The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@
In case you missed it, last week’s mailbag examined the future of non-conference scheduling and the potential for both a Big Ten-SEC and a Big 12-ACC crossover series.
How many coaches in the old Pac-12 would win as many (or more) games than Dan Lanning if they coached Oregon? How many Pac-12 teams would have a better record if Lanning was their coach this season? — @mobility_mode
Essentially, you’re asking if Dan Lanning is an elite coach or merely the product of Oregon’s institutional machinery?
The Hotline’s answer: both.
That response might be unsatisfying, but we see significant nuance within the topic.
Clearly, expectations for the Ducks this season are stratospheric, and that’s not unreasonable given the NFL talent on both sides of scrimmage.
And clearly, their performance against Boise State was underwhelming. Lanning’s $40 million roster struggled to beat an opponent with a $10 million roster. (Both figures are estimates.)
Also, the Ducks were blown out of the playoff in each of the past two seasons by teams they played competitively during the season. Unlike Ohio State (2024) and Indiana (2025), they were not peaking when it mattered most.
Few programs in the country are better equipped for the current era than Oregon. Everything in Eugene is built for success. And yet, the Ducks remain without a national championship — they haven’t even reached the title game since NIL became the law of the land in 2021.
We understand the skepticism aimed at Lanning, and as we opined two weeks ago, this is a gigantic season for his future.
To best describe our view of the situation, let’s tweak a term used in baseball: Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is a means of valuing each player based on the average performance at his position.
We’ll call the methodology Coaches Above Replacement, or CAR. (Please don’t confuse that with the other version of CAR deployed by the Hotline: Commissioners Above Replacement.)
How would the Ducks fare under an average Power Four coach, presuming identical resources, compared to how they perform under Lanning?
In our view, his CAR is clearly in positive territory. Oregon absolutely is better off with Lanning. But how much better? There is no shortage of coaches capable of winning 10 or 11 games and reaching the playoff with a $40 million roster.
But Lanning does more than that. He has won 13 games in each of the past two seasons and never loses to second-rate opponents.
If we assign 10.5 wins for the average coach in Eugene, then Lanning’s CAR would be +2.5.
How does that compare to coaches in the legacy Pac-12, or throughout the West?
We endeavored to rank the top five but encountered a problem: not enough candidates.
The following schools have first- or second-year coaches and thus a sample size too small for our liking: Cal, Colorado State, Fresno State, New Mexico, Oregon State, San Diego State, Stanford, UCLA, UNLV, Utah, Utah State and Washington State.
And the following coaches aren’t outperforming their immediate or recent predecessors: Arizona’s Brent Brennan, Boise State’s Spencer Danielson, Colorado’s Deion Sanders, Hawaii’s Timmy Chang, Nevada’s Jeff Choate, San Jose State’s Ken Niumatalolo, USC’s Lincoln Riley, Washington’s Jedd Fisch and Wyoming’s Jay Sawvel.
We omitted a few schools, including Air Force. The service academy situation simply isn’t comparable to anything else and, honestly, we cannot picture the Falcons without Troy Calhoun.
The other school not mentioned: Arizona State.
For our money, Kenny Dillingham would rank No. 1 on a CAR list even if sample size weren’t a factor and every current coach could be considered. (New Mexico’s Jason Eck would be a close second, by the way.)
Dillingham has done a masterful job in three-plus seasons:
— He won three games as a rookie coach, in 2023, when the Sun Devils were banned from the postseason, under NCAA investigation and generally immersed in the mess Herm Edwards left behind.
— He won 11 in his second season, took ASU to the College Football Playoff and almost beat Texas in the quarterfinals.
— He won eight games last season even though quarterback Sam Leavitt missed half the season with a foot injury.
For those unaware, Dillingham is from Phoenix and attended ASU, and his innate understanding of the school and the community has been vital to his success.
The average replacement coach would not have that institutional knowledge. Also, the average coach would not come close to matching Dillingham’s win total.
Including the season swallowed whole by the NCAA mess, Dillingham has averaged 7.3 wins per year.
In our view, the average coach — operating under the same circumstances, with the same postseason ban and NCAA penalties and the same roster and staff resources — would have averaged four or five victories.
Dillingham’s CAR is above 3.0.
You would be hard-pressed to make a stronger case for anyone else in that range.
And if Lanning eventually departs Oregon for the NFL, the school might cast an eye to Tempe and its former playcaller.
We’re confident Dillingham could keep the Ducks humming at 12 or 13 wins per season.
Predict the future: Will every blue blood, like LSU, form an alliance in the coming years? Are they going to lord over everyone? — @TerryTerry79
Yes, but we’d argue that’s already the case.
College football has always been about royalty. The transfer portal and NIL have flattened the competitive playing field on the top tier, but 10 or 12 programs continue to run the sport.
