Big Ten's fine line between college sports boogeyman and finding answers

Matt Hayes, USA TODAYTue, March 17, 2026 at 8:30 AM UTC

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At some point, the Big Ten and SEC have to figure out messaging. It’s always in the delivery.

It’s the difference between being the boogeyman of college sports, and the answer to everything.

Case in point: the Big Ten’s decision to ask the NCAA for a suspension of tampering rules.

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Shocking, of course, on its face. One of the two super conferences of college sports — the perceived reason (fair or not) for the ills of the now eroded amateur model and the speedway straight to professional sports hell — advocating for cheating.

It’s absurd, and should be roundly laughed out of any serious sports association. Much less one changing by the day.

But look closer at this idea, and see what the Big Ten is trying to sell. The conference of Jim Delany — the legendary former commissioner who once declared the Big Ten would simply go back to non-scholarship football if pay-for-play became a reality — actually has a plan to find some order in the chaos of the player procurement process.

They’re not trying to end tampering by suspending it. They’re trying to find an answer to yet another unintended consequence of opening the doors to NIL and free player movement without a plan.

But they’ve blown the messaging.

When you send a letter to the NCAA asking for a suspension of “investigations and infractions proceedings” regarding tampering, how exactly do you think Joe Public is going to respond? Especially considering your sister super conference, the SEC, recently pushed for the NCAA to crack down on illegal tampering.

Here’s what the Big Ten is trying to say: The machine was built for gasoline, and we’re trying to fill it with diesel. Of course the damn thing isn’t working.

You can’t have rules and regulations born when the entire player procurement process was still operating under the pollyanna amateur model umbrella, and force it into this uncharted, brazenly bold world of eat your own. And you know what? They’re right.

They just don’t know how to say it. Again, it’s the messaging.

The Big Ten idea — I’m paraphrasing because their messaging stinks — isn’t just about the machinations of the process, the when, where and how of an NCAA bylaw designed for fair competition.

This is about figuring out a process that opened the transfer portal gates with a starting gun on Jan. 2, and more than 1,000 players took official visits that same weekend. More than 300 signed with another school that weekend, some hours after the exiting the starting blocks.

Instead of that free-for-all cash grab, how about a rational, market-driven process that allows players to understand the entirety of making a career-defining decision? Where players can get more information in a timely manner.

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Where players aren’t being exploited by renegade (take your pick) agents, coaches, boosters, attorneys and the like. Because when there’s a vacuum in any process, something always fills it.

And more times than not, there’s little to no control over it.

Like those with little interest in a player’s well-being filling his head with ideas of it’s not you, it’s them. All you have to do is jump in the transfer portal — now, you only have two weeks to do it — and find someone who better understands you and your unique path.

And pay me my 5% (or more) for helping you see the light.

Self-awareness, self-evaluation and steps to change and improve, plays no part in the process. Money is the answer, money changes everything.

The problem: How to avoid those pitfalls without placing more restrictions on players that invariably will wind up in litigation — after being judged-shopped.

The Big Ten doesn’t want an end to tampering, it wants an answer to the problem. But to randomly try to use the overworked (and understaffed) NCAA enforcement arm — historically the laughing stock of the association — to fix the problem by demanding this coach or that coach be reprimanded for illegal contact is traveling the same, tired road.

Of course tampering is illegal, of course it’s wrong and finding a temporary fix is better than nothing. But it's time to stop duct-taping problems, and find an answer that fits with this current model ― not one whose processes fit better last century.

You can still have rules, but you can also have those rules while implementing a process that provides the opportunity to clearly understand the process and produce the best opportunity of success for all involved.

The NFL calls it legal tampering, a 52-hour framework before the beginning of its free agency. That’s for 32 teams and roughly 2,800 players.

There are 135 FBS schools, and more than 14,000 scholarship players. And by the end of the two-week transfer portal, there were more than 3,200 in the transfer portal.

Needless to say, not all found homes. In fact, a majority didn’t.

Pre-portal communication between players and teams, the Big Ten says, would allow players — and teams — to get a better grasp on the entire situation without being forced into a 24-hour decision.

And — here’s the key — if we continue to go down this road, a player will judge shop for preferential treatment, and the two-week portal and limited communication between parties will get blown out of the water.

Sort of like when a group of West Virginia players judged shopped in 2021 because they wanted more than one free transfer — and the judge gave them unlimited free movement.

Which is what put us in this mess in the first place.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Big Ten tampering plan for college sports just might work

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