Sconnies Speak

Author: emwise2

  • Why College Football Needs a Trade System Like the NFL

    By Bryan Sanborn

    College football has changed. Rivals and traditions still exist, but it’s becoming more and more like a business. NIL deals, conference realignment, and the explosion of the transfer portal have turned the sport into a chaotic marketplace. While player freedom is a good thing, the current transfer system is too unstructured to work long-term. That’s why it’s time for something bold: a trade system for college football. 

    Right now, the transfer portal looks a lot like NFL free agency, except with even fewer rules. Players can hop from school to school, often without sitting out, and schools lose talent without getting anything in return. Coaches are constantly re-recruiting their players, and fans must re-learn half the roster every offseason. It’s hard to build continuity when you’re never sure who’s sticking around. 

    A trading system wouldn’t stop players from transferring; it would add structure. 

    If a player at a Power Four school wants to leave, you should allow the school to try to trade to get someone in return. The player gets a new opportunity, and the school doesn’t lose out completely. 

    This isn’t about punishing players for transferring. It’s about giving schools a way to manage their rosters more effectively—and protect themselves from being gutted every December. Like in the NFL, trade deals could include added value beyond player-for-player swaps. NIL packages could be factored into negotiations, or academic perks could be part of the deal, like getting into a grad program. 

    People will argue that this would make college football “too professional,” but let’s not pretend it isn’t already. The money is massive, the coaching salaries are crazy, and the media deals are billions. The difference is that NFL teams have rules like contracts, salary caps, and trade deadlines that bring stability. College football is trying to play a pro-level game with backyard rules. 

    In 2022, Pitt lost star receiver Jordan Addison to USC via the portal. The move was legal, but Pitt got nothing in return. That’s a top player walking out the door with zero compensation. Under a trading system, maybe Pitt gets a starting player in return and some NIL consideration in exchange. The roster stays balanced, the player receives his move, and the sport avoids more offseason chaos. 

    Would there be kinks to work out? Absolutely. Compliance, academic eligibility, and power dynamics between big and small schools would need control. 

    However, the NCAA has shown it’s willing to change. We can figure out how to allow structured trades if we already have early signing periods, NIL collectives, and a 12-team playoff. Other sports, like college baseball, already have more transfer restrictions. Football can do this, too.

    The fans of these teams also want consistency from the players. They want to buy jerseys and know the player will be around for over one season. A trading system gives more transparency and could make the offseason more exciting. Imagine ESPN trade trackers in college football—deadline day drama, last-minute swaps, and strategic roster-building. It sounds wild, but so did NIL deals a few years ago.

    At the end of the day, college football is only going to get more unpredictable. With TV deals and player empowerment growing yearly, we need systems that protect the sport’s competitive balance. A trading system wouldn’t take away player rights—it would give players and schools more clarity, structure, and fairness. 

    It’s time for college football to start being like the NFL. A trading system won’t fix everything, but it’s a step toward construction in a sport that is getting crazier and crazier every day.

  • The Brewers’ Blueprint to Success with a Low Payroll

    By Matthew Ramthun

    In Major League Baseball, the trend in recent years has been clear: to win, you have to spend. And spend big. If you look at teams that consistently win and make the playoffs every year, you’ll find high-spending franchises like the Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies, Astros, and Braves—all of whom rank in the top 10 in payroll this year, according to FanGraphs.

    When it comes to winning the World Series, the correlation between spending and success is even stronger. In 2024, the Dodgers won with the 8th-ranked payroll (a rank that’s a bit misleading due to the large amount of deferred money on their books). In 2023, it was the Rangers with the 4th-ranked payroll. The 2022 Astros ranked 8th, and the 2021 Braves were 10th. According to Sportrac, there hasn’t been a World Series champion without a top 10 payroll since the 2017 Astros.

    One team that has been defying the odds and finding consistent success despite a low payroll is the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ve made the playoffs in five of the past six seasons while maintaining a payroll in the bottom half of the league each year. So, how do the Brewers manage to compete? What’s their blueprint?

    Trades.

    The Brewers make the most of their limited resources by making smart trades—both acquiring key players and dealing away stars they can’t afford to re-sign.

    The trade that kicked off this successful stretch came when the Brewers acquired Christian Yelich from the Marlins. It was a landslide win for Milwaukee. The players sent to Miami were underwhelming at best. The best player the Marlins received in the trade was Lewis Brinson, who hasn’t played in the majors since 2022, and owns a career-high batting average of just .226. 

