Journalism, the 3–1 Kentucky Derby favorite, is ready to break the streak of weirdness that has gripped America’s biggest horse race for the last six years It’s time for a return to form with a horse who looms over this field as the best and most versatile option That’s why my $100 betting strategy will key on Journalism Before diving into a plan that will make us all rich let’s pause for the annual disclaimer: The Kentucky Derby is notoriously difficult to bet the animals are young (barely 3 years old) and they’re running further than they’ve ever gone before (1 1/4 miles) who was the sports editor of the school paper at Beverly Hills High School has been extremely impressive in his five-race career including dazzling performances in the San Felipe Stakes and overcoming some traffic trouble in the Santa Anita Derby His Beyer Speed Figures for those two races are the highest for any horse in the race Journalism should prevail as long as there is no pilot error from jockey Umberto Rispoli a Derby neophyte with just two previous starts in the Run for the Roses the first bet from my $100 bankroll is $30 to win on the son of Curlin The intrigue starts in deciphering who follows him under the wire I believe that the pace will be very fast—a 45-second half mile and 1:10 at the three-quarter-mile mark which will be borderline suicidal for those sucked into it Everything about Bob Baffert's trainee Citizen Bull says that he will be flying early—his last workout was extremely fast he's been keyed up in morning training So I expect Citizen Bull to be gunning out of the gate to avoid being buried but he’ll be going too fast and then falling apart in the stretch taking everyone who follows closely down with him That will set up the stretch drive for the closers the most significant of which is 5–1 second choice Sovereignty Blue Grass Stakes winner Burnham Square will also be there but he might be a few steps behind the others (A box means that if two of those three horses finish 1–2 Which longer shots could hit the board and juice up the payouts who only drew into the race Thursday with the scratch of Rodriguez gave Journalism all he could handle in the Santa Anita and keeps improving every race—he’s 12–1 winner of his last two races against lesser competition would have been an attractive choice here at 20–1 before being scratched Friday morning.) we're taking a swing at the following $1 trifecta wheel: Journalism in the first position Grande and Final Gambit in the second and third positions let’s back that up with Journalism in the second position and all five other contenders in the first and third positions But I’ll also take a $2 flyer to win on Flying Mohawk the horse owned by former star baseball player Jayson Werth but he’s caught my eye in the morning training and seems to be telling me that I’ll regret not making a minimum bet on him if the streak of improbable winners continues But don’t blame me if this entire plan fails miserably Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help Julian Forde to Compete for Barbados at World Indoor Track & Field Championships3/19/2025 1:31:00 PM | Track & Field/XC ...but your activity and behavior on this site made us think that you are a bot. Note: A number of things could be going on here. Please solve this CAPTCHA to request unblock to the website Link copiedShareShare resultsBy chief election analyst Antony Green posted Fri at 2:00pmFriday 2 May 2025 at 2:00pmFri 2 May 2025 at 2:00pm Updated 1h ago1 hours agoMon 5 May 2025 at 8:33pm updated 15h ago15 hours agoMon 5 May 2025 at 6:50am | Forde is based in Logan City Council south-east of Brisbane, but also includes northern parts of Gold Coast City Council. It includes the Logan suburbs of Waterford, Eagleby, Beenleigh, Loganlea, Shailer Park, Bethania, Park Ridge and Boronia Heights, before extending south of the Albert River on the western side of the Pacific Motorway to include inland parts of the Gold Cost as far south as Upper Coomera. Covers 418 square kilometres. (Victories by a party of government are indicated by thick coloured underlining.) LNP majorities were recorded at 21 of the 34 polling places used at the 2019 election. The LNP results ranged from 41.9% at Marsden State High School in Waterford West to 67.9% at Carbrook State School. LNP support was generally strongest at the southern end of the electorate nearer the Gold Coast.(Click on polling place for results) CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) Singer and songwriter Lila Ford performed the National Anthem ahead of the Seahawks' Week 15 matchup vs \"GMFB OT\" on how do you see Seattle Seahawks quarterback Jalen Milroe being used in the NFL Seahawks head Coach Mike Macdonald provided insights into the Seahawks' rookie minicamp and team outlook He praised the equipment staff and personnel department for their preparation (0:00) Macdonald highlighted quarterback Jalen Milroe's energy and command of the huddle (1:55) He discussed the benefits of having a true fullback in the offense for physicality and scheme diversity (3:09) Macdonald also touched on evaluating defensive linemen in non-padded practices (4:28) and clarified comments about Milroe's role as exclusively a quarterback (6:27) He mentioned exploring virtual reality training for quarterbacks (8:16) and expressed excitement about wide receiver Tory Horton's potential role (10:00) Macdonald concluded by discussing the value of experienced coaches on the offensive staff (11:54) Seahawks wide receiver Ricky White III described his rookie minicamp experience as \"one of the best weekends\" of his life (0:01) He expressed gratitude for the opportunity to practice in NFL facilities and compete with new teammates (0:38) White discussed his college experience with special teams crediting his college special teams coordinator for teaching him valuable techniques in punt blocking (1:13) He mentioned working on building chemistry with quarterback Jalen Milroe as they learn the offense together (2:15) Seahawks guard Bryce Cabeldue shares insights about his new offensive line coach praising his technical knowledge and teaching ability (0:04) Cabeldue discusses the challenges of transitioning between different positions on the offensive line particularly moving from tackle to guard (0:27) He highlights the benefits of playing alongside experienced teammates emphasizing the importance of building camaraderie and studying film (1:00) The conversation concludes with Cabeldue briefly mentioning his recent engagement (1:24) Seahawks fullback Robbie Ouzts shares his experiences during the Seattle Seahawks' rookie minicamp Ouzts praises running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu for his guidance He discusses the challenges of adapting to the fullback position at 0:34 Ouzts mentions at 0:58 that he's been involved in the passing game he explains how his tight end background helps with ball-tracking and receiving skills Ouzts expresses enthusiasm for his new teammates at 1:36 particularly mentioning running back Damien Martinez he elaborates on learning to read plays from a fullback's perspective emphasizing Coach Polamalu's role in this process Ouzts also mentions potentially adjusting his weight and maintaining his swimming routine for cardio Seahawks running back Damien Martinez discusses his early experiences at training camp he expresses gratitude for the opportunity and praises the coaching staff and his teammates Martinez emphasizes his focus on being a team player He notes the similarities between the Seahawks' offense and his experience at Oregon State at 0:39 Martinez highlights the importance of working with fullbacks and understanding offensive dynamics at 0:52 he discusses focusing on technical details during non-contact practices Martinez concludes by praising quarterback Jalen Milroe's quick adaptation to the offense at 1:35 Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe joins \"The Insiders\" to discuss his transition into the NFL and how he plans to help out in the quarterback room The Seahawks rookie class had their first NFL practice as the team began rookie minicamp on Friday 2025 at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center Seahawks quarterback Jalen Milroe shared his experiences from his first NFL practice he expressed excitement about being an NFL quarterback Milroe discussed his focus on improving lower body mechanics (0:38) and the importance of being an efficient passer He emphasized the need for smart preparation and communication in leading the offense (1:29) Milroe highlighted the talent in the Seahawks' draft class (4:14) and his goal to earn trust and respect within the organization (5:26) He also mentioned the quick turnaround in receiving the playbook (7:54) and the importance of extra study time beyond team meetings (8:18) Milroe spoke about throwing to teammate Elijah Arroyo (9:48) and how he plans to dedicate time to taking care of his body and studying the playbook (10:24) Seahawks offensive lineman Mason Richman shared insights from his first day of training camp Richman discussed working on zone blocking schemes with offensive line coach John Benton Richman (0:39) mentioned the unique dynamic of having three rookie offensive linemen drafted playing multiple positions including guard and tackle Richman (2:21) expressed his willingness to play wherever needed He concluded by praising offensive line coach John Benton's coaching style at (3:02) expressing excitement about working with the coaching staff Seahawks defensive end Rylie Mills shares his experience from his first day on the field during rookie minicamp Mills discusses his pre-draft visit (0:35) where he impressed coaches with his football knowledge and enthusiasm He mentions the similarities between his college defense and the Seahawks' system (1:17) Mills expresses excitement about learning from veteran players like Leonard Williams (2:29) and compares his style to Zach Allen (2:59) He emphasizes the importance of effort and toughness in his game (3:28) and looks forward to contributing to the team once he's fully recovered from an injury Mills also briefly mentions meeting other rookies Seahawks wide receiver Tory Horton discusses his experience as a 5th round draft pick and his transition to the NFL (0:02) Horton emphasizes his focus on mental preparation and learning the playbook while recovering from an injury (1:28) He mentions his progress in physical recovery (2:40) Horton expresses excitement about potentially returning punts highlighting how his baseball background aids in tracking the football mentioning his connection with fellow rookie Grey Zabel (4:48) Horton also shares that baseball was his first sport Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori shared his experience from his first NFL practice (1:24) He compared the transition from college to NFL as more detailed and fast-paced Emmanwori aims to be a leader and make an impact (4:16) He expressed excitement about Seattle trading up to draft him (6:05) Emmanwori praised Seattle's beautiful practice environment and mentioned his interaction with former Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor He also discussed his aspirations to make his own mark in the NFL while appreciating comparisons to players like Derwin James and Kyle Hamilton Seahawks tight end Elijah Arroyo shared his experiences from the team's rookie minicamp he expressed enthusiasm about the day's competition and learning the playbook Arroyo praised quarterback Jalen Milroe at 0:20 He highlighted the rookies' eagerness to work at 0:38 mentioning that coaches had to tell them to slow down Arroyo expressed excitement about the drafting of running back Damien Martinez He also discussed his transition from receiver to tight end at 1:59 and emphasized the importance of willingness in blocking at 2:27 Seahawks first-round pick Grey Zabel discusses his draft experience and joining the team thanking the staff involved in the draft process (2:09) Zabel describes the past week as surreal and a lifelong dream come true (3:41) He mentions the moment became real when he received the call from Seattle (4:00) Zabel talks about his college roommate and teammate (5:45) Schneider highlights Zabel's competitiveness at the Senior Bowl (8:40) Zabel expresses excitement about wearing the Seahawks logo and practicing with the team (10:49) He reveals choosing jersey number 76 Zabel also mentions his experience making a draft call to Mason Richman and discusses his mentality as a key strength in his game Daniel Jeremiah and Brian Baldinger share their opinions of the Seattle Seahawks' 2025 NFL Draft class NFL Draft analyst Rob Rang joins John Boyle to recap the weekend. The Seahawks made eleven draft picks, including Senior Bowl standout, guard Grey Zabel. Let's dive in! Listen and subscribe to the Seahawks Insiders podcast. The Seattle Seahawks completed their 16th draft under GM John Schneider and second-year head coach Mike Macdonald and athletic players to build depth and competition Key additions include offensive linemen Mason Richman and Bryce Cabeldue as well as receivers Tory Horton and Ricky White III The team emphasized improving the run game with fullback Robbie Ouzts and running back Damien Martinez Macdonald praised the collaborative draft process and expressed excitement about integrating the new players The Seahawks aim to compete for championships this year while creating an environment where players are excited to come to work every day Former Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander announces the Seahawks' selection of tight end Elijah Arroyo in Round 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft with the No The Seahawks drafted South Carolina safety Nick Emmanwori with the 35th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft Check out the moment he found out he was going to be a Seahawk The Seahawks selected South Carolina safety Nick Emmanwori with the 35th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft Check out his best highlights from college NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah breaks down the Seahawks second-round pick The Seattle Seahawks select safety Nick Emmanwori in Round 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft with the No 35 overall pick (via a trade with the Tennessee Titans.) Bucky Brooks react to Seahawks selecting Nick Emmanwori at No Watch the full on-field workout from South Carolina Gamecocks safety Nick Emmanwori at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine "GMFB OT" on how do you see Seattle Seahawks quarterback Jalen Milroe being used in the NFL Seahawks wide receiver Ricky White III described his rookie minicamp experience as "one of the best weekends" of his life (0:01) Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe joins "The Insiders" to discuss his transition into the NFL and how he plans to help out in the quarterback room NFL Draft analyst Rob Rang joins John Boyle to recap the weekend Listen and subscribe to the Seahawks Insiders podcast In recent years, the word 'organizing' has taken on a heightened power in architectural discourse, most notably through grassroots efforts by architectural workers across the United States to organize for better workplace conditions For Tessa Forde, organizing centers on a vast network of relationships that transcends different scales, disciplines, and actors across and beyond the architectural profession. In particular, Forde sees architectural education as an arena in which organizing holds great potential In that spirit, Forde is one of seven co-authors of the new book The Organizer's Guide to Architecture Education Archinect's Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Forde about the book and its underlying message Niall Patrick Walsh: One of the first things that struck me reading this book was how seven authors were able to speak with a collective voice Could you give an insight into how so many points of view came together in a single publication One of our conclusions from that project was that organizing was an essential skill that needed to be introduced across architectural education the seven of us spent about six months on a Zoom call every week simply talking about ideas and we came up with a strategy for writing that was essentially a ‘round robin.’ We had all been reading and contributing to a shared bibliography so we had a huge collection of literature that we all didn’t have to read but rather shared the load collectively Each of us would have several weeks to write our chapter and then we would rotate the chapters every week to a different author who would rewrite and edit It was important for us to experiment with the strategy of organizing within the writing process The book comes at a time when the term ‘organizing’ is becoming more prevalent in the architecture space ‘The Organizer’s Guide to Architecture Education,’ what does ‘organizing mean in the context of the book Organizing is dependent on a vast network of relationships You cannot just focus on the faculty because the faculty is part of a mesh of complex relationships Organizing is about power and discovering mechanisms and tools in order to understand power and power relationships It is about empowering people to recognize their collective autonomy I’m very interested in the ritual mechanisms that create and maintain those relationships Organizing is also about creating spaces that feel good designing the space of organizing is as important as the thing that you are organizing towards; that is what keeps the movement going Within architecture schools architecture is already an ‘organizing’ discipline It is the reorganization of materials and the organization of complex actors within that process There are many complex interactions within the process that architects are already organizing but this kind of ‘organizing skillset’ remains within practices and within the commercial context organizing within architectural education is about asking how we start to organize the foundational ground underneath those disparate practices to leverage creative space for policy change and systemic change you break down the arenas for organizing into four scales: small You begin with ‘small,’ which centers on the architecture school studio What are the flaws within that scale that require organizing and what are some approaches that can be taken If you imagine architectural education as a complex web the studio is the foundational cornerstone It is where students are taught the rules of the game of architecture and are socialized into the profession The studio space hosts a hidden curriculum of social expectations such as how you dress and behave as an architect and there is a power dynamic between the students and teachers Even though the studio is a space free from constraints, it is strangely ubiquitous and similar across almost all architecture schools in the world. It is a space of creative imagination but is also a reflection of industry standards and of the necessity through accreditation to deliver a particular set of outcomes The studio occupies a huge space within the curriculum but it can also become a distraction from other topics My experience at architecture school was that studio was number one and thinking about my tech paper was number ten on the list of priorities; likewise and other important subjects that are very compartmentalized This complex balance between professionalism and creativity there is an opportunity to start with the studio and create a space that can support organizational thinking and a redefinition of architectural skills; one that is a more adaptive approach to practice The studio presents a real place for fleshing out those ideas because it is already intimate it is already smaller groups of people that have to organize themselves against some kind of project you need to organize the process and think about how you are going to relate to other people how you are going to relate to the materials that you are using Learning about power dynamics within a material process This opens up the studio spaces as a really effective place to apply the skills of organizing The studio can become a lot more collaborative but still remains this kind of virtual reality space for practicing in the real world and understanding the world in different ways it dawned on me how ‘object-focused’ the studio can be and the non-human; we are focused too much on crafting an object You talk in the book about re-centering that focus on ‘people’ not only through briefs that focus more on users and communities but through building design teams in schools that take in other disciplines beyond architecture It circles back to what you mentioned