Technically, the SEC and Big Ten are driving the changes and dictating the direction. But within each conference, there are leaders and followers. Mississippi State and South Carolina, Purdue and Minnesota — they are along for the ride and blessed by geography.
Whether the issue is realignment, playoff expansion, roster compensation or media rights, the central authority and influence lie with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Florida State, Notre Dame and a few others.
Their impact is expanding at an exponential rate as legal and economic forces alter the product and force frustrated administrators to consider a new model.
If the Protect College Sports Act fails in Congress, as we expect, the push for self-governance by the SEC and Big Ten will accelerate.
What does that mean? Initially, it means they will craft conference-specific rules outside the NCAA’s authority while continuing to play inter-conference competition.
Eventually, it could lead to a super league.
The industry requires two profitable sports (football and men’s basketball) to subsidize 14-to-18 unprofitable sports on each campus, which naturally forces the schools to chase every last dollar from the media companies.
That, in turn, confers outsized influence to the schools that possess the highest media value, which we named above.
I get why USC, Washington and Oregon would try to stick it out in the Big Ten, but it makes no financial sense to have Cal and Stanford in the ACC. If you were to suspend belief for a moment, what would it take to persuade them to come back to the Pac-12? — @pfnnewmedia
First of all, Cal and Stanford have plenty of money. The issue is whether they choose to spend it on football and men’s basketball.
Both have incredibly wealthy alumni bases. But there is much hesitancy on both campuses, and within both constituencies, to plow $40 million annually into roster compensation. It’s the push-pull dynamic that comes with being two of the best academic universities in the world.
From a practical standpoint — based on the real dollars available for roster compensation and the true cost of supporting 30-something sports programs — both schools are operating at a disadvantage in the ACC as partial-share members.
They know it. Everyone knows it. But the reasons they joined the ACC remain firmly in place today: 1) Membership in the Big Ten isn’t an option; 2) They enjoy the academic alignment with ACC schools; 3) They prefer to compete against ACC schools in the Olympic sports.
Put another way: The Bears and Cardinal don’t want to be associated, academically or athletically, with the schools in the new Pac-12. We aren’t judging that sentiment. It’s simply the reality.
What would it take to persuade them to return to the Pac-12? Even in a suspended-belief realm, they won’t return. It’s not happening.
But here’s what could happen: In every sport but football and perhaps basketball, a new West Coast-based conference arises in the 2030s, offering a home for the Olympic sports programs at the legacy Pac-12 schools.
It’s not just Cal and Stanford. It’s Cal and Stanford and UCLA and USC and Oregon and Washington and Arizona and Arizona State.
That option is real.
Football is a different beast in too many ways to count. The Bears and Cardinal eventually could compete in a western conference, but that would require a complete restructuring of the sport into a super league or something of that nature.
Which governor is most likely to take over a Pac-12 program like the Cajun Clown and LSU? — @JonBlueFC
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is deeply involved in the LSU athletic program, much to the dismay of the other SEC schools, because it’s a winning political issue for him.
The Tigers are more deeply rooted in the state’s culture and daily existence than any athletic program on the West Coast and, perhaps, across the FBS.
It’s just different in Louisiana. Always has been.
Having said that, politicians across the West are becoming involved in college sports.
We saw California Gov. Gavin Newsom influence the manner in which the UC Regents handled UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten.
Utah state legislators asked questions about the Utes’ decision (last winter) to partner with private equity.
And Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, of course, co-sponsors the landmark Protect College Sports Act, the bipartisan legislation that would alter the trajectory of the industry.
Elevated political involvement in college sports makes sense, in some situations, given the dollars involved with state institutions and the hottest of hot-button issues: athlete employment.
I read your article about the bowl tie-ins for legacy Pac-12 schools and have a question: Are those schools also eligible for their new conference bowls? — William W
They are not.
The 10 departed schools are not part of the selection process for their current conferences. Bowl executives from Boca Raton to Hawaii are treating the Pac-12 legacy schools as if the conference never imploded.
Why? So the ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten would not have to overhaul their bowl selection process to accommodate the new schools when nobody in the industry has any clue what the postseason will look like next year.
Expansion of the College Football Playoff to 24 teams would trigger dramatic changes to the bowl season. Some games would shutter while others would alter their selection process and conference affiliations.
Nobody wants to change the model for the 10 former Pac-12 schools and then change it again in the aftermath of CFP expansion, which has been discussed for years but finally appears to be churning toward reality. (The SEC and Big Ten face a Dec. 1 deadline to finalize expansion for next season.)
One caveat: If the Pac-12 selection process leaves eligible teams with no bowl bids, their current conferences will help find a home.
