What a possible multibillion-dollar NCAA antitrust settlement means for college sports
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Dan Murphy
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Dan Murphy
ESPN Staff Writer
- Covers the Big Ten
- Joined ESPN.com in 2014
- Graduate of the University of Notre Dame
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Pete Thamel
The NCAA and its schools are considering a proposed solution to one of the largest looming obstacles remaining for a landmark settlement of the association’s antitrust cases, which could shape the future of major collegiate sports in America.
With the college sports industry aiming to avoid future antitrust lawsuits, the terms of a settlement would establish an annual process giving new players a chance to opt in or object to revenue-sharing terms currently being negotiated as part of the emerging framework for the future business model of the NCAA’s top schools.
The NCAA and its most powerful conferences are in the thick of working toward settling the House v. NCAA case this month, with sources saying leagues are planning to vote on a proposed deal by May 23. ESPN spoke to more than a dozen legal and industry experts in college sports this week to better understand the ongoing negotiations.
The tentative terms of the settlement include the NCAA paying more than $2.7 billion in past damages as well as setting up a system for its most powerful conferences to share a portion of their revenue with athletes moving forward. One major obstacle to reaching a settlement has been finding a way for the NCAA and its schools to protect themselves from future lawsuits, including potential claims they would be colluding to cap player compensation without using a collective bargaining agreement.
Steve Berman, the co-lead counsel representing athletes in the House case, told ESPN he and his team have proposed a solution that would extend the class-action settlement on an annual basis. In this scenario, athletes would receive a notice each year providing them with the opportunity to object to the terms of the revenue-share agreement. Berman said those athletes would then have the chance to attend a hearing and persuade the judge that the revenue-share arrangement was unfair in order to push for a change.
“Each year we would have a hearing where any new athlete who wasn’t previously bound [by the settlement] can come and object,” Berman said. “They would have to come and say, ‘I don’t think this is fair.’ That would be a hard burden to prove.”
An NCAA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Some athlete organizers say they are skeptical a rolling annual opt-in mechanism would be enough to dissuade future players from filing lawsuits to push for a bigger share of money in future years.
Sources say revenue sharing with athletes would begin, at the earliest, in the summer of 2025. The settlement would also serve to resolve three other active antitrust lawsuits against the NCAA.
The details of a settlement and their implications on how schools spend their money remain in flux. But with leagues expected to vote within the next two weeks, details are growing more clear as leaders in the industry weigh their options and sort through several remaining questions about how a future business model will work.
Why would an annual hearing be necessary?
In professional sports, the amount of revenue a league shares with its players is typically negotiated through a collective bargaining agreement between the league and a players’ union. Collective bargaining agreements completed with a certified union are exempt from antitrust challenges in court. That legal protection would not apply, however, in college sports if athletes are not deemed to be employees when schools start sharing their revenue.
The NCAA and its schools have been firmly opposed to a model where athletes are viewed as employees.
There are multiple pending cases in front of the National Labor Relations Board where athletes and their advocates are arguing that players should be employees and have the right to unionize, but those cases could take years to reach a conclusion. Others such as the College Football Players Association — one of several groups seeking to organize college athletes — have proposed asking Congress to create a special status for college athletes that would allow them to collectively bargain without being employees. But again, Congress has been slow to reach consensus on any federal legislation that could help chart a course forward for college sports despite several years of requested help from the NCAA.
The current House case is a class-action lawsuit that applies to all current Division I college athletes. That means future college athletes would not be bound by the terms of a settlement reached this year. Berman and his colleagues are hoping that giving each incoming group of new players an option to join the class will provide the schools with enough confidence that their agreement will be hard to challenge with future litigation.
What are the chances of a settlement happening?
There are so many moving parts that nothing is definitive, but sources from both sides of the case appear to be optimistic they are making substantial progress toward a settlement.
The NCAA has worked furiously toward settling, including agreeing to pick up the more than $2.7 billion in past damages over the next 10 years. If the case goes to trial and a judge rules against the NCAA, the association and its schools could be on the hook for more than $4 billion in damages.
Sources told ESPN that NCAA president Charlie Baker was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday meeting with more than a half-dozen Senators, a previously scheduled trip where he’s staying engaged with current Senate leaders about potential future legislation.