earlier: Organizing is about people I feel that there are practices out there in schools that imagine other ways but they are not ubiquitous; they are the exception to the rule but it was considered radical to take that class that seemed to imagine another way of interacting with the city or place there is a series of case studies within this book that capture some of these moments Part of the organizing process is about finding the people who are imagining these other ways and connecting them It is important to focus on the hyperlocal but also to imagine how those hyperlocal practices can start to be connected and in Aotearoa New Zealand there are other modes of designing buildings that do not require architects at all We need to ask: What do we bring to the city These are the kinds of questions that organizing can encourage This leads nicely to talking about the next scale: medium and we make the argument that this needs to be scaled up in context and you can infinity-scale it to understand it in context These silos really limit interdisciplinary integration and imply that they are also siloed in the real world The studio might be a good place to start organizing given that educators have some autonomy at that scale but organizing needs to take place within the faculty or within the teaching staff to organize across the curriculum Then we can create a curriculum that becomes more integrated and more responsive to local contexts and the particular programs of a place When you start to address problems locally you can then start to think about them at a global scale through the organizing lens The curriculum can become a laboratory for practice a space to experiment with what architectural practice is and how it can be organized differently particularly in response to local and then global needs in which you talk about the university and its relationship with towns How does organizing manifest on that scale It’s important to say that none of this is easy and there are so many academics working hard to try and change things who are coming up against roadblocks at every turn The whole system is antithetical to this kind of thinking Part of the reason that we have case studies in the book is to say that this is happening and people are trying We need to learn from each other and create better spaces together This kind of faculty organizing at the curriculum level is also an opportunity for the faculty to come together to practice organizing because you cannot reorganize the curriculum without support from higher powers within the university Part of that is understanding the complex system of how money flows through universities The history of universities is fraught and often contains land grabs They are maintained through the capitalist system so there has to be a way of understanding those power dynamics and organize to both understand them There are many steps that have to happen before this The gradual changes that need to happen are dependent on this capacity to really understand the neoliberal university; a university that is very bureaucratic and motivated by cost-saving and by profit motivations even within public universities Trying to call out labor practices for teachers can create spaces for students to advocate for themselves and expand beyond the boundaries of the universities Those resources should be accessible to everybody particularly in the places where those universities are housed There needs to be a way of leveraging those resources to create community impact whether that be through deprofessionalization What does organizing look like on that scale This chapter is about examining the relationship between the architectural academy and nation-state ideologies, which have a huge influence on the profession. The nation-state controls architecture through licensure and then promotes specific ideologies through that which shape architecture and our cities These regulations of course extend beyond licensure as well because there is particular legislation that encourages certain types of building The nation-state creates these artificial divisions that impact cultural affinities and uphold capitalist policy This hinders architects from addressing global issues It is difficult to negotiate across borders and complex frontiers so it is difficult to take a position on what the solution is But we can start with the small and scale from there while recognizing that the definition of architecture is shaped by state licensure and that is the place within which we have some power or knowledge to change Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have recently overhauled their accreditation to an ambitious and aspirational set of requirements There are more clauses about environmental regeneration and sustainability as well as working meaningfully with Indigenous communities the difficulty is that the instrumentation through which to achieve those changes is not conducive to tackling those kinds of problems A lot of universities are finding it difficult to maintain their accreditation because they are not provided the tools or it is difficult to develop the tools in a short space of time to create connections with Indigenous communities that are not exploitative or that are not just for the sake of accreditation and skill sets that many people do not have let’s take this time to talk to each other and have these conversations.”  It definitely starts with educators and students There is a problem in how we perceive education But we cannot just educate future generations and put that much pressure on them to solve the problems of society We have to organize across practices and offices that are already doing this work or trying to find ways of doing it but do not know how We need a space for experimenting together and developing organizational practices outside of academia These are spaces that can still retain the spirit of speculative imagining but can deal with real-life problems and connect to offices across knowledge and disciplines this is antithetical to the professionalized model that compartmentalizes disciplines We have to create spaces together to organize to talk about approaches that engage in a particular way How do we advocate for that in a collective way and not as just one or three people in a small practice working hard on one problem which is a useful framework for understanding the bureaucratic system of institutions and the intersections of class Niall Patrick Walsh Niall Patrick Walsh is an architect and journalist, living in Belfast, Ireland. He writes feature articles for Archinect and leads the Archinect In-Depth series. He is also a licensed architect in the UK and Ireland, having previously worked at BDP, one of the largest design + ... Much of what I've read I want to try and activate in my next semester class A lot of it I've been thinking about already and it feels very reaffirming Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site Your comment will be visible once approved Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application It is with heavy hearts that our family would like to announce Terry's passing after his battle with Lung Cancer and Covid on March 6 2025 at the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital son Chris (Robin) and daughter Dawn (Dave) Predeceased by his parents Gordon and Dorothy Forde and his sister Sheridan Terry was a long time employee of MTO road construction working his way up from Surveyor to Project Supervisor ending with URS We would like to thank all the Doctors and Nurses for their compassion kindness and support in Terry's last days at Huntsville Hospital This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors I’m with Lauren Laverne: surviving the disease can lead to a newfound resilience and love of simply being alive Lauren Laverne says she loves her life more now that she’s had cancer Do you think you’d look back on the moment as one of the best of your life It sounds bonkers if you’ve not been through it As does Stuart Pearce’s penalty against Spain in Euro ’96 Nottingham Forest getting promoted at Wembley and Oasis reuniting Eighteen months ago, I was diagnosed with cancer An MRI scan revealed a tumour at the base of my spine but weren’t sure if it was a primary tumour or had metastasised but I didn’t yet know whether it was bad-bad or just bad I had no idea how much longer I had to live That precise moment will stay with me for ever Because now I know how I really feel about death But being forced to accept that I may have a limited time left clarified the point of life I saw the time I had left rapidly fluttering away I’d bargained myself down from 10 years to a few weeks and had come to terms with it This rapid reckoning with existence was done calmly – there was no panic I felt grateful to have lived and to have followed my passions The only thing I felt sad about was that I’d miss my wife We’d only got married a few months before and it felt desperately sad that our story was going to end too soon Alongside this serene conclusion about life It was as if my body was talking to my brain but distributed equally through my whole body My body was telling me: “Carve any part of us off in order to stay alive Life is the point.” This was a phenomenal rush I’ve never been brave – my housemate used to hide a toy rat just to make me scream Even on days when I was gripped by pain I couldn’t believe the body could endure I still laughed with friends who came to visitAfter weeks of limbo a form of bone cancer that only one in 800,000 people get Surgery involved removing the base of my spine It’s not that these things sounded inconsequential or that I didn’t worry about what my life was going to be like Although I accept that most things are preferable to death – apart from listening to Ed Sheeran The 10 weeks I spent in hospital recovering from surgery were difficult in that they were often physically painful and I was in severe distress from catastrophic levels of nerve pain But even on those days when I was in tears gripped by pain I couldn’t believe the body could endure I still laughed with friends who came to visit but the stitches holding my back together were I’ve quickly adjusted to the changes to my body My stoma is far easier to manage than I expected and hasn’t limited my ability to go to football matches or the pub not pooping the old way has given me more free time – although I am reading less which means using disposable catheters a few times a day Every few hours I have to push a tube down the hole in my penis until it reaches the bladder pee comes out the other end and when the flow stops I could teach bomb disposal squads a thing or two about keeping a steady hand under pressure Erectile dysfunction can be embarrassing and talking about it can be hard so it’s not something I thought I’d have to deal with yet I’m still in the process of discovery when it comes to pills It’s miraculous what these things can do for a part of the body that was effectively pronounced dead You don’t need the details of how I’m getting on but let me put it this way: I’m now far less sceptical about the resurrection of Lazarus A lot of the past year and a half has been difficult and distressing But it was also a life-enriching experience unlike anything else I benefited from the love and care of exceptional nurses Friends and family entertained me at my bedside It has brought me and my wife even closer together But the main thing it has left me with is a deeper appreciation of life and thanks to this I know how I’ll feel when that day comes podcast and radio host whose End of An Era tour is on until June Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media Kentucky tied college basketball’s all-time record for most top-15 wins in a single season with eight putting together a resume that included 11 Quad 1 victories That’s while losing zero Quad 3 or 4 games with just one Quad 2 loss seven other teams ahead of the Wildcats in the NET also having at least one Quad 2 defeat There is a reason the NCAA gave Mark Pope’s team a No Don’t let Pat Forde hear that, though. The Sports Illustrated columnist released his 1-68 ranking of the entire March Madness field this week and listed Kentucky at No. 30 overall. That’s the equivalent of a No. 8 seed, for those curious. “This is a battered team, down three guards from the start of the season but hoping Lamont Butler can get back into the lineup this week,” Forde said, ignoring the countless confirmations that Kentucky’s starting point guard is healthy. “They’re 7–6 in February and March, giving up an average of 93 points in those six losses. “Mark Pope has done a phenomenal job hitting high points this season—beating Duke, Gonzaga, Louisville, Florida, Missouri and Tennessee twice—but there might not be much left in the tank. Kentucky could get on a shooting roll and make a run, or its defensive and rebounding lapses could lead to an early exit.” When walking through Kentucky’s ceiling, its best-case scenario is an Elite Eight loss to Houston in Indianapolis next weekend. The Cats could win a second-round track meet with Illinois, beat Tennessee for the third time and find themselves in a regional final against Houston,” he wrote. “That probably wouldn’t end well, but it would be a lot better than losing to Oakland or Saint Peter’s.” “Pope remains winless as an NCAA tourney coach with a first-round loss to Troy,” Forde said. “Meanwhile, Calipari and Louisville both go on Final Four runs.” Top 101Trump, SabanDuo's NIL order blasted Hot32026 NFL Mock DraftTodd McShay looks ahead By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms and use of my personal information described therein Forde has UC San Diego ranked ahead of the Cats Good team — all 68 teams in the field are good no disrespect to anyone set to compete this week — but what about the Tritons’ resume suggests they belong ahead on any list THEIR BEST WINS ARE AT UTAH STATE AND UC IRVINE 29 overall team in the NCAA’s official seed list released on Selection Sunday Is this part of the week-long temper tantrum Cardinal fans are throwing because they earned a No Leave Kentucky out of the field completely next time Join the conversation and talk about this article and all things Kentucky Sports in the new KSR Message Board. Now that the offseason is officially upon us, we're rolling out some new content on the KSR YouTube Channel. What better way to wrap up Monday than... Just like Otega Oweh, Kentucky guard Jaland Lowe continues to go through the NBA Draft process. But in the middle of his preparation, Lowe made... A Lexington native is coming back to the Bluegrass State. On Monday, 7-foot-1 Miami (OH) transfer center Reece Potter committed to the Kentucky... The greatest weakness in the sport of horse racing was what defined success on the sport's biggest stage at the Kentucky Derby. It was a... The first round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs is behind us as the Conference Semifinals officially began on Sunday night in Cleveland. A dozen former... Following a disastrous week in which Kentucky dropped its midweek game at Western Kentucky and was swept at Mississippi State, the 'Cats have... The Twins are back! Eleven years after Andrew and Aaron Harrison announced they were returning to Kentucky for a sophomore season, they announced... Kentucky isn't done yet in the transfer portal. Miami of Ohio center transfer Reece Potter is the newest name on UK's transfer board. The 7-foot-1,... On3 is a registered trademark of On3 Media and goalkeeper David Forde during a training session in 2015 Will Slattery is joined in studio by former Ireland goalkeeper David Forde to discuss his unlikely career that saw him become the oldest player to make his competitive debut for the Boys in Green David explains the serious anger issues he had to overcome during his career what it was like playing for Millwall at The Den and looks back on his time with Roy Keane in the Ireland setup Football coverage on Indo Sport is brought to you by Sky Sports If you'd like to get in touch with the show email us at indosportpodcast@independent.ie You can subscribe to our dedicated Indo Sport YouTube page here Spotify Apple Podcasts Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel The Kentucky Wildcats are getting prepared for their first round matchup with the Troy Trojans on Friday night as they look to start what will hopefully be a deep March run according to Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated Forde broke down his rankings of teams in the NCAA Tournament and listed the Cats as the 30th-best team in this year's postseason Forde doesn’t believe 3-seeded Kentucky is even one of the top 25 best teams in the Big Dance down three guards from the start of the season but hoping Lamont Butler can get back into the lineup this week,” Forde said giving up an average of 93 points in those six losses.” “Mark Pope has done a phenomenal job hitting high points this season—beating Duke and Tennessee twice—but there might not be much left in the tank Kentucky could get on a shooting roll and make a run or its defensive and rebounding lapses could lead to an early exit.” With the return of Lamont Butler to the lineup you have to like the Cats' chances to make some noise in March a trip to Indianapolis and the Sweet 16 could be exactly what this fanbase needs to help get over the dreadful run of tournament games from the past few seasons The first thing Nicole Hilliard-Forde wants you to know about herself is that she doesn’t like attention She starts talking about it right at the top of your conversation The interest in remaining in the shadows isn’t what makes her so good at her job It’s also led to a successful career that has included lots of indie films like the acclaimed 2023 drama The Novice as well as the British and Canadian series Malory Towers the Apple TV + sci-fi series Circuit Breakers and the Amazon family drama Beyond Black Beauty She earned an Emmy nomination in 2007 for The Path to 9/11 the Canadian casting director spoke to us from her home in the Toronto suburb of Ancaster (The other My parents were both immigrants and when I was a child which was to follow an academic pathway and become either a doctor I ended up going to McGill University of Montreal on a pre-med track to neurobiology and neurosurgery with a full scholarship I happened to love biology and be very good academically I was expressing myself through ballet and modern dance I came to find out for myself in this dark period of discovery that I was someone who was obsessed with international cinema and I had also been keeping every single playbill from every play I’d gone to see I was keeping the names just on my own of every actor As soon as I had this moment at university and they asked if I wanted to be a stage manager “I don’t have any idea what that is I’m sure I can wing it.” I found myself always sitting beside a director observing archiving and managing these creative spaces beside theater directors and dance choreographers One day I saw that I thought I’d been following the work of directors as a cinephile, but I started to notice that there was a casting director credit in the films and that I was following the work of Avy Kaufman I researched what a casting director was and I was like I had given myself 10,000 hours already into being a casting director without knowing it I just nerdily and intrinsically was doing what a casting director would do to be ready I got a job in the production office on the film I knocked on the casting director’s door the Canadian casting director Claire Walker who said she’d take my resume and we’ll see what happens They only came around when I lucked into an Emmy nomination sounds like you might have made the right choice.” They’ve forgiven me now but it was not easy Mostly women and gay men who are obsessed with actors with discovery and with that little pathway where one particular role one particular gig can change the trajectory of someone’s whole career Wanting to facilitate that and recognizing that within us we have the skills to leverage all of our relationships and make that happen for someone is part of the main thrust of why we do what we do It’s incredible to be a part of someone’s journey that way I think casting directors do have a very deep ethical point of view on the business The types of people that I encounter in the industry are interested in making sure that everybody involved in their process is having a humane experience of what they’re doing We have this particular seat at the conference table of how the show is being put together and I think we take that seat very seriously and are the people who advocate for the process being humane the bulk