    Meanwhile, Yelich went on to win the NL MVP immediately after the trade and nearly repeated the feat the following year. He’s been the team’s cornerstone player ever since—and one of the few players the Brewers have invested significant money in.

    Another major win came when they acquired All-Star catcher William Contreras before the 2023 season. Contreras has since turned in back-to-back stellar seasons, finishing 11th in MVP voting in 2023 and 5th last year. Who might the Brewers have given up for him? Esteury Ruiz, who was recently cut from the Oakland A’s 40-man roster after a couple of underwhelming seasons. To add insult to injury, the Brewers also acquired Joel Payamps—a key piece of their bullpen.

    The Brewers have also made a habit of trading away players they know they won’t be able to afford. While these trades may not always favor the Brewers, it’s better to receive some sort of compensation for players they know they would lose for nothing in free agency. In recent seasons, the Brewers have traded away high-quality players like Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, and Devin Williams.

    The Hader trade, at the time, was bad for the Brewers—arguably costing them a playoff spot that year. However, they received two key players: Robert Gasser, a top pitching prospect who impressed before an injury, and Esteury Ruiz, who was later flipped in the deal that landed Contreras and Payamps.

    In the Corbin Burnes trade, the Brewers received DL Hall, Joey Ortiz, and a competitive balance first-round draft pick from the Orioles. Hall showed promise despite being injured much of the year, and Ortiz had a solid rookie season as Milwaukee’s starting third baseman, hitting .239 while playing great defense.

    As for the Devin Williams trade? Jury’s still out. 

    However, the Brewers received former All-Star Nestor Cortez and promising prospect Caleb Durbin from the Yankees. Despite his smaller stature, Durbin hit .275 and hit 10 home runs in the minors last season.

    One notable player the Brewers have not traded away, despite his contract expiring, was star shortstop Willy Adames. Having learned a hard lesson from the Hader trade, the Brewers opted to keep Adames to avoid destabilizing the team mid-season.

    But, of course, Adames himself was originally acquired via trade—a deal they also clearly won when they picked him up from the Rays in 2021.

    By trading away high-value players before they walk in free agency, the Brewers have been able to retool their roster with key pieces. They’ve also been able to utilize trades to acquire key players, while giving up a minimal amount in return. 

    How will the Brewers’ strategy of flipping players to stay lean work out this year?

    My guess is pretty well. But only time will tell.

  • ‘Confidence is earned’: How LOVB Madison bounced back in their first season

    By Gabriella Hartlaub

    Six weeks into its inaugural season, the Professional Volleyball team LOVB Madison found itself at a crossroads. One of six clubs to participate in the first season of League One Volleyball (or LOVB), LOVB Madison is a team steeped in the volleyball culture that starts with the Wisconsin Badgers Women’s Volleyball team. Only the Badgers won a national championship in 2021, and six weeks into the season, LOVB Madison stared down an eight-game losing streak. 

    The team’s last win had come weeks earlier against LOVB Salt Lake, a five-set match that LOVB Madison won 3-2. It was their first win of the season, and for the first half of LOVB’s inaugural matches, it remained their only win. 

    “We just have to be better volleyball players,” Coach Matt Fuerbringer said in a post-game press conference on February 16th.  

    The losing streak was characterized by losses to each of the five other LOVB teams, in sets of three, four, and five. The last loss came in the inaugural Love Classic, an in-season tournament for all six clubs. Madison lost 1-3 to LOVB Salt Lake City, leaving the team at the bottom of the tournament with a record of 0-2. 

    “We get to go home next week, and we’re gonna get some W’s,” Fuerbringer said on February 21st, after another loss to LOVB Houston. 

    LOVB Madison snapped their streak in the very next game.

    LOVB Madison Logo / Photo Courtesy of LOVB Madison

    League One Volleyball, founded in 2020, has always had its eyes on creating a professional volleyball league. Its founders started with the idea of building up to a professional league through partnerships with youth teams to develop players into professional athletes. At the time of its creation, it would’ve been the first attempt at a women’s pro volleyball circuit in the United States since 1985. However, before LOVB could host its inaugural season, the Pro Volleyball Federation had theirs in the winter of 2024. 