The belief in the industry is that all the power conferences have the majority votes to settle, which will be up to their schools’ top administrators. There are a few individual schools that are skeptical of settling — some of those overlap with the schools that supported the idea of forming a new “super league” that would radically reshape the entire structure of college athletics. While some believe a more complete overhaul is needed, sources told ESPN there’s essentially zero chance of a super league emerging in the near future.
To the majority, the idea of a league deciding to battle Berman and fellow lead attorney Jeffrey Kessler in court and face billions in damages isn’t too appetizing — especially with the NCAA paying the back damages.
Here’s the breakdown of the landscape, according to multiple industry sources: The Big Ten is generally on board with settling. The SEC has some detractors of settling but is trending to a majority. The Big 12 is expected to follow along. There’s some dissension in the ACC, which has amplified why Florida State and Clemson are suing to leave the league, but sources say it’s unlikely the ACC will end up voting against it.
It’s also important to note here that a vote for settling doesn’t mean all of the key details will have been ironed out. The notion of capping the size of a team’s roster as part of this new business model, for example, has generated buzz in athletic director and coaching circles. But details like what a football roster would be capped at — and the fate of walk-ons — are not expected to be decided until after the vote, per sources.
“It’s so early in that conversation, it’s hard to speculate,” a source said. “There’s a lot more work there. You want to build consensus across multiple conferences.”
Also, any potential help from Congress that Baker is courting wouldn’t come until well after the settlement.
“It gives us a better hand to play with Congress,” an industry source said. “They were looking for something from us. This injects a lot in that conversation. This is a good start.”
How much money will schools be spending on future payments to athletes?
Sources told ESPN that while terms could change, the current proposal would create a spending cap for each power-conference school based on 22% of the average media rights, ticket sales and sponsorship revenue of each power-conference school. Sources say they expect that cap number to be nearly $20 million per school. Schools would not be required to spend that much money on their athletes but would have the option to share up to that $20 million figure with them.
The cap number could change every few years to reflect changes in the overall revenue of schools. It’s not clear whether some money the schools already provide to their athletes — such as an academic reward of roughly $6,000 commonly referred to as Alston payments — would count toward that cap. Multiple sources did tell ESPN that donations from boosters are not included in the revenue formula.
How will they divide that money among their athletes?
There are no specific provisions in the proposed settlement that spell out how schools should distribute money to athletes, according to sources. Each individual school would be responsible for deciding which athletes to pay and sorting through the uncertainty around how that money would apply to Title IX regulations, per multiple sources.
Title IX requires colleges to provide equal opportunities for men and women to compete in varsity sports and provide equitable benefits to those athletes. The law, written long before athletes were earning money beyond their scholarships, does not clearly state how the federal government views direct payments to athletes. Does equitable treatment require a school to give the same dollar amount to men and women athletes in the new revenue-share model? Or would the payments be viewed more as a benefit that could be proportional to the money generated by each sport? Would scholarship dollars and additional revenue-share dollars be considered in the same financial category when balancing the Title IX ledgers?
“The truth is, no one knows,” a source told ESPN on Friday.
While the Department of Education or Congress could provide answers proactively, neither has demonstrated any urgency to do so at this point. Specific interpretations of Title IX often come through litigation, and in this instance, a group of athletes might need to file a lawsuit about how their school is handling these direct payments to establish clarity.
Until then, the most conservative approach for schools to ensure Title IX compliance would mean evenly splitting the new revenue-share dollars between men and women athletes. Sources say some schools might try to balance the overall spending by increasing scholarship opportunities on their women’s teams, but it remains unclear whether that would satisfy Title IX regulations. Others might seek a competitive advantage in football recruiting, for example, by arguing that equitable treatment for athletes in the case of revenue sharing should be based on the revenue their sports generate.
Sources also said the settlement won’t require schools to share money with all athletes or share it evenly among athletes — leaving those decisions up to individual athletic departments as well.
What happens to collectives and NIL payments?
According to a source, the settlement does not include any provision that would put an end to the booster collectives that currently serve as the main vehicle for paying athletes. School officials hope a settlement will create a way to strengthen the NCAA’s ability to enforce its rules, including its rule that requires NIL payments to be for a player’s market value as opposed to the current system, which frequently serves as a workaround for “pay-for-play” arrangements. However, drawing a distinction between those two types of payments would remain a difficult, nebulous task. Any attempt to completely eliminate the NIL collective market would take a substantial change in federal law provided by Congress.