of actors are making strong choices their creativity and tapping in and interpreting the text and making a strong choice What ends up happening is that it lifts off another top layer of actors who are more connected to the text and then bring more vulnerability and make a bolder choice Somebody else came in and put more of their heart on their sleeve and they let us see more of their soul If someone has an audition for me and they’re preparing for their audition over days and then they have this strange and eccentric question I allow them to get in touch with my office and ask me that strange question they’re engaging with the text on a deep level that I love to hear I love to know that someone’s putting all of their mind and soul into figuring out what this work is about what the performance style is going to be and what the embodiment of the text is going to be It is this exploration of text that we’re collaborating on and we’re showing the creator of the work different embodied versions and different iterations of how this text can live I encourage people to ask questions and people to think about it a lot It’s going to require a piece of you every time Thinking about joining Casting Networks? Sign up for a free trial today with the American Hustle and The Fighter director lining up Jenna Ortega (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Scream) and Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon Ali Afshar’s ESX Entertainment has added Lou Diamond Phillips to the cast of Casa Grande: The Movie a feature to the original 2023 Prime Video series The Ozark and Inventing Anna star is in talks to play Caroline Ellison in a series about the rise and fall of cryptocurrency exchange FTX SAG-AFTRA chief Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has laid out some of the guild’s plans ahead of its contract with the studios expiring in June 2026 Casting Networks is a registered trademark of Casting Networks Destiny is frequently invoked when lifelong dreams are achieved on the first Saturday in May References routinely are made to blessings—or curses—from the “Derby gods.” When logical explanations are lacking the outcome of a two-minute horse race sometimes seems to be guided by unseen hands If you believe that such an aura hovers over this race maybe an untimely death in 2018 is a plausible explanation for how America’s oldest continuous sporting event has gone from storybook to surreal Perhaps the passing of John Asher—Churchill Downs’ beloved ambassador of Derby cheer—has thrown the Run for the Roses off its karmic bearings the Kentucky Derby has gotten downright weird the track’s vice president for racing communications part hype man and a full believer in the event’s indefinable magic His booming bass voice proselytized on behalf of the Derby at every opportunity Churchill memorialized Asher with a statue of him sitting on a bench adjacent to Col the man most responsible for turning the Derby into a national touchstone in the early 20th century These are the six results since Asher died of a heart attack at age 62: • Winner Maximum Security was disqualified for impeding other runners in 2019, the first and only DQ of a winner for interference in Derby history. That elevated the 65–1 long shot Country House to Derby champion. Country House never ran another step after the Derby—not even so much as a workout much less another race—due to illness and injury • The race was contested in September 2020 It was a jolt to the global sporting system that was by no means limited to the Derby That was the only time it was run outside of spring and just the third time it took place outside of May and in June in 1945 when a national ban on horse racing was lifted after the Germans surrendered in World War II.) The race played out in front of acres of empty seats instead of the usual throng of 150,000 was DQ’d when a post–race drug test revealed the presence of the steroid betamethasone That prevented Bob Baffert from winning a record seventh Derby and touched off a bitter battle between the famed trainer and the famed racetrack resulting in a three-year Churchill ban for Baffert (Baffert returns this year with two Derby entrants.) The DQ elevated 12–1 shot Mandaloun to first place He was the second-longest shot ever to capture the roses and could easily be labeled the biggest fluke winner in race history entry-level victory up to that point in his career also had just one prior victory in his career • Last year’s champion was Mystik Dan at 18–1 He will be running on Derby Day—in the Lake Ouachita Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs far from the fanfare and elite competition at Churchill Downs Trainer Kenny McPeek won’t even be in attendance for Mystik Dan’s race staying in Louisville to see his champion filly Thorpedo Anna compete at Churchill for five times the purse money Since the untimely death of Churchill Downs' John Asher in 2018 the Kentucky Derby has seen some interesting results on the first Saturday in May and that’s two winners who didn’t cross under the wire first and most recently three straight improbable Derby champions who are a combined 0–13 since “That is an amazing statistic,” said 89-year-old trainer D There have been plenty of surprise results over 150 years and plenty of middling horses who were simply on their game at exactly the right time But three upsets in a row of this magnitude are unprecedented: Parimutuel wagering was introduced at Churchill in 1908 and this is the first time three consecutive Derbies have been won at odds of 15–1 or greater the underdog winners rallied from off the lead in the stretch suddenly looming in contention as tens of thousands of patrons asked Rich Strike was the ultimate lightning strike passing 14 horses in the final quarter mile with a daring ride by obscure jockey Sonny Leon to weave through traffic and find daylight in the final strides Mage was in 14th place with half a mile remaining in the 1 1/4-mile race and still was sixth heading into the final quarter mile before charging to the front in mid-track Mystik Dan had a ground-saving trip along the rail behind the leaders before jockey Brian Hernandez Jr made an incredibly bold move through a tight spot to take over in the final quarter mile then held off two charging challengers by mere inches at the wire it’s not going to work out perfectly,” Hernandez says of his trip on Mystik Dan you need the right horse on the right day.” the racing luck came in the form of withering early paces that wore down the leaders in the stretch The 2022 and ’23 Derby leaders went through the first half mile in less than 46 seconds — when 45 and change flashes up on the scoreboard The ’24 pace was stout but slightly more moderate at 46.63 seconds allowing Mystik Dan to hold up at the end after staying near the front throughout / Michael Clevenger and Christopher Granger/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORKBeyond pace scenarios that can junk up the race there are a plethora of other factors that could be contributing to the weirdness of recent Derbies The most obvious is that American thoroughbreds don’t race as often as they used to which leads to many inexperienced young colts being thrown into a chaotic situation on Saturday there is a horse with three career starts (Grande) and two with four (Final Gambit and Chunk of Gold) was injured over the weekend and dropped out the less they’ve experienced in terms of varying track conditions Then the variables are compounded by the unprecedented elements that come with the Derby: the longest race any of them have yet contested; the largest field they will ever be part of; and the largest crowd they will ever see (and hear) Some horses might be freaked out by the noise that accompanies the walk over or in the Churchill Downs paddock—now a multi-level semicircle that has almost a Roman Colosseum feel to it Some might be bothered by the size of the herd being in tight quarters with that many competitors And some might simply get slammed by another horse in the anarchy when the starting gate opens or be shuffled back during the charge into the first turn there’s not a lot of things that are just completely out of your hands,” says trainer Brad Cox who won the 2021 Derby by DQ with Mandaloun “And when the gate opens in the Kentucky Derby and we're asking all of them to do something they've never done by going a mile and a quarter None of us know what we have until they run the race.” The unknown is the essential conflict underlying the Derby It is the biggest prize in North American horse racing but it is also subject to wildly random results—now seemingly more than ever So much time and thought and expense go into breeding and then the race itself can become an absolute crapshoot No trainer is more painfully familiar with that dynamic than Steve Asmussen The 59-year-old has the most wins in North American history His 26 starters in the race are the most for a trainer who has never captured the Run for the Roses “I don't know if it's healthy to want something that bad,” Asmussen says “And maybe that's why it has eluded me.” Asmussen has had the best horse in the world—Curlin in 2007-08 and Gun Runner in 2016-17—yet they both finished third in the Derby (Both have become acclaimed sires as well.) On three other occasions an Asumussen trainee has finished second—Nehro in 2011 Epicenter looked like the winner until being passed in deep stretch by—who’s that?—Rich Strike whose place in the race wasn’t secured until another entry scratched the day before “Not only have I had Curlin and Gun Runner beat in it when I didn't think that was possible,” Asmussen says “When Epicenter gets beat by a horse that scratches in—I mean the circumstances that create a Derby winner Immediately after the Rich Strike jaw dropper three years ago Asmussen’s only reaction was a disbelieving laugh “It’s as improbable as any scenario any of us ever imagined,” he said that day I was thinking how much goes into this exact moment and all of the buildup And all the scenarios my rambling can come up with “At the head of the stretch (as Epicenter rolled into the lead) you’re about to be run down by a claimer.” Asmussen says he's unwilling to make is pushing a talented horse too fast When told that the last three winners have never won again Maybe it's keeping too much ahead of us We do it as hard as we can and with the philosophy that everything matters or nothing matters but as disappointed as we are having not won the Derby (I am) freakishly proud of what we've gotten done (afterwards) with horses that ran in the Derby." If this recent run of long-shot Derby winners continues Asumussen is better positioned this year than he was in years when he entered with a proven contender Perhaps the Hand of Asher guides him to the winner’s circle when he least expects it Mage and Rich Strike have only stoked the ardor of owners to nudge their own long shots into the race Derby Fever is real and rampant in this field where 14 of the 20 horses are at 20–1 odds They’re hoping the Kentucky Derby stays weird for at least one more year “It’s up to the elements of the universe.” The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit If you or someone you know has a gambling problem crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER Forde Reaches World Finals in 60 Meters3/21/2025 9:55:00 AM | Track & Field/XC Running fast is a feeling unlike any other Once you get in the blocks and the gun goes off and all you can do is focus on the finish line the less you feel your feet touch the ground I’ve been blessed with the ability to run fast and it’s taken me on a journey across the world running has been a huge part of my life the past several years It’s helped me overcome the challenges I’ve faced moving to a new country and transferring colleges on multiple occasions It’s even given me the chance to represent my home country in the 2025 World Indoor Track & Field Championships just a few weeks ago Running has taken me to places I never would have imagined but I was also a late bloomer when it came to track and field but cricket is the most popular sport by far but I knew I had to choose between the two sports at some point When I started competing in track and field My grandparents were initially worried about the competitions conflicting with our religious beliefs as Seventh-day Adventists but they eventually saw my talent and the opportunities it could bring I began to train seriously at the age of 17 and started to make a name for myself in the local track scene I even won the double sprinting title at the end of high school which caught the attention of college coaches COVID-19 disrupted my plans to come to the United States I got recruited by the University of New Orleans It was a big step for me to leave Barbados and move to a new country My first two years in New Orleans were great I had the chance to compete at a high level and set some personal bests my coach got hired at Louisiana Tech and asked me to come with him I continued to improve and even set a school record in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.62 so I made the decision to transfer to North Texas I’ve earned all-conference honors and finished runner-up in the 60 meters These experiences have helped me grow as a person and an athlete and learning to be independent have all contributed to my development but I’ve embraced the journey and made the most of every opportunity One of the biggest moments of my career came when I received an email from the World Athletics and Chinese Athletic Association inviting me to represent Barbados at the 2025 World Indoor Track & Field Championships in China a few weeks ago It was an incredible honor to represent my country on a global stage and I was determined to make the most of it Competing in China was an experience like no other and the unfamiliar surroundings were all new challenges I was used to adapting to new surroundings I gave it my all in the competition and ended up finishing seventh in the 60 meters advancing to the finals against a world-class field I was a bit disappointed with my performance I realized how far I had come and the significance of making it to the finals in my first global championship Representing Barbados is something I take great pride in and I’m grateful for the opportunity to showcase my talent on such a big stage It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come and the support system that has helped me along the way has been a constant source of encouragement and motivation and her belief in me pushes me to keep striving for greatness I want to continue improving and qualify for more international competitions including the World Championships and the Olympics and making the most of every opportunity that comes my way My journey from Bridgetown to the United States and beyond has been filled with ups and downs I’m excited to see where this journey takes me next and the impact I can make on the track and beyond With Barbados in my heart and the world as my stage I’m ready to leave my mark on the sport of track and field This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page In the bygone days of the four-team College Football Playoff a maximum of five or six teams had something to play for in their conference championship games earning home field—they’re all on the line all over the place The matchup: SMU Mustangs (11–1) vs. Clemson Tigers (9–3), 8 p.m. ET Saturday (ABC), at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. ACC title history: SMU seeking its first, Clemson seeking its 22nd. Line: SMU by 2.5, per DraftKings Stakes: This is the most interesting title game in terms of the College Football Playoff Winner grabs an automatic bid and likely first-round bye If that winner is Clemson—after being counted out repeatedly—it will knock another team out of the 12-team field The ACC should get at least two bids in that scenario with SMU staying in the field and perhaps the Miami Hurricanes as well it probably increases the chances of the Canes getting a bid SMU has been especially nasty in the front seven allowing just one opponent to rush for four yards per carry and producing a league-leading 31 sacks in eight ACC games Clemson has excelled in the turnover department leading the ACC with a plus-11 margin in eight games The matchup: Arizona State Sun Devils (10–2) vs. Iowa State Cyclones (10–2), noon ET Saturday (ABC), at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Big 12 title history: Both programs are seeking their first. ASU is in its first season in the league; ISU is in its 29th. Line: Arizona State by 2, per DraftKings Stakes: Quite likely a winner-take-all game while the loser probably does not make the field and is jettisoned into the bowl rabble Skinny: The blueprint for this game seems pretty straightforward from an Arizona State standpoint—establish battering ram Cam Skattebo on the ground and then utilize Sam Leavitt’s arm in spots against a good Iowa State pass defense striking an offensive balance with its running back tandem and the passing of Rocco Becht is key Becht’s pass efficiency rating has declined the last three games but his 13-for-36 struggle in frigid conditions Saturday night against the Kansas State Wildcats is probably a tossout performance Stakes: Both teams are likely in the playoff Winner gets an automatic bid and assuredly a first-round bye 1 if it’s Texas and the Oregon Ducks lose in the Big Ten game Loser may drop to one of the bottom four seeds and a first-round road game Skinny: Las Vegas certainly is not expecting a repeat of the blitzkrieg the Dawgs put on the Horns in Austin in October Georgia won that game by 15 but is (for now) an underdog in its home-away-from-home in Atlanta The Bulldogs have been bedeviled by stretches of casual play which contributed to two losses (the Alabama Crimson Tide and Mississippi Rebels) and a pair of tense wins (against the Kentucky Wildcats and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets) 1 rushing defense in the league with a puny running game Georgia will need quarterback Carson Beck to outshine counterpart Quinn Ewers The matchup: Oregon Ducks (12–0) vs. the Penn State Nittany Lions (11–1), 8 p.m. ET Saturday (CBS), at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Big Ten title history: Oregon seeking its first (first season in league), Penn State seeking its fifth. Line: Oregon by 3.5, per DraftKings 1 seed and favorite’s mantle for the playoff The loser is likely to host a first-round game these are the top two offenses in yards per play (Oregon 6.54 But they both have quality defenses as well The Nittany Lions might have the two biggest game-wreckers in this matchup with defensive end Abdul Carter (10 sacks 19.5 tackles for loss) and tight end Tyler Warren (more than 1,200 yards receiving rushing and passing and 10 total touchdowns) But Oregon might have better overall talent James Franklin has that whole big game bugaboo to contend with Jeanty has a chance to break Barry Sanders’s single-season rushing yard record. / Troy Babbitt-Imagn ImagesMountain West Conference (35)The matchup: UNLV Rebels (10–2) at Boise State Broncos (11–1), 8 p.m. ET Friday (Fox). MWC title history: UNLV seeking its first, Boise State seeking its sixth. Line: Boise State by 4, per DraftKings Stakes: Winner almost certainly grabs the Group of 5 automatic playoff bid pending some out-of-body performance by the Army Black Knights at the same time Friday night Skinny: Broncos running back Ashton Jeanty (2,288 rushing yards and 29 total touchdowns) puts in his final Heisman Trophy audition but has to do it against the defense that played him best Jeanty had just 128 yards and a season-low 3.88 yards per carry in a five-point Boise State win in October UNLV quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams will put some stress on the Broncos defense with his dual-threat capability (more than 2,500 yards total offense despite not starting until the fourth game of the season) UNLV coach Barry Odom’s name is in heavy circulation for other jobs; does that become a distraction this week The matchup: Tulane Green Wave (9–3) at Army Black Knights (10–1), 8 p.m. ET Friday (ABC). AAC title history: Tulane is seeking its second title, Army is seeking its first. Line: Tulane by 5.5, per DraftKings Stakes: Army is holding out hope that a dominant victory and an unimpressive Mountain West game might vault the Knights into the playoff but it would probably take a wave of patriotic fervor to influence the committee Tulane’s loss to the Memphis Tigers last week was a playoff disqualifier Skinny: The forecast high for Friday in West Point is 32 degrees and it likely will be in the 20s at kickoff We’ll