The Weekender: Former USC Player Solomon Tuliaupupu Will Return for a Ninth College Football Season, Adam Silver Floats Canceling the NBA Draft As an Anti-Tanking Measure, and the Most Wild Post-Medal Interview of the Winter Olympics

By George Eisner on February 15, 2026 at 3:15 pm
Former USC defensive end Solomon Tuliaupupu
Jerome Miron — Imagn Images
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Solomon Tuliaupupu: The Nine-Year College Football Veteran

Congratulations to former USC defensive end Solomon Tuliaupupu for matching the length of his college football career with the amount of sick absences Ferris Bueller achieved in 1986.

Tuliaupupu will return for his ninth season of college football in 2026, now with the Montana Grizzlies after first redshirting at USC all the way back in 2018. This is, of course, an extremely amusing development coming out of a season that ended with gushing praise for the amount of playing experience littered throughout Indiana's championship-winning roster. Curt Cignetti could only dream of signing a talent in the trenches with more than twice as many years in college as the average undergrad student.

But how is this possible? At least six of Tuliaupupu's college seasons to this point in his career have qualified for medical redshirt circumstances. He did not play a full season until 2022 after missing the first three following his freshman redshirt year, which also included a preseason foot surgery. He then missed the entire 2023 season with another injury in training before appearing in roughly 13 games across the last two seasons and transferring to Montana ahead of last year. His final season at USC ended early due to illness.

Tuliaupupu will turn 26 years old next month. Although Montana does not qualify as an FBS program, he would still tie former Miami tight end Cam McCormick for most seasons of NCAA eligibility should he successfully participate in the autumn.

Adam Silver Doesn't Rule Out Canceling NBA Draft to Combat Tanking

The NBA is not having a good All-Star Weekend. Last night's dunk contest was one of the most poorly received installments of the event in recent memory. The celebrity game earlier in the weekend featured the player with the most highly publicized availability at the trade deadline openly disrespecting one of the NBA's most active reporters for not being able to hoop. Make sure to tune into the Eleven Dubcast tomorrow if you want some more perspective on that, by the way.

Then, last night as the Saturday night events and festivities began getting underway in Los Angeles, Joe Vardon of The Athletic released an article in which Adam Silver and his advisors admitted they would "seriously consider" eliminating the NBA Draft as an anti-tanking measure. The move would coincide with the establishment of a rookie free agency that would eliminate the incentive for teams to sabotage their own success in the pursuit of a class' leading prospects.

As news of the perspective began to circulate across basketball circles following the conclusion of the Saturday night events into Sunday morning, the public did not exactly respond to the suggested tanking remedy with overwhelming optimism.

Tanking has become a problem across team sports than primarily lean on a draft for new arrivals of young talent, but the solution can't be to do away with the current model entirely. The chaos of NIL relative to incoming college freshmen out of high school has already revealed what sort of mess would transpire in an open market for NBA rookies where any team can sign anybody within what the salary cap allows.

Norwegian Olympian Wins Bronze Medal, Gives Wildest Interview of Winter Olympics

Don't expect any of the athletes left to compete in Italy at the 2026 Winter Olympics to conduct a more stunning interview than what Sturla Holm Lægreid gave after securing a bronze medal on behalf of Norway on Tuesday.

Lægreid placed third in the biathlon and used his post-competition interview with Norway's NRK to confess — in unprompted fashion — to cheating on his girlfriend three months earlier and express his regret. It is such a remarkable pivot during a peak moment for an athlete that even the forces policing Olympic videos on social media feel obligated to leave the footage up.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the sheer fact that he chose such a moment to, as Lægreid put it, "commit social suicide" with the admission remains the level of detail he provided to the media. Lægreid relayed that he had only known the woman he had been seeing for six months, that he told her of his unfaithfulness only a week prior to the Olympics, she had left him for it, and the week ahead of the event had consequently been the worst of his life.

Chalk it up as another incredible story of perseverance and triumph in the face of completely self-inflicted circumstances. Remarkably, Lægreid's teammate Johan-Olaf Botn won the biathlon gold medal in honor of his training partner and close friend that passed away only a month and a half ago, but discussion of the event's aftermath has largely found itself driven across social media by the spectacle of the interview.

ICYMI

Ross Bjork Sits Down with Eleven Warriors

Dan Hope and Chase Brown secured an interview with Ohio State athletics director Ross Bjork this week. Make sure to go check that out on the YouTube channel and subscribe if you haven't already for more content to help get you through the football offseason.

Kings of Confidence

Speaking of more content to help get you through football season, who better suited for such a responsibility than the great Ramzy Nasrallah. The latest Wednesday essay from our in-house bourbon sommelier discusses the outlook for homegrown multi-year quarterbacks under Ryan Day.

West Coast Sacramento State Joins Mid-American Conference 

This could have been its own Weekender topic had it not been Buckshotted last night! Get ready to see a lot of familiar Ohio teams face off against the new kids on the MAC block in the form of Sacramento State as the Hornets prepare to replace the outgoing Northern Illinois Huskies heading for the Mountain West.

What’s Next

  • Women's Basketball: vs. Maryland, Today, 2 p.m. ET on FS1
  • Men's Basketball: vs. Wisconsin, Tuesday, 8:30 p.m. ET on FS1
  • OSU Football Returns: vs. Ball State, Saturday, September 5th
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