Donald Trump personally intervened to rescue college football last Friday.
Now a former Auburn coach in the Senate may undo the whole thing.
Ted Cruz only has a few days to get this done before Congress walks out the door for six weeks.
The President Who Stepped In
Nobody asked the President of the United States to fix college sports.
He did it anyway.
Last Friday, White House officials and members of Trump's college sports committee were on the phone working both the SEC and Big Ten – the two conferences that run college football – to drop their opposition and back the Protect College Sports Act.
It worked.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti finally gave their support after months of holding out.
Ted Cruz had spent months building the only version of this legislation that could actually pass – a bipartisan bill with Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell that can hit the 60-vote threshold.
It passed the Commerce Committee 19-9 in June.
Every previous attempt at federal NIL legislation died.
The SCORE Act failed in the House without a floor vote.
State legislatures ran wild, creating 50 different rules for 50 different states.
NIL collectives functioned as unregulated bidding wars where boosters bought rosters in broad daylight with zero enforcement.
The Clock Is Killing This Bill
Here's the problem that nobody wants to say out loud.
Trump got the SEC and Big Ten on board Friday – but senators still hadn't seen the final bill text by Monday afternoon.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune can't start the cloture process on a bill that doesn't officially exist yet.
Cloture takes time – 30 hours of debate minimum after the motion ripens.
The Senate leaves for August recess at the end of this week and doesn't return until September 14.
https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/2084359430854807623?s=20
A Commerce Committee aide told reporters Monday there are real political hurdles to a vote before recess – Russia sanctions, pending nominations, and the CLARITY Act are all competing for floor time.
Cruz told senators directly: stay in Washington until this gets done.
That's where it stands this morning.
What's Actually in the Bill
The final language obtained by Fox News Digital is tougher than the original version.
Schools get a $22.5 million retention pool – separate from the House settlement pool – to keep players who've spent at least one full season at the institution.
Women's and Olympic sports get an additional $5 million.
Conferences cap at 19 member schools – the Big Ten can add one team, the SEC can add three.
Any school jumping from one power conference to another operates as an independent for five years.
The backdoor where schools funneled money to athletes through third-party multimedia partners is now closed – those partners must now certify they aren't acting as a pass-through for the institution itself.
And the Lane Kiffin Rule now has real teeth.
Any head coach who violates the mid-season hiring restriction gets suspended for the subsequent competitive season at the new school.
That's not a fine.
That's a season.
The Former Auburn Coach Standing in the Way
Former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville spent two decades coaching college football.
He loves the sport.
He's also the reason this bill may never get a vote.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2084648561430405306?s=20
Tuberville stood on the Senate floor last month between two display boards and delivered a 15-minute speech calling the Protect College Sports Act "Obamacare 2.0."
His argument: the federal government has no business capping athlete compensation, controlling TV deals, or telling universities how to operate.
He has his own bill – the Student-Athlete Act – that does three things: five years of eligibility, five consecutive years, one penalty-free transfer.
Clean. Simple. No federal machinery.
In a letter to athletic directors, Tuberville made clear that a vote to advance the Cruz bill is a vote for every provision in it – the whole package, not the parts you like.
He has signaled he'll place a hold on the bill to slow its path to the floor.
Here's the thing Tuberville is missing.
His bill can't get 60 votes because it has no Democratic support.
Tuberville's cleaner bill is irrelevant if it never passes.
September Is a Death Sentence
If this bill doesn't move before recess, it probably doesn't move at all.
The Senate returns September 14 with midterm elections eight weeks away.
Every senator calculating a tough reelection race is going to weigh every vote differently when the campaign calendar is running.
College sports don't wait.
Boosters keep writing checks with no enforcement mechanism to stop them.
The transfer portal churns through rosters every offseason with no federal structure governing any of it.
https://twitter.com/TreyWallace/status/2084358686680424729?s=20
The House settlement revenue-sharing model is already in effect – schools are paying athletes right now under a framework Congress had no hand in creating and no power to regulate.
If this bill dies before recess, the next realistic shot is 2027 at the earliest.
That's two more football seasons of chaos that Trump went out of his way to end.
He made the calls. He got the conferences to the table. He did the work Congress couldn't do on its own.
Now one Republican senator is threatening to blow up the only deal that has a chance.
Cruz called this the last, best hope to save college sports.
Tuberville apparently thinks gridlock is better.
Sources:
- Trey Wallace, "Ted Cruz urges Senate to stay in Washington until Protect College Sports Act passes this week," OutKick/Fox News, August 4, 2026.
- "Protect College Sports Act Heads to Senate Floor," U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, July 2026.
- "Cantwell, Cruz, Coons and Schmitt Release Bipartisan Bill to Stabilize College Sports," U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, June 2, 2026.
- "Tommy Tuberville speaks out against Protect College Sports Act, says bill goes too far," On3, June 16, 2026.
- "Tuberville calls Ted Cruz's Protect College Sports Act Obamacare 2.0," Yellowhammer News, June 25, 2026.
- "Senate panel advances college sports bill that SEC, Tuberville opposes," Alabama Daily News, June 19, 2026.
- "Senate releases its 2026 calendar," Roll Call, November 19, 2025.