For example, if UCLA finishes 7-5 and isn’t picked for a Pac-12 bowl, the Big Ten could, in theory, slot the Bruins into a Big Ten bowl vacancy (if one exists).
The other option in that situation would be for the Bruins to be placed in the pool of ESPN bowls, with the network determining the best fit based on geography and matchup.
Have you watched the in-stadium video that captures Michigan’s Hail Mary and definitively shows there was still one second remaining? Once you do, will the lame jokes continue? — @LegendaryLB66
There are enough videos and screen grabs available on the internet to support every opinion, and the Hotline has not criticized the decision by Big Ten replay officials to add one second based on the clock they used.
Our focus is the existence of a second clock — that there were two times available: The broadcast (public) time that showed 0:00 when the ball was touched by Western Michigan’s defender; and the replay (private) time that showed 0:01 remaining when the ball was touched.
There cannot be two times. That risks a massive integrity issue for the sport.
Fortunately, the NCAA believes the same thing, which is why it issued guidance to the conferences this week explaining that if there are differences in times shown, the public clock should be used:
“The official time for all college football games is the time displayed on the in-stadium game clock. When a replay review requires time to be restored or otherwise adjusted, the replay official’s decision will be based on the embedded game clock contained within the program feed.”
That’s the only reasonable course of action in the aftermath of the cluster that unfolded in Ann Arbor.
Let’s say Western Michigan beats Boise State later this month and wins the MAC but finishes 10-2. Does the CFP selection committee count them as 10-2 (and likely behind another Group of Six team)? Or are they viewed as 11-1 for those purposes? — @WorkishFromHome
Essentially, you’re asking if the committee would count the loss as a victory for the purposes of evaluating the Broncos for the playoff?
It’s a great question, one we have pondered for six days.
Without precedent available, there is no way to predict the process with any level of confidence.
Also, guessing along with the committee on anything is a fool’s errand because the members make it up as they go along every week of every season.
We suspect the committee would not view the result as a loss for WMU. Is that the same thing as treating it like a win? For most of us, yes. For the committee, not necessarily. It could find a way to avoid dinging the Broncos for a defeat while not crediting them for a win.
That said, if the football gods are feeling mischievous — if WMU finishes as a two-loss MAC champ behind a one-loss winner from another Group of Six conference — the committee would have no choice:
Any outcome in which WMU doesn’t receive the benefit of the doubt would generate immense blowback from the public and within the sport.
Everyone knows the Broncos were the better team and deserved to win. And at the end of 60 minutes, the scoreboard agreed.
On July 1, 2027, it will cost any ACC school $129 million to depart the conference. Why did your mailbag calculate the costs as close to a billion? — @JimSkin70758794
Glad you asked. The Hotline addressed this topic recently and, unfortunately, had a total brain fart. We used an outdated method for calculating the grant-of-rights penalties, a process in place prior to the ACC’s settlement with Clemson and Florida State.
My apologies for that.
The cost for any school to leave the ACC in the 2020s is in excess of $100 million, with the amount decreasing by roughly $20 million annually.
Starting in 2030, the penalty drops to $75 million, and it remains fixed through the expiration of the grant-of-rights in 2036.
That’s why the Hotline (and many others) believe the sport’s next rupture point is 2030, when the Big Ten’s TV deal terminates: Florida State, Clemson, Miami and North Carolina — they all have designs on the SEC or Big Ten — can both justify and afford $75 million.
However, there is a non-zero chance of realignment unfolding prior to that point.
If the schools believe the Protect College Sports Act will pass Congress with the anti-expansion clause intact, there could be movement prior to the bill becoming law.
Would UCLA be better off, in terms of the Calimony payments, losing regularly to Cal? How long is the Calimony going to continue? — @Crawfy13
The Bruins and Bears are scheduled to play each other annually through the end of the decade: Even years in Berkeley; odd years in Pasadena.
Our understanding is the schools agreed to the series (mostly, UCLA agreed) during the months-long discussions with the UC Regents about the Bruins leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten.
UCLA’s annual $10 million payment to the Bears (aka, Calimony) began in 2025 and spans three fiscal years, so this is it. However, the regents said they would revisit the issue in 2027 and, in theory, could extend the payment three years to meet the six-year timeframe that was originally proposed.
Exactly what would spur an extension is unclear, but the decision undoubtedly will depend on the state of Cal’s athletic budget.
I’m not sure the on-field results matter. It’s more about the black and red than the wins and losses.
And for the record: The Hotline won’t predict whether Calimony gets extended. We got out of the regent-forecasting business years ago.
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The post Mailbag: Our look at Coaches Above Replacement (CAR), the LSU mess, Big Ten clockgate, Pac-12 bowls, the future of Calimony and more first appeared on Sports360AZ.