From Digital Drive, Day 3: Ross Dellenger, Jordan Rodgers & more

Wednesday morning's edition of TexAgs Live emanated from the Omni Atlanta Hotel, the site of 2025 SEC Media Days. Today's special guests included Ross Dellenger, Ryan Fowler, Chris Doering, Jordan Rodgers, Drew Fabianich, Brian Hadad and Jacob Hester.

Key notes from Ross Dellenger interview

• In May, we had similar news that President Donald Trump was considering an executive order. Then we had the presidential commission news. Neither of those things happened, so I would take it with a grain of salt. It might happen, but we’ve had a few bits of these that didn’t materialize.
   
• We have movement right now in Congress with legislation, although I don’t know that it moves all the way through. There’s more movement than we’ve seen in the past. We thought President Trump would wait until congressional legislation could at least have a chance. It would surprise me if he drops something in the next couple of days, but I don’t know. The people who reported that are tied into politics, which is unlike the presidential commission stuff that was buzzing in May. That was socialized with college athletic people. This has not been. If he does do something, not a lot of people in college athletics know about it.
   
• It’s hard to say the effect of viewing college sports without knowing what’s going to be in the executive order. There are rumors of what it may be. There are a lot of things the NCAA has asked for in congressional legislation. You could have a preemption of all these state NIL laws, a limited antitrust protection for the NCAA, where the College Sports Commission could enforce its rules and standards related to NIL. Eligibility could be a part of it, too. It depends on what’s in there. The main gist is that all the NCAA Act requests from Congress will probably be in that executive order if it’s released. It will be a pro-NCAA leadership order. It will give the NCAA the power it wants. The problem is that the executive order is subject to the courts. So, whatever is in it is not a permanent solution.
   
• You have to get Congress to pass a bill. The House has a bill they marked yesterday. It passed 12-11 in the subcommittee. It goes to the full committee next week to be amended and edited. If it passes that committee, it’s possible for it to go to the floor. The leadership of the House would have to bring it up on the floor. It would go to the full House for a vote, then it would go to the Senate. That’s probably where it would die. I feel like sometimes I’m wasting time talking about it because the Senate and the filibuster rules mean you need 60 votes to pass anything, not just a majority. So, you need seven democrats to vote for any bill, and this bill includes anti-employment. Getting seven democrats to vote on that will be difficult. Ted Cruz and Chris Coons of Delaware are talking about introducing some sort of congressional legislation on their own. We’ll see if that comes to fruition.
   
• It goes back to the approval of the settlement and the fact that schools are sharing revenue directly with athletes under the system. That probably triggered a lot of this movement to happen. Then you can take legislation, and it can codify what was agreed to in the settlement. We’ve seen a trickle effect going on. Approval of the settlement, and a few weeks ago, the NCAA basically enshrined the settlement in their own rules. The third step would be having Congress codify everything. That’s what’s happening and why you see a lot of movement. Everybody is doing what many wanted college athletic leaders to do — pay athletes directly.
   
• Without a congressional bill of some sort, it’s hard to see it moving to a finished product any time soon. Without that, there won’t be much stability for a while. You’ll have lawsuits against the Deloitte NIL Clearinghouse. Nothing has been filed yet, but I would expect one. Last week, we broke news about the house plaintiff attorneys sending a letter to the College Sports Commission, saying some of the collective deals they denied needed to be reinstated and that they were interpreting the settlement rules wrong. Basically, they are saying collectives have to be viewed as a normal business. That’s not the way the College Sports Commission sees it. That dispute will probably lead to actual lawsuits and attorneys going to the magistrate judge. It’s a long way from stability.
   
• I think that schools are trying to limit movement by writing the rev-share contracts a certain way. I think they’re trying to introduce terms that make it hard for an athlete to transfer without owing a lot of money to the school. That’s probably the first step in how you might see a limit of movement. Also, that is probably going to be sued as well. I think you’ll see lawsuits over rev-share terms as well. That’s the way the schools plan on reducing movement. Maybe you will see limited movement from buyouts and contracts written where an athlete can’t leave before or after a certain date. They’re doing things in contracts that will reduce movement but also probably bring another lawsuit.
   