see how much the New Orleans guys really want to be there mashing facemasks with the Army option for three hours This is the Knights’ biggest non-Navy game in a very long time but they will have an athletic disadvantage at some positions Tulane coach Jon Sumrall has the same potential job distractions facing Odom The matchup: Marshall Thundering Herd (9–3) at Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (10–2), 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday (ESPN). Sun Belt title history: Marshall seeking its first, Louisiana seeking its fourth. Line: Louisiana by 5.5, per DraftKings Stakes: None where the playoff is concerned where coach Charles Huff is 31–20 in four seasons and playing for a championship and very well might not be retained He’s on the last year of his contract with no extension in sight has had its belief in coach Michael Desormeaux validated this season after a couple of rocky years replacing Billy Napier Marshall might need to generate a couple of takeaways to slow down the top Sun Belt offense in yards per play (6.88) Stakes: Just #MACtion glory for two schools that have been there for more than 70 years these are the top two offenses in yards per play (Miami at 6.80 Ohio at 6.31) and the top two defenses in yards allowed per play (Miami at 4.01 the Bobcats have won five straight since an October loss to Miami The matchup: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (8–4) at Jacksonville State Gamecocks (8–4), 7 p.m. ET Friday (CBS Sports). CUSA title history: WKU is seeking its third, JSU is seeking its first. Line: Jacksonville State by 4.5, per DraftKings Stakes: Jacksonville State is trying to win its first FBS league title WKU is trying to reestablish itself at the top of the league after a seven-year run of watching other programs take the title Skinny: Western Kentucky just beat Jax State on Saturday on a 50-yard field goal with three seconds left Not much should have changed in six days other than the venue (that game was in Bowling Green Jax State is all about the running game while WKU airs it out Where is JSU coach Rich Rodriguez’s head with his name circulating at West Virginia and possibly elsewhere His debut season as the full-time coach took on a completely different tenor after the monster upset win in The Horseshoe on Saturday poised team that steadily made a much more talented rival pucker and then crack Mike Gundy (41), Oklahoma State Cowboys. He went from playing in the Big 12 championship game last year to finishing last (and winless) in the Big 12 this season. Incredible collapse. Even the retirement home radio show crowd can’t be happy with The Stillwater Mullet When hungry and thirsty and ready to watch ball in Mason The Dash recommends a spot at the bar at The Rusty Bucket pair it with a Rhinegeist Truth IPA (42) and thank The Dash later If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help In an American sports ecosystem dominated by football this is the month when college basketball takes over But there are some things to do that will improve the March Experience for all involved In a sport where games are designed to be played in two hours But it wasn’t a complete outlier in the SEC on Saturday with the Oklahoma Sooners–Ole Miss Rebels game taking 2:28 to complete and the Alabama Crimson Tide–Tennessee Volunteers contest going 2:26 The Missouri Tigers–Vanderbilt Commodores game went 2:30 with an overtime factored in A Vandy–Texas A&M Aggies game in February went 2:41 Part of the dawdling pace of Auburn-Kentucky was four replay reviews (2) but it has become a time-consuming crutch for officials who are less willing to trust their judgment in the moment Coaches want the refs to get the calls right and they don’t care how long it takes—that’s understandable But the drama and adrenaline of exciting games drains away with every trip to the monitor referee confab after looking at the monitor jog over to the TV crew to impart the decision and inevitable talking down of whichever coach disagrees with the ruling (If reviews were predicated on a coach’s challenge and they had only one per game until the final two minutes at which point only officials could initiate reviews Part of the reason for excessive reviews is the crackdown on flying elbows and blows to the head—a well-intentioned effort at ensuring player safety but something that has become excessively officiated with players flopping like soccer stars and acting like they’ve been maimed Not every rebound tussle is a hook-and-hold and not every toss of the head on a drive is indicative of excessive contact three-point shooters splaying their legs in search of contact are not being called often enough for flops With TV windows stacked on top of each other an NCAA tournament game in Providence because the previous contest in Lexington dragged on for 2 1/2 hours is no way to go through March Madness Rule changes that can improve pace of play will have to wait until 2025–26 (at least) so for now it will be up to the officials and game administrators to tighten up operations as best they can The Tigers are an absolute wagon who should roll into Selection Sunday as the favorite to win the national championship They have powered through a historically powerful SEC with just one loss to date and went 12–1 in a loaded nonconference schedule that included games against at least five NCAA tourney locks with a résumé that includes a victory (at home) over Auburn the Blue Devils would have a stronger case to be the overall No they should get the second-best bracket setup Florida has risen to the top of the non-Auburn SEC pending a swing game at Alabama on Wednesday The winner of that one could lock down a No But Houston should not be knocked off the top-seed line by a third SEC team The Cougars are 17–1 in a very good Big 12 with the only loss by a point in overtime against Texas Tech three of Houston’s four losses have come in OT When a power-conference team shows they don’t belong in the Big Dance being blown out repeatedly in the final month and yet the selection committee gave them a bid The Cavaliers rewarded that blind faith with one final blowout loss the group signaling that it wants no part of this thing is the Texas Longhorns (5) That includes embarrassing blowouts against the last-place South Carolina Gamecocks and at home to the bubble-dwelling Georgia Bulldogs Speaking of blowout losses to South Carolina: The Arkansas Razorbacks scored seven points in the first 15 minutes and were down 30 for much of the second half Saturday against the Gamecocks 6–10) in the big bracket on Selection Sunday a 24–5 VCU and a two-bid Big West (UC San Diego is 26–4 UC Irvine is 25–5) would be preferable to some of the power-conference also-rans the mid-majors are being held to an impossible standard As Illinois State coach Ryan Pedon said on the Missouri Valley Conference call Monday morning: “If Drake does not get in the NCAA tournament but they’ve done little so far to merit at-large inclusion With exactly one win over a likely NCAA tournament team—beating UCLA by two points in December after trailing almost all game—the rematch with Duke looms extremely large Saturday It’s a familiar scenario for Hubert Davis & Co Carolina was a probable—but not certain—NCAA team when it faced Duke in what was Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game The Heels won a shocker that day to lock up a bid kickstarting a run that took them to a third meeting with the Blue Devils in the Final Four and another epic victory That run from March 5 to April 2 was as good as anything Carolina has ever had that didn’t include winning a national championship Carolina needs a Duke win even more this time around It at least has the game on its home court they might have to win the ACC tournament in Charlotte The biggest reason not to expand the NCAA tournament is because it’s already an all-comers event—every team that gets to play in its conference tourney can dream of making the field of 68 and winning games there Which is why the Little Dance that precedes the Big Dance is truly the start of the best sporting event we have The conference tournaments actually began Sunday night with the Atlantic Sun Many of the mid-major and low-major tourneys will play out this week before giving way to the higher-profile events next week and Selection Sunday on March 16 Here’s a Minutes overview of the first 15 tournaments:  They won the league by two games and have their first 20-win season since 2000 Dark horse: The third-seeded Tennessee State Tigers have won 10 of their last 13 improving their KenPom ranking 64 spots since Jan Hot coach: SIU-Edwardsville’s Brian Barone took over a program in 2019 that had never had a Division I winning season The son of longtime coach Tony Barone has now put together three straight winning records Hot-seat coach: Tennessee Tech’s John Pelphrey brings a 15–16 team to Evansville as he tries to avoid a sixth straight losing season Player to watch: SIU-Edwardsville guard Ray’Sean Taylor is a four-year Cougar who is averaging 19.2 points Top seed: The High Point Panthers won the league by three games and take an 11-game winning streak into this tourney Their only two conference losses were in January Dark horse: The third-seeded Winthrop Eagles finished the season winning eight of their last nine has a 53–14 record in two seasons as a college head coach Now he needs to avoid repeating last year’s semifinal upset loss Hot-seat coach: Presbyterian Blue Hose coach Quinton Ferrell has yet to produce a winning season in six years on the job Player to watch: UNC-Asheville guard Jordan Marsh is a 5' 10" stick of dynamite He’s averaging 25.7 points over his last three games It’s high time for High Point to make its first Division I Big Dance appearance Top seed: The Drake Bulldogs won just their third outright conference title in school history by two games over the Bradley Braves Drake has lost just once in the last two months But the Bulldogs were taken to the wire in both of their last two games by league dregs Missouri State and Evansville Dark horse: The third-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers should get a rubber game with second seed Bradley in the semifinals Hot coach: Drake’s Ben McCollum went 27–3 in his first D-I season Hot-seat coach: Steve Prohm 2.0 hasn’t worked very well for the Murray State Racers After going 104–29 in his first stint at the school Player to watch: Drake’s Bennett Stirtz leads the nation in minutes per game sitting out a total of four minutes over his last 12 games The Bulldogs will win Arch Madness for the second straight season Top seed: The Lipscomb Bison tied for first with the North Alabama Lions but won the tiebreaker The Bison probably just need to avoid the fifth-seeded Eastern Kentucky Colonels in the semifinals Dark horse: Eastern Kentucky has won nine of its last 11 but lost high-scoring guard George Kimble III to a knee injury in February Hot coach: A former Mike White assistant at Florida Jordan Mincy of the Jacksonville Dolphins took over a program in 2021 that hadn’t had a winning season since ’17 and has gone 68–55 including a 4–2 record in the ASUN tourney Hot-seat coach: Matthew Driscoll has had some notable success in a long stint with the North Florida Ospreys but he’s 21 games below .500 over the past five seasons including losing a first-round game Sunday night to Austin Peay Player to watch: Lipscomb big man Jacob Ognacevic has scored 20 or more points in his last six games and eight of his last nine He’s averaging 20.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game The Lions are ready to make their first NCAA appearance Top seed: The Omaha Mavericks won their first regular-season conference title at the D-I level riding a sizzling 40.2% accuracy rate from three-point range in league games Dark horse: The South Dakota State Jackrabbits won this tourney last year and returned a couple of key players from that run Coach Eric Henderson then added a stellar freshman class and a key transfer to keep the Jacks in the mix again this season Otzelberger and has never had a losing season in six years at SDSU He’s earned a pair of NCAA bids in the process Hot-seat coach: Marvin Menzies was an NCAA tournament regular in the 2010s while coaching at New Mexico State He’s 17 games below .500 in three seasons leading the Kansas City Roos Player to watch: That key transfer SDSU landed was Washington State big man Oscar Cluff He’s making 63.6% of his field goal attempts 15–3) won the SoCon by two games and carry an 11-game winning streak into the tourney but not as good at the other end of the floor Dark horse: The fourth-seeded Samford Bulldogs haven’t been great down the stretch but they have a core of players who won this tourney last year Samford is also the last team to have beaten Chattanooga Hot coach: Samford’s Bucky McMillan has won 93 games the past four seasons He’ll likely be in the mix for power-conference jobs Hot-seat coach: Like Prohm at Murray State Ed Conroy’s second act with the Citadel Bulldogs has been pretty rough Conroy is 41 games below .500 in three seasons; his current team is 5–24 and has lost 21 in a row Player to watch: East Tennessee State Buccaneers guard Quimari Peterson is a 43% three-point shooter who is averaging 19.5 points He led ETSU into the SoCon title game last year Top seed: The South Alabama Jaguars emerged from a four-way tie for the regular-season title with the No The Minutes likes the fact that all 14 teams get to play Giving the top seeds a five-round bye is pretty wild but it does reward those who excelled in the regular season—except the Sun Belt was a total mosh pit this year Fittingly for a league with no clear favorite five of South Alabama’s 18 league games went into overtime Dark horse: The fourth-seeded Arkansas State Red Wolves have the best overall record in the league (22–9) and the highest KenPom rating (No But they’ve lost their last five games decided by five points or fewer Hot coach: Former Nate Oats assistant Bryan Hodgson perhaps) in two seasons as head coach at Arkansas State That includes a win over Memphis this year Louisville last year and consecutive wins over UAB Hot-seat coach: Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles coach Jay Ladner sounded last week like a guy who knows he’s getting fired Player to watch: He might not be the best player in the league averaged 24.6 points over his last five games including a 46-point eruption against Texas State on Feb Dunning made 19 out of 33 threes in that stretch Top seed: The Robert Morris Colonials struggled for four years making the transition from the Northeast Conference to the Horizon losing only to the Wright State Raiders on Feb Dark horse: The seventh-seeded Northern Kentucky Norse closed on a four-game winning streak Crazy things tend to happen in this tournament Hot coach: Daniyal Robinson of the Cleveland State Vikings has three 20-win seasons in three years on the job He took over for Dennis Gates and has kept the program operating at a high level Hot-seat coach: Jon Coffman probably isn’t really on the hot seat at Purdue Fort Wayne But he’s never been to the NCAA tournament in 10 previous seasons at the school Player to watch: The well-traveled Kam Woods is on his fourth team bouncing from Troy to North Carolina A&T to North Carolina State and now to Robert Morris He’s stuffing the stat sheet for the Colonials And he’s played 39 or more minutes in six of the last eight games Top seed: The Central Connecticut Blue Devils (23–6 14–2) have the most overall wins by a NEC team in the last seven years They bring the nation’s longest winning streak (12 games) into the NEC quarterfinals and will play every round on their home court if they keep winning With Arizona State Sun Devils transfer Malachi Davis leading the way LIU closed the season on a six-game winning streak and is the last team to beat Central Connecticut Hot coach: Patrick Sellers took over a CCSU program coming off 10 straight losing seasons the one-time Jim Calhoun assistant has now broken through to win 43 games the past two seasons Hot-seat coach: This is Rob Krimmel’s 13th season leading the Saint Francis Red Flash but the previous four ended with losing records and this one is headed that way as well at 13–17 Player to watch: Fairleigh Dickinson Knights guard Terrence Brown found his way to Teaneck from Minneapolis and has been a volume scorer averaging 20.6 points while launching 488 shots on the season 16–2) won the league by two games and have lost just once since Jan This is their fourth straight 20-win season; are they finally ready to win their first league tournament title since 1992 Dark horse: The third-seeded Charleston Cougars have championship experience They have a coach (Chris Mack) who has been to an NCAA Elite Eight and a star player (Ante Brzovic) who started on CAA championship teams the previous two years UNC Wilmington’s Takayo Siddle has won 96 games the past four seasons All he’s missing from the résumé is an NCAA tourney berth Player to watch: The 6' 10" Brzovic is averaging 18.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game for the Cougars The second-seeded Seahawks have won 12 of their last 14 games and are the top offensive team in the league 17–1) dominated the league in a manner normally reserved for the Gonzaga Bulldogs They lost a single WCC game by a single point plowing through the competition one deliberate possession at a time The Gaels are among the nation’s best defensive teams Dark horse: It is altogether strange to refer to the second-seeded Zags as a dark horse but they were swept by Saint Mary’s and have lost three straight (and four out of five) to the Gaels dating to last year But Gonzaga comes in having won nine straight against the rest of the league Hot coach: With 66 wins in three seasons at San Francisco Chris Gerlufsen could be the latest coach of the Dons to move on to a bigger job is 5–26 in his third season with the San Diego Toreros But they did snap a 16-game losing streak on Saturday Player to watch: Gonzaga center Graham Ike has been a load for the Bulldogs A potential finals matchup with Saint Mary’s big man Mitchell Saxen would be their sixth in two seasons Gonzaga hasn’t gone consecutive seasons without winning the WCC tourney since 1997–98 The Gaels are trying to repeat for the first time in school history 18–1) lead the league by a whopping five games going into the final matchups of the regular season Monday They are the best team in the Southland both offensively and defensively and if they don’t repeat as champions it will be a massive shock Dark horse: The Nicholls Colonels and Lamar Cardinals play Monday to decide the second and third seeds but the only potential threat to McNeese comes from Nicholls 1 by outscoring them 33–0 from the three-point line Hot coach: Some athletic director in a power conference is working up the nerve to tell his president he wants to hire Will Wade away from McNeese Hot-seat coach: It wouldn’t make sense for the New Orleans Privateers to fire Stacy Hollowell after one season New Orleans is 4–26 and has become ensnared in the federal and NCAA gambling investigations Player to watch: McNeese has more good players than anyone but Texas A&M-Corpus Christi has a good one in forward Garry Clark (14.8 points His numbers would be even better if he shot better than 57% from the foul line on 107 attempts Top seed: The Bucknell Bison won the tiebreaker over the American Eagles for the top seed closing with six straight wins to finish 13–5 in the league Bucknell is the most efficient offensive team in the Patriot ranking first in effective field goal percentage Dark horse: The Colgate Raiders have dominated the league for years before taking a step back this season finishing 13–18 and 10–8 and in a four-way tie for second 3 seed at your own risk as they shoot for a fifth straight NCAA bid Hot coach: In his second season at American Duane Simpkins has won the most games at the school (19) since 2014 Hot-seat coach: Brett Reed has been an institution at Lehigh but it’s been a struggle the last several years Reed is 32 games under .500 over the last six seasons Player to watch: Bucknell 7-footer Noah Williamson is a towering presence with legitimate three-point range The 250-pounder is also tough to officiate; his 211 free throw attempts ranks 11th nationally Top seed: The battle for the top seed in what the league is billing as “Starch Madness”—being played in potato-intensive Idaho—will be settled Monday night the Northern Colorado Bears and Montana Grizzlies are tied for first Dark horse: The Idaho State Bengals ended the season on a four-game winning streak to finish 15–13 and 10–7 in the Big Sky That’s their best