The NCAA has created new rules this spring that allow schools to be more directly involved in finding NIL deals for their athletes. New state laws are also opening doors for the schools to use their own money to pay for an athlete’s NIL rights as opposed to those funds coming from a third party. The extent to which each school continues to be involved in finding NIL opportunities for its athletes in a future with revenue sharing could vary significantly.
“The feeling in the industry is that collectives are going to be forced to stay outside the universities, and it will become more of a discrepancy of the haves and have-nots,” said an industry source. “If you bring collectives in, any money raised would count toward the cap. But schools can hit the cap and still have collectives as third parties. That’s the fear, and why there needs to be regulation.”
What does this mean for major college basketball and leagues outside power conferences?
It’s still relatively uncertain how this would impact major college basketball schools outside of the power conferences.
Schools in the Big East, which is the most prominent basketball-forward league in the country, haven’t been given any formal guidance on how a settlement would trickle down to their level.
The prevailing sentiment is that leagues outside the power conferences named in the lawsuit, including basketball-forward leagues, will have the opportunity to opt into the same 22% revenue-share formula, which would be applied to their specific revenue.
The most expensive men’s college basketball rosters heading into next season are commanding $5 million to $7 million in NIL payments, per sources. It’s too early to determine whether leagues outside the power football conferences will be able to pay that much through revenue sharing.
The uncertainty about how the power conferences will settle the antitrust claims is leaving many administrators outside those leagues in what they describe as a difficult situation.
“All of the Group of 5 is in a wait-and-see mode, which is a precarious situation,” one source told ESPN. “It is extremely tough to lead athletic departments, universities and conferences and plan for the future — whether that be facilities, NIL, etc. — when you have no seat at the table to make the rules that will impact you.”
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Greg Wyshynski
The Winnipeg Jets defended star goaltender Connor Hellebuyck after another disastrous performance on the road, a 5-2 loss Friday night in which the St. Louis Blues forced Game 7 in their Stanley Cup Playoff opening-round series.
Hellebuyck was pulled after the second period in favor of backup Eric Comrie, the third straight game in St. Louis that he failed to finish. Hellebuyck surrendered five goals on 23 shots, including four goals on eight shots during a 5-minute, 23-second stretch in the second period that cost the Jets the game.
As has become tradition in this series, Blues fans mockingly chanted, “We want Connor!” after Hellebuyck left the game and the Jets’ bench.
“This isn’t about Connor,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “Tonight was not about Connor. Tonight, we imploded in front of him. Now, it’s a one-game showdown. It’s our goalie against their goalie, our best players against their best, our grinders against theirs. I have a lot of confidence in our [entire] group — not just Helly.”
Hellebuyck won the Vezina Trophy last season as the NHL’s top goaltender, as voted on by the league’s general managers. He also won the award in 2019-20 and is the favorite to win it for a third time this season. Hellebuyck is also a finalist for the 2024-25 Hart Trophy, awarded to the NHL’s most valuable player. He was the starting goaltender for Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February and was expected to do the same for the U.S. in next year’s Winter Olympics in Italy.
But his recent performances in the Stanley Cup playoffs have been the antithesis of that success.
Over the past three postseasons, two of which the Jets lost in the first round in just five games, Hellebuyck is 5-11 with an .860 save percentage.
Hellebuyck failed to finish any of the three games played in St. Louis during the series. He was pulled with 9:28 left in regulation in Game 3, having given up six goals on 25 shots. In Game 4, Hellebuyck was pulled 2:01 into the third period after surrendering five goals on 18 shots. Hellebuyck has allowed four or more goals in seven straight road playoff games, tying the second-longest streak in Stanley Cup playoff history
At home against the Blues in this series, it has been a different story, if not necessarily a great one: Hellebuyck is 3-0 in Winnipeg, with an .879 save percentage and a 2.33 goals-against average.
His home numbers in the regular season: 27-3-3 with a .938 save percentage and a 1.63 goals-against average in 33 games. His road numbers: 20-9-0 with a .911 save percentage and a 2.43 goals-against average. Hellebuyck was not pulled in his 63 appearances in the regular season.
Even with Hellebuyck’s multiple seasons of playoff struggles, his team exonerated him from blame for the Game 6 loss.
“I don’t need to talk about Bucky,” said forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who returned to the lineup for the first time since April 12 after a foot injury. “He’s been unbelievable for us all year. He’s continued to do that. We’ve got to be better.”
Said forward Cole Perfetti, who had a goal in Game 6: “Things got carried away. We lost our game for four or five minutes. They got a couple pucks through, and they found the back of the net. It’s frustrating. Happened a couple of times now this series where we fell asleep and they jumped on us.”