    The two are easily confusable—and even host teams in the same cities—but have stark differences. For LOVB, the focus is on the communities in which the teams are headquartered, to the point of avoiding specific team names altogether. Each team is simply referred to as LOVB, and the name of the city in which the team primarily plays.

    “The biggest thing for LOVB is wanting to attach the community and the fans to the team directly, like, this is your team,” Lauren Carlini, Olympic medalist and setter for LOVB Madison, said. 

    Carlini, a Wisconsin alumnus, is one of LOVB’s founding athletes. These athletes, all Olympic medalists in the sport, were the first team members announced for their respective franchises and serve on a council that advises owners about player needs. 

    “We’re trying to make history, and we’re trying to be a part of something bigger than ourselves,” Calrini said of the league’s first season. 

    For Carlini and others, this is the first chance they have had to play volleyball professionally without having to go overseas, which gives them more time to spend with their families close to home. 

    Carlini is not the only former Badger involved with the LOVB Madison team. Former Wisconsin players Temi Thomas-Ailara and Sarah Franklin are currently on the team’s roster, and Director of Volleyball Operations Annemarie Hickey is a former player and assistant coach at Wisconsin.

    LOVB Madison Setter Lauren Carlini / Photo Courtesy of LOVB Madison

    Led by Annie Drew-Shumacher’s 23 kills, LOVB Madison snapped their eight-game losing streak with a 3-1 victory over LOVB Omaha. Weeks earlier, after a loss to Salt Lake City, Drew-Shcumacher said, “You learn a lot more from losing than you do from winning.” 

    That seemed to hold as LOVB Madison lost the first set to Omaha but came back with force to take the remainder of the sets. Starring alongside Drew-Shumacher was Milica Medved, who logged 33 attacks on receptions. 

    “I think what people didn’t see was the strength that our girls had behind that,” Annemarie Hickey, Director of Volleyball Operations, said. “We [had] a lot of things that were happening behind the scenes, like we had really hard travel, and just every little thing that could go wrong was going wrong.” 

    Hickey credits the team’s second-half comeback to the work ethic of not only the players, but also the coaches and team staff. She said that the team added an extra morning practice so that players could get more chances to touch the ball and build confidence in their style of play. 

    “I always tell them that confidence is earned,” Hickey said. “So when they were in the gym and they were really earning that confidence, you could see that their play became better.” 

    LOVB Madison’s season ended in April 2025, with a loss to LOVB Omaha in the championship quarterfinals. The first-ever team to win the LOVB Volleyball finals was LOVB Houston, but Carlini, Hickey, and the LOVB Madison team have big plans for next season. 

    “I think we’re going to see just some different looks in the arenas and the jerseys and just the in-arena experience,” Carlini said. “We’re just going to take it to the next level.” 

    “I think we’ve done a great job, but I think there’s so much more ceiling that we can hit,” Hickey said. She acknowledged that the Alliant Energy Center isn’t going to be around forever and hopes that LOVB Madison can eventually have their own arena to play in. “It’s really exciting. I think that we have a great community for it.” 

    For now, Carlini is looking forward to her first official offseason as a professional volleyball player: “​​I don’t really plan on touching a volleyball for a while.”

  • Wisconsin Volleyball: Underdogs on the Rise

    By Natalie Compe

    After one of the biggest roster turnarounds in program history, the Wisconsin Badgers have started their spring season. Underestimate them at your own risk. 

    At the close of the 2024 season, the Badgers had a handful of key players move on from Wisconsin, including Julia Orzol, Caroline Crawford, Sarah Franklin, Anna Smrek, Devyn Robinson, and Gulce Guctekin. Almost all moved on to play pro, while a few transferred to continue their collegiate careers at other schools. 

    Despite losing nearly their entire 2024 starting lineup, the Wisconsin Badgers aren’t backing down. Emerging leadership, raw talent, and an undeniable hunger to prove themselves are already shaping a promising new era.

    Not only were the lost players a huge factor in the team’s success, but they also accounted for a ton of height in the front row. Smrek: 6’9, Franklin: 6’4, Crawford: 6’3—all dominant powerhouses. This year’s team is much smaller in comparison, which means the Badgers will need a returning player, 6’7 middle blocker Carter Booth, to utilize both her experience and height. 