• I think the whole idea of the SEC and Big Ten merging has died down a little, partly because of the dispute over the college football playoff. The two conferences don’t agree on what a playoff should look like. That’s slowed down talk of the super conferences. I don’t know that it will ever truly be off the table. We’ve seen conference realignment consolidate the biggest brands, which happens in any economy. Bigger brands get together because they are more valuable together. We’ve seen the Big Ten and SEC do that. Eventually, you would think all the biggest brands would get together from each league. I do think it’s slowed a little, and it feels like we’re maybe a few years from that. You never know, though. The future of the new enforcement entity and the result of the lawsuits will dictate what any super league looks like.
   
• I used to cover games. I still do. I think I covered five or six playoff games this year. I cover a game every other week. Half the time, I write more about the business of college football and sports in general. It’s kind of evolved like that. I kind of embraced that side of it. I grew up as a news writer, so I drift toward that. It was nice yesterday to write like a real player feature by following around Arch Manning. Sometimes, I do write about real football, but lately there’s been so much historic change that it’s hard not to write about this evolution college football is undergoing.
   
• As was mentioned at the Big 12 Media Days last week, they had run some numbers for their returning quarterbacks. Statistically, I think they have the best returning quarterbacks. The SEC league has a lot of new quarterbacks for the schools they’re playing at. Breaking in a quarterback is always difficult. Manning probably has more hype on him than anybody. Garrett Nussmeier is a guy who’s probably the top returner in the league for quarterbacks. From Oklahoma, now at Auburn, Jackson Arnold. It will be interesting to see if that experiment works with Hugh Freeze. Alabama has a new quarterback, and so do a lot of schools. It’s going to be interesting. I still think that today, the most important thing in college football is the offensive and defensive lines, especially in this league. I think quarterback is second. I think the defensive front is critical to success.
   
• You look at what A&M did last year in the first seven or eight games. They had a chance to beat Notre Dame in Week 1. It was pretty good what they did. I haven’t kept up too much with the offseason and how this year’s team has materialized. But also, Mike Elko is one of the coaches that, when you ask other offensive coaches who the hardest defensive coach to gameplan against is, more than half will point to Elko. He’s been really successful defensively at all his stops. A&M’s defensive line will be one of the better ones in the league, you would think.

Key notes from Chris Doering interview

• DJ Lagway is not the most important, but probably LaNorris Sellers and Diego Pavia are there. I do think what Florida has done is a conservative effort to upgrade the pieces around him. The offensive line will be one of the best. They’re five deep at running back and got J. Michael Sturdivant in the portal and two highly recruited wide receivers. Wait until you see Dallas Wilson if you haven't seen him. He played high school football and looks like a grown man. Vernel Brown, son of former Gator Vernell Brown Jr., has good pieces around Lagway to take the pressure off so he doesn't feel he has to win it himself.
   
• These guys in high school come in at wide receiver more prepared than we were. The science and nutrition that's come out, and the 7-on-7 stuff, benefit receivers in terms of creativity, route running and catching the ball in traffic. These guys make the transition easier than they're used to.
   
• In Florida, we were robotic about what we did, and coach Steve Spurrier was very detailed about the five-step drop. You're running your 12-yard curve. When I got to Denver, Ed McCaffrey was my best mentor to be creative thinking outside the box and physically on the line of scrimmage vs. press coverage. Setting guys up with systems that looked traditional, putting things together. I learned a ton at Florida with Coach Spurrier. I played late in my career with Hines Ward and Plaxico Burress. There are so many things you can take from guys who played that position.
   
• The one good thing about moving all over the place was playing on a bunch of different offenses with a bunch of great players in the league.
   
• I'm high in John Mateer. When I mentioned that name earlier to Jordan Rodgers, he lit up that position. The fact that he's coming over to a new league, people wonder how he will adjust. He's running the same offense that he ran at Washington State when Ben Arbuckle came over as well. I like when you've been around when a quarterback takes charge in terms of teaching, and guys are all on the same page. All the reports out of spring were that he was in command in terms of running the practice and making sure everyone understood the coaching points.
   
• I'm all in. I said Brent Venables is the Coach of the Year. Oklahoma’s schedule is incredibly difficult. To go 9-3, they would get into the playoffs.
   
