This is an opinion column.

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It’s the week of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, but Alabama is in Tampa getting ready for Tuesday’s game with Michigan in something called the ReliaQuest Bowl. It’s the old Outback Bowl for anyone who was wondering. Alabama fans apparently do not. The mailbag is already looking ahead to next season ….

Bill in Huntsville writes …

How much would Jalen Milroe have to be paid by Alabama boosters in order to come back for his senior year and make a run for the Heisman Trophy? Are teams, such as Oregon, Ohio State, and Texas so affluent that they can entice players from going to the NFL and come back for their senior year? Will NIL get to a point where a college player would be taking a pay cut to go to the NFL his senior year?

ANSWER: Milroe should consider returning to Alabama for a discount based on all those interceptions he threw against Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Seems like he still owes the Crimson Tide for a couple wins.

Return on investment has always been part of the equation in college football. These days, it’s just more money. Not only do SEC teams spend millions recruiting players, and providing everyone with resort-like facilities on campus, but boosters have to pony up for the NIL collectives that pay the players, too.

Schools are expected to begin paying players directly beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The salary caps are going to be set at $22 million for athletic departments. Will NIL collectives be going away? We’ll see. I highly doubt it considering how competitive everyone is in the SEC.

It will make more financial sense for some college football players to stay in school for their senior seasons instead of going pro as juniors. Milroe is projected to be a second-day pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. According to estimates, the top second-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft signed for around $9.9 million. The salary range for the top third-round pick was $6.02 million.

Is Alabama prepared to pay Milroe second-round money to stay for his senior season? Probably not.

Keep in mind that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, a second-round pick from the University of Oklahoma, signed for a $6.02 million rookie deal in 2020. His new deal is slightly larger ($255 million).

Hurts transferred from Alabama to Oklahoma for his senior season. Would it benefit Milroe to return to Alabama for his senior season? That’s a choice that Milroe will have to make after the bowl game. It seems like Milroe is ready to enter the NFL Draft, but things could change.

How much is Milroe worth as a senior quarterback? Former Washington State quarterback John Mateer is projected to be the best player in college football in 2025. Mateer reportedly left a seven-figure deal on the table at Wazzu to enter the transfer portal. According to a report, Mateer is getting a $3 million deal to be the quarterback at Oklahoma.

Auburn apparently offered Mateer $1.5 million back in October, according to reporter John Canzano. That’s pretty interesting because Auburn ended up grabbing Oklahoma’s old quarterback (Jackson Arnold) out of the transfer portal.

Is Milroe a better quarterback than Mateer? Is Milroe a better quarterback than Arnold? Not according to the scoreboard. After all, Arnold and Oklahoma upset Alabama 24-3.

GOODMAN: Auburn, Freeze are winning the offseason

Jim in Scottsboro writes …

The Auburn quarterback situation is rather puzzling. Quarterback Walker White absolutely loved Auburn and was an Auburn Man, but unfortunately will be playing for Baylor when they face off against Auburn.

On his way out, the five-star quarterback said that he hoped Baylor would have a clear path for the development that he apparently didn’t get at Auburn. Rarely did Walker get rotations with the first team last season and Auburn so desperately needed an answer to quarterback. I can guarantee that if Deuce Knight gets the same treatment he will be in the portal this coming year.

White, like Bo Nix, loved Auburn but they were forced out because their coaches didn’t use them to their best potential. Why did Hugh Freeze, the so-called quarterback guru, make the same mistake Bryan Harsin did with Nix? At least Harsin played Nix.

The worst-case scenario for Freeze would be to lose to a White-driven offense at Baylor in the first game.

ANSWER: I had high hopes for White at Auburn, too. What happened? College football is changing and quarterbacks like White are caught in the middle of it.

Major colleges like Auburn don’t have time anymore to wait on quarterbacks like White to develop. Freeze needs to win now and he went into the transfer portal and found a starting SEC quarterback (OU transfer Arnold) who is further along in his development. That doesn’t mean that White isn’t going to be a great quarterback in a couple years, though. Let’s not forget that Miami quarterback Cam Ward started his career at Incarnate Word before transferring to Washington State.

Many considered Ward the best college quarterback in 2024.

It’s not fair to compare Freeze to former AU coach Harsin. Freeze is at Auburn during a totally different era of college football. Harsin didn’t even want to pay players at all. Clearly he had to go, and in no way am I giving Harsin any credit for developing Nix.

Nix was a trailblazer in a lot of ways. He needed to transfer out of Auburn to complete his development as a college quarterback. Hopefully Arnold follows that path but with the Tigers.

Freshman Deuce Knight likely needs a year to develop, but he’ll have a chance to win the starting quarterback job at AU this spring. But if Walker White and Baylor upset Auburn in Week 1, then Freeze might not be around for Week 2

Hutto in L.A. writes …

Your columns on Willie Mays and Diego Pavia were great. Having lived in the 50’s and 60’s, I watched the “Say Hey” Kid do remarkable things. Pavia is special! He and his team almost brought down Texas as well.

Last thing, your Daddy won our Golfer of the Year in 2024. He got two beautiful trophies and the CPP Fish. He set them up so his grandkids and kids could see them. He said NO ONE mentioned them. I guess it is time for him to start singing again.

ANSWER: Fake news! Pampa Goodman’s progeny are very proud of his sporting accomplishments down in Lower Alabama. We’re happy to report that Pampa indeed won Golfer of the Year on the Gulf Coast. Ol’ Lefty can still hit’em pretty straight. He shaved some strokes off his handicap this year by improving his short game. When I asked him how he did it, he just gave me a one-word answer: “Practice.”

But Pampa’s talents go beyond the golf course. He’s also a first-rate songwriter and pretty good with a cast net, too.

BE HEARD

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Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”