The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr Joins Discussing NIL & NCAA Transfer Portal

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr Joins Discussing NIL & NCAA Transfer Portal

1131 sports talk 790 it is the matt thomas show with ross and we are very pleased be joined by the best dressed sports writer in america great fedora game uh what are the types of head wear it is a sam con wear did you think have you seen sam before on tv doing some appearances here and there yeah i think he had one of those cheese graders the anti packers cheese graders. No, no. He's had a Kangle before. What are you wearing right now, Sam Kahn? I'm not talking about you clothes. I'm not going to have your hat. I'm wearing sweat because I just walked my dog

out there, just a tad warmer than you would expect for January, but yeah, I'm wearing sweat right now. It's great to have you on the show. Thank you, he's the University of Houston graduate. He's a fine young man. He also covers college football, especially with an emphasis on roster management and transfer portal. Sam Khan Jr., S.K.

Sam Khan Jr. on Twitter. So you are externally busy. Was your timeline as crazy as mine was on Sunday with players going left and right from one score to the next? Yeah, I mean, really a lot of it was the buildup to the opening of the portal on Friday. A bunch of players hit really at midnight. When the clock struck midnight on Friday, I think we were at 1,000 players in within the first hour. And a lot of that, I think, was done ahead of time. and just ready to go as soon as we started.

But, yeah, Sunday was especially busy because a lot of players made their initial visits on Saturday. And these visits are not like traditional recruiting visits where you go spend 48 hours at a place as a high school recruit. These are more like NFL free agent type visits. You're in there for a day. They do your physical. You know, maybe you get a quick tour, talk to the coaches, and then, you know, you talk, contract and get it done. So, yeah, Sunday was a pretty fast and fear. And I wouldn't say that it slowed down a lot.

A lot has happened since then as the dominoes start to shift, but a bit busy, busy first few days with, I think, more than, I think, a few thousand FPS scholarship players in the portal and even more when you add the FCS in there as well. So it's definitely been hectic. We've got about a week and a half left next Friday is when this thing closes, but a lot of activity going on for sure. Sam, I know many of these young men, maybe all of them are being represented by agents. And Ross and I were talking earlier. Some are with legit agencies and some are with friends of friends of friends. How many have you dealt with? And what is it like talking to this representation group talking about getting 18, 19, 20 year olds

multi-million dollar deals to go from one school to the next? Yeah, I think it's just like anything you come across is there's actually a lot of pretty good ones. And then there are some ones who are not necessarily the most qualified or maybe you're not going to give the best guidance. I would say most of the ones I've dealt with are pretty solid. And you do have more NFL agents, NFL player agents coming to the college side. I've come across paths with a lot of guys who represent NFL players and are now stepping into the college game. Even with the bigger agencies, you know, your CAAs, your athletes first, you're, you know, some of the big ones out there that people know, they're getting into this game as well.

So I think it really depends on what kind of choice. Obviously, the families and the recruits are making the choices on who represents them. But I will say there is a cry amongst the coaches and the staffers who are managing this of they wish there was some type of certification. Like in the NFL level, you have to be certified by the NFLPA. And there is no real baseline for that in college. Some states have certification requirements that you have to do to be able to represent someone, but not every state does. And I think there is a desire for across-the-board certification to just establish some minimum standards that people have to meet to be able to represent a player. Do you think there will be change coming with that, Sam, as far as, I mean, what exactly is the solution?

I know NCAA tries to keep their hands off of this stuff so they can still claim amateur athletics. But do you think there will be some kind of solution coming with that or like federal legislation? What would it take? Yeah, I think I think it would have to be either the CSC, the College Sports Commission, which was established by the Power 4 conferences, which is supposed to be managing all the salary cap and the enforcement of everything that's going on. I think you would have mixed results in different claims on how well that's going so far. or I think some federal legislation possibly could be in the mix for that as well. I don't sense, I think it is something that it desired. I don't sense that it is the highest priority on the list, though.

I think there are other things that people want to solve before they get to that. But I do think at some point it is possible, but it would take either the CSC or sometimes federal legislation to get there, I think. Sam, Con, Jr. of the Athletic with us here on Sports Talk 790. And I kind of need this explained like I'm five, Sam. Like we're talking about these agents and these players and they hit the portal. Like what are the, you can go through the legal and then maybe the illegal procedures. If there is a player who has an agent and they're thinking about hitting the portal, I mean, how much of that is negotiated or talk to other teams as far as tampering with other schools

before deciding to enter the portal? Also, you have guys who enter the portal when it figures out that maybe somebody else is coming. so they're going to their playing time is going to go down like it just seems like a big mess from that standpoint yeah no it absolutely is and again when i talked about the cc they everyone hasn't agreed to what the enforcement model looks like like there's you know we have a body and we have uh you know their task with trying to enforce this stuff but they sent out an agreement for everybody to sign and not everybody signed it and it doesn't go in effect unless everyone signs it so at this point we don't have an enforcement

on with real peace yet. And so tampering run has been running rampant for years and continues to do so. Many of these players, the portal didn't open until Friday, but many of these players announced either after their regular seasons were over sometime in December that they were going in the portal. And I can promise you, and I know because I've been talking to these people, as soon as some of the bigger names announced they were going in, we already heard where they were likely going.

