OAKLAND, Calif. — A multibillion-dollar legal settlement with the potential to reshape the business of college sports inched closer to its fast-approaching finish line during a federal court hearing Monday.

Judge Claudia Wilken declined to provide final approval of a deal between the NCAA and plaintiff attorneys representing past, present and future Division I athletes, but she directed lawyers to address a short list of her remaining concerns within one week.

“I think it’s a good settlement,” Wilken said while wrapping up the seven-hour hearing, before quickly adding, “Don’t quote me.”

The NCAA has agreed to pay roughly $2.8 billion in damages to past and current athletes to settle three federal antitrust lawsuits that claim the association’s rules have limited the athletes’ earning potential in various ways. The deal, commonly referred to as the House settlement after lead plaintiff Grant House, also would create a new system for schools to pay players directly, starting this summer.

In exchange, the NCAA will be allowed to limit how much each school can spend on its athletes per year — an effective salary cap that is expected to start at roughly $20.5 million per school and increase annually during the 10-year lifespan of the deal. The deal also gives the industry’s most powerful conferences an increased ability to police the name, image and likeness deals between athletes and boosters, which is intended to keep teams from using their boosters to circumvent the $20.5 million cap.

Wilken, who has ruled on several cases that have reshaped the NCAA’s rules in the past decade, specifically asked lawyers from both sides to rethink one provision that would place a limit on how many athletes could be on a school’s roster for each sport and to provide more details on how future athletes could object to the terms of the deals once they enroll in college.

Several objectors who spoke Monday asked Wilken to reject the settlement because it could lead to the elimination of thousands of roster spots on Division I teams across the country. The NCAA’s current rules place limits on the number of scholarships that each team can give to its players. That rule will go away if the settlement is approved, meaning a school can provide a full scholarship to every one of its athletes if it chooses to do so.

To keep the wealthiest schools from stockpiling talent, the NCAA has proposed to instead limit the number of players each team can keep on its roster. Many teams will have to cut current athletes from their rosters to comply with the new rule if the settlement is approved. Gannon Flynn, a freshman swimmer at the University of Utah who spoke at the hearing, said his coaches told him that he will not have a spot on the team next season specifically because of the settlement.

“We’re not here for money. We just want to play and compete,” Flynn told the judge. “On paper, this settlement might look good … but thousands of people are losing their spots.”

Wilken suggested Monday that any current athlete should get to keep their spot even if it puts a team over the new roster limit.

“My idea there is to grandfather in a group of rostered people. There are not that many. It’s not that expensive. It would generate a lot of goodwill,” Wilken said.

Judges are not allowed to mandate specific changes to a settlement, but Wilken can make suggestions for how the attorneys could resolve problems that might otherwise keep her from blessing the deal.

“We are standing by our settlement. We think it’s fair. If the NCAA wants to grandfather it in, that’s up to them,” said Steve Berman, one of two co-lead attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Attorney Rakesh Kilaru, lead counsel for the NCAA, said he needed to speak to his clients about any potential change to the roster limit terms, but he remained optimistic the settlement would be approved.

Other objectors on Monday raised concerns that the $2.8 billion in damages were being divvied up in a way that is unfair to women athletes. Men, especially football and basketball players, are expected to receive at least 90% of the damages payments.

Others argued that the settlement creates a new antitrust violation by capping how much each school can spend on athletes. Professional sports leagues set legal salary caps by negotiating those limits in a collective bargaining agreement with a players’ union. Wilken said that while a collective bargaining agreement “might be a great idea,” the case in front of her did not give her the authority to rule on whether athletes should be able to negotiate in that fashion.

Berman said he is hopeful that it will take only a few more weeks for Wilken to grant final approval to the deal. Schools are planning to begin paying their players directly in July. Fellow plaintiffs’ attorney Jeffrey Kessler said he is confident Wilken will make her ruling in plenty of time to keep the plans to pay athletes this year on track.

Former Missouri quarterback Drew Pyne is headed for his fourth Division I school; he told ESPN that he has committed to Bowling Green.

Pyne is 9-3 as a starter over his three previous stops. He started his career at Notre Dame (2020-22) then transferred to Arizona State (2023) before playing at Missouri last year. He returned to Notre Dame for a semester after ASU in order to graduate from the school.

Pyne took a visit over the weekend to Bowling Green and said he has been impressed with new coach Eddie George and the spread offense run by new offensive coordinator Travis Partridge.

“The opportunity to go play for Eddie George, a returning offensive line that’s strong and experienced,” Pyne said. “And a team that’s very good, played in three straight bowl games and can compete for a championship.”

The 24-year-old has two seasons of eligibility remaining. There should be a strong opportunity for him to earn the starting job at Bowling Green, as quarterback Justin Lamson left for Montana State soon after coach Scot Loeffler’s departure for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Pyne said he’s excited about Bowling Green’s style of offense. George and Partridge had a productive spread style coaching at Tennessee State last year. Tennessee State starting quarterback Draylen Ellis finished in the top 15 in the FCS in both passing yards and passing touchdowns.

Pyne noted that Bowling Green played both Penn State and Texas A&M to one-score games last year on its way to a 7-6 season.

