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ROSEMONT, Ill. -- The Big Ten announced the expansion of its player availability reporting process for the 2026 college football season Friday, requiring teams to submit four reports per week instead of one for games matching conference opponents.
Schools will submit availability reports beginning three days before a contest and concluding with a gameday report. For a Saturday game, reports would be due by 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and two hours before the scheduled kickoff on Saturday.
Midweek status designations will identify players as probable, questionable, doubtful, out or out for the first half. Gameday reports will include three categories: game-time decision, out and out for the first half. Players not listed on a report are considered available.
Because of travel party limitations, visiting teams will indicate the availability status of players who were part of the travel squad or were not part of the travel squad but are (or have been) included in the two-deep on offense, defense, or special teams or otherwise regularly participate in games.
The policy applies for competition against conference opponents only, with the first reports of the season due in advance of the Southern California-Rutgers and Purdue-UCLA games on Sept. 19. Availability reports will be published on BigTen.org.
The Big Ten began requiring availability reports in 2023.
Pitt picks captains
PITTSBURGH -- Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi announced the four Panthers who will serve as team captains for the 2026 season: sophomore quarterback Mason Heintschel, fifth year offensive lineman Ryan Baer, senior linebacker Braylan Lovelace and senior defensive back Cruce Brookins.
The captains were selected by a vote of their teammates. Heintschel is believed to be Pitt's first true sophomore captain in the modern era of Pitt Football. The program's known sophomore captains (Tyler Palko in 2004, Lousaka Polite in 2001 and Alex Van Pelt in 1990) were all redshirt sophomores.
Rule put on hold
Two days after the Southeastern Conference passed a rule barring players from returning to the league from the pros, a Texas judge put that rule on hold Thursday in a case involving more than 40 players.
It was the latest piece of news in what has turned into a breakneck week of legal wrangling over the NCAA's new five-year eligibility rule. The rule does not apply to college players who exhausted their fourth year of eligibility last spring; many are suing across the country for that fifth year.
"As long as they would have been eligible to continue playing college sports in the following semester if they had a fifth year of eligibility, they are eligible today," Dallas County Judge Martin Hoffman wrote in the temporary restraining order.
Two of the plaintiffs are former SMU receiver Jordon Hudson of the Cowboys and former Miami linebacker Wesley Bissainthe of the Chiefs. Neither played in the SEC, though the judge ordered the NCAA to open the transfer portal for a week, meaning either could play for a new school if one wanted to sign them.
The order said nothing of the other Power 4 Conferences, all of which have passed similar rules that went beyond the NFL to include basketball as well. The Atlantic Coast Conference became the last of the four to pass a rule Thursday. The Mountain West, a Group of Six conference, passed a similar prohibition hours after the ACC announcement.
This lawsuit named the NCAA, the SEC and its commissioner, Greg Sankey, as defendants.
At least two players who signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents this offseason were hoping to play for No. 11 LSU.