• Mike Elko was Jimbo Fisher's first defensive coordinator. You saw him immediately come in as the defensive coordinator and create a style of play on defense, a physical style of defense. You mentioned the running game, and the running of the football can be incredible. They created who they wanted to be as a persona very well.

Key notes from Jordan Rodgers interview

• I tried to use ChatGPT because there’s so much prep we need to do. I’ve tried to use it in the past to prep team packets. You can’t do it. The depth chart at Alabama, they’ll give me guys from previous years. You just can’t use it anymore.
   
• I created my list of top quarterbacks. The guys I'm leaving out are like Taylen Green and Ty Simpson, who I think will be really good players, and Marcel Reed, who’s one of the most physically gifted and talented players, with his ability to run and his arm talent. I had to leave a couple of those guys off, but they could be the top three quarterbacks depending on how they play. I think it’s extremely stacked.
   
• There are some guys getting really hyped, and I don't know. Is Sellers going to step back? I don't know. The pieces around him disappeared. I’ve said the same thing about Manning. I’ve said all week that the hype train is out of control. I think he’s way too hyped for three games against really crappy defenses and one quarter against Georgia, where he looked like a young quarterback and a little like a deer in the headlights. It’s all over the place.
   
• My favorite trait of watching quarterbacks is that you have to have a little... A little something to you. I think he’s got it. You have to play with a little bit of chip and flirt with that line of confidence and cockiness. Especially at a place that didn’t have that at all last year. I was so jealous of Greg McElroy because of how he ranked Mateer No. 1. I wanted to rank him higher. I was concerned about the quality of a few opponents, but this guy... Talk about making something out of nothing. He can throw from every arm angle. His ability to adjust his trajectory on his deep ball, whether it's 30 or 50 yards downfield. I think Mateer’s going to be a really good player. I think it’ll be a little of the Vanderbilt effect, bringing your offensive coordinator and plugging in the system with better talent. He's going to be throwing to guys who were better than Washington State. I’m really high on them, as well.
   
• I’ve loved Elko since he was a defensive coordinator. He’s one of my favorite guys to meet with. I think he’s so real. There’s such a genuine aspect to the way he handles not just media but his players. I love how he navigated a tricky quarterback situation last year. There were a couple of games, like the Missouri game, where they put Conner Weigman back in. That’s a tough job as a head coach.
   
• Calling on Reed and giving him the confidence at the end of last year to be the guy who’ll take you forward. I love the pieces they’ve tried to put around him. I think he’s incredibly talented. The more I talk to Collin Klein about his ability and the way he processes things... I always thought Elko would be successful at Texas A&M. No one’s talking about them. They are extremely talented. The backfield is loaded. They have some pieces. A&M will surprise some people.

Key notes from Drew Fabianich interview

• R.C. Slocum interviewed me for a job at A&M when I was at Baylor, at the time of the Southwest Conference. I think it was a 10-10 down in Aggieland. It might have been Joe Jon Finley, but he was more with Chuck Reedy. I think we had Brad Goebel. We had Robert Francis and Santana Dotson. We had some really good running backs and skill guys like Baylor always does.
   
• When Jim Nagy left his position at the Senior Bowl, I was in, if they were interested. It checks a lot of boxes. Coming from coaching for 17 years and being a GM for three years, I took two days off in three years at West Virginia. The recruiting is 24/7, 365, and you never have time to do anything. You get maybe two weeks off in July. When everything changes, that’s the only time you have to do anything. I love being down south. I love the concept of how much the game means to this city. They’ve embraced it for 76 years. I said this around the table: How many All-Star Games sell out? There’s only one. They take great pride in the game. The whole city and the whole week. They have something going on every month, and nobody really even knows about it. To me, it fits every skillset I’ve built through coaching and the personnel side. I’m a salesman. I’m a recruiter, an evaluator. I’m doing PR. I’m trying to get the hang of it.
   
• The most eye-opening aspect is how much it’s involved in the city. Giving out $5,000 to the high schools for equipment every year. Being involved in the NFL flag football. We’re responsible for that. There’s something going on every month. I thought I’d just be picking players for the Senior Bowl and dealing with agents. This is more of a community-based piece that I didn’t know about until I interviewed with the board. It’s a great piece that not many people know about.
   
