The lists of the most intriguing 2022 college football picks continue. Last week’s continuation: the most intriguing coaches. This week: The most intriguing people in suits—that is, the people off the field who are helping shape the future of sports.
1. Kevin Warren, Big Ten commissioner. In a bold move from the West, Warren’s reputation changed radically. With the league’s purchase of USC and UCLA, the Big Ten clearly responded to the SEC’s acquisitions last year and will be the nation’s first coast-to-coast conference in 2024. Warren, brutally criticized in ’20. -under the feet of the Texas-Oklahoma sweeps in ’21, he scored his biggest victory to date and gained the confidence of his constituency. He is a confident commissioner moving forward.
2. Greg Sankey, Commissioner of the SEC. His league is leading on the football field, and he is leading politics away from it. Sankey is the co-chairman of the NCAA’s transformation committee, which has been tasked with overhauling the many inconsistencies and deficiencies in the college sports bureaucracy. If there’s one person who can communicate effectively with television anchors and campus leaders, it’s Sankey. His value to college sports has never been greater, but the SEC’s actions have hurt the enterprise as a whole.
3. Mark Silverman, president of Fox Sports. His presence near midfield at Lucas Oil Stadium during Big Ten media days in late July was a snapshot of the impact Fox has on the league and in terms of shaping the future of college sports. What was once mostly ESPN’s playing field is now more evenly – and sharply – divided between the world leader and its aggressive competitor. Fox has reverse-engineered the typical college football Saturday, establishing noon as a key viewing window and giving fans an alternative to ESPN’s College GameDay as a morning slate.
4. Burke Magnus, ESPN president of programming and original content. Just as the world of college sports is becoming a Big Ten vs. SEC power struggle, so is Fox vs. ESPN. Magnus, the longtime leader of ESPN’s monolithic college sports coverage, plans to be integrally involved in the company’s media negotiations for the next major conference with the Pac-12. After pulling out of negotiations with the Big Ten — ostensibly as a preemptive move to shut down — ESPN’s level of interest in paying the Pac-12 could significantly affect the viability of that league, and thus the entire national landscape.
(left to right) Swarbrick, Warren and Kliavkoff will all be important figures this fall.
Matt Cashore; Kirby Lee; Robert Goddin/USA TODAY Sports
5. Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame athletic director. If one man can restart the reset carousel, it’s Swarbrick. But don’t expect it to happen anytime soon, and it’s very possible that it won’t happen at all. The interest shown by the Big Ten/Fox in adding the Fighting Irish confirmed what Swarbrick said this week: “All the comments were, are we relevant anymore? And this year, no one is asking that question.” Notre Dame’s relevance remains strong – but there is pressure on Swarbrick’s handpicked successor to Brian Kelly, 36-year-old Marcus Freeman, to confirm that commitment.
6. George Kliavkoff, Pac-12 commissioner. The owner of the last realigning pierced ox, Kliavkoff has been in damage control mode for six weeks since USC and UCLA made their bombshell departure announcement. So far so good. While Kliavkoff may have underestimated the level of discontent among the Trojans and Bruins in his first year on the job, he has drawn strong criticism from the rest of the Pac-12 in response to this crisis. As of today, he has a chance to keep his league together while media rights negotiations take place. But he and everyone outside the SEC and Big Ten must think strategically and creatively to avoid losing relevance entirely.
7. Brett Yormark, Big 12 commissioner Credit the Power 5’s newest commissioner for his blunt honesty in his first media appearance in July. “The Big 12 is open for business,” he said, skipping the criticism that usually comes from college administrators. With a background in professional sports and entertainment, Yormark is focused on finding ways to generate revenue. However, an early move to potentially poach from the Pac-12 appears to have stalled, and the league’s cap will be difficult to raise. What options can Yormark come up with for a conference that includes B-list brands and less A-list ones?
8. Jim Phillips, ACC Commissioner. It’s a challenge to preside over a league with externally imposed stability and plenty of internal drama. ESPN’s golden handcuffs should keep membership intact for many years to come—but how lucky are some of those members? Phillips is the least interested of any commissioner to throw up his hands and simply salute the continued creep towards the professionalization of college sports. Maybe he’s principled, or maybe he’s just one voice shouting into the winds of change. Regardless, he is also tasked with trying to find new revenue that will improve ACC’s position.
9. John Ruiz, reinforcement of Miami. If you want someone to serve as the poster boy for a new era of public involvement in recruiting, Ruiz will gladly take that pose. He was brazen enough about signing with Hurricane prospects to tweet out details about at least one of them, and that brazenness caught the attention of NCAA officials. When college administrators talk about wanting “fences” for player compensation, they may have Ruiz in mind.
10. James Clawson, Spyre Sports Group. Although Ruiz is a one-man band, most of the work done in NIL/paying players comes from the collective. Enter Clawson, who is one of the directors of a group doing a large business in Tennessee. Spyre Sports is the collective that signed five-star running back Nico Iamaleava to an $8 million deal that shook the sport when it was revealed in the spring. Spyre Sports is an example of how the combination of a desperate fan base with an organized collective can lead to game-changing results in recruitment.
11. Jim Cavale, founder and CEO of INFLCR. It could also be Blake Lawrence from Opendorse or one of the other experts in the NIL space. When the courts began to recognize the NCAA’s losses and opened the door to NIL possibilities, Cavale and others were ready. For five years (and counting), Cavale has worked with athletic departments to build individual athlete brands through their own content and social media.