Perfetti said the Jets have rebounded from losses like this — one reason their confidence isn’t shaken ahead of Sunday’s Game 7.
“We had a loss like that in Game 4 [in St. Louis],” he said. “We went home and got the job done in Game 5. We’ve got the home ice. We’ve got the fans behind us and our barn rocking.”
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Bill Connelly
Almost no word in the English language makes a college football fan more defensive than the L-word: luck.
We weren’t lucky to have a great turnover margin — our coaches are just really good at emphasizing ball security! We’re tougher than everyone else — that’s why we recovered all those fumbles!
We weren’t lucky to win all those close games — we’re clutch! Our coaches know how to press all the right buttons! Our quarterback is a cool customer!
We weren’t lucky to have fewer injuries than everyone else — our strength-and-conditioning coach is the best in America! And again: We’re just tougher!
As loath as we may be to admit it, a large percentage of a given college football season — with its small overall sample of games — is determined by the bounce of a pointy ball, the bend of a ligament and the whims of fate. Certain teams will end up with an unsustainably good turnover margin that turns on them the next year. Certain teams (often the same ones) will enjoy a great run of close-game fortune based on some combination of great coaching, sturdy quarterback play, timely special teams contributions … and massive amounts of unsustainable randomness. Certain teams will keep their starting lineups mostly intact for 12 or more games while another is watching its depth chart change dramatically on a week-to-week basis.
As we prepare for the 2025 college football season, it’s worth stepping back and looking at who did, and didn’t, get the bounces in 2024. Just because Lady Luck was (or wasn’t) on your side one year, doesn’t automatically mean your fortunes will flip the next, but that’s often how these things go. Be it turnovers, close-game fortune or injuries, let’s talk about the teams that were dealt the best and worst hands last fall.
Jump to a section:
Turnover luck | Close games luck
Injuries and general shuffling | Turnaround candidates
Turnover luck
In last year’s ACC championship game, Clemson bolted to a 24-7 halftime lead, then white-knuckled it to the finish. SMU came back to tie the score at 31 with only 16 seconds left, but Nolan Hauser‘s 56-yard field goal at the buzzer gave the Tigers a 34-31 victory and a spot in 2024’s College Football Playoff at Alabama’s expense.
In the first series of the game, Clemson’s T.J. Parker pulled a perfect sack-and-strip of SMU QB Kevin Jennings, forcing and falling on a loose ball at the SMU 33-yard line. Clemson scored two plays later to take a 7-0 lead. Late in the first quarter, Khalil Barnes picked off a Jennings pass near midfield, ending what could have become a scoring threat with one more first down. A few minutes later, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik fumbled at the end of a 14-yard gain, but tight end Jake Briningstool recovered it at midfield, preventing another potential scoring threat from developing. (Klubnik fumbled seven times in the 2024 season but lost only one of them.)
Early in the third quarter, after SMU cut Clemson’s lead to 24-14, David Eziomume fumbled the ensuing kickoff at the Clemson 6, but teammate Keith Adams Jr. recovered it right before two SMU players pounced.
Over 60 minutes, both teams fumbled twice, and Clemson defended (intercepted or broke up) eight passes to SMU’s seven. On average, 50% of fumbles are lost and about 21% of passes defended become INTs, so Clemson’s expected turnover margin in this game was plus-0.2 (because of the extra pass defended). The Tigers’ actual turnover margin was plus-2, a difference of 1.8 turnovers in a game they barely won.
Clemson was obviously a solid team in 2024, but the Tigers probably wouldn’t have reached the CFP without turnovers luck. For the season, they fumbled 16 times but lost only three, and comparing their expected (based on the averages above) and actual turnover margins, almost no one benefited more from the randomness of a bouncing ball.
It probably isn’t a surprise to see that, of last year’s 12 playoff teams, eight benefited from positive turnovers luck, and six were at plus-3.3 or higher. You’ve got to be lucky and good to win, right?
You aren’t often lucky for two straight years, though. It might be noteworthy to point out that, of the teams in Mark Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early 2025 rankings, five were in the top 20 in terms of turnovers luck: No. 5 Georgia, No. 7 Clemson, No. 9 BYU, No. 11 Iowa State and No. 17 Indiana (plus two others from his Teams Also Considered list: Army and Baylor).