• Nagy and I could give each other advice. I said to wait until June. You will have no time and no life in June. You’ll be doing camps on Monday and Tuesday, 7-on-7s on Wednesday and Thursday and official visits Friday through Sunday for the whole month. I told him to be prepared. Now, how do you get these guys on campus, and then how do you talk about NIL deals to them during official visits? He wanted to be part of a team again and be in charge, and I do too. But this is just as big of a team as I want to be a part of. The staff already established by Nagy did a great job. It wasn’t broken at all. I’m just a steward trying to make it better for the players. If we don’t have players, we don’t have a game.
   
• Some of those senior transfers at A&M, I already looked at. I’ll be blunt with you. As soon as A&M came in after I offered, I was like, “I’m good.” I didn’t have the resources for A&M. The haves are still the haves, and the have-nots are still the have-nots. It’s not going to change.
   
• I’ll be honest, when the formal interviews started years ago, and were at 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., I was beat down. I can’t imagine how the players felt. What I’m trying to do is have Monday night be the only night for interviews. The rest will be in the morning. They’ll also get more time with teams for that. We’ll bump practice back 45 minutes each practice, with the last one ending at 6:00. The biggest part of that is now parents can bring kids out to see part of the practice. Parents were still at work, and kids were still in school. Now, they have time to get home and come out. We’d love everybody in the city to come out to the game. But it goes back to the fact that it used to be the NFL Coaches Association kind of convention because they don’t have one. Once those interviews started happening at night, they can’t go see their boys, can’t look for jobs, can’t network and can’t go out to dinner with anyone. Why am I going to go when I can do the same thing at the NFL Combine next week? I’m trying to make it better for everybody, and the biggest piece is players getting time off at night and time with their agents, which was a big complaint. Then the coaches get to go out, and player personnel. That benefits the economy of the city, too. That’s my first imprint. If I make 80 percent happy, I’m thrilled. There will always be someone to complain.
   
• I don’t think the changes in college athletics have changed the Senior Bowl. We’re not going to pay anybody to play in the game. It’s an enormous cost to put on the game, so why would we spend money on players when it’s the first official piece of the draft? You’re playing in a game, not doing the combine, you’re playing ball. You can increase your value exponentially. I keep giving this example of the Grey Zabel from North Dakota State. He was rated as a high third-round pick. He was the 18th pick in the first round on a four-year contract. That’s a $12.7 million difference. Do you want me to pay you $100,000 and come play in a game, or play in a game and have a possibility of making $12.7 million?
   
• What they’re making now is short money. They can make a lot of money in the NFL if they’re good enough. Hopefully, those late-round guys play their way into the fourth round. That’s another $600,000 a year, which is important over a contract period. That’s the type of thing I can sell to the player and the agent. When I brought it up to Kadyn Proctor today, when I met him, he already knew who Zabel was. That’s a good thing. That’s part of what I’m trying to do.

Key notes from Jacob Hester interview

• I’m enjoying the good old talking season and the narratives. I find it fun when there's that one message that we are talking about and the different takes. This year, is the quarterback being good, bad or different? I always enjoy going to y’all. Don't tell others. I try to hide from others, but I have to come to my good friends at TexAgs.
   
• I do 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. CT. I get a four-hour break, then 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. If I don't get done at 5 p.m. I couldn't do it because I'm a dad and I want to be with my kids. If it ended at 6 p.m., it would be more difficult. I get all my stuff done in a four-hour window.
   
• For my Sirius XM show, it's Illinois football, Villanova basketball and Coastal Carolina baseball. I try to talk about the same thing for six hours, but there's no way I can do it. My dad is a Marine, and our mentality was that you can sleep when you're dead. You go to work, do those things. I got it from my dad. I have five kids, and I have to have multiple jobs.
   
• You and I saw each other in the press box, saying, “Okay, Garrett Nussmeier will go pro in the second half. That's some of the worry.”
   
• Sellers is a great question. He feels like he has to be Cam Newton. He was last year, and Raheim Sanders was a good player. If we were in this room and I said, “Give me two South Carolina receivers.” I bet 90 percent couldn't do it. They would be like, “Nyck Harbor.” They wouldn't know the benefits or other weapons. He did it by himself last year, and can he do it again? Newton was one of one. Sellers is different too, but not like Newton, who's one of one. If in November, he is in the Heisman conversation, South Carolina is in the playoff conversation. If he's not? They're not. It's all on him, and they lost a lot on the defense, too.
   
