, when No. 1 Alabama beat No. 3 Florida State 24-7 and went on to win the national championship.
It’s also a rematch of last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal, when the Buckeyes beat the Longhorns 28-14 in the Cotton Bowl.
Sarkisian said these are two different teams from the end of last season.
“If you look at last year’s game, 26 players got drafted off of the two teams,” Sarkisian said. “If you include free agents, 32 players that were playing in that game a year ago are now in the NFL.”
The Longhorns return nine starters and 30 players from last year, but they still are the preseason No. 1. Sarkisian said both teams’ rankings are a testament to their quality, and he touted Ryan Day’s 70-10 head-coaching record.
“They’re not a gimmick team at all,” Sarkisian said of the Buckeyes. “I don’t mean to offend anybody, but the things that they do are sound and so you have to beat them.”
But the Buckeyes have two new coordinators and, like Texas, are breaking in a new starting quarterback, sophomore Julian Sayin in their case.
“He’s a natural passer; he’s got a quick release,” Sarkisian said of Sayin. “He’s a better athlete than you think, and he can run. So we definitely need to be alert to that. … This is going to be one of those where, when you go into the ring with somebody, what’s the plan? As the rounds go on, you’ve got to have to be able to adjust.”
The Longhorns have won their past 11 true road games, which Sarkisian said is a result of their process, focus and game-day routine. But neither he nor Manning has ever been to Ohio Stadium. Manning said he knows he’s got a talented team around him and doesn’t feel any pressure going into such a hostile environment.
“I always have to remind myself, it’s not all about me; it’s the whole team,” Manning said. “It’s going to be a fun one.”
Manning said he doesn’t feel a target on his back as he steps into the role of full-time starter.
“I think that’s all of us at Texas, and I think we kind of try to shift the narrative,” Manning said. “We’re going for everyone else. Target’s not on our back, but we got the red dot on everyone else.”
Sports
Wolverines go with freshman Underwood as QB1
Published
6 hours agoon
August 25, 2025By
admin
-
Jake TrotterAug 24, 2025, 08:58 PM ET
Close- Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men’s and women’s basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He’s a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at jake.trotter@espn.com and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.
True freshman Bryce Underwood has been named Michigan‘s starting quarterback, coach Sherrone Moore said Monday.
“He’s earned the opportunity,” Moore said. “It was not given to him.”
Other Michigan quarterbacks were informed Sunday that Underwood will start, a source told ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Moore said sophomore Jadyn Davis, who appeared in one game last season, had a strong camp and will serve as the backup to Underwood as the No. 14 Wolverines open the season Saturday against New Mexico before traveling to Oklahoma on Sept. 6 to face the No. 18 Sooners.
Underwood, from nearby Belleville, Michigan, was ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in this year’s signing class, flipping his commitment from LSU last November.
He beat out Fresno State transfer Mikey Keene and Davis for the starting job. Davis Warren is still recovering from a torn ACL in his right knee suffered in last season’s bowl win.
The 6-foot-4, 228-pound Underwood won two state championships with Belleville and won 38 straight games in high school.
“Just did the things the right way and used his skill and never tried to do too much,” Moore said. “For a young guy, he was very mature beyond his years, and he’s only 18 years old. He’s going to make mistakes, but that’s what we’re here for, coaches and players. We’re all going to support him.”
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