    The new team consists of only three returning “starters”. 10 out of 13 players are freshmen, so it is essential that the returning players provide leadership on and off the court. With the help of Oregon transfer Mimi Colyer, whose experience has already shone, the Badgers are already building a foundation for success.

    On April 16th against Marquette, Colyer contributed an impressive 14 kills, with freshman Madison Quest trailing with 12. While Quest usually plays on the outside, in the past three spring season games Wisconsin head coach Kelly Sheffield has challenged her to play on the right side—making a huge impact. 

    In a post-game interview, Sheffield explained how much he enjoys coaching Quest, since she is so eager to learn. “Even if we threw her in to play middle or setter, she would ask no questions, and just play to the best of her ability,” said Sheffield.

    Against Marquette, the Badgers hit an impressive .337—far higher than their .286 team average last fall. Although it’s just one match, recent results show an upward trend: a .237 hitting percentage in their spring opener, .274 against Green Bay, and now .337 against Marquette.

    Yet, the Badgers will be seen as underdogs this fall—and that’s exactly what will fuel their rise. They’ll acknowledge these accusations and strive to prove they’re more than just a young team. Their individual talent is powerful, and even though they lack experience and height, this team will be known for their resilience and determination.  

    Inexperienced? Maybe. Ready to prove you wrong? Absolutely. The Big Ten will soon see that Wisconsin came to play and will only thrive in the years to come.

  • Still Golden: Why You Can’t Count Out the Warriors 

    By Deanna Frater

    To many, this was just a play-in game for the Warriors. But to some, it was a flashback—and a warning. 

    Many fans have counted out Stephen Curry and the Warriors, claiming they’ve aged out of relevance. Yet, the team still secured a win against the Memphis Grizzlies Tuesday night (121-116). The Warriors managed to remind the league and fans why experience will always be one of the most dangerous assets a franchise can have in the postseason. 

    But no one is saying the game was pretty. 

    The Warriors almost blew their 20-point lead, letting Memphis back into the game. The Grizzlies were pressing forward, and both Curry and Butler took that personally. Butler led the way with 38 points, and Curry followed close behind (37). 

    Though the game was chaotic at times, it showed that the NBA still has the grit and thrill factor that enthralled fans decades ago. Above all, it was proof that even though Golden State isn’t the league’s top seed anymore, they’re still built for the moments that matter most. 

    The Core Clock Still Ticks 

    One of the key takeaways from this game is that the Warriors’ core, led by Curry (and now Butler), still knows how to close. Even in moments when it seemed as if the pendulum was swinging in Memphis’ favor, Golden State kept its cool. That level of composure isn’t just rare—it’s earned. 

    Curry’s late-game dominance was about more than making shots, it was about controlling the rhythm of the game. Sure, the Grizzlies had speed and athleticism. But the Warriors had control. 

    And if six rings for the Warriors tells you anything, it’s that control matters most.

    The Long Game

    That being said, only two players outside of Curry and Butler were able to score in the double digits—Gary Payton II and Quinten Post. Though this performance may have won the Warriors this game, it won’t hold up in a seven-game series against a team like the Houston Rockets. 

    If the Warriors want to keep progressing this postseason, they’ll need more consistency from players like Jonathan Kuminga and Jaylen Wells. The league is getting undeniably younger, faster, and deeper by the year—and truthfully, Golden State has very little margin for error. 

    Underdog Energy Still Reigns Supreme

    Right now, the Warriors are in a space they haven’t been in since before their dynasty days: the underdog position. 

    There’s something dangerous within that. Maybe it’s the weight of legacy or the mutual respect between Curry and Butler, because Curry is playing for more than just to make the playoffs. He’s playing to add another chapter to an already legendary career and the heritage of the Warriors franchise. 

    Critics will say the Warriors barely scraped past the Grizzlies—and that’s fair. But winning ugly is still winning. If the play-in has taught us anything, it’s that Golden State still knows how to survive. And survival is the name of the game. 

    Golden State Shines On

    Though the NBA has proven to be a league that prioritizes what’s next over what’s proven, the Warriors serve as a reminder that championship DNA doesn’t just fade overnight. 

    They may not be the most explosive or the youngest team left in the postseason, but they’re certainly the most experienced. When the game slows down and every possession matters, that might just be enough. 

    You can go ahead and bet on teams with young and flashy players, but don’t be surprised when Golden State proves they’ll forever shine on.