It’s also noteworthy to point out that three teams on Schlabach’s list — No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU and No. 15 SMU — ranked in the triple-digits in terms of turnovers luck. Oregon started the season 13-0 without the benefit of bounces. For that matter, Auburn, a team on the Also Considered list, ranked 125th in turnovers luck in a season that saw the Tigers go just 1-3 in one-score finishes. There might not have been a more what-could-have-been team in the country than Hugh Freeze’s Tigers.
Close games
One of my favorite tools in my statistical toolbox is what I call postgame win expectancy. The idea is to take all of a game’s key, predictive stats — all the things that end up feeding into my SP+ rankings — and basically toss them into the air and say, “With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time.”
Alabama‘s 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt on Oct. 5 was one of the most impactful results of the CFP race. It was also one of the least likely results of the season in terms of postgame win expectancy. Bama averaged 8.8 yards per play to Vandy’s 5.6, generated a 56% success rate* to Vandy’s 43% and scored touchdowns on all four of its trips into the red zone. It’s really hard to lose when you do all of that — in fact, the Crimson Tide’s postgame win expectancy was a whopping 98.5%. (You can see all postgame win expectancy data here)
(* Success rate: how frequently an offense is gaining at least 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second and 100% on third and fourth. It is one of the more reliable and predictive stats you’ll find, and it’s a big part of SP+.)
Vandy managed to overcome these stats in part because of two of the most perfect bounces you’ll ever see. In the first, Jalen Milroe had a pass batted at the line, and it deflected high into the air and, eventually, into the arms of Randon Fontenette, who caught it on the run and raced 29 yards for a touchdown and an early 13-0 lead.
In the second half, with Bama driving to potentially take the lead, Miles Capers sacked Milroe and forced a fumble; the ball sat on the ground for what felt like an eternity before Yilanan Ouattara outwrestled a Bama lineman for it. Instead of trailing, Vandy took over near midfield and scored seven plays later. It took turnovers luck and unlikely key-play execution — despite a 43% success rate, Diego Pavia and the Commodores went 12-for-18 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth — for Vandy to turn a 1.5% postgame win expectancy into a victory. It also wasn’t Alabama’s only incredibly unlikely loss: The Tide were at 87.8% to beat Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl but fell 19-13.
(Ole Miss can feel the Tide’s pain: The Rebels were at 76.0% postgame win expectancy against Kentucky and 73.7% against Florida. There was only a 6% chance that they would lose both games, and even going 1-1 would have likely landed them a CFP bid. They lost both.)
Adding up each game’s postgame win expectancy is a nice way of seeing how many games a team should have won on average. I call this a team’s second-order win total. Alabama was at 10.7 second-order wins but went 9-4. That was one of the biggest differences of the season. Somehow, however, Iron Bowl rival Auburn was even more unfortunate.
Based solely on stats, Arkansas State should have won about four games, and Auburn should have won about eight. Instead, the Red Wolves went 8-5 and the Tigers went 5-7.
Comparing win totals to these second-order wins is one of the surest ways of identifying potential turnaround stories for the following season. In 2023, 15 teams had second-order win totals at least one game higher than their actual win totals — meaning they suffered from poor close-game fortune. Ten of those 15 teams saw their win totals increase by at least two games in 2024, including East Carolina (from 2-10 to 8-5), TCU (5-7 to 9-4), Pitt (3-9 to 7-6), Boise State (8-6 to 12-2) and Louisiana (6-7 to 10-4). On average, these 15 teams improved by 1.9 wins.
On the flip side, 19 teams overachieved their second-order win totals by at least 1.0 wins in 2023. This list includes both of 2023’s national title game participants, Washington and Michigan. The Huskies and Wolverines sank from a combined 29-1 in 2023 to 14-12 in 2024, and it could have been even worse. Michigan overachieved again, going 8-5 despite a second-order win total of 6.0. Other 2023 overachievers weren’t so lucky. Oklahoma State (from 10-4 to 3-9), Wyoming (from 9-4 to 3-9), Northwestern (from 8-5 to 4-8) and NC State (from 9-4 to 6-7) all won more games than the stats expected in 2023, and all of them crumpled to some degree in 2024. On average, the 19 overachieving teams regressed by 1.9 wins last fall.
It’s worth keeping in mind that several teams in Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 — including No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU, No. 11 Iowa State, No. 13 Illinois and, yes, No. 21 Michigan — all exceeded statistical expectations in wins last season, as did Also Considered teams like Army, Duke, Missouri and Texas Tech. The fact that Oregon and LSU overachieved while suffering from poor turnovers luck is (admittedly) rather unlikely and paints a conflicting picture.
