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I wondered when someone would notice. There are a lot of games at night now. So many that it might be smart to…

Fox will have its best game of the day will be at noon every Saturday.

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) May 13, 2019

…yeah, that. Michigan should feature frequently in that slot, and as a person who likes to get home and see the end of the 3:30 games and then the night games I'm all about that. If your priority is encompassing all the madness of a college football Saturday, noon is the slot for you.

Doing the math. Numbers from the new media rights deal:

Big Ten had nearly $759 million in revenue in FY18, new federal tax return shows. That's up from nearly $513 million last year. It's also $100 million more than amount SEC reported for FY18: https://t.co/Xs4icAPcAG

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) May 15, 2019

That is 13.7 million per school. Michigan could pay every one of their approximately 700 scholarship athletes 20k a year based on this jump alone. If restricted to the ~100 players on the two main revenue sports that's 140k a year.

Nico Collins under the microscope. Combining Josh Gattis with this guy could be shades of Allen Robinson and Chris Godwin:

Hail Warinner. To go from last year to this is incredible.

Here are the highest-graded returning pass blockers along B1G interior offensive lineman. pic.twitter.com/zKK66BFfsU

— PFF College (@PFF_College) May 9, 2019

Find a tackle and Michigan's set to be a lethal passing attack.

[After THE JUMP: UCLA is incredible]

What to expect from up-transfers. Since basketball is (hopefully) going to have one or two on next year's roster:

The average immediately eligible "up-transfer" (transferring to a stronger program) decreased in usage rate from 21.1% the previous season to 16.8% this season. The average immediately eligible "down-transfer" increased from 17.0% to 21.0% pic.twitter.com/jkeIVNrEe1

— Jordan Sperber (@hoopvision68) May 15, 2019

Subtract 4 usage points and you turn a go-to star into a slightly above-average guy; a guy slightly above average is going to be a role player.

Don't tell him. Teddy Greenstein is a funny guy sometimes. Here's his recruiting pitch for JJ McCarthy to Northwestern:

7. The family knows the recent history with the two programs.

Fitzgerald favors stability and loyalty. Clayton Thorson started every game for the Wildcats the last four years, and Fitzgerald declined to take a graduate transfer after Thorson blew out his knee in the 2017 Music City Bowl.

Harbaugh favors a “meritocracy” and has started five quarterbacks during that span, including three transfers (Jake Rudock, John O’Korn and Shea Patterson). Wilton Speight and Brandon Peters transferred out, and Dylan McCaffrey and Joe Milton are believed to be breathing down Patterson’s neck.

Here's an "18 things to know" article by Greenstein about Hunter Johnson, the QB who transferred from Clemson to… Northwestern. Dude is so transparent you could make windows out of him.

The LloydRod. UCLA basketball is in such a shambles that they're in danger of falling below the APR line of doom:

UCLA’s past four single-year scores under former coach Steve Alford:

2015: 942
2016: 907
2017: 977
2018: 905
Four-year average: 933

In the multi-year score announced next spring, UCLA’s 942 will drop out of the calculation and be replaced by the Bruins’ single-year score for the 2018-19 academic year.

Based on the Hotline’s rudimentary math skills, the Bruins would drop below the postseason cutoff (930) if their single-year score is 928 or lower.

You may remember a period on this blog where the annual APR release was met with an image of Hitchcockian flying books because Michigan put up an astoundingly bad 880-something when the program transitioned from Carr to Rodriguez. (Who was at fault? Everybody.) That was towards the beginning of the APR regime and a bit more understandable than a major athletic department approaching the Line of Doom a dang decade later.

This has nothing to do with early departures. Kentucky has posted a perfect APR for five straight years by getting their players through a few credits worth of Banjo Appreciation before they head off to the league. It's straight up not paying attention. It's hard to believe Dan Guerrero still has a job.

It's time. College basketball seems likely to go to the international three point line. They tried it in the NIT:

Teams in the 2019 NIT averaged 23.1 field goal attempts in the tournament from behind the arc, compared with 22.8 3-point attempts in the 2018-19 regular season. The 3-point shooting percentage of teams in the 2019 NIT was 33%, compared with their regular season average of 35.2%.

When the line was moved before the 2008-09 season, the distance went from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 feet, 9 inches. The percentage of 3-point shots made during that season compared with the previous season declined from 35.2% to 34.4%. The percentage of made 3-point field goals steadily increased back to 35.2% in Division I by the 2017-18 season.

It's good to keep the value of a three pointer around 1 PPP since ventures inside the line return about that much. Keeping the line where it is threatens to drain variety out of offensive possessions.

They're also going to reset the shot clock to 20 after an OREB, which is fine.

Let's try to do the bare minimum to stave off legislation. It's plan A in the NCAA's rulebook. And after a smattering of state-level bills and one federal one that seek to restore name and image rights to college athletes, the NCAA is grudgingly looking at heading those off at the pass. This panel is literally called the "oh no legislation" group:

The NCAA president and Board of Governors appointed a working group to examine issues highlighted in recently proposed federal and state legislation related to student-athlete name, image and likeness.

The NCAA Board of Governors Federal and State Legislation Working Group will be made up of member representatives from all three NCAA divisions.

They've got a tricky path if this is their goal:

According to the board, the group will not consider any concepts that could be construed as payment for participation in college sports. The NCAA’s mission to provide opportunity for students to compete against other students prohibits any contemplation of pay-for-play.

They'll have to construe payments for participation that come from car dealerships and the local Piggly Wiggly as something else.

The real question everyone wants an answer to. ESPN is aware:

Does this put college sports video games back on the table?

Bob Bowlsby, who's on the commission, offered up some wishy-washy quotes about it:

"There, again, depending on the architecture, they might be able to be answered successfully and in ways that would favor student-athletes. On the other hand, dependent upon the structure it could be that it's not going to be.

"I don't think it's possible to answer the question with any precision right now. Those are certainly topics that will get discussed."

On the surface it is insane. EA wants to make the game. People want to buy it. Presumably the players want to get paid for it. But because the NCAA is what it is, nobody gets anything.

The likely opposition here is that if the compensation doesn't go through the NCAA either EA has to individually negotiate with every player they want to put in the game—impractical—or go through some umbrella organization. That umbrella organization is going to collectively bargain for its members and then all of a sudden the NCAA has a union.

So, no, video games are probably not back on the table.

It's a movement! Yes. It spreads. The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn on changes he'd make to the NHL:

5. No offsides (on zone entries)

Those who have followed me for a while know I’ve been a staunch supporter of the End Offsides movement. If it’s a no to 4-on-4 hockey (having both would be overkill), then the next best solution toward freeing up space is allowing players to enter the zone freely without the puck. Again, I’ve written about this before for The Hockey News, and I think the positives far outweigh the drawbacks. Offside was created in 1930 to counter the forward pass, but all it does now is clog up the neutral zone (something no one but the coaches like watching) and limit offence. It hinders creativity, and taking it out would give players much more space with the puck. It’s an archaic rule that serves no beneficial purpose to the modern NHL.

Worries about cherry-picking are ill-founded since the two line pass still exists and would prevent someone passing from the defensive zone to the offensive zone. Offsides does nothing to improve the game.

Etc.: Mike Danna might be good. The Beilein era visualized. Didn't take long for the Big Ten to change its tune on playoff expansion.