12. Martin Jarmond, UCLA athletic director. He has a more convoluted path than USC colleague Mike Bohn. As one of the leaders who helped chart the Bruins’ bold new direction toward the Big Ten, Jarmond had to weigh the revenue needed to keep his debt-ridden department broad and competitive against the challenges created by cross-country travel and a disconnect from UCLA’s peers in the UC-system. and — mostly California-Berkeley. Next week, UCLA leaders must explain/defend the seismic action to the UC regents in what could be a juicy meeting on the Westwood campus.
13. Gavin Newsom, Governor of California. He’s UC’s ex officio regent, and let’s just say he’s made his feelings clear about the secrecy UCLA has used in planning its Pac-12 exit strategy. We’ll see how hard (or easy) Newsom makes it for the Bruins to finish what they started on June 30.
14. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey. You could include a dozen Congressional leaders who have tried to come up with national legislation regarding Void compensation for college athletes. They respond to pathetic cries for help from college athletic leaders who can’t or won’t handle it themselves. Booker was among five U.S. senators who last week put their names to a reintroduced College Athlete Bill of Rights, but no one expects any legislation to go into effect before November’s midterm elections.
15. Boo Corrigan, North Carolina State Athletic Director and Chairman of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Corrigan is next on the ESPN hot seat Tuesday night, tasked with explaining the CFP’s incremental, weekly rankings. It’s a thankless task that mostly serves to put the leader in the awkward position of speaking for the entire group and rationalizing rankings that are essentially useless. The good news for Corrigan is that he shouldn’t be overly convincing to be better than his predecessor, Iowa’s Gary Barta. A potential additional plot point could be Corrigan’s football team; the Wolfpack are projected to have their best year in a long time and could be a playoff contender.
16. Trace Armstrong, coaching agent. He had a Promethean carousel on the coaching merry-go-round last year, moving clients Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly from one blue-blood job to another—with maximum shock value in both cases. Next? If Matt Rhule has another tough year in Carolina, he could be a very attractive commodity back on the college market.
17. Jimmy Sexton, coaching agent. Just after brokering the deal that made Georgia’s Kirby Smart the richest coach in sports, Sexton will have a lot more work to do in 2022. Keep this in mind: Sexton represents the majority of SEC coaches, and only one of those 14 jobs changed hands owner last year. It’s not a league known for coaching stability, so if things get wild, know that Sexton will be at the center of the action.
18. Allen Greene, Auburn athletic director. Speaking of SEC volatility: Greene’s coach, Bryan Harsin, is in the most interesting spot in the league and arguably the most interesting in the country. Greene won a battle with the school’s infamously involved boosters for control of the coaching quest that brought Harsin to the Prettiest Little Village on the Plains; can he maintain that power if the Tigers struggle this season? There could be more changes at Auburn this year than just the coaching ranks.
19. Trev Alberts, Nebraska athletic director. I decided to keep Scott Frost after a fourth straight losing season, which speaks volumes for the sorry state of the once proud program. The record will have to improve significantly for Alberts to keep Frost this time around, and everyone knows it. This could lead to a quick breakdown if the first month of the season goes badly. Discontent is widespread enough in Lincoln that fans even jumped on Alberts for his decision in May to end the tradition of releasing a sea of red balloons from the stadium due to a helium shortage.
20. Urban Meyer, senior Fox Sports analyst. Nothing has been officially announced, but it has been reported that the three-time national championship coach at Florida and Ohio State will return to Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” before the game. Meyer is great on TV, but he brings some extra baggage with him on this return, having fared poorly as an NFL coach in 2021 and had a very poor night in Columbus during that failed season. The Fox crew will be stretched to the limit to prevent offensive signs directed at Urban during the “Big Noon Kickoff.”
21. Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN analyst. He remains the face of college football and resurfaced on ESPN this offseason, adding three more years to a contract that reportedly had two more. But Herbie is also taking over as an NFL analyst on Amazon on Thursday, thinning out football’s toughest television host a bit. ESPN has other talented analysts — admittedly none with Herbstreit’s appeal and living room acumen — but it might be wise to take a little off his slate and spread it around.
22. Chad Chatlos, TurnkeyZRG Executive Search. This company has risen to the forefront of the competitive field, as evidenced by winning the contract to conduct the search for the next president of the NCAA. From coaches to administrators, Chatlos and TurnkeyZRG are heavily involved in all the under-the-radar work that goes into big-time recruiting in college sports.
23. Julie Cromer, Ohio University athletic director. She co-chairs the NCAA Transformation Committee with Sankey, which means she has one of the biggest jobs in college sports history: trying to fix a broken bureaucracy. Merging big-picture common sense with bylaws and procedure in the weeds is a daunting task. Doing it in your spare time while also running track and field in Ohio seems overwhelming, but Cromer has received positive reviews so far for her transformation work.
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24. Peter Vaas, SEC assistant football replay coordinator. Vaas takes on one of the most scrutinized and criticized roles in sports, with millions of fans ready to pounce on any replay they deem incorrect. Vaas took the SEC job in April after working in the ACC. While with the ACC in January, Vaas was the replay official for the CFP championship game between Georgia and Alabama, meaning he supported Stetson Bennett’s go-ahead fumble that nearly turned the game into a Crimson Tide victory. Bulldogs fans, start barking now.
25. Stephanie Herbst-Lucke, professor at Georgia State University. So you think changing conferences will fix everything that ails your athletic department and the university as a whole? Herbst-Lucke has a doctoral dissertation challenging such magical thinking. Based on 82 interviews with faculty leaders and reams of data, Herbst-Lucke comes to conclusions that should make the school think twice about rooting out another conference.
26. (Bonus) Sliced bread. Agent of Chaos. Jimbo Fisher’s favorite meister. Check the message boards for his exclusive insight.
• The other side of the NIL collective• 40 observations about the college football schedule• The direction of college athletics hangs in the balance