conference record since 2017 Hot coach: Travis DeCuire of the Montana Grizzlies is hardly a revelation But it’s high time to appreciate a guy who has never had a losing season in 11 years on the job Hot-seat coach: Eric Duft is in his third year leading the Weber State Wildcats He won 18 and 20 games his first two years Weber’s five Big Sky victories are its fewest since 2006 Player to watch: Idaho State guard Dylan Darling transferred in from Washington State and became an immediate star Over the last 10 games his scoring average is 24.6 The Bengals’ last NCAA appearance was 1987 when current coach Ryan Looney was 11 years old 13–2) hold a one-game lead over the Vermont Catamounts with the regular season wrapping up Tuesday Bryant and Vermont split their two meetings Dark horse: The Albany Great Danes (16–14) have won four of their last five heading into a game at Vermont on Monday son of the famed former Saint Joseph’s coach has gotten his head coaching career off to a nice start He’s won 39 games (so far) in two seasons at Bryant Hot-seat coach: Nathan Davis started his tenure at Bucknell with four straight winning seasons then ended it with four straight losing seasons He somehow parlayed that into the New Hampshire Wildcats job Player to watch: Earl Timberlake is a do-everything senior for Bryant He played previously for the Miami Hurricanes and Memphis Tigers He’d been bumped out of the starting lineup by the ascending freshman Jase Richardson earlier in February but Holloman was on the floor at the end of a rock fight against Maryland last Wednesday The score was tied at 55 when the Terrapins launched a three for the win—with a little too much time left Spartans big man Jaxon Kohler rebounded it and smartly passed to the nearest guard He took one dribble and fired from well beyond half court—clean swish for the win Michigan State’s winning streak now stands at five with a Big Ten title within reach this week As nothing-but-net as it comes 🎯Check out all the replays of Tre Holloman's crazy @MSU_Basketball buzzer-beater 👇#B1GMBBall pic.twitter.com/ui7F5nxxJa They’re on a three-game winning streak that should lock up Vandy’s first NCAA bid in eight years Every win has been close—by a total of 11 points including one in overtime—but they’re all against NCAA tournament teams Byington has proven to be the stealth home-run hire of the 2024 coaching carousel coming to Nashville after a strong run with the James Madison Dukes One year after improbably winning the ACC tournament and launching a Final Four run the Pack probably won’t even get to defend that title They need to win twice this week (against Pittsburgh and Miami) and have the Notre Dame Fighting Irish lose twice (to Stanford and California at home) to squeak into the 15th and final spot for the ACC tourney The Minutes recommends a visit to Rose Hill Lagerhaus (40) in the Highlands neighborhood It’s a newly opened bar from the Monnik Brewing Beer Co. Drop by for a European-style lager and thank The Minutes later—presumably they’ll have the TVs working in time for tournament viewing The 12-team College Football Playoff is a wellspring of hope and excitement for dozens of fan bases it also will be a source of discontent for those who see their chances slipping away The Dash will identify 12 people dealing with damaged playoff hopes and gauge their teams’ chances of rebounding from calamity A toss-up presidential election surely has the longtime Democratic political strategist on edge but what probably ticks him off more today is the state of the LSU Tigers They’re 6–2 and on the playoff ropes after collapsing in the second half against the Texas A&M Aggies LSU was outscored 31–6 in the final 30 minutes The Tigers ran the ball 12 times for zero yards in the second half Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier threw three interceptions after halftime to facilitate short scoring drives for the Aggies LSU’s playoff chances: The math is a bit daunting at this point They have been dealt out of the one-or-fewer losses club which now numbers 16 in the Power 4 conferences (plus Notre Dame) There’s a solid chance the SEC gets two teams to the finish line at 11–1 and perhaps three at 7–1 or better in league play LSU could finish 10–2 and 7–1 if it wins a de facto elimination game against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Nov That might not get the Tigers higher than fourth or fifth in the SEC pecking order although the league could get four in the 12-team bracket There is no actual evidence that former Missouri student Hamm actually cares how the Tigers are currently performing A season of promise is cratering after a second SEC road blowout Mizzou was not in a good place going into the game after the injury last week to starting quarterback Brady Cook He tried to play through it but was ineffective Backup quarterback Drew Pyne—a 23-year-old fifth-year senior who has played plenty of college football—came on in relief and threw three interceptions in 12 attempts Missouri didn’t cross the Alabama 40-yard line until its final possession Missouri’s playoff chances: There is nothing on the resume that says the Tigers should be in the playoff And even if they finish 10–2—which seems unlikely—there still might not be anything to recommend them The Texas Longhorns’ “Minister of Culture” might need to become their Minister of Propaganda because the strength of schedule is not holding up under close inspection What looked like signature victories at the time over the Oklahoma Sooners and Michigan Wolverines now are just a couple of beatdowns of mediocre-at-best opponents—the Sooners are 4–4 and the Wolverines are 5–3 Texas’s schedule to date ranks 13th out of 16 Southeastern Conference teams ancient rival Texas A&M has risen to the top of the SEC standings After spending the first half of the season talking about the Longhorns’ SEC arrival and potential takeover we all might have been focused on the wrong Texas team in the league Texas’s playoff chances: No harm done in a close win at the Vanderbilt Commodores But what will the committee think of the Horns’ body of work when its first rankings are revealed Nov That will provide some insight into where Texas ranks among one-loss teams heading into its final four games he and the rest of the Ohio State faithful surely were looking for a more emphatic bounce-back performance than what they got Saturday With a week off after losing to the Oregon Ducks the Buckeyes muddled past the Nebraska Cornhuskers 21–17—and that was a week after the Indiana Hoosiers tore the Huskers apart If Nebraska freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola could pinpoint his downfield passes a bit better Ohio State could be on full meltdown alert right now and their 47 offensive snaps were the fewest in nine years Ohio State’s playoff chances: Winning was the most important thing Saturday the Buckeyes have to be slotted fourth among Big Ten playoff contenders behind Oregon They can fix their strength-of-schedule concerns by beating both Penn State and Indiana—but losing to either could evict them from the league championship race and put them into the muddle of two-loss teams The longer multiple teams stay undefeated in the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference the more the commissioners of the SEC and Big Ten are likely to bang the strength-of-schedule drum on behalf of their teams (More justifiably in the SEC than in the Big Ten The two have already put the CFP selection committee on notice (“It has to go incredibly well,” Sankey said rather ominously given the leagues’ authority to change playoff protocol in the future.) If the Big 12 and ACC both have three teams at 11–1 or better at the end of the regular season that will put SEC and Big Ten teams with two losses in a precarious position The SEC and Big Ten playoff chances: They’re both going to want four bids but no more than one of them is likely to get four Texas plays Texas A&M and the Georgia Bulldogs play the Tennessee Volunteers which means that no more than two SEC teams can reach the end of the regular season with one loss The Big Ten still could end up with three 12–0 teams—or The Dash’s best guess is seven bids between the two leagues The ACC commissioner has the lowest-ranked undefeated team from a power conference in the AP poll (the Pittsburgh Panthers at No 18) and the lowest-ranked team with one loss (the SMU Mustangs at No Nobody knows how closely the CFP selection committee top 25 will mirror the polls but the ACC is not getting much respect from the sportswriters Despite beating the 5–1 Syracuse Orange by four touchdowns Thursday night Pitt moved up only one spot in the rankings and remains behind two-loss Alabama and two-loss LSU it’s hard to swim upstream if a team was not ranked before the season The ACC’s playoff chances: The champion is obviously in and a second bid seems entirely plausible at this point They were given the golden ticket to victory Saturday in a playoff elimination game against SMU—six Mustangs turnovers The would-be winning field goal was blocked at the end of regulation Another field goal was missed earlier in the fourth quarter coach Manny Diaz elected to go for the win on a two-point conversion but the pass was incomplete (amid contact between the defensive back and receiver) Duke’s playoff chances: It’s now basketball season in Durham New head coach Fran Brown scored big in the portal most notably landing Ohio State evacuee Kyle McCord as his quarterback McCord piled up big numbers in leading the Orange to a 5–1 start—and then he melted down at Pitt on Thursday night including a mind-boggling three pick-sixes in the first half Syracuse’s playoff chances: It’s now basketball season there Speaking of turnover-related disasters: the best team in the country at protecting the football fell apart in that area against Notre Dame on Saturday losing five fumbles and an interception as their sublime 6–0 start came to an abrupt change of direction But the brigade did march into MetLife Stadium impressively but it was a nonconference game against a quality opponent If Navy regroups and makes the American Athletic Conference championship game against an undefeated opponent (Army) or one with one loss (Memphis) it will have a chance at the Group of 5 automatic bid That seems like a lock to go to either the champion of the Mountain West or the AAC Navy Midshipmen react after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn ImagesMichigan State Spartans fans (11)Their team lost to the rival Michigan Wolverines for the third straight year. Their team got in another postgame fight with the Wolverines. Their team was Little Brother-ed in a postgame interview by Michigan tight end Colston Loveland Michigan State’s playoff chances: They’ve been dead since September They showed up in good numbers for their Mountain West Conference showdown with the Boise State Broncos. They saw their defense do the best job anyone has yet this season on superstar running back Ashton Jeanty. But they still couldn’t get the needed victory UNLV’s playoff chances: A theoretical rematch with Boise State in the Mountain West title game would offer a path back into playoff contention the Colorado State Rams (3–0) are ahead of the Rebels in the league race with a manageable remaining schedule Each week The Dash projects the 12-team playoff field as if today were Selection Sunday the rankings are based on what has actually transpired this season First-round matchups: Boise State at Penn State; Pittsburgh at Georgia; Iowa State at Indiana; Notre Dame at Texas There has been an unusual amount of pre-March movement on the coaching carousel with significant jobs Florida State Seminoles and Indiana Hoosiers all have seen head coaches step down or announce their retirement at season’s end which could lead to some awkward situations at a couple of those locales Could Indiana (1) be headed for a long goodbye to Mike Woodson but the two wins are bangers—an upset at the Big Ten–leading Michigan State Spartans and then a second-half annihilation of the hated Purdue Boilermakers on Sunday Those victories have substantially improved the Hoosiers’ NCAA tournament positioning moving them closer toward the field of 68 at 16–11 overall and 7–9 in the league Woodson is definitely leaving at season’s end but the tenor of that departure and the actual expiration date on the Woodson era could change significantly if Indiana makes a closing charge The win over Purdue was notable for a couple of reasons The most significant was the overpowering flurry Indiana hit the Boilers with in the second half a 28–3 punchout in the first 8:04 that turned a 12-point halftime deficit into a commanding lead The second notable element was Woodson benching his two leading scorers big man Oumar Ballo and forward Mackenzie Mgbako Ballo played 11 minutes and 42 seconds of the decisive second half and Mgbako didn’t play at all finishing the game scoreless in nine minutes of action In what little time he has remaining on the job Woodson might have hit upon a major addition-by-subtraction chemistry move speculation about who will replace Woodson shifts quickly away from Michigan and Dusty May (2) after he agreed to a contract extension The Minutes’ free advice for the Hoosiers is to outfit T.J Otzelberger (3) in an IU crimson smedium polo But there was more free advice in the air Sunday Purdue coach Matt Painter (4) dropped a truth bomb on the IU fans when asked what he thought the program needed going forward: … They jump on and off things here way too much Just accurately talk about what’s actually happened … It’s hard for young people to hear all that and then collectively play like but you dog us when we lose and then we’re the best when we win.’ … So I think they need to learn from some of those things and support [athletic director] Scott Dolson and support the new coach and support the staff But also just kind of be grounded with everything.” The challenge now for the Duke Blue Devils (5) could be staying grounded as assistant coach Jai Lucas emerges as the top candidate for the vacant Miami job. Those reports surfaced Saturday and were substantive enough for Duke head coach Jon Scheyer to address after his team obliterated the Illinois Fighting Illini in New York The job he’s done for us has been incredible We’ll cross that bridge and figure it out.” Lucas has emerged as the top candidate for the open head coaching job at Miami / Matthew Visinsky/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesThe bridge comes into view Tuesday there are a couple of other looming dynamics to deal with The Canes look like a long shot to even make the ACC tournament can he stay locked in as Scheyer’s defensive coordinator for the rest of what could be a Final Four season working with total focus alongside Nick Saban before he took the Georgia job who was told to leave by Saban in the middle of the 2016 College Football Playoff because his attention was wandering toward his next job at Florida Atlantic And beyond that, if Lucas does go to Miami, what happens with the two star recruits of the 2025 class, twins Cameron and Cayden Boozer (6)? They’re the sons of former Duke great Carlos Boozer, but they were also heavily recruited by Lucas and happen to be from Miami It’s one thing to lose a top assistant to a head coaching job—that happens at successful programs It’s another if you lose a top assistant and have him take two star recruits with him but it’s another element of intrigue that will hang over a Lucas-Miami courtship that probably went public before key people on both sides would have preferred Florida State (7) might be feeling the pressure rise with its rivals in South Florida already reportedly locking in on a top candidate—and perhaps on the beginnings of a recruiting class There are a couple of NBA assistants with Seminole ties: Luke Loucks played at FSU for Leonard Hamilton and was on staff with the Golden State Warriors for a couple titles before moving to Sacramento; former Nole great Sam Cassell is currently part of the Boston Celtics’ juggernaut More Minutes’ free advice: Take a long look at Samford coach Bucky McMillan (8) who has his fourth straight 20-win team and took the Bulldogs to their first NCAA tournament in 24 years last season; also kick the tires on George Mason’s Tony Skinn who has won 20 games in both of his two seasons as a head coach Speaking of awkward: On the eve of the Kansas Jayhawks hosting the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Tulsa World reported that Oklahoma State alumnus Bill Self (9) seriously considered going back to his alma mater last spring Self sort of shot down the story in a statement he gave to Brett McMurphy of the Action Network while not denying that he spoke with school officials about their open job: “I spoke to them answered questions about the job and offered my opinion about what is needed to win in our league Which I have done every time the job has opened but I’ve never spent a night close to Stillwater in the last 20 years unless my team was playing there.” With two national championships and more than two decades of relentless winning at Kansas Self leaving for another college job—especially one in the Big 12—would have sent ripples through the sport (Kansas also beat the tar out of Oklahoma State on Saturday to end a two-game losing streak.) A compilation of other awkward situations can be summed up in a sentence: keeping it in the family (10) can create tension if things don’t go great The Syracuse Orange are nosediving in their second year under Adrian Autry The Orange are 11–16 and 5–11 in an underwhelming ACC and quite likely headed to their worst record since the 1968–69 team went 9–16 They’re in danger of missing the 15-team ACC tournament with a Wednesday game against the North Carolina State Wolfpack looming large in that equation If there were ever a time to appreciate the rock-solid consistency of the endless Jim Boeheim era is likely to get a chance to fix it in Year 3 The Villanova Wildcats are betwixt and between with third-year coach Kyle Neptune a longtime former assistant to the great Jay Wright There has been incremental improvement—17–17 to 18–16 to the current 16–12 with three winnable games left in the regular season But the product has obviously backslid since the end of Wright’s run Is there strong reason to believe the product will be better in Year 4 after ’Nova loses the nation’s leading scorer in Eric Dixon Rodney Terry did fine work as the emergency interim coach of the Texas Longhorns in 2022–23 after Chris Beard blew up his tenure there with an off-court situation Texas is a bubble team with a 5–9 league record despite going hard in the portal in the offseason and the arrival of star freshman Tre Johnson Don’t be shocked if there is a change in Austin The Virginia Cavaliers were also stuck with an interim coach after the 11th-hour resignation of Tony Bennett before the season started Ron Sanchez moved up the bench to take over and it has not gone well—the Cavs are 13–14 overall trending toward their first losing season since Bennett’s arrival in 2009–10 Might be time for an entirely new approach at Virginia moving on from BennettBall and making a hire from outside his realm Musselman is the latest coach to describe the difficulties of cross-country travel after USC's move the Big Ten. / Kirby Lee-Imagn ImagesLong Trips Are (Unsurprisingly) Taking Their Toll On Sunday, USC Trojans coach Eric Musselman followed Cronin in articulating the difficulty of cross-country travel in their new Big Ten reality While there is zero reason to pity the former Pac-12 schools who sold out their athletes by taking the Big Ten cash grab Neither was Cronin when he piped up a few weeks ago The numbers for the Pac-12 diaspora to the Big Ten and ACC show that they are underperforming when playing two or more time zones away from home and visitors to the West Coast in the those leagues are underperforming as well A breakdown of the season to date (in men’s basketball only): ACC teams playing league road games two or more time zones removed from home are 6–23 Big Ten teams playing league road games two or more time zones removed have been markedly more in line with overall conference visiting performances The league road winning percentage as a whole is .430 But taking it beyond wins and losses to factor in expected results shows that teams doing the long travel are not quite playing to their predictive standard Using Ken Pomeroy’s pregame predicted point spreads the ACC teams playing two or more time zones away have underperformed 17 times Big Ten teams playing two or more time zones away have underperformed 24 times overperformed 20 times and pushed five times