Times of Troy: How will USC allocate the $20.5 million it can pay its athletes?

Welcome once again to an offseason edition of the Times of Troy newsletter. We return to you at the dawn of a new era in college athletics, one that USC and its leaders have promised they will win … if the lawyers don’t first.

The House settlement was at long last approved earlier this month by a federal judge, ushering in a world where college athletes will be paid directly by their schools and all of college sports problems are solved overnight!

… just kidding! There are more of those than ever!

USC, like most of its power conference peers, plans to pay out the maximum of $20.5 million that’s permitted by the settlement, the vast majority of which — around $15 million or so — will go to the football program. But the approach to allocating the rest, and securing third-party NIL outside of the cap, is likely to differ wildly from school to school.

USC has not yet shared specifics of how it plans to allocate that money, but in her recent State of Troy address, athletic director Jennifer Cohen noted that USC would be “increasing investment” in all 23 of its programs. That investment, The Times has since clarified, will include either direct payments to players from the $20.5-million revenue-sharing pool, an increase in the program’s number of funded scholarships or a combination of the two.

Each of USC’s 23 athletic programs, in other words, will benefit from the advent of revenue sharing in one of those three ways. UCLA, on the other hand, has taken a different approach by announcing that it will not add any additional scholarships and instead divide all of that $20.5 million among its individual athletes.

We can safely assume USC won’t stray all that far from the formula put forth last year when the settlement received preliminary approval. That model called for 75% of the cap set aside for football, 15% for men’s basketball and 5% for women’s basketball, while the other 5% would be split up among the rest of the school’s programs.

That remaining 5% to 10%, set aside for non-revenue sports, is where strategy will come into play. Newly funded scholarships still count against the cap, up to $2.5 million, and still cost the university real money. USC won’t just add them indiscriminately.

Adding a scholarship could make a more significant difference than cutting a check. But it also means less to directly pay athletes who are looking for checks.

Take the beach volleyball team, for example. When I spoke with coach Dain Blanton a year ago, on the way to their fourth consecutive national title, he told me funding for additional, beach-only scholarships would be a game-changer. And for a sport such as beach volleyball that’s unlikely to deal with regular NIL bidding wars, adding scholarships makes more strategic sense than it does in other sports.

USC baseball also makes for an interesting test case. Some top-flight baseball programs — mostly from the Southeastern Conference — will choose to invest millions in paying their baseball players directly. Some, meanwhile, might decide to fund 20-plus additional scholarships from the previously allotted total of 11.7. The new scholarship limit for baseball programs is now 34, leaving a ton of wiggle room.

USC isn’t going to fund that many scholarships. Nor is the school likely to funnel all of its remaining cap — after football and basketball — into the baseball program, no matter how many national titles it has won. So how does its baseball program keep up with the Joneses?

Those vast differences in strategy are going to have ripple effects, especially in a sport such as baseball, where some programs will be much more well funded than others.

“Parity is probably going to be lost somewhat [in college baseball],” USC baseball coach Andy Stankiewicz told me. “Some programs are probably going to fund up to 30 or more. And then some other programs probably aren’t even going to fund 11.7. That’s what’s kind of lost in all of this.”

There’s still so much we don’t know about how USC will approach this new era of revenue sharing. Could it follow a similar approach to Ohio State, which plans to directly pay athletes in just four sports, while adding 91 scholarships among the rest? Or might it hew closer to its crosstown rival, focusing more on direct cash payments?

How USC plans to divide its $20.5-million cap is just part of the equation. It’s how the school maneuvers outside of the cap and navigates NIL GO, the new NIL clearinghouse, that will be the true test of its might in this new era. All NIL deals over $600 must now be submitted to Deloitte, which will determine if those deals have “a valid business purpose” and fall within “a reasonable range of compensation.”

That system is not just begging for legal challenges, it’s ripe with loopholes. There’s no way for Deloitte to monitor if athletes actually follow through on the deliverables of an NIL deal. What’s to stop a third party from paying athletes for a deal that looks legit on paper but has terms that they never expect the athlete to deliver on?

That’s a question for another newsletter. But what we can say now is that USC, with its massive media market, is better positioned than most to win this new era as promised. Whether USC will actually deliver on that promise — before the lawyers step in and upend the rules again — will be up to those in charge … and the mountains of fundraising dollars they’ll need to keep it all afloat.

National title No. 138

The USC men’s track and field team brought home its first outdoor national title since 1976 last week, which will couple nicely with the indoor national title that the team won in March.

It’s just the second time in school history that USC’s men’s track and field program has won both titles in the same season. The Trojans have 27 outdoor titles, more than double any other NCAA track program.

It’s quite a culmination for Quincy Watts, the Trojans’ director of track and field, who was promoted into the job four years ago — and who now needs to be kept at whatever cost.

Summer hoops impressions

Chad Baker-Mazara, with Auburn last season, should bring some intensity to USC this season.