• I know you have one of the best EDGE rushers coming back, but Cal Cannestra was a defensive player in the league. I know he didn't get drafted, but we are talking about college football. He's great.
   
• There are things about South Carolina, but I'm not there as a team just yet because it's so singular in Sellers’ success. I love Lagway, too, but he had 12 touchdowns, nine interceptions and had an injury history. Can he stay healthy? The LSU game was awesome. He came in and changed the game the way he approached it, and he had a flaky hamstring. He had tape around his knee and a theraband to create a hamstring. Now, he's got a shoulder. Can you stay healthy? Can he do it in the SEC? There are a lot of questions and a lot of upside.
   
• If Nussmeier can perform like he did in the first half against Texas A&M, I think he's by far one of the best quarterbacks. That's why I'm saying the intriguing thing is that the teams that have a quarterback are the teams that are in the middle of the pack in the league.
   
• The teams that have been at the top — Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee — are the ones with the biggest questions. What will it do to the league? Will the quarterbacks elevate them to the top, or bring them to the middle and have six teams fight for the top? I think it's exciting because of that quarterback play and the themes that have always been there. We don't know about Gunner Stockton. We don't know if Manning will be great. I think this year, everyone will be closer to each other. Some of these teams have strengths, and some don't have a top strength at quarterback. Maybe it's defense at Georgia. It makes them all the same.
   
• I'm never going to say easy regarding SEC schedules, but who has a more manageable schedule? I like Oklahoma a lot. Cannestra and Mateer have a brutal schedule. They might be better, but only one win shows up on the schedule. A crazy one is Missouri, which doesn't go on the road until October 18. Even the teams they have in the league, their toughest ones, are at home. They don't have the three-game stretch we talk about in the SEC. Missouri has won a lot of games over the years. I know Brady Cook, Luther Burden III and Theo Wease Jr. were there forever. They aren't there anymore, but I believe in Eli Drinkwitz, who got a guy from Penn State, may get big wins. It comes down to scheduling. There are teams like Florida, Auburn and Oklahoma that might be better, but do not show it because of who and when you play.
   
• LSU’s receiver room is talented. They had two first-round picks with the best rookie seasons. You talk about the players. There's more depth. Brian Kelly says, “We aren't going to buy a team, and we aren't going to add to the portal.” Then he goes, "We have to add to the portal, they had wholesale changes this year." From top to bottom, it will be the most talented team. But they have to run the football and play better defense. They did for certain what it was a couple of years ago. If Daniels didn't score, they weren't going to win. They have to get into the top 30 defense situations. It's talented, but it only gets you in the door. What now?
   
• If Reed takes control of this team, he's mature in it, he's a leader, he goes and plays within himself, develops and continues to grow... We saw what he could do, and LSU couldn't stop him. LSU knew what was coming, and it didn't matter. He's got that skillset.
   
• We have an “All-Meathead” team, and Taurean York is on it. I love some of these defenders that they have. I love the front seven. I know Le'Veon Moss and the situation he's in. We know what he can be. I love the player he is, and when he's healthy, he's one of the few backs you can trust in the SEC. It's crazy there's not a lot. It's really him, and if Reed develops, A&M is part of what we are talking about, the same as the LSU and South Carolina conversation. I hate to put that much pressure on one player, but that's what it has to be at A&M next year.
   
• Fisher joins me every season for two hours during the football season. He loves talking football, and people thought he would jump back in. He's happy and content. He's been hunting with his friends in West Virginia for 40 years. When the West Virginia job came open, we were going, “Fisher will jump on this,” but not really. He's content. It's not to say he won't get back in, but I don't think we gave him an outlet every week to get his football thoughts out there. We talked Xs and Os, and we gave him that to talk about it to somebody. That's why I chose this profession myself. I was done and couldn't give the NFL what they needed. I get that here. I get to talk football, Xs and Os and talk about the players I love. As someone who's grateful for him, he gave a guy who looks like me a shot to be a starting running back in the SEC. I owe a lot to Fisher.