The Stanford Cardinal (11) and California Golden Bears (12) have been the biggest home heroes/road zeros going a combined 2–13 on the road in ACC long travel games and 10–4 at home Stanford has overperformed on the road just once an outcome the Heels may deeply regret come Selection Sunday Cal overperformed five times but won only once visitors to the Bay Area have underperformed nine times in 14 games The UCLA Bruins (13) lost their first four Big Ten road trips to Central or Eastern time before finally breaking through at Indiana on Feb The Bruins are 5–2 at home against long travelers with a home loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers as the more notable outlier The USC Trojans (14) had a stunning win at Illinois but several underperforming road losses most recently the one against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights that had Musselman lamenting the schedule The flip side of that was upsetting the Michigan State Spartans in Los Angeles The Washington Huskies (15) have been drubbed a couple of times on the road—by 34 at Michigan State and by 24 at the Ohio State Buckeyes—but also won at Minnesota and the Penn State Nittany Lions most notably upsetting the Maryland Terrapins The Oregon Ducks (16) have been the best long-travel road team on the West Coast with a 3–3 record that includes the stunning comeback upset of the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday coughed up some home hairballs—a 32-point loss to Illinois and a loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers that pumped oxygen into the Huskers’ NCAA dreams Amid a potential cooling of United States relations with Europe guess what is happening in college basketball European imports are playing major roles all over the place the number of impact players is noteworthy Trump Administration policies may affect foreign college athletes’ ability to make NIL money and their ease of movement into and out of the country. Now there is even some political pressure in Texas to not recruit foreign players in favor of Americans He came from Florida Atlantic with May and leads Michigan in scoring at 15.9 points per game Goldin is something of a throwback battler a player who never shies away from interior contact His 146 free throw attempts are 55 more than anyone else on the Michigan team Goldin is also the rare player on this list who prepped in the U.S. attending Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut Lakhin has averaged 17.3 points per game during Clemson's four-game winning streak / Jerome Miron-Imagn ImagesViktor Lakhin (18) second in rebounding (6.1) and first in blocks (1.7) Lakhin has kicked it up another notch during Clemson’s current four-game winning streak averaging 17.3 points and making six threes The sophomore has improved dramatically year-over-year achieving consistency this month and moving into the starting lineup the last two games he is averaging 12.4 points while making 74% of his two-point shots and 44% of his threes the 6' 9" Milicic transferred in from the Charlotte 49ers and has been an instant impact player for Rick Barnes He is Tennessee’s leading rebounder (7.6) and is shooting 40% from three-point range in SEC play One of the reasons the Hogs are making a run at the NCAA tourney is the elevated play of Ivisic who has had the first 20-point games of his two-season college career this month—three of them Ivisic is a dangerous three-point shooter who is now getting around to defending the rim He’s got 20 blocked shots in the last six games Brad Underwood has counted on the 18-year-old from the moment he arrived and he’s delivered leading the team in scoring (15.5) and assists (4.8) He also averages a whopping 3.6 turnovers per game but that’s part of the deal when you entrust a freshman to handle the ball as much as Jakucionis does He’s a dazzling 6' 9" passer who made a sensational splash in the season’s opening month Since then Demin has looked more like the skinny freshman he is shooting just 27.3% from three and turning the ball over a bit too much guard Augustas Marciulionis and forward Paulius Murauskas The Gaels’ top two scorers combine to average 27 points powering them to a 25–4 record and the West Coast Conference title Saint Mary’s hasn’t even missed Aidan Mahaney since he transferred to Connecticut largely because Marciulonis has run the team so efficiently Oklahoma Sooners guard Duke Miles (25) painfully became the poster boy for this SEC season Saturday In the heat of a must-win home game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs Miles went sprinting after a loose ball and dived and soon he was spitting parts of his teeth onto the hardwood He came back in and finished the game not much later And bubbly Oklahoma got a victory it desperately needed Miles (15) epitomized the physicality of the SEC this past weekend when he dove to the ground in pursuit of a steal / Alonzo Adams-Imagn ImagesWinning in this SEC requires hurling oneself face-first into ferocious competition twice a week Sometimes you get the loose ball; sometimes you get a busted mouth The Minutes looks at this week’s biggest games always which are backloaded to the weekend: Saturday: Auburn Tigers at Kentucky Wildcats (26) the Tigers’ 13–1 record and two-game lead is wildly impressive Nothing has rattled them yet; we’ll see if 20,000-plus fans in Rupp Arena can do it And we’ll see whether Auburn provocateur Chad Baker-Mazara can behave himself for a full 40 minutes Auburn believes Baker-Mazara is being unfairly targeted by SEC officials who have assessed him a number of technical and/or flagrant fouls But if you know you’re under the microscope and keep walking right up the line of what’s allowed and what’s not Saturday: Alabama Crimson Tide at Tennessee (27) The Vols have beaten the Tide three straight times Alabama is the fastest-paced team in the league Saturday: Texas A&M Aggies at Florida Gators (28) Texas A&M’s five-game winning streak has given way to a two-game losing streak leaving the Aggies in a three-way tie for the fourth and final double bye in the league tournament with Tennessee and the Missouri Tigers Florida has won six straight by an average margin of 15 points Stock up: Florida (29) is in hot pursuit of an NCAA No. 1 seed, and one of the reasons why is coach Todd Golden’s giant math brain. This story breaks down why Golden had his team take a seemingly antithetical foul near the end of the first half against Oklahoma on Feb He was trying to “lose” a possession by 0.2 points less than the analytics suggested they would sweating the details into the fractions and margins so it didn’t matter in the end—but that kind of detailed thinking has helped put the Gators well down the path of a special season The Wildcats are a banged-up team with defensive issues and those situations might not be fixable this season They’re down three guards—point guard Kerr Kriisa went down early in the season with Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson following the team’s best defender and arguably best overall player has missed six of the last eight games with a shoulder injury Mark Pope has thrown three freshmen into the SEC fire with largely predictable results A fun UK season has become a triage operation With the news last week that the New York Yankees are softening their policy against facial hair The Minutes got to thinking about beards in college basketball the best belongs to J’Wan Roberts (31) of the Houston Cougars It’s a strong presence but not cartoonishly overgrown The beard that needs some reining in belongs to Braden Smith (32) of Purdue The junior point guard looks like he was trapped in a cave for the last three months Smith’s fur has overwhelmed his slight physique The coach with the most prominent beard is Kyle Neptune (33) of Villanova primed for their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2019 Few things are better in basketball than a player who suddenly finds his game and nobody fits that category this season better than Barry Dunning Jr The junior scored 46 points in a loss to Texas State on Saturday eclipsing his previous college high of 34 from a week earlier Those games have capped a meteoric return from oblivion for the 6' 6" former Alabama Mr he finally got on the floor and started to produce averaging 13 points a game through January Dunning’s next opportunity to launch is Wednesday against Southern Mississippi who had a career moment in a career game of his own Saturday With Western Kentucky (37) trailing Louisiana Tech by a point and 5.4 seconds left Bayless took an inbounds pass and went coast-to-coast for a buzzer-beating layup Braxton Bayless (@bayless_braxton) comes with a full head of steam down the court and takes 5 steps from half court to score the Game Winning layup at the Buzzer!! Western Kentucky wins 64-63 over Louisiana Tech pic.twitter.com/lGat3t5m3p That gave Bayless a career-high 27 points and gave the Hilltoppers a walk-off win He took his last dribble outside the three-point line and somehow got the rim without being called for traveling BYU is on a four-game winning streak and on its way to a second straight NCAA bid Bulletproof Gonzaga is suddenly vulnerable Few is dealing with the first four-loss WCC season in his 25-year tenure but that streak of nine straight Sweet 16s is going to be difficult to maintain once they get there but did have a tasty (and potent) beer: Citra Ass Down Double IPA from Louisville-based Against the Grain Brewing (40) The Dash will identify those who are dealing with damaged playoff hopes The first CFP rankings come out Tuesday night Four teams that lost Saturday and no longer control their own playoff destiny in terms of making their conference championship game and potentially earning an automatic bid They were bad in all three phases of the game in a shocking home-field wipeout against the Louisville Cardinals had two field goals blocked and generally played their most uninspired game of the season The result: Clemson is 5–1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference and dependent upon either the Miami Hurricanes or SMU Mustangs losing at least once in their last three league games (And those won’t be easy; Clemson is at the Virginia Tech Hokies on Saturday and at the Pittsburgh Panthers on Nov Clemson’s playoff chances: The Tigers are out right now with a six-game winning streak that was built on empty calories Their best chance is to backdoor into the ACC title game and win it—which would require something unexpected from either the Hurricanes or Mustangs Their annual futility against the Ohio State Buckeyes has pushed them to the periphery in the Big Ten race the best tight end in the country and two capable running backs Penn State cannot do enough offensively to win big games and it doesn’t seem to matter who the offensive coordinator is—Penn State is going to come up short of the needed big plays Penn State’s playoff chances: The Nittany Lions should get to 11–1 which is probably enough to get them in the bracket But the only way to go for sure is to win the Big Ten and the path to Indianapolis for that championship game appears blocked Both Oregon and Indiana remain undefeated in the league (and overall) and Ohio State would win a tiebreaker with Penn State as of now Their stunning loss to the Houston Cougars relegates K-State to a tie for fourth in the Big 12 The Wildcats’ 89 rushing yards were their fewest in 13 games as an essential part of the Chris Klieman offense broke down Kansas State’s playoff chances: Never give up hope in the bewildering Big 12 with the BYU Cougars 5–0 and both the Colorado Buffaloes and Iowa State Cyclones 4–1 K-State could get the nod for the Big 12 title game over Iowa State by beating the Cyclones but the Wildcats would need someone to take down the Buffaloes (They would also lose a head-to-head tiebreaker with BYU Their dream season hit a harsh reality check in Dallas, being routed by SMU The Pitt defense gave up season highs in points (48) Pitt’s playoff chances: With a schedule light on quality wins the Panthers at the very least need to win out (including beating Clemson) to get to 11–1 That would keep them in the at-large argument But even at 11–1 they wouldn’t be assured of an ACC championship game berth if Miami and SMU stay unbeaten in league play And SMU now owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Pitt Mike Elko’s debut season in College Station, Texas, has been really good, but this was a foreseeable trap The erstwhile SEC leaders fell apart in Williams-Brice Stadium getting outscored 24–0 in the second half by the South Carolina Gamecocks They looked like an overachieving team that was exposed a bit Texas A&M’s playoff chances: With two losses But they still have a direct—albeit challenging—path If A&M beats New Mexico State and Auburn as expected then wins the looming Armageddon rivalry resumption with Texas on Nov A close loss to finish 10–3 might even have them in the conversation but that would depend on a number of other factors Their undefeated run screeched to a halt in a come-from-ahead home loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders by a single point Iowa State’s normally reliable defense gave up second-half touchdown drives of 98 and 71 yards the latter of which produced the winning touchdown in the final minute Tech converted a fourth-and-7 on the winning drive and the 98-yard march was enabled by a personal foul that overturned an interception that could have set up an easy Iowa State score With a team of decent but not great talent these are the margins of victory and defeat Iowa State’s playoff chances: There is no margin for error but if the Cyclones win out and Colorado loses once If both Iowa State and the Buffaloes finish 8–1 it would go to tiebreakers (presuming undefeated BYU keeps winning) If Iowa State finishes 11–1 and doesn’t make the title game that record would at least put it under at-large consideration they followed up a meltdown loss to Notre Dame with a five-hour weather delay at Rice on Saturday Navy took a two-touchdown loss to an opponent that fired its coach last week Even if the Midshipmen win the American Athletic Conference championship they likely wouldn’t get a bid over another Group of 5 champ (like the Mountain West) the Tigers did their best to end playoff hopes with a surprising upset loss in the state of Texas The Tigers need at least two of the three teams ahead of them in the AAC standings to fall apart down the stretch and even if they somehow got into the title game and won they wouldn’t be a strong G5 bid contender Prior lapses that still sting and could be costly: The Big Ten commissioner has four playoff contenders (see below) but some close nonconference losses have curtailed two other teams—and could hurt the league’s overall strength The Minnesota Golden Gophers are 6–3 and 4–2 in the Big Ten and lost their opener at home to the North Carolina Tar Heels by two points after missing a pair of field goals on a 54-yard field goal to squander a 19–7 lead a very nice debut season for coach Fran Brown But the one that got away was a bad one—Syracuse lost at home to the Stanford Cardinal on a last-play field goal in September The last drive included a fourth-and-9 conversion in which Cuse single-covered the Cardinal’s best receiver who made a catch for 27 yards to move the chains into field-goal range Stanford is now 2–7 and hasn’t won since that game First-round games: Boise State at Indiana; Notre Dame at Ohio State; Penn State at Texas; Tennessee at SMU It was an appropriate fiasco for a sport that cannot figure out December and it underscores the transactional nature of the game right now It would help if Miami and Ward gave a better explanation of what happened and why. Coach Mario Cristobal declined to offer much insight “All meetings with players and decisions like that—we make them in private and we keep them in private I’ll defer to not answering questions as it relates to that.” Ward apparently was unavailable after the game I’d imagine Miami fans who paid for tickets to the bowl game—and whose contributions helped pay Ward’s salary—would like an explanation And I’d like to know how Ward’s teammates felt about having a quarterback bail on the team in that fashion It essentially goes against the very nature of team competition If it was agreed upon before the game that Ward would only play half and Miami never should have gone along with such a plan Whether or not he was trying to fulfill terms of his contract with a Hurricanes collective Perhaps it was a bit more honest than some draft-eligible players who have quietly quit on bowl games half-stepping through cautious performances Some players have agreed-upon snap counts going into a bowl Others simply try to avoid contact—offensive players running out of bounds defensive players not hitting with the usual ferocity But even if you want to give Ward and Miami credit for avoiding that charade This probably won’t seriously impact Ward’s draft stock but it will at least be something he has to answer for NFL teams investing first-round money in quarterbacks will ask a lot of nosy questions and Ward should expect his Pop-Tart work stoppage to be one of them his prime competition to be the first quarterback taken in 2025 can point out to NFL teams that he played his entire bowl game taking the usual number of hits in the process Between Ward’s walkout and Penn State Nittany Lions backup quarterback Beau Pribula opting to transfer immediately instead of staying with his team through the College Football Playoff the sport has prioritized what happens next over finishing things out with your current team The two situations are by no means the same thing but they both underscore college football’s December problem and the shifting balance of power players had none of the power and none of the revenue Now they have a lot more of both—which is not a bad thing suggests that the pendulum might be swinging too far the other direction with teams at the mercy of players walking out whenever they so choose coaches changing jobs and the looming NFL draft process have all made December a mess nobody has figured out how to clean that up I asked Penn State coach James Franklin on Sunday if he has any ideas for solving some of these issues not just a recitation of well-worn complaints and I think it’s one of those things that we can’t just keep talking about,” Franklin said very strongly that we need a commissioner of college football We need somebody that’s waking up every single morning and going to bed every single night thinking about what’s in the best interest of college football I think that’s being done by the commissioners but whenever you have people that are making decisions and running college football they’re going to be biased towards what’s best to their conference That’s not in the best interest of college football and the student-athletes.” Franklin’s nomination for commissioner: retired coaching legend Nick Saban “I think Nick Saban would be the obvious choice,” Franklin said “I think if we made that decision—Nick will probably call me tonight and say: ‘Don’t do this.’ But I think he’s the obvious choice I think there’s some other really good candidates out there.” Franklin also joined the chorus of people in the sport calling for the elimination of conference championship games He would like to see conferences all play a uniform number of league games And he’d like the season to start a week earlier All those things could eliminate some of the overlap in December that is creating chaos “If you can take some of the stress off of the academic calendar—God forbid we talk about academics “That used to be every conversation started with academics Maybe I’m old-school and maybe a traditionalist The challenge that Saban or anyone else would be unable to adequately address is the unlimited transferring from one school to another Players getting paid isn’t a problem; players getting paid to switch schools every season is it wreaks havoc on high school recruits and it has turned off a segment of fans who don’t want to see players come and go like transients But good luck fixing that when the court system struck down the NCAA’s attempts to enforce its transfer rules As long as the NCAA’s rules manual is deemed to be on the wrong side of the law the only potential recourse could be completing the Congressional Hail Mary college leaders have been trying to execute for years Even if that happens—the incoming new leadership in Washington increases the chances—it likely will not occur quickly So it seems likely that we will still be sitting in a similar spot a year from now watching a player exodus that cheapens the postseason But hopefully nobody else decides to quit on their team in the middle of a game There are still some important games that could change the outcome but three weeks into November it’s time to assess who has done the best coaching jobs in each league because The Dash isn’t just here to hand out roses Get Sports Illustrated's Total Athlete issue but they’ve exceeded that by going undefeated to this point and being ranked No Changing conferences isn’t supposed to be easy but Lanning and the Ducks are making it look that way Not Coach of the Year: Lincoln Riley of the USC Trojans over Sherrone Moore of the Michigan Wolverines They’re both crashing disappointments at 5–5 but give slightly more blame to Riley than Moore He’s been at this head coaching thing longer and he lost to Moore head-to-head in the first of many blown fourth-quarter leads for the Trojans this season Coach of the Year (so far): Kenny Dillingham (22) But the 34-year-old Dillingham has worked an incredibly fast rebuild of a near-dead program with an 8–2 team that is in the Big 12 championship race in his second season Low-wattage Michigan State transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt has thrown nine touchdowns and no interceptions the past three games Cam Skattebo has developed into one of the nation’s best backs and the defense is overcoming some talent gaps with relentless effort but the school had better be prepared for other schools to come after him With Kalani Sitake of the BYU Cougars right behind him There are a thousand good things to say about Sanders’s work in Year 2 in Boulder but let’s keep it to this: He’s 12–10 in two seasons which is the best 22-game record for a Colorado coach since 1995 and ’96 when Rick Neuheisel inherited a powerful program from Bill McCartney The program Coach Prime took over was at its nadir And there have been a lot of coaches in between Neuheisel and Sanders Not Coach of the Year: Mike Gundy of the Oklahoma State Cowboys A year after playing in the Big 12 championship game the Stillwater Mullet is 3–7 and on a seven-game losing streak but at least Kyle Whittingham has quarterback injuries as a partial excuse Coach of the Year (so far): Mike Elko (23) He showed all the substance the Jimbo Fisher era lacked going 8–2 and putting the Aggies within reach of their first SEC title Elko shrewdly navigated a quarterback change midseason and mid-game benching Conner Weigman in favor of Marcel Reed and beating LSU in the process The Aggies’ rise is close to delivering the one thing their fans wanted most this season—a fighting chance to take down Texas with SEC championship game hopes on the line when that rivalry resumes Nov The Dores have beaten Alabama and Auburn in the same season for the first time since 1955 They’ve also beaten Kentucky and Virginia Tech they’re tied for eighth in a 16-team league and going bowling for the first time since 2018 This could also be Hugh Freeze of the Auburn Tigers or Mark Stoops of the Kentucky Wildcats only Venables had a team coming off a 10-win season and starting the year ranked in the AP top 20 At 5–5 with Alabama and LSU still on the docket he could be looking at a second losing season in three years at a program that doesn’t do losing seasons Coach of the Year (so far): Rhett Lashlee (24) He had his program ready for the power-conference jump—SMU is the last unbeaten in league play in the ACC and one of just three unbeatens in the power conferences Lashlee made a tough-but-necessary quarterback change three games into the season to power the Mustangs’ progress benching Preston Stone in favor of Kevin Jennings despite key injuries to the receiving corps but Cristobal is delivering on expectations when he was hired away from Oregon to restore his alma mater With some key portal acquisitions and some great escapes in tight games Miami controls its destiny in the ACC and CFP races Nobody has done a poorer job with his team this season than Norvell Coach of the Year (so far): Jeff Monken (25), Army Black Knights. In its first year in the conference, his hard-edged team is 9–0 and has trailed in just one game Now Army is prepping for the program’s biggest game since the 1950s on Saturday and Monken could surpass Cignetti for national Coach of the Year Monken is prepping for the biggest Army game since the 1950s with an unbeaten record on the line / Danny Wild-Imagn ImagesRunner-up: Jon Sumrall You want a rising star in the coaching profession Sumrall has been a head coach for three seasons and has advanced to the league championship game every time—twice at Troy in the Sun Belt Not Coach of the Year: Tom Herman, Florida Atlantic Owls. Herman was shockingly unsuccessful at FAU, going 6–16 before being fired Monday—hitting rock bottom on a six-year swan drive after winning 10 games at Texas in 2018 But it should be noted that FAU athletic director Brian White is specializing in big-name hirings and panic firings He brought in Willie Taggart on the rebound from Florida State in ’20 and fired him after three seasons with a 15–19 record and now he’s nuked Herman two seasons into a move from Conference USA to the AAC FAU hasn’t had a head coach last more than three years since program founder Howard Schnellenberger retired in ’11; maybe some continuity would help Coach of the Year (so far): Rich Rodriguez (26) with a career full of wins everywhere but Ann Arbor Rich Rod has the Gamecocks in first place at 6–0 7–3 overall and on a seven-game winning streak Games against Sam Houston and Western Kentucky the next two weeks will decide the regular-season title Sam Houston joined the FBS ranks last year and went 3–9 the Bearkats lead the league in fewest points allowed Playing in Pitbull Stadium has not ushered in greatness Coach of the Year (so far): Scot Loeffler (27) Sticking with Loeffler through a slow three-season start to his tenure has paid off—the Falcons were competitive in Years 4 and 5 and now are in contention for the MAC championship in Year 6 Bowling Green is tied for first with Miami (Ohio) and Ohio and a home game against the RedHawks on Nov 29 could be pivotal in deciding who goes to Detroit for the title game Bowling Green hasn’t played in that game since 2015 His program is under investigation for the Great Connor Stalions Sideline Caper and his team is 3–7 after losing five straight Coach of the Year (so far): Spencer Danielson (28) He got the full-time job after knocking out the interim audition last fall then did the most important thing for 2024—got superstar running back Ashton Jeanty to stay in Boise Danielson also made a big QB call that has turned out well going with Maddux Madsen over touted USC transfer Malachi Nelson who is looking like the next big winner from the Boise State pipeline He’s changed the trajectory of UNLV football going 17–7 in two seasons and making decades of unrealized potential tangible UNLV needs a Colorado State loss in one of its final two games to get another shot at Boise State in what would be a juicy MWC title game He’s done great work for a long time in Colorado Springs but got caught with a very young team this season and it has shown Air Force started 1–7 but has won its last two games and could finish on a four-game winning streak Coach of the Year (so far): Jake Dickert (29) the Cougs were in at least fringe contention for an improbable CFP at-large bid After losing star quarterback Cam Ward and all of its conference clout this program was supposed to be all but dead wallowing along at 4–6 in his debut season Coach of the Year (so far): Bryant Vincent (30) Several other coaches can be considered here but when you take over one of the worst programs in FBS and start 5–1 ULM is now 5–5 and the air is out of the balloon but this is a program that went 10–36 the previous four seasons and hasn’t had a winning record since 2012 Give Vincent the credit he couldn’t get while the interim coach at UAB Cignetti left for Indiana and took a ton of good players with him going 8–2 and hanging in the East Division race This is always the best time of the year in the sport with many ancient rivalries serving dual purposes: bestowing bragging rights and impacting College Football Playoff bids a handful of rivalry games were the final bridge to cross to remain in the national championship hunt; this year there are no fewer than a dozen with playoff implications The Dash sprints through 20 games in the third and fourth quarters offering canny context on what the games mean and piercing insight into who will win: When: 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Texas leads 76–37–5. First: Texas 38, Texas A&M 0, in 1894. Latest: Texas 27, Texas A&M 25, in 2011. Upper hand: Up for grabs since they haven’t played in 13 years. Line: Texas by 6, per DraftKings Stakes: Winner gets its first-ever berth in the SEC championship game. If that’s Texas, it should lock up a College Football Playoff spot. If that’s Texas A&M, it keeps alive bid-thief aspirations And there is the psychic payload that comes with the resumption of a bad-blood feud that intensified when A&M left the Big 12 then intensified again when Texas followed the Aggies to the SEC A&M’s displeasure with the Longhorns’ arrival was such that the league scheduled this rivalry resumption game in College Station FanSided's 2024 College Football Rivalry Week Breakdown When: Noon ET Saturday. Series: Clemson leads 73–43–4. First: South Carolina 12, Clemson 6, in 1896. Latest: Clemson 16, South Carolina 7, last year. Upper hand: Clemson has won eight of the last nine. Line: Clemson by 2.5, per DraftKings Stakes: Both teams are harboring outside playoff hopes while the 9–2 Tigers just need the Syracuse Orange to beat the Miami Hurricanes to put them in the ACC championship game This is the first meeting where both have been ranked since 2013 Stakes: Notre Dame could maybe take a loss and still stay in the bracket but far better to skip the Selection Sunday stress win the game and lock up a first-round game at home USC is trying to salvage a 6–5 season that has not gone as planned; beating UCLA and Notre Dame back-to-back would provide positive momentum into 2025 When: Noon ET Saturday, as it is written in the ancient manuscripts. Series: Michigan leads 61–52–6. First: Michigan 34, Ohio State 0, in 1897. Latest: Michigan 30, Ohio State 24, last year. Upper hand: Wolverines have won three in a row, as you may have heard. Line: Ohio State by 21, per DraftKings But until the Buckeyes slay their personal dragon—like it’s for sure dead roll credits—the tension and pressure will hover like an anvil Michigan can reframe its lousy season in one afternoon When: Noon ET Saturday. Series: Tennessee leads 80–33–5. First: Vanderbilt 12, Tennessee 4, in 1892. Latest: Tennessee 48, Vanderbilt 24, last year. Upper hand: Tennessee has won the last five meetings. The fact it lost the three previous is a dark and shameful chapter in Big Orange history. Line: Tennessee by 11, per DraftKings Stakes: This is one of the biggest meetings ever between these two The Vols are trying to lock up a playoff bid but the Dores are more competitive than they’ve been in a decade but perhaps a little less than in most years When: 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Arizona leads 51–45–1. First: Arizona State 11, Arizona 2, in 1899. Latest: Arizona 59, Arizona State 23, last year. Upper hand: Arizona has won the last two meetings. Line: Arizona State by 8.5, per DraftKings Stakes: In all but one remote scenario in this silly league, the Devils are in the Big 12 title game with a win. That would cap a meteoric rise from a 3–9 2023 season that ended with a blowout in this Territorial Cup game. The season has been a bust for Arizona but the Wildcats are not without talent—and there is no better way to soften the tone of a disappointing year than by derailing your rival’s dream season When: 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Iowa State leads 53–50–4. First: Iowa State 10, Kansas State 7, in 1917. Latest: Iowa State 42, Kansas State 35, last year in a blizzard. Upper hand: Cyclones have won three of the last four. Line: Iowa State by 3, per DraftKings Stakes: “Farmageddon” always matters in the heartland An Iowa State victory gets them in the Big 12 championship game in most scenarios It would be the Cyclones’ second appearance in the game in five seasons but would cap a nice comeback from a three-year malaise in between their very slim Big 12 championship game chances should be known by the time this game kicks off When: 7 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Purdue leads 77–42–6. First: Purdue 60, Indiana 0, in 1891. Latest: Purdue 35, Indiana 31, last year. Upper hand: Purdue has won three in a row and five of the last six, but that was pre-Cignetti. Line: Indiana by 28.5, per DraftKings Stakes: The Old Oaken Bucket game has rarely been worthy of prime time But Indiana has unprecedented playoff relevance that makes this a must-win game Purdue is a dysfunctional bunch that is winless against FBS competition but showed some resolve in losing by only seven at Michigan State on Friday night When: 8 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Nevada leads 28–21. First: Nevada 30, UNLV 28, in 1969. Latest: UNLV 45, Nevada 27, last year. Upper hand: Rebels have won the last two, but the two have split the last 12 meetings. Line: UNLV by 17.5, per DraftKings Stakes: UNLV is trying to lock up a spot in the Mountain West championship game and stay in the hunt for the CFP Group of 5 bid Nevada is just trying to reverse course from its current five-game losing streak The eternal Big Ten doormat is 10–0 for the first time ever playing November games of unprecedented wattage trying to go where no IU team has ever gone before—to the College Football Playoff They have a 63-year-old coach who just this year has gotten his first shot at a high-major job This is the feel-good story of the 2024 season The absolute antithesis of all things modern college football—the transfer portal spread-and-throw offense—they are succeeding anyway There is no conventional reason why they should be able to compete in 2024 They are the ultimate counterprogramming: an old-school option coach is leading a collection of lightly recruited players who are destined to go pro in military service after graduation These two unbelievable seasons are on parallel tracks but nobody can objectively deny their week-to-week dominance while winning every game but one by at least two touchdowns Yet both have been doubted and dismissed for allegedly not having played anybody Two Goliath programs now stand in David’s path For these dream seasons to maintain course You could hardly assign two bigger overdogs the job of ruining good underdog stories The Notre Dame-Army game is also freighted with incredible locational history where lore and legend were spawned when the two teams have met This is the 100th anniversary of the “Four Horsemen” game an outcome that moved famed sports writer Grantland Rice to author the most famous lede in the history of his college football chronicling: “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen (35) rode again They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.” Never a place to miss a publicity opportunity, Notre Dame got the four players memorialized by Rice—Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden—on horseback for a soon-to-be iconic photo the Irish were becoming a national sensation in the 1920s That game helped finish the job—the Irish went 10–0 and won the Rose Bowl and later were awarded several retroactive national championships Four years later, trailing favored Army at halftime in Yankee Stadium, Rockne delivered his famed “Win one for The Gipper (36)” halftime speech. Rockne urged his team to honor the memory of the late Irish star George Gipp—invoking a possibly apocryphal story from Gipp’s death bed. Notre Dame won the game 12–6, and the scene was memorialized by Hollywood in the movie Knute Rockne Notre Dame was the marquee college football program through 1930 restored the luster when he took over as head coach in '34 and then Frank Leahy took the program back to the apex in the '40s In five straight meetings from 1943 to ’47 1 when they played—and every meeting was in Yankee Stadium on the way to their first AP national title Army destroyed Notre Dame the next two seasons by a combined score of 107–0 with loaded World War II-era teams led by Mr Army won the AP national title both of those seasons with Blanchard winning the Heisman Trophy in ’45 and Davis in ’46 The 1946 game was the original “Game of the Century,” a breathlessly anticipated matchup of No 2 Notre Dame that ended in a scoreless tie The two programs stopped playing every year after 1958 But they’d stored up enough history to make this resumption in Yankee Stadium special … and that was before Army decided to have its best season in decades Can either the Black Knights or Hoosiers keep their dream runs going But both have had an extra week advantage in preparation over Notre Dame and Ohio State they might have forgotten what losing even feels like Fran Brown (38), Syracuse Orange. The rookie head coach improved to 7–3 with an upset win at California, presumably earning the right to take a shower Brown made headlines last week when he said he is so despondent after losses that he does not take showers “Winners get washed,” he memorably declared Hopefully Brown got his washing after this win Five times as the head coach of the Purdue Boilermakers and at Louisville The hangover from dominating Clemson on the road Nov through an open date—Louisville gave up 17 points in the final seven minutes to lose to 2–7 Stanford on Saturday but the way the Cardinals gave up the winning field goal was especially bleak—a Hail Mary pass from near midfield fell incomplete with time on the clock allowing Stanford to take over with good field position with four seconds left Then Louisville committed two penalties—the first a personal foul that allowed Stanford to set up for a 57-yard field goal then an offsides that moved it to 52 yards Kicker Emmet Kenney drilled it for the win and the worst loss of Brohm’s largely successful 24-game tenure at his alma mater When thirsty in the football mecca of Atlanta The Dash recommends a couple of beers from Monday Night Brewing Try an aggressively named Death Raptor IPA (40) or a Drafty Kilt scotch ale and thank The Dash later Look around the rest of the power-conference landscape There is a veritable Gray Panther movement at the top of the standings (even if they’re all dyeing their hair) Rick Pitino (1), St. John’s Red Storm. Age: 72. Status: Leading the Big East at 21–3, 12–1 in the league, coming off a comeback win over the two-time champion UConn Huskies. Age-defying secret: Always demands exceptional effort, and always gets it. (Having an NIL rainmaker like St. John’s booster Mike Repole also helps.) If Pitino had less wanderlust and fewer scandals his record would rival Coach K’s as second only to John Wooden’s he’s going to make more history come March becoming the first coach in men’s basketball to take six different schools to the NCAA tournament Louisville and Iona.) The Johnnies will be next—and they have Final Four potential able to apply a distressing press but also lock in and lock down in the half court John’s to overcome some sketchy shooting—it is simply undeterred by missing a boatload of shots figuring it’ll get putbacks and points off turnovers Age-defying secret: The standard never changes There have been a few tweaks and modernizations over the years but Izzo’s latest formidable team is straight off the traditional blueprint: leading the Big Ten in defensive efficiency offensive rebounding rate and free throw percentage They still do the tough stuff as well as anyone in the country at Michigan State but this season they’re playing at a faster rate than any time since 2009 There are a lot of tough games to come that could slow things down.) Freshman Jase Richardson son of a Michigan State great Jason Richardson might have had his coming-out party Saturday with a career-high 29 points to lead a comeback win over the Oregon Ducks Status: Hunting a potential NCAA tournament No Age-defying secret: He’s combined portal home runs with player development Barnes has coached many very good teams, but he’s never earned a No. 1 NCAA seed. This team has a chance, owning the No. 1 defense in the nation, according to KenPom The problem historically has been finding enough offense and Tennessee is showing signs of breaking out in that regard—the Vols erupted for 57 second-half points against Missouri last week and 45 in the first half of the next game against Oklahoma Status: Tied for the lead in the Big 12 at 19–4 overall 11–1 in the