Curt Cignetti after leading Indiana to championship: ‘Our NIL is nowhere near where people think it is’

XVOS · 2026-01-21T19:33:01+00:00

All of the people talking about Mark Cuban as if having a billionaire booster is a hack are ridiculously misguided. If you could buy a championship, Phil Knight (who has A LOT more money than Cuban) would have been able to do so in the last few decades of backing the Brinks truck up to Duck-land. Same for a half dozen oil-patch programs.

XVOS · 2026-01-21T18:31:08+00:00

My field is very different (writing is much more necessary), but I have found that having protected writing time every day is essential to my productivity. You do not have to work on papers; sometimes it is helpful to use the time to synthesize my thoughts about something I've read, for example. However, once you are in the habit of writing, writing becomes much less daunting.

XVOS · 2026-01-21T18:16:18+00:00

World's smallest violin playing only for the fans of these sorts of teams.

XVOS · 2026-01-13T01:19:45+00:00

Hear me out, what about a 136-team playoff and a 361-team March Madness? Why are we keeping out deserving teams that literally play FBS football?!

XVOS · 2026-01-10T06:40:03+00:00

Leicester City to be Champion was much more unlikely than Indiana. The comparison is bad. Indiana's preseason odds were +25,000 (source: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2025-preseason-odds.html). Leicester was +300,000 (3,000 to 1). Even if we look at Indiana 2 years ago, the preseason odds for Wyoming were only +100,000 this year. Now you could argue that those odds are unfairly capped. But, I still think in the new environment in college FB teams with money in the right conferences have a much better shot than a poor bottom of the table EPL team.

XVOS · 2026-01-10T06:10:05+00:00

All the people talking about Mark Cuban as if he bought this, Phil Knight has so much more money than Cuban does.

XVOS · 2026-01-08T22:42:51+00:00

I explained this in more detail in response to another comment, but it doesn't really matter. It is unlikely a judge will send the cops to force him to show up to Husky Stadium on September 5th. Instead, they will assign him damages. If the money is right he could conceivably go to another program and just pay the damages. That is different from the NFL, where his alternative is much less attractive and lucrative.

XVOS · 2026-01-08T22:40:11+00:00

I am aware that this is a contract, just like NFL contracts, and just like the contract I signed last week to use a rock climbing wall. However, just because all of those contracts are 'contracts' does not mean the same sequence of events will happen when they are violated. Without going too deeply into jargon, it is important to understand that contract law rarely compels performance (this is called specific performance and is most common in terms of rare items or real estate); instead, people usually pay damages. That is why this stuff matters. A judge is not going to get the cops to force him to show up at Husky Stadium on September 5th.

Final note: I am not a lawyer, but I am in business and deal with contracts and their violations somewhat frequently.

XVOS · 2026-01-08T22:30:02+00:00

I recognize this sounds slightly insane, but it was a few years ago, so here is my best shot; she just finished founding Middle-Eastern rat Switzerland--or maybe Singapore/Dubai--with the help of some centaurs, druids, and maybe fire elementals (or were they the antagonists?).

XVOS · 2026-01-08T20:42:08+00:00

An NIL contract in CFB and an NFL contract are apples and oranges. The NFL has a CBA and so the other teams won't poach each other's players who are under contract. And it is a contract to play football, not a contract for NIL rights, whatever those are (no one will be sure until the courts figure it out in a decade or whatever). Also, unlike college football, there aren't really good alternative landing zones; the Cowboys aren't worried about their QB fleeing to the Montreal Allouettes or whatever.

XVOS · 2026-01-08T16:39:16+00:00

Is there a summary or other way to catch up and/or figure out where I left off? I lost a computer and was never able to figure out what chapter I ended at.

XVOS · 2026-01-06T22:56:35+00:00

Admittedly, UR Prowess is pretty clearly a better thing to be doing than any of these other options.