“The sell was the team is very gritty, works hard and wants to win games,” he said.

Pyne can’t jump into spring ball, as he already played in the spring at Missouri. He’ll enroll on May 18.

Pyne went 8-2 as a starter at Notre Dame, arriving there as an ESPN 300 recruit. He went to ASU for a year, where he emerged as the favorite to start in camp, but his season got derailed by injuries. He started just one game there, a loss to USC.

Pyne won his lone start at Missouri, throwing the game-tying touchdown pass to Theo Wease Jr. in the final two minutes. Pyne went 14-for-27 for 143 yards and three touchdowns in that game.

When asked what he has learned over his journey, Pyne said: “To persevere and never give up. I’ve never been scared of competition. I’ve always wanted to play ball and lead guys. What I’ve learned is that I love being able to get a group of guys and lead them.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — More than a year after Kalen DeBoer replaced perhaps the greatest coach in college football history, his Alabama players don’t necessarily sense that he’s a different person.

But they sense a subtle difference as the second spring practice under DeBoer winds down this week.

“Coach DeBoer had his battles last year, replacing a legend like Coach [Nick] Saban in the middle of the transfer portal, and it was hard to implement everything the way he wanted,” said linebacker Deontae Lawson, a returning captain.

“It was kind of hard for him to come in and be the bad cop or whatever last year. He’s still laid back and still wants the players to lead, but his fingerprints are on everything now — and he’s made it known that you better be locked in.”

DeBoer flashed an easy smile when told of Lawson’s “bad cop” analogy.

“It was more that we were in retention mode,” DeBoer told ESPN on Monday. “I wouldn’t say we slacked off on any of the things that would be the standard of what we need to do and how you need to operate.

“But I do think there’s another level of an edge, a harder edge.”

The Crimson Tide missed the College Football Playoff in DeBoer’s first season. They finished 9-4 and were plagued with the type of inconsistency that isn’t uncommon when a coach takes over such a high-profile program. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years, lost to rival Tennessee and lost to Michigan in a bowl game, but beat Georgia and LSU.

The most crushing blow for Alabama came in the next-to-last week of the regular season when the Crimson Tide were still in position to make the playoff. They went on the road and were blown out 24-3 by an Oklahoma team that was 5-5 and 1-5 in the conference.

“That’s not the standard here, and we all know it,” Lawson said. “But you go back and look at the way Coach DeBoer handled it. He wasn’t pointing the finger at anybody else. He took it all on himself, and I think what you see now is everybody has bought in. We’re one.”

DeBoer said this season, and the way he has evolved, aren’t unlike his second season at other coaching stops such as Washington and Fresno State.

“Your relationships are deeper,” DeBoer said. “You establish that harder edge because of the understanding of what we need to do to accomplish it, and now we have the experiences for the most part together, the staff and players.

“We’re more comfortable now calling each other out because our relationships are stronger, and we know that we all want the same thing. I feel like now we’re closer to having the alignment between staff and players and having the right people here. Everyone has an appreciation for what each other brings to the table.”

One of the things DeBoer did this offseason was bring back one of his most trusted colleagues, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who was with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks last season. They first coached together in 2007 at Sioux Falls. Grubb was DeBoer’s OC on the 2023 Washington team that lost in the national championship game.

As it happens, Saban, prior to his final season in 2023, tried to hire Grubb as his OC, but the coordinator elected to stay at Washington.

Two of the qualities Grubb hopes to bring to Alabama’s program are consistency and strength.

“You don’t play into the good too much and force yourself through the tough parts,” Grubb said. “Kalen is the same way, keeping it calm when it needs to be calm and being really, really strong when you’ve got to be strong.”

Receiver Germie Bernard, who played under DeBoer and Grubb when they were together at Washington before transferring to Alabama, said they always had answers for everything, no matter what the opposing defense threw at the Huskies.

“And really it’s the belief they instilled in you as a player and the way they played off each other, adding things, tweaking things, playing to what we did best,” Bernard said.

One of the big decisions that still needs to be made on offense won’t be finalized until later this summer. Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell are competing for the starting quarterback job.

“I think we’ve got three really, really good quarterbacks, and I mean that,” Grubb said. “I don’t think anybody has separated. They’re all playing good, but they’re not playing great yet. You’re looking for the guy that’s going to be consistent, that can show up the same and make the same plays all the time.”

In an ideal world, Grubb would like to know who his quarterback is heading into the summer.

“But I wasn’t expecting that either. I wasn’t going into this thinking, ‘Oh, I bet by practice 11 this will be done,'” Grubb said. “I didn’t think that at all, and I didn’t think that because I thought all three of them were good players.”

Grubb said that the staff has charted every throw this spring and that Mack (162 reps) and Simpson (158 reps) have received most of the work in team drills.

At Washington, the coaching staff didn’t name a starter until Week 2 of preseason camp when Michael Penix Jr., a transfer from Indiana, beat out incumbent Dylan Morris.

“That was a little bit different than our situation here,” Grubb said. “Mike had started a lot of games. Dylan had started games. We had two guys that had Power 5 starting experience. So, yes, you would have loved for this guy to have grabbed it and run with it, but we’re just not there yet.”