Meanwhile, one should note that three Way-Too-Early teams — No. 12 Alabama, No. 23 Miami and No. 25 Ole Miss (plus Washington and, of course, Auburn from the Also Considered list) — all lost more games than expected last season. With just a little bit of good fortune, they could prove to be awfully underrated.
Injuries and general shuffling
Injuries are hard to define in college football — coaches are frequently canny in the information they do and do not provide, and with so many teams in FBS, it’s impossible to derive accurate data regarding how many games were missed due to injury.
We can glean quite a bit from starting lineups, however. Teams with lineups that barely changed throughout the season were probably pretty happy with their overall results, while teams with ever-changing lineups likely succumbed to lots of losses. Below, I’ve ranked teams using a simple ratio: I compared (a) the number of players who either started every game or started all but one for a given team to (b) the number of players who started only one or two games, likely as a stopgap. If you had far more of the former, your team likely avoided major injury issues and, with a couple of major exceptions, thrived. If you had more of the latter, the negative effects were probably pretty obvious.
Despite the presence of 1-11 Purdue and 2-10 Kennesaw State near the top of the list — Purdue fielded one of the worst power conference teams in recent memory and barely could blame injury for its issues — you can still see a decent correlation between a positive ratio and positive results. The six teams with a ratio of at least 2.8 or above went a combined 62-22 in 2024, while the teams with a 0.5 ratio or worse went 31-56.
Seven of nine conference champions had a ratio of at least 1.3, and 11 of the 12 CFP teams were at 1.44 or higher (five were at 2.6 or higher). Indiana, the most shocking of CFP teams, was second on the list above; epic disappointments like Oklahoma and, especially, Florida State were near the bottom. (The fact that Georgia won the SEC and reached the CFP despite a pretty terrible injury ratio speaks volumes about the depth Kirby Smart has built in Athens. Of course, the Dawgs also enjoyed solid turnovers luck.)
Major turnaround candidates
It’s fair to use this information as a reason for skepticism about teams like Indiana (turnovers luck and injuries luck), Clemson (turnovers luck), Iowa State (close-games luck), Penn State (injuries luck) or Sam Houston (all of the above, plus a coaching change), but let’s end on an optimistic note instead. Here are five teams that could pretty easily enjoy a big turnaround if Lady Luck is a little kinder.
Auburn Tigers: Auburn enjoyed a better success rate than its opponents (44.7% to 38.5%) and made more big plays as well (8.9% of plays gained 20-plus yards versus 5.7% for opponents). That makes it awfully hard to lose! But the Tigers made exactly the mistake they couldn’t make and managed to lose games with 94%, 76% and 61% postgame win expectancy. There’s nothing saying this was all bad luck, but even with a modest turnaround in fortune, the Tigers will have a very high ceiling in 2025.
Florida Gators: The Gators improved from 41st to 20th in SP+ and from 5-7 to 8-5 overall despite starting three quarterbacks and 12 different DBs and ranking 132nd on the list above. That says pretty spectacular things about their overall upside, especially considering their improved experience levels on the O-line, in the secondary and the general optimism about sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway.
Florida Atlantic Owls: Only one team ranked 111th or worse in all three of the tables above — turnovers luck (111th), second-order win difference (121st) and injury ratio (131st). You could use this information to make the case that the Owls shouldn’t have fired head coach Tom Herman, or you could simply say that new head coach Zach Kittley is pretty well-positioned to get some bounces and hit the ground running.
Florida State Seminoles: There was evidently plenty of poor fortune to go around in the Sunshine State last season, and while Mike Norvell’s Seminoles suffered an epic hangover on the field, they also didn’t get a single bounce: They were 129th in turnovers luck, 99th in second-order win difference and 110th in injury ratio. Norvell has brought in new coordinators and plenty of new players, and the Noles are almost guaranteed to jump up from 2-10. With a little luck, that jump could be a pretty big one.
Utah Utes: Along with UCF, Utah was one of only two teams to start four different quarterbacks in 2024. The Utes were also among only four teams to start at least 11 different receivers or tight ends and among five teams to start at least nine defensive linemen. If you’re looking for an easy explanation for how they fell from 65th to 96th in offensive SP+ and from 8-5 to 5-7 overall, that’s pretty succinct and telling.
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