Pop speaks the truth

The GIST: Sharpen those elbows — women’s soccer conference play opens in earnest tomorrow. And as the season settles into the grind, each of the Power Four conferences faces important questions…

ACC: What will No. 1 Stanford’s impact be? The Cardinal’s offseason move to the ACC is bound to create chaos in the nation’s toughest conference, which boasts half of this week’s Top-10 teams. If Stanford can manage their multiple cross-country road trips, the ACC title race will be the hottest one in the country.

SEC: Can No. 4 Arkansas run the table? The Razorbacks dropped just one conference matchup last season: a narrow 2–1 road loss to the conference’s other top team, No. 6 Auburn. This fall, Auburn’s not on Arkansas’ regular-season schedule, leaving the Hogs plenty of runway to capture perfection — and their second straight SEC championship.

Big Ten: Can No. 5 Michigan State maintain their rizz? If you’re looking to jump on a bandwagon, the Spartans are a great pick — this is a top-tier program in the making, and with conference rivals like Nebraska and No. 12 Penn State flailing, all they have to do to reach the sport’s upper echelon is, well, Sparty on.

Big 12: What’s the deal with BYU? The preseason’s No. 3 team has endured a brutal 2-3-2 (wins, losses, draws) season start. They plummeted from the Top 25 last week and didn’t receive a single vote this week. Nonetheless, they could still be the Big 12’s most dangerous team…at least until someone else steps up to fill the power vacuum.

The GIST: Mere days after concerns about future implications derailed the House v. NCAA settlement, the NCAA faces yet another challenge in its battle to maintain amateurism and avoid bankruptcy — this time, with gender equity at the heart of the conversation.

The background: Central to the House settlement is the NCAA’s agreement to shell out $2.7B in back pay to former student-athletes who were banned from earning NIL money before July 2021. A chunk of those funds will be raised by reducing the NCAA’s regular distributions to DI conferences — meaning conferences and schools would essentially “pay for” the settlement via lost future revenue.

• As the settlement stands, the Power Four conferences are on the hook for 40% of the settlement payment, while the remaining 60% would be sourced from the 27 other DI conferences.

The latest: On Monday, South Dakota’s attorney general filed a new lawsuit against the NCAA, claiming that the back-pay plan places an undue burden on women athletes and non-Power conferences like the Summit League, home to the state’s two DI schools. The suit argues this makes them “responsible for a disproportionate share of the settlement cost.”

• The complaint states that the vast majority of settlement funds would go to the Power conferences’ former superstars, most of them male. It further claims that women would see less than 10% of the payouts, in violation of Title IX.

• Meanwhile, athletic departments’ lost revenue would (at best) affect women’s and men’s sports equally, meaning current women athletes would shoulder half the funding burden for a settlement overwhelmingly benefitting former elite male athletes. Woof.

Why it matters: This complaint takes last month’s objection to the House settlement lodged by current and former women rowers one step further. Even if House settles despite that objection, this separate suit threatens the NCAA’s payment plan, guaranteeing even more litigation over the equitable way forward. In other words, this party’s just getting started.

The GIST: Comin’ right up, your midweek vibe check. Here’s who’s hot (and who’s not) during this busy week in college sports.

🔥 Travis Hunter: While Colorado football is raked over the coals, their two-way superstar is raking it in. The wide receiver/defensive back’s new deal with United Airlines boosts his NIL valuation to $3.1M — the fourth-highest of any current NCAA athlete.

❄️ Pitt’s athletic department: The Panthers shockingly fired athletic director Heather Lyke on Monday, despite her massive success in seven years at the helm. With “a fresh start” cited as the only reason, it’s not a great look for Pitt — especially when just 15% of last year’s DI athletic directors were women.

🔥 Pitt volleyball: On the bright side for the Panthers, their women’s volleyball team topped this week’s rankings for the first time ever. They’ll try to move that momentum out west as they head to California for a three-game road trip, starting with tonight’s 9 p.m. ET tilt against No. 23 USC on BTN.

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