Ted Cruz cites Nick Saban and Pat McAfee to push Protect College Sports Act
· Yahoo Sports
A judge in Baton Rouge spent Thursday deciding whether two former college football players who were on NFL rosters this summer could suit up for LSU this fall. That sentence alone tells you where college sports stands right now. Senator Ted Cruz used it as his backdrop this weekend, posting a clip of Nick Saban and Pat McAfee on College GameDay to push a federal law he wants President Trump to sign this season.
Cruz shared the segment on X, quoting McAfee calling the sport “absolute chaos” and Saban calling the current setup “absolutely crazy.” Both men were talking about the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill Cruz co-authored with Senator Maria Cantwell. The timing lined up with a Louisiana courtroom clearing the way for former NFL players Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris to join Lane Kiffin’s roster.
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What Ted Cruz’s tweet actually said
Cruz opened with McAfee’s read on the sport’s chaos, followed by Saban’s line about the absurdity of an NFL player returning to college, and closed with his own ask: pass the bill, get it to Trump’s desk, and sign it on GameDay before the season ends.
The clip aired next to a chyron about Wright and Harris being left off LSU’s roster despite the court clearing them to play. Saban called the bill “80% good,” adding it isn’t perfect but “will help college sports and give us some guidelines of how we move forward.” McAfee argued 80% beats zero given what’s playing out at Texas Tech and LSU.
The bill would set one federal standard for eligibility, NIL and transfers. That standard would replace the current mix of state laws and court rulings.
Every athlete would get five years of eligibility beginning the year they turn 19 or graduate from high school. Athletes would also receive one no-penalty transfer.
The bill would give the NCAA and conferences a limited antitrust exemption. That protection would help them enforce rules that courts have repeatedly struck down. The Senate is scheduled to vote between September 15 and September 23.
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Why the NCAA keeps losing in court
Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit on the ESPN College Gameday set.The bill exists because the NCAA keeps losing legal fights it can’t close out. More than 70 eligibility cases have worked through state and federal courts since the association tried to standardize a five-year eligibility window, and while the NCAA has won most of them, several rulings have gone the other way.
Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is the clearest example. A Lubbock judge granted him a preliminary injunction in June. The ruling restored his eligibility despite the NCAA declaring him permanently ineligible for betting on his own games.
The case forced the Big 12 to sue Texas Tech directly. The conference sought to determine whether it could sanction the school for playing him.
That’s the pattern McAfee pointed to with Kiffin and LSU. One school gets an injunction that holds, while another gets one that doesn’t. Conferences then threaten their own members instead of pointing to a rule that everyone agrees applies.
Without a federal antitrust exemption, the NCAA has no consistent way to enforce a national rule. A state court willing to grant an injunction can prevent that rule from taking effect.
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Does the NCAA need the law, or does it need a backbone?
The NCAA must step up its enforcement, regardless of the bill’s passage.The bill would give the NCAA legal tools it doesn’t have, but it wouldn’t change how the NCAA already tries to enforce its rules. It already writes eligibility standards and tries to enforce them. It just keeps getting overruled by judges who don’t answer to a national governing body.
An antitrust exemption changes what happens once the NCAA gets sued, not whether it’s willing to hand down a suspension in the first place. The Sorsby case shows an association that took its toughest stance, permanent ineligibility for a betting violation, and still lost. That doesn’t look like an enforcement problem a new statute automatically fixes.
What the law can do is remove the incentive to shop for a friendly state court. LSU is holding off on adding Wright and Harris because it isn’t sure Louisiana’s injunction will survive contact with the SEC. A federal standard backed by real penalties would settle that uncertainty in a way an NCAA policy memo never could. But those penalties still aren’t spelled out.
Right now, the bill includes a private right of action for athletes and a limited antitrust shield for the NCAA and conferences. However, it doesn’t clearly state what consequences a school or conference would face for ignoring the rules once they become federal law. That’s what the Senate has to settle before this bill reaches Trump’s desk.
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