NIL
NIL at Wazzu is a file of 3 stories. The newest of them: “We Got Picks, You Got Questions, and the Ducks Still Have Problems”, “David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's”, and “Are blowouts getting worse? The Pac-12 mailbag crunches the numbers”. The Hotline went 6-5-1 last week and sits at 15-20-1 for the season, which means the picks are for entertainment purposes only. David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. The unofficial read for people who left Pullman and stayed Cougs. The list below is every NIL story on Wazzu, newest first.
We Got Picks, You Got Questions, and the Ducks Still Have Problems
The Hotline went 6-5-1 last week and sits at 15-20-1 for the season, which means the picks are for entertainment purposes only. Unless they aren't. This week's slate features two former Pac-12 matchups in the late-afternoon window: Oregon at USC, and Arizona visiting Washington State on the Palouse. That feline affair serves multiple purposes. It gives the Cougars a home game against a power conference opponent their fans know, and it helps Arizona satisfy a Big 12 scheduling requirement. Because the series was agreed to before the Wildcats left the Pac-12, WSU still counts as a Power Four opponent. The line opened at Arizona -10, which initially felt high. But after looking at WSU's offense against Power Four teams like Washington and Kansas State, 17 total points, the spread makes sense. The Hotline picks Arizona. The bigger picture here is unsettling. Outside of UCLA-Cal, a future Arizona State-Stanford series, and the surviving Apple Cup and Civil War, former Pac-12 schools are not scheduling each other. The CFP could fix that by incentivizing quality nonconference games. Or NIL-driven neutral-site double-headers in Las Vegas could emerge. We aren't confident. Check out "Are blowouts getting worse? The Pac-12 mailbag crunches the numbers" for more on the state of the sport. Go Cougs.
David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's
David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. 12-20 stinks. He knows it. We know it. But he's got a new roster, and he's not shy about the upgrade. "We have a lot more talent walking in the door than we did last year," Riley said Friday. That's not coachspeak. That's a guy who watched his entire starting five walk out for a combined $10 million in NIL deals elsewhere. Ace Glass to Vanderbilt. ND Okafor to Mississippi State. All of them. Riley's take? He 10x'd their value. Good for them. But now he's got to win with the next wave. And the next wave is eleven newcomers. Nine from the portal, one freshman, one prep alum. Plus two returners. That's almost a full teardown and rebuild in one spring. Riley says the timing helped this time, players bailed early, so the staff had more runway to find replacements. Last year's chaos didn't repeat. The names are interesting. Sebastian Akins from Wake Forest is a physical guard who can score at all three levels. Lazerek Houston is a DII MVP with pro potential. Ladji Dembele brings a 7-2 wingspan from Iowa and UNLV. Riley thinks this group has higher confidence and higher talent than last year's haul. We'll see. But it's worth noting the Cougs also just scheduled Duke in Palm Springs for November. That's a measuring stick. And the Battle of the Palouse is back for two years, which means more games that actually mean something to people who live here.
Are blowouts getting worse? The Pac-12 mailbag crunches the numbers
Yes, blowouts are getting worse, and the numbers back it up. Through Week 3, the average point differential in non-conference games involving the big four conferences plus Notre Dame hit 27.8 points, the largest since at least 2000. That's more than double the 13.2-point margin from 2001. When you strip out Power Four vs. Power Four games and look only at the mismatches, the average jumps to 34.6 points. The trend line is climbing every year, and it started climbing right when NIL became law in 2021 and the transfer portal opened up. Money flows up. Talent follows. The Hotline doesn't let the Big Ten off the hook here. Twenty-eight percent of the conference isn't playing a single opponent from the ACC, Big 12, or SEC this season. Nebraska, Indiana, USC, Washington, and Penn State all filled their non-conference slots with Group of Six or FCS teams. That's weak sauce, and it's why Fox ended up airing Ohio State-Kent State in its Big Noon window. The sport is flattening at the top while thinning out everywhere else. The Hotline calls it a mushroom cloud shape. That feels right. If you want to see how this plays out in Pullman, read "One good half doesn't change what Duquesne was." It's the same story, just closer to home.