The Oregon Ducks football program, coach Dan Lanning, Nike and NIL are being talked about at SEC Media Days. Georgia coach Kirby Smart jokingly looks a little green with envy when talking about his former defensive coordinator Lanning.

“This year, we took Nike, who I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting Phil Knight and his wonderful wife Penny,” Smart said at day two of SEC Media Days. “And I wish I could get some of that NIL money that he’s sharing with Dan Lanning. But that’s another note.”

Lanning coached under Smart as Georgia’s defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach at from 2018-21. Lanning helped Georgia go undefeated in his final season with the Bulldogs, winning the 2021-22 National Championship.

Lanning will have a chance to react to Smart’s comments at Big Ten media days at the end of July. The Ducks are also bringing linebacker Jeffrey Bassa, tight end Terrance Ferguson, and transfer quarterback Dillon Gabriel.

Name, Image, Likeness has completely changed the college football landscape and some programs are adjusting quicker to the change than others. The Oregon Ducks are thriving in the new environment in their inaugural season in the Big Ten Conference.

Part of this success has been due to the efforts of Oregon’s Division Street NIL collective which has been lauded by many as the most innovative and effective in the country.

Two Oregon Ducks are top NIL earners in the country. Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel and receiver Evan Stewart are both in the top 10 of NIL earnings among football players, clocking in at No. 8 and 10 respectively. This represents quite an accomplishment for the two high-profile transfers as they’re both yet to play a single snap for Oregon. 

Oregon is recently receiving attention because of a report that Nike’s Phil Nike is allowing “unlimited NIL” for the Ducks. Has Knight written a blank check in order to buy a team that can bring home Oregon’s first national championship in football?

All football programs, including the Ducks, are of course using their resources to better their team and win championships.

But the Ducks’ success in recruiting and transfer portal runs deeper than that.

Oregon’s conference realignment means the Ducks will play against the top talent in the country vs. teams like the Michigan Wolverines and Ohio State Buckeyes. Recruits and transfer athletes want to play against the best to prove they are the best. Next steps would be making it the NFL. With Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix, Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota all playing on Sundays… It’s no wonder transfers like Gabriel and Dante Moore want to be a Duck.

The Georgia Senate Artificial Intelligence Study Committee is set to meet Wednesday at Georgia Tech to explore the extent Georgia lawmakers should promote policies to attract AI business and research and how much they should focus on preventing pitfalls like loss of jobs or privacy.

“One of the things we heard a lot at least early on was about how the EU is taking a very maybe regulatory approach toward AI,” said Sen. Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican, speaking at the inaugural AI Committee hearing last month. “And our goal, I hope, would be to support AI and support the innovation and the expansion of AI, appropriately, so that it’s good for Georgia, it’s good for Georgians, it’s good for our nation, and I think we can do that, but we don’t need to take maybe the approach that says restrictions as opposed to, as you point out, maybe innovation.”

“I would offer a friendly addition to that as we’re looking through these priorities,” Atlanta Democratic Sen. Jason Esteves said.

“In my opinion, the primary function of government, one of them, is to protect its citizens, make sure its citizens are protected,” he added. “And you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, that AI, the comparison to a wheel, it’s transformational. It will change the trajectory of human history. And with that, we should be ensuring that in addition to supporting AI, we are protecting citizens from potential impacts of AI, and that should be a priority – the priority for us.”

Committee Chairman Sen. John Albers, a Roswell Republican, said the responsibility for striking that balance will likely fall on the state government.

“A lot of times, legislation tends to be adopted on the state level. There’s a blessing and a curse there,” he said. “The good news is sometimes we can make things more Georgia-specific, where we like to find a unique balance. The bad news is sometimes you get 50 versions of something, which is not necessarily good for consumers or businesses.”

The committee, which includes four Republicans and two Democrats, will work on modeling AI legislation across realms including health care, education, infrastructure, business and labor in as many as twelve total meetings to be held around the state before the 2025 legislative session is set to begin in January.

Albers, who also chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, said finding ways to use AI to help police and first responders will be one of the committee’s priorities. AI technology can help 911 dispatchers send help more quickly and assist police in solving cybercrime, but it can also open up new ways to break the law.

“Going after the criminal street gangs, counter-terrorism organizations, et cetera, using AI is significant, but it’s also a little scary, because you have to make sure what’s done for good is not also being used for bad or for evil,” Albers said.

Proposed AI legislation has elicited free speech concerns. This year, a bill backed by House Republican leadership aimed at regulating campaigns’ use of AI-generated deep fakes of opponents ahead of an election passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Similar legislation is likely to come back next year, and lawmakers have also discussed penalizing people who use AI to create obscene images of minors.

The hearing is set for 10 a.m., is open to the public and will be streamed live on the Georgia General Assembly website.

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — In the wake of the assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life, security is a front and center topic for those attending the Republican National Convention.

Long time Republican Party activist and Columbus resident, Alton Russell, is one of the 59 official delegates from Georgia who attended the convention. He has been to five conventions as a delegate or alternate expected security to be tight.

“They’re saying that they’ve not increased any security. But it’s obvious that they have.  We had a just a little party last night — a welcome to Milwaukee — and they had seven or eight, you know things that you walk through to check your bags,” says Russell. “Security is a little bit tougher than than I think they than they had planned. We’ve got a security guy, a Secret Service guy on the bus with us as we go from one place to another.”

In addition to heightened security at the convention, the assassination attempt has drawn universal condemnation of political violence.

Sen. Ed Harbison, a Vietnam Veteran who remembers the assassinations and political unrest of the 1960s agrees with those condemnations. Harbison said the attempt on the former president’s life brought back painful memories.

“It is something that should be universally condemned. It is just reprehensible. And we should be reminded of what America is all about. People have a right to free speech and that kind of thing, but there is a line. And what happened there is just— I can’t say anything but reprehensible and should never be repeated. And we should all be  standing guard against that kind of action anywhere at any time and condemn it for what it is, an assassin. It’s just something about that word just brings up, conjures up thoughts of evil doings and that kind of thing.”

Senator Ed Harbison, D-Columbus

The wake of Saturday’s events there has been call for everyone to tamp down the rhetoric in a contentious political season. Russell hopes people will take a step back and try to turn down the heat.

“Hopefully to tone down the rhetoric and somebody or whoever it is or quit saying that Trump is our next Hitler and he’s going to destroy civilization and he’s going to destroy democracy.  You know, I think they need to tone that down. And I think I think Trump is saying is that he’s rewriting his Thursday night speech to start to move more towards unity. So I hope that’s what he’s going to do. And I expect that he will.”

Alton Russell, Georgia Delegate to the RNC

The RNC has just begun, with the Georgia delegation hearing from Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed this morning. Tomorrow morning, they are expecting to hear from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.