And that is an issue that I think coaches and general managers complain about. But there also doesn't seem to be anybody really stopping it at this point. I think that the tampering issue is probably one of the top complaints you get. And it is. These are things that happen right away. And to your point about a player having to jump in if somebody happens, I talked to an agent last night who said he had a client in an ACC school who was a tied-in, and he was going to stay.

He was going to re-sign a RFShare contract to come back for 2026. And then his team took a tight-in in the port. And he's like, well, now I've got to get in. Now I'm going to get in the portal because now my playing time is going to be getting eaten into. And that's what's going to be fascinating to me, especially as we get outside the portal window because this year we only have the winter portal window. There is no spring window. So to me, I'm curious to see what happens when we get to spring football and depth charts are getting set and you find out, well, I'm not where I thought I was going to be on the depth chart. Well, there's no spring portal window anymore.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to stick it out? Are you going to withdraw and then hope you can end up enrolling somewhere else? but there's no really guarantee you can end up somewhere else at that point. So it is very messy at this point, and that is what I think makes it so difficult, not just for the people involved, but even the fans to follow is that these things can change in a blink, and the guy who may be your star quarterback today may be on your rival school tomorrow. Sam, if you were in Times Square yesterday, you happened to see a big billboard video of Brandon Sorosby.

Welcome to Lubbock in Texas Tech after assigning his day. deal going to there take me through the process so brandon sorbsby's is quarterback at cincinnati and uh word travels that he's open for free agency does cody campbell and he's the most recognizable nill donor probably out there in college sports today does he lave a phone call to sorosby's representation says look i know the school can't give you the money directly because they can't give you five million they could but that's a budget that they don't want to spend but i'm going to put you in terms with my group with my collective And we're going to make sure that $5 million reaches your client's piggy bank by the time he arrives in Lubbock.

So that is the part that is a little bit unclear at this point with some of the bigger deals. Because what is the divide between the refshare pool and the NIL pool? Because as we know, the refs share pool is capped at roughly $20 million. It'll go up a little bit this year by 4%. But it's still going to be around $21, $22 million. And that's for all sports, not just football. So a power four roster is probably somewhere in the $14 to $17 million range. So if you were to spend five on a quarterback, that only leaves maybe 9 to 12 for the rest of your roster, which is a lot.

So certainly, but if you are trying to compete for a national championship, it's not enough. One of the biggest things that you see big time programs trying to do in this cycle is take money off the cap. And doing that is through the third party NIL piece. The interesting part about that is the CSE just sent out guidance in the last couple of 48 hours that they're saying that if you promise someone NIL money ahead of time from the third party, whether it's from your in-house, multimedia rights deal or whatever other collective that you have, that cannot be counted, that cannot be taken off the cap. If you promise it, it's got to be counted toward the cap whether or not you pay them out of your refshare pool. Now, again, I go back to, is that going to be enforced? And they send out that guidance with it being backdated to December 1st.

So saying that basically, if it's anybody in this portal window, that you can't take money off the cap that way. So I don't know how that's going to work out. I don't know if they can even enforce it. But that is the way that a lot of programs that are operating above the cap, they're doing it that way, is trying to figure out, okay, how much do we put into third-party NIL and how much do you guarantee through refshare? Because you've got, ultimately, they're going to do whatever they've got to do to get the player. So, big picture, I know you've got still another week or so left of the portal. Who is killing it? Obviously, when you get the number one

quarterback, and Texas Tech is not afraid to spend money, we've already seen it in the last couple of years. Beyond tech, is there anybody else that is, in your mind, has really made a lot of significant movement by grabbing kids in the portal because of the money they're offering? Indiana. Indiana did really well. They landed there, the TCU quarterback, Josh Hoover, landed Nick Marsh, the Michigan State receiver, a couple edge rushers from Kansas State who are really, really talented. I mean, they're the number one team in the country right now, and clearly paying at a high rate, I think Josh Hoover's deal from what I understand is in the similar ballpark to Brennan Soresby in that high $4 to $5 million range. So they definitely broke the

bank to get Hoover. And I think he's a really good system fit for them. Tech, as you mentioned, has done really well. I think Texas A&M has had a really quietly. They haven't made a bunch of splash additions, but made a lot of really solid additions. And they didn't really lose a lot. They retained a lot of their guys. They only lost, I believe, one full-time starter into the portal this year. So they're in good shape. And the other one is Oklahoma State. Eric Morris, who we know was the coach at North Texas and took them to the conference championship game. He went up there to Oklahoma State. He's brought his quarterback, Drew Messamaker, his running back, Caleb Hawkins, his top receiver, Wyatt Young, and several others with them. That's a team that

was one in 11 last year, maybe had one of the worst rosters in the Power 4, and they look like a much improved team so far on this first weekend. So they've done, all those schools have done pretty well. I would add Penn State to that list, too, since Matt Campbell got over there. Obviously, he's brought a lot of his Iowa State guys with them too, but I think Penn State has made some waves early in the first few days of the portal. Sam Conn, Jr. of the Athletic with us More of a general question, Sam. We've talked a lot on this show, myself and Matt, and argued about donor fatigue. And I thought it was going to come pretty soon.

It doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. But I guess to ask you to predict the unpredictable. I mean, for example, Cody Campbell, as Matt mentioned, shelling out a bunch of money. I mean, if he's not seeing the results year after year, how much does he continue to pour millions? And these other schools as well, whether it be Texas or A&M, where do you see as far as, I, I mean, just the long-term economic ecosystem of this NIL money potentially drying up? Or it just seems like it's a full steam ahead? I think it becomes a case-by-case basis on a couple of factors.

One, what is your institutional want to? How badly do you want to win? And by proxy, how badly do your donors want to win? Two, do you have someone to that degree? because there are, I think a lot of the SEC and Big Ten programs are going to be in okay shape because of where they are in terms of their media rights and how big their budgets are just from the start. But it's your, when you get to your maybe middle tier power four or lower tier power fours, do you have a booster like a Cody Campbell? Like if you're Kansas and you have David Booth, you're in good shape. But if you're Iowa State who is struggling to reach the revenue share cap, they're not operating over the cap.

They're having a hard enough time just trying to get to the cap, which they are at. But that's hard enough for them. They don't necessarily have a Cody Campbell in their back pocket to help them. So I think it's a case-by-case issue with them. As far as do I see donor fatigue long term, maybe in some spots, but I'll just say this. This, we are in 2025, almost 40 years ago, SMU got busted for paying players and then got the death penalty. It was 1986, 1987. That was almost 40 years ago.

So if, and that was obviously a different era, but paying players or trying to do the most to get the best players on your team is a tradition as, it's a tried and true tradition in college football. There has, for as long as college football has existed, alumni have always, and boosters have always wanted to get players for their, their teams and wanted to make sure they had the best teams, whether it was coaches, whether it's facilities, whatever the mechanism was that they told you how to do it, for as long as I can remember, and as long as I've been covering the sport, there's always been somebody who's wanted to push the envelope to do that. And I don't see that changing long term. Now, with the money getting as high as it is, could it get a little bit unsustainable? Certainly, I do think there is a degree to that.

But I don't think we're ever going to come to a point where people say, well, I don't care about my school enough to pay this money for this player. There's always going to be Cam Coleman, the number one receiver in the portal, right now everybody everybody on earth wants that guy and i cannot see a donor saying no i'm going to walk away because he's not that important ultimately these guys want their teams to win on saturday and and they're going to want to do what it takes to get the players to make that happen i got 40 more questions for you but i'm going to leave you with this and i thank you so much for your time uh dylan austin's a guy that no one's ever heard of and at least here he was a

cornerback at oregon didn't play a whole lot apparently numbers are just okay but he did play He didn't have an I&T this year for the Ducks. Ducks are still playing for a chance at a national championship. And he's leaving. He's going to leave the team because he entered the portal. It may be a much more high-profile name that does this, but I have a feeling, and this is kind of the sickening part of the spirit of trying to win and compete, is we're going to have other players like this down the road.

Do you agree or disagree that we're going to see kids that are still playing for a national championship or in a deep playoff run saying, you know what, I got $4 million waiting for me to school down the road. I think having it happen with starters is not going to be something that becomes a trend. I think it's more going to be typically guys who are backups or who are guys who don't have as big roles and they stand to make a lot of money and get a bigger role in another team. But I will say this, we long didn't think a coach would do it and Lane Kiffin has done it. And so once you kind of cross that threshold, I think anything goes. So I wouldn't say, I would never say never on that front, but I do think having a starter do it,

if it were a starting quarterback or starting a running back or a starting corner. I find that would be very either rare or unlikely to happen. But with backup players, and we already saw it last year, Bo Pribula, the backup quarterback at Penn State, when once Drew Aller decided he was coming back, he went ahead and got in the portal and obviously ended up starting in Missouri last year. So that part has already been going on. with some playoff teams. It's not, again, not high numbers. It's only really a small handful. But I do think the reserve players that stand to have bigger roles at other teams

that I don't think is going to stop. I do think seeing star players do it, I think it would be a real shock to the system if we saw it. But again, Lane Kiffin did it, so who knows. All right, Sam, I owe you a gift card to a hat store, my friend. Thank you so much for the time. Happy New Year and thank you. And we look forward to seeing many more your articles on the athletic website very soon. No problem. Thanks for having me.