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Has it come to this?
Last week, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said there’s a very real chance that his team cancels its spring game because he doesn’t want opposing teams to use it to scout his own players. I hate to say it, but he has a point.
That’s what we’ve come to in college sports: teams are so afraid of losing players to higher bids that they’re willing to shut down an event that fans look forward to for months. In the case of Nebraska’s spring game, that’s a lot of fans — in 2024, the spring game had an attendance of 60,452, the fourth-most in FBS.
You can call Rhule paranoid, but it’s not without reason. Nobody is off limits anymore. Ohio State won the national championship, and within days, a bunch of major programs were trying to tamper with their star wide receivers. They got nowhere with Jeremiah Smith, but Carnell Tate nearly went into the portal and transferred due to a big offer (allegedly).
Now that Chip Kelly is gone, you can bet teams will circle back and take another shot at Tate when the portal opens again in April. This is what we’re dealing with now.
A&M has, historically, been one of the more secretive programs in college football for reasons I don’t get. If this idea of cancelling spring games gets momentum, I could easily see them following suit. After all, it has been free admission since Jimbo arrived, so it’s not a money-maker.
So that’s where we are. Programs suffer, fans suffer and players now run roughshod. There’s got to be a better way of doing business, but, of course, we’re talking about the embodiment of incompetence in the NCAA.
Rivals changes rankings system for the better
You may not have noticed it, but Rivals has changed the way it evaluates players. Not necessarily with the star and scoring system, but in terms of positions. It’s modernized things and, I think, improved them.
The newest Rivals 250 for 2026 was released today, and six Aggie commits (out of 10) are on it. But you can see the changes to the system in the 250 itself. There’s now categories for slot receivers, nickels and edge rushers, while quarterbacks are no longer dual threat or pro style, they’re just quarterbacks. Guards and centers are now just interior offensive linemen and linebackers are just…linebackers. No more outside or inside linebacker designations.
On my hot board, I’ve been doing this for a while anyway, at least with quarterbacks, offensive linemen and linebackers. But adding the slot and nickel shows the evolving reality of the game of college football and recruiting.
On the next hot board I do, I’ll break out slot receivers. I’m doing defensive backs this week, so I’ll break the nickels out then too, even though the way A&M chooses theirs may not quite fit with the definition others have for it.
TL/DR: changes made to rating system. They are good.
Hoops still looking for a full 40 (and I don't mean booze)
The Aggie basketball team is up to 10th in the polls again, are a lock for the NCAA Tournament and are now getting projected as a 2-seed in some spaces. They’ve got their hands full Saturday, with a matchup at No. 15 Missouri. As I laid out yesterday, they play Tigers, then Georgia and Arkansas at home, Mississippi State on the road, Tennessee and Vanderbilt at home, a roadie at Florida, No.1 Auburn at Reed, then close out at LSU.
Missouri’s probably a toss-up game right now, but they play midweek and A&M doesn’t. The Aggies will be favored against Georgia, Arkansas, Vandy and LSU; Mississippi State is definitely a winnable game and Tennessee may be a coin flip because it’s at home. If the Aggies can somehow finish 6-3 in their last nine, that’s probably 2-seed territory, or a 3-seed at worst.
But A&M’s playing for more than seeding; they’re trying to play a complete game.
It’s amazing that a team that has 17 wins in early February can’t say they’ve played a full 40-minute game yet, but I’m not sure A&M can make that claim. Maybe they did against Texas Tech or Purdue, but they didn’t against Texas either time, where they were monsters for 20 minutes and snoozed through the other. They didn’t against OU, when they had to rally from 18 down and never really put the hammer down in their second meeting. They played well in the second half against Alabama, but not in the first. Kentucky was a mess.
The Aggies, as they have for the past several years, go through long stretches of lackadaisical basketball. They did it against Texas when they got up 22, and it bit them. They did it several times against South Carolina, and it nearly happened again. They didn’t score a basket from the field for the final 4:14, and long stretches like that are not uncommon occurrences.
Offensively — again, as they have for years — they get into ruts where guys stand around, one guy has the ball, dribbles deep into the clock and jacks up a bad shot. I don’t have to tell you how frustrating that is.
The Aggies are good enough defensively that they can normally survive these bouts of offensive ineptitude, but they’re about to face off with some teams that are their equals in Tennessee, Florida and Auburn. And, if they keep doing this stuff, they’re going to lose. Auburn may throttle them.
The Aggies give themselves little wiggle room. They win close games that they should win in blowouts. They have the talent, and they’ve shown the ability in spurts. The goal now has to be to make sure they’re at 100% all the way through. A long stretch of basketball in March (and April) depends on it.
