It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to let you all know what’s been on my mind for the past week. We’ve got a couple more updates around the sport that I think are important to talk about.
1. Wisconsin is suing Miami.
That’s an interesting thing to type.
But more importantly, the University of Wisconsin and its NIL collective are suing the University of Miami for tampering. We’ve heard a lot of coaches complain about tampering the past few years as the transfer portal has gotten ever more active each season, but nobody has ever done anything about it.
But now the Badgers have decided rising sophomore defensive back Xavier Lucas is the guy to make this a big issue about.
For some context, Lucas was a four-star corner in the class of 2024, we had him rated as the No. 45 cornerback in the country coming out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
He played in all 12 Wisconsin games last year, making 18 tackles, a sack and an interception.
He transferred during the winter portal, but there were issues with his transfer because he claimed the Wisconsin staff refused to file the proper paperwork to enter his name in the portal.
I guess we know why now.
Wisconsin claimed a Miami staffer and “prominent alumnus” met with Lucas at a relative’s home in Florida and offered him money to transfer, which was shortly after Lucas had apparently signed a two-year contract with the Badgers' NIL collective in December.
So the argument is Miami sent a staffer to offer money to knowingly break the contract.
Definitely tampering.
The question isn’t whether tampering has been happening. It has.
There have been reports from baseball coaches whose team’s are in the College World Series that their players are receiving texts and calls from other coaches while they’re still playing to get them to transfer. Same with softball, same with both men's and women's basketball. Football was happening through bowl prep. That's one of the major reasons why there's been talk about moving the portal windows after the postseason in each sport.
We all knew tampering was happening.
But, finally, we’re going to find out if it’s actually against the rules.
2. The timing is fascinating to me.