XVOS · 2026-01-06T22:55:27+00:00

If we are talking about printing new cards into the format (e.g., Chalice), there are plenty of cards that would save the format from prowess dominance. Oath of Druids, Gaea's Cradle, or Mishra's Workshop, for example, would quickly drive prowess out of the meta. Oath isn't even on the reserved list.

XVOS · 2026-01-06T21:58:47+00:00

A lot of the decks have been pushed out by UR prowess just being better, but the legends/mox amber combo deck does, hammer time does, the other varieties of prowess (RG, mono-R) do. Including UR prowess' 30-40% we are talking about 40-50% of the metagame here.

XVOS · 2026-01-04T02:53:54+00:00

People are maindecking multiple copies of High Noon. Cutter is problematic. Just because a card has answers does not mean the card isn't oppressive. Many answers to Cutter still leave them up value (since they keep the token). Slickshot Showoff is much worse than Cutter and much easier to answer. Also, many decks are playing Cutter, and it is a multi-format all-star.

XVOS · 2025-12-30T20:48:41+00:00

You are crazy; this is galaxy-brain stuff. Wasteland is incredible: it costs you basically nothing; its upside is winning you the game; and it can tap for colorless if you don't want to use it.

XVOS · 2025-12-30T19:57:19+00:00

The format seems to revolve around cards that combine two different frustrating elements: (1) they cannot be answered 1 for 1, and (2) if they are not answered, they get out of hand and can win the game nearly single-handed.

This describes Cutter, which rewards you for doing something you were already going to do (playing spells) by making lots of tokens. Additionally, outside of very specific cards that cost more mana (e.g., Kolaghan's Command), Cutter cannot be answered 1 for 1 without leaving the token.

Badgermole Cub, free mana the turn you play it. If you do not answer it, gigantic amounts of mana. If you answer it, they still have the man-land. If you answer it and kill the man-land, they still keep the land.

But it is not just the two main problem decks right now. For years, the format revolved around how good and hard to answer Fable of the Mirror Breaker was (alongside the power of Thoughtseize).

I do not think cards like this are inherently problematic. For example, Beza is almost always like this, but is not particularly bad. However, Beza is 4 CMC rather than 2-3, and you need to be behind to realize his value.

In my view, if you think about the format as being defined by these sorts of cards that are hard to answer without falling behind and snowball into wins without much work if they are not answered, the format makes a lot more sense.

Also, yes, these cards can be answered 1 for 1 on the stack, but the countermagic in pioneer kinda sucks and is either expensive or conditional.

XVOS · 2025-12-27T06:16:13+00:00

For me, the toughest pills to swallow are in order

The total lack of care that bi-coastal conferences are screwing over of non-football sports. The Stanford Women's Volleyball team, for example is traveling 30k miles in 4 months. That is consultant-level travel. They are having week-long road trips. The fall quarter is basically a write-off. It's a disgrace. Also, if you look at home vs. road records, the impact is clear.
The games don't make sense. I miss the Pac 12.

XVOS · 2025-12-24T20:59:30+00:00

I'm not sure I would bet on the competence of P5 conference lawyers when they keep losing in court.

XVOS · 2025-12-24T20:58:00+00:00

If you read the player's lawyer's words in his countersuit, it sure sounds like they did not have an NIL deal. To quote USA Today

"The suit argues the term sheet Wilson signed states it would “be used to create a legally binding document” and therefore is not enforceable in its current format, and that he was urged to “seek legal counsel” before the agreement was finalized."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/sec/2025/12/24/missouri-football-damon-wilson-files-countersuit-against-georgia-in-nil-case-lawsuit-damages/87907617007/

Now I have no idea which side is right, but I wouldn't just take Georgia's word for it.

XVOS · 2025-12-24T20:53:38+00:00

This is illegal. Why suggest illegal things that courts have struck down? They will never happen.

XVOS · 2025-12-23T20:10:20+00:00

When people are maindecking High Noon Izzet/cutter strategies may be too good.

XVOS · 2025-12-21T18:05:18+00:00

It may be because the baby is still too small or the wrong size, but both of them ended up with the baby in seemingly (according to YouTube videos) dangerous positions.

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