(Stephanie Scarbrough / Associated Press)

At the start of his second summer at USC, Eric Musselman opened up men’s basketball practice last week to reporters, and with basically a brand new team of Trojans on the floor, there was a lot to take in.

A few initial observations from Galen Center …

—This team is more talented and athletic than last year. That feels pretty clear already, and this group has barely played together. The difference is especially stark in the frontcourt, where Jacob Cofie and Ezra Ausar give USC a physical presence in the paint that it sorely lacked last season. This team also has length in abundance on the perimeter, where Chad Baker-Mazara and Amarion Dickerson look like they could be menaces on defense. The backcourt is where USC suffered its biggest losses in the offseason, but with Baker-Mazara, Rodney Rice and five-star Alijah Arenas likely to be in the starting lineup, all three are capable of initiating offense or scoring themselves. The feeling inside the program is that this team has upgraded, especially on defense. At first glance, I have to agree.

—Alijah Arenas isn’t practicing yet, but he will be soon. Arenas was in attendance Thursday, but the incoming freshman still has high school coursework to catch up in order to graduate a year early. His absence has nothing to do with his serious Cybertruck accident and hospitalization in April. He’ll join the Trojans sometime this summer, and when he does, he’ll likely step right into the starting lineup.

—Baker-Mazara is a tone-setter. No one was more vocal or fiery during USC’s open practice, and as Musselman pointed out afterward, you won’t find many in college basketball with more experience than the 25-year old, sixth-year senior. You also won’t find many players with as much personality as Baker-Mazara, which seems to so far be working quite well with Musselman’s brand of intensity. “You put crazy and crazy together, it might work!” Baker-Mazara said Thursday. I’d be willing to bet already that this pairing works out for both sides.

—New point guard Jordan Marsh may play a bigger role than expected. The North Carolina Asheville transfer is only 5-11, 164 pounds, but I was surprised by how active he was on defense. I’m not the only one. Marsh has turned heads through the first week of summer practice, to the point that he may be more than just a backup point guard next season. As a legitimate microwave scorer off the bench, don’t be surprised if he gets 20-plus minutes at times next season.

A sturdy foundation

I caught up last week with Stankiewicz, who, in his third season, led the Trojans back to the NCAA tournament for just the second time in 20 years. USC fell in the NCAA regionals to Oregon State, a team with legitimate hopes of winning the College World Series, but overall, this season was a major step in the right direction for Trojan baseball.

This is no longer a program that needs to build back “brick by brick”, as Stankiewicz has said.

“The foundation is built,” Stankiewicz told me. “It’s solid. We’ve got pieces in place where we can now start to build it even taller.”

That metaphor will come to life next spring, when USC has a sparkling new stadium to play in. The Trojans have some key pieces to replace, with ace Caden Aoki bound for Georgia as a transfer and at least two key contributors, two-way star Ethan Hedges and starting pitcher Caden Hunter, sure to be drafted. But expectations will be higher next year nonetheless.

And Stankiewicz is ready for that next step.

“This is a program that’s been to Omaha a lot,” he said. “The expectation is that we’ll get back to that, and our guys have to understand that. This wasn’t enough. It was good. Well done. Nice job. But this can’t be what this program is about. It has to be about going to the next step, and the next step is winning a regional, winning a Super, getting to Omaha.”

Poll results

We asked you in our last newsletter whether a smoother path to the College Football Playoff for USC was worth losing its annual rivalry with Notre Dame.

Over 1,000 of you voted. And you answered, unsurprisingly, with a resounding “No”.

82.4% of our Times of Troy readers said that they wouldn’t risk the USC-Notre Dame rivalry for a better shot at the Playoff, while less than 17.6% say it would be worth it.

In case you missed it

USC women finish second to Georgia at NCAA outdoor track and field championships

USC men capture share of NCAA outdoor track and field national title

Q&A: How are college sports changing in the wake of House settlement?

USC baseball eliminated in NCAA tournament, but its revival fights on

Caleb Williams explains why he and his dad schemed to avoid going to the Bears from USC

What I’m not watching, but eating week

Succotash salad at Dunsmoor.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

As an evangelist of our Times 101 best restaurant rankings — and of the late, great Jonathan Gold — I’ve had my share of delicious dinners across this fine city during my 13 years here. But my meal last Tuesday night at Dunsmoor in Glassell Park may very well have been the best I have ever had in L.A.

Trust me, I don’t say that lightly. But almost a week later, I still catch myself daydreaming about the sour milk cornbread, drowning in butter, honey and flaky salt. To call it “bread” at all doesn’t even capture its essence.

My wife and I sat at the chef’s counter last Tuesday to celebrate her birthday, and we watched in awe as they cooked most of the menu over an open hearth. Every single one of the five dishes we ordered was extraordinary. The Carolina gold rice and baby albacore were also serious standouts. But I’m pretty sure you can’t go wrong with anything on the menu.

Until next time….

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.