league—and that’s after winning the conference last year in their first season Age-defying secret: Remarkable player development and adherence to basic tenets Some people have been waiting for Sampson to retire for a few years now but why should he when he’s still on top of his game Houston is on pace for a fourth straight season of 30 wins which would trail only Gonzaga’s five straight from 2017 to ’21 In addition to the forever commitment to defense this is one of Sampson’s better offensive teams—the Cougars lead the Big 12 in league games in offensive efficiency offensive rebounding percentage and three-point accuracy They’ve got five guys who can rip it from deep and a low-post power in J’Wan Roberts Bruce Pearl (5) of the Auburn Tigers will be 65 before his team plays its first NCAA tournament game this year even after a shocking home loss to the Florida Gators on Saturday Age-defying secret: Recruiting and developing deluxe athletes Keeping Johni Broome in school one more season has been the cornerstone move to Auburn’s dominant season and push for a No But the cast around him has been excellent as well capable shooters and defenders and playmakers Pearl has steadily improved the program’s decision making over recent years getting players who are less reckless and more wise in terms of shot selection and ballhandling where all the old coaches have showed themselves out over the past few years Now it’s the province of 37-year-old Jon Scheyer (6) and a bunch of relatively young guys chasing him the only coach in the league who is in his 60s is Mike Young of the Virginia Tech Hokies The Duke Blue Devils finally lost their first ACC game Saturday at Clemson which did a nice job guarding superstar Cooper Flagg and keeping the Blue Devils from getting to the rim with smart drop coverage (Duke’s 38.7% shooting from two-point range was by far its lowest of the season.) But the Blue Devils look much like the best in the ACC It’s that time of the year where teams that had been disappointing for months start putting it together for whatever reason—lineups jelling The Minutes examines a handful of late arrivals to the NCAA tournament bubble watch:  Three weeks ago K-State was languishing at 7–11 overall and 1–6 in the Big 12 with a loss to Wichita State and no quality wins on the résumé with a road stunner at the Iowa State Cyclones and yet another home victory over the Kansas Jayhawks in that streak which will help a coach’s approval rating.) With six of the top seven players new to the roster Talented but erratic Illinois transfer Coleman Hawkins is consistently producing now 2.0 blocks and 2.0 steals per game in the current winning streak Tourney prognosis: A .500 or better Big 12 record will demand consideration The Wildcats have another huge Quad 1 opportunity Tuesday when Arizona visits the Little Apple 73 NCAA NET rating and a 12–11 overall mark Hawkins is averaging 13.2 points per game over the Wildcats' five-game win streak / Scott Sewell-Imagn ImagesArkansas Razorbacks (8) The Hogs were a failed chemistry experiment—until leading scoring Boogie Fland got injured Thumb surgery put the highly touted freshman on the shelf but it set transfer Johnell Davis free and unlocked an improved offensive flow (Not the first time John Calipari’s fixation with a five-star freshman has inhibited team development.) Arkansas has won three of its last five after starting SEC play 1–6 with consecutive road wins over the Kentucky Wildcats and Texas Longhorns serving notice the Hogs will be a tough out the rest of the way Tourney prognosis: Arkansas is kind of the inverse of K-State with a worse league record (3–7) but a higher NET rating (No An early neutral-site win over Michigan is a big chip But the Razorbacks need to get closer to .500 in league play The selection committee will insist it doesn’t look at the number of teams it takes from any league but putting a 14th SEC team in the bracket will face some opposition They’ve won four straight and seven of their last eight to move into the top tier of the ACC at 9–3 has particularly stepped up his game of late averaging 15.8 points and 9.8 rebounds in the current winning streak This is a dangerous three-point shooting team that has been hot from outside lately; we’ll see if having six days between games cools off the Mustangs this week but an 0–4 Quad 1 record stands out as a significant impediment—and there aren’t a lot of Quad 1 opportunities left in a league rife with slightly above average teams SMU seemingly has two must-win home games this week against fellow bubble aspirants the Pittsburgh Panthers and Wake Forest Demon Deacons The Ponies could be one of the hotly debated teams in the closing weeks This is another revival that was hard to see coming The Huskers lost six straight games in January including a 36-point embarrassment at Purdue and a 28-point beatdown at Wisconsin with notable home takedowns of the Illinois Fighting Illini and Ohio State Buckeyes bracketing a 2–0 swing to the Pacific Northwest Juwan Gary has become a more consistent force alongside leading man Brice Williams averaging 18 points and 6.3 rebounds in the four wins with a 5–6 Quad 1 record and no bad losses A November road win over the Creighton Bluejays keeps looking better including big opportunities against the Michigan Wolverines and Maryland Terrapins Hold serve in Lincoln (not easy) and grab at least one road win (also not easy) They got a big home win over the San Diego State Aztecs on Saturday night elevating the Rams to third in the Mountain West behind the New Mexico Lobos and Utah State Aggies with wing Nique Clifford carrying the Rams Coach Niko Medved is steaming toward his fifth 20-win season in the last six CSU still has a long way to go—beating the TCU Horned Frogs hasn’t aged as well as hoped and neither has losing to the Colorado Buffaloes Two remaining games against Utah State could be make or break The MWC is without question a multi-bid league but we’ll see whether it can go three or four deep The Atlantic 10 has been a sprawling mass of mostly undistinguished teams this season but the Rams and George Mason Patriots have separated a bit at the top VCU has the better at-large résumé of the two including a win over Colorado State in Las Vegas but the real work has been done in winning nine of the last 10 over the past month-plus going 12–0 there and winning all of them by 12 points or more steal rate and offensive rebound percentage Tourney prognosis: The Rams are 37th in the NET but more than half of their games (12 of 23) have been Quad 4 They have a couple significant matchups coming and now reside in second in the West Coast Conference—a half-game ahead of perennial power Gonzaga Bulldogs but adding a road win at Loyola Marymount over the weekend is significant Guard Marcus Williams has stepped up during the winning streak Tourney prognosis: With only five games left in the regular season and a No so achieving a split seems mandatory to get into serious consideration A game at the Oregon State Beavers also looms large The season has gone on long enough that familiarity with certain players breeds contempt While it’s easy to identify the biggest lighting-rod coach (hello it’s taken some time to identify the players fans love to hate Dickinson is in his fifth season of mixing it up inside in college ball curating a large collection of haters in both the Big Ten and the Big 12 by getting into passive-aggressive dustups Kansas fans think he gets fouled more often than it’s called; opposing fans think he gets away with too much (especially chippy stuff) who has played against Dickinson at both Kansas State and Illinois made a point of tallying up his record in their matchups Saturday Coleman Hawkins asked about his rivalry with Hunter Dickinson*starts mentally adding up the wins*"6-1? I think I'm 6-1 against him now? 🤔😏"pic.twitter.com/7TFb4wj8k5 He’s the SEC’s greatest provocateur since Marshall Henderson His elbows can stray into an opponent’s body He was ejected three minutes into Auburn’s NCAA tournament game last year against the Yale Bulldogs—a game the Tigers lost—for tossing a ’bow while running downcourt He also got a technical last week against Oklahoma that fouled him out of the game There are a few nominees in the ACC—Cameron Hildreth of Wake Forest Ian Schieffelin of Clemson—but Knueppel might have surged to the top by being called for a flagrant tripping foul against Clemson on Saturday night Knueppel has earned a spot in Duke’s rich tripping history alongside Grayson Allen (set the bar) and Kyle Filipowski (who denied a tripping allegation last year against North Carolina) He’s the Big Ten’s leading scorer in league play and a lot of those points come at the foul line Garcia has a way of getting calls—and annoying opposing fans by doing so The frosted hair tips give them one more reason to yell at him The 24-year-old married father would look more at home in an office cubicle than Creighton’s starting backcourt the kind of guy who wouldn’t get picked first in a pickup game but then rains down jumpers from all over If fans are most critical of players who look like themselves Ashworth does not look like a typical basketball player / Steven Branscombe-Imagn ImagesTransfer UpgradesIn the free-transfer era grabbing the right rising talent from a lower level is vital Six teams that have hit immediate home runs in that area this season:  Dusty May brought in two 7-footers and paired them with great success landing Wolf from Yale and bringing Goldin with him from the Florida Atlantic Owls giving Michigan an element of length and strength that is difficult to match The two scored 14 of the Wolverines’ last 16 points in the close win at the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday He hasn’t quite been a Dalton Knecht–level instant addition but Lanier has stepped in as the new leading scorer after arriving from the North Florida Ospreys He’s averaging 17.7 points per game and is tied for third nationally in three-pointers made with 84 On a team that can guard and bang with anyone and Stirtz is the best of the bunch at 18.6 points per game and a Missouri Valley Conference–leading 57 steals Coach Ben McCollum imported Stirtz and three other key contributors on this team with him from Division II Northwest Missouri State with a 3–0 record against power-conference opponents It’s been a steady upward climb for Edwards who went from redshirting his first year at Division II Miles College to Dodge City Community College to the North Texas Mean Green to the leading scorer at Vandy He’s averaged 18.5 points over his last eight games despite averaging just under 28 minutes in that stretch Pat Kelsey threw together an entire new roster and two of the key pieces came from the James Madison Dukes and his former program Edwards had 27 points and 10 assists after having to take over much of the point guard duties against the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday—and perhaps the foreseeable future—after a groin injury to star Chucky Hepburn is second in the nation in threes made with 91 The presumption in men’s college basketball was that the Purdue Boilermakers (26) would take at least a moderate step back after the graduation of two-time national player of the year Zach Edey They were still the preseason pick to win the Big Ten but ranked 13th and 14th in the coaches and AP polls You lose a 7' 4" tower of power and a downturn seems predictable Purdue is 19–5 and ranked seventh in the polls released Monday The Boilers lead the Big Ten with an 11–2 mark and are on a four-game winning streak heading into a showdown at Michigan on Tuesday with veteran players ready to step into bigger roles when the opportunity comes is playing like a first-team All-American (16.1 points Junior big man Trey Kaufman-Renn is Purdue’s top scorer (18.9 points) and rebounder (6.4) nearly tripling his scoring average year-over-year Smith is playing like a first-team All-American for Purdue / Alex Martin/Journal and Courier / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn ImagesBut even if Painter is making it look fairly easy to replace a national POY Kentucky (27) after Oscar Tshiebwe won in 2022: The Wildcats slipped from 14–4 in the SEC to 12–6 the following season—even with Tshiebwe still on the team Kentucky was 0–2 in the SEC tournament and 1–2 in the NCAAs in ’23 and ’24 Iowa Hawkeyes (28) after Luka Garza won in 2021: Since earning a No Dayton Flyers (29) after Obi Toppin won in 2020: The single saddest what-if of the pandemic in college basketball was the 2019–20 Dayton team which went 29–2 and never got to prove itself in the postseason The Flyers were 14–10 the following year before getting back to winning 20-plus games a season and advanced to the NCAA round of 32 last year But it’s never been as good as it was with Toppin Duke (30) after Zion Williamson won in 2019: Duke’s 32–6 record that season remains its best since winning the national championship at 35–4 in ’15 Duke was good the following year (25–6) but never got to find out how good it would be in the NCAAs then the Devils went to the Final Four in Krzyzewski’s farewell season the program was doing just fine before Williamson and is just fine after Villanova Wildcats (31) after Jalen Brunson won in 2018: Brunson led an absolute wagon of a team to the national championship as the only consensus national POY to do so since ’12 There was a step back the following year—’Nova went 26–10 and won the Big East tournament but that was Jay Wright’s last season and things haven’t been the same since then The SEC is the best league in America by a wide margin at this point with as many as 13 teams crowding into some mock brackets 1 seeds and the top three teams in the AP poll this week It’s a week-by-week brawl that The Minutes will track through the stretch run Here are the highlight games this week in SEC Murder Ball: The second meeting between these two old rivals shows how things can fluctuate in a league this deep When the Wildcats won while shorthanded in Knoxville it was the Volunteers’ third loss in four games and looked like a major crisis point followed that triumph with a cringeworthy home upset against Arkansas and a blowout loss to the Ole Miss Rebels before regrouping to beat the last-place South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday Ole Miss and the Mississippi State Bulldogs played a banger in Starkville since both teams are addicted to close games The Rebels have played four one-possession games in the last seven including a ridiculous escape at the LSU Tigers on Saturday by scoring the last 13 points The Bulldogs have played five games decided by five points or less in their last eight Chris Jans is 4–1 against Ole Miss since taking over at State but this looks like the biggest basketball game ever in the state of Alabama The Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn are ranked 1–2 coming in—Tide on top in the coaches poll They are tied for first in the league at 9–1 and playing arguably the most entertaining ball in the nation the Tide are on a six-game winning streak heading to Texas for a Tuesday tuneup for this Armageddon Auburn is trying to shake off a shocking home rout at the hands of Florida (currently No 3 in the AP poll) and must deal with Memorial Magic on Tuesday at Vandy’s infamous trap venue Wade Taylor IV delivered A&M at Missouri on Saturday hitting a three-pointer in the final seconds for the win With home games this week against the Georgia Bulldogs and Arkansas the Aggies could reach 9–3 in league play—that would keep them strongly in the running for a top-four finish and double bye in the SEC tournament getting housed at home by Arkansas and then losing at Vandy the Longhorns are backsliding onto the bubble and need a big week in Austin against Alabama on Tuesday and Kentucky on Saturday With 2.2 seconds left in a tie game, here is how the Norfolk State Spartans (37) grabbed a moment of SportsCenter glory: Jaylani Darden inbounded to Kuluel Mading near midcourt just two steps before elevating for a 27-foot runner and Norfolk State fans rushed the court to celebrate beating North Carolina Central It was a beautifully designed play by coach Robert Jones and it was expertly executed by his players and Norfolk State is now 16–8 overall and 6–1 in the MEAC The Big 12 newcomers are tied for first after winning six in a row most recently beating the Texas Tech Red Raiders at home Saturday night Lloyd’s excellent perimeter lineup might now have a productive tandem to anchor the interior in Tennessee transfer Tobe Awaka and blossoming sophomore Henri Veesaar The 7-footer from Estonia is averaging 14.3 points 6.7 rebounds and 2.3 blocks over the last three games The next three games are whoppers: at Kansas State home against co-leader Houston and at the Baylor Bears The Hawkeyes have lost six of their last seven The Minutes kept it local in Louisville this week but ate a great meal at Seviche (40) Get the Argentinian skirt steak with chimichurri and a Power Chord IPA from Gravely Brewing Co units and entire teams that need to fix something in major games this week: A playoff elimination game and storied rivalry matchup with the Alabama Crimson Tide is on tap Saturday and Nussmeier needs to not be loose with the football He threw three interceptions in a span of 19 passes during LSU’s second-half meltdown against the Texas A&M Aggies—his fourth game this season with at least two turnovers Nussmeier has thrown 16 picks in his LSU career The Crimson Tide are third in the SEC in interception rate so the fourth-year player will have to curb some of his enthusiasm for risky plays The other quarterback in that matchup needs to step up his play as well Milroe is coming off his three lowest-rated games of the season in terms of efficiency: 142.86 against the South Carolina Gamecocks; 98.61 against the Tennessee Volunteers; and 131 against the Missouri Tigers Milroe was especially inaccurate in the loss to the Vols missing open receivers several times during a struggling fourth quarter He would be aided significantly by a third receiver stepping up alongside freshman Ryan Williams and Washington Huskies transfer Germie Bernard so there could be some plays there for the making He’s another SEC QB who is throwing the ball to the wrong team too often Beck has thrown interceptions in bunches this season—none in four games but two against the Mississippi State Bulldogs and three each against the Crimson Tide after throwing just six last season in 417 attempts Georgia has thrust more of the offense onto Beck’s arm due to an inconsistent running game so some of the interceptions are just part of that bargain But he’s still thrown the most picks in the SEC (Nussmeier is second) In a showdown with the Ole Miss Rebels and Jaxson Dart Beck will have to eliminate some of the bad plays while keeping the good ones The biggest problem is a lack of playmakers at wide receiver which also was the biggest problem last year Tight end Tyler Warren is a stud and so are the running backs Quarterback Drew Allar has elite arm talent But if nobody in the wideout corps is open nobody is separating and nobody is making defensive backs miss Penn State has just one passing play longer than 40 yards and four longer than 30 both ranking near the bottom of the Big Ten which has done a good job of limiting explosive plays through the air That unit went from dream to nightmare in consecutive weeks—from picking off the Syracuse Orange five times and returning three of them for touchdowns to recording no turnovers and giving up season highs in points yards and yards per play against the SMU Mustangs the only takeaways the Pitt defense has produced in the last four games were the five picks gifted to them by Kyle McCord Pitt’s quest to stay in the ACC championship and College Football Playoff races now goes through the Virginia Cavaliers who have hit the skids with three straight losses after a 4–1 start The Cavaliers cannot run the ball and Pitt is good at stopping the run so there could be opportunities to get after Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea and force some mistakes The Iowa State Cyclones’ ball security (36) Iowa State was one of the few teams in the nation not to have lost a fumble Then tight end Gabe Burkle coughed one up in the red zone with the Clones driving for a potential two-score lead against the Texas Tech Red Raiders Iowa State was removed from the ranks of the unbeatens For a team not blessed with overwhelming talent the margin for error when trying to win a league title is slim Iowa State gets an opportunity to bounce back against an opponent that keeps finding ways to lose the close ones going from preseason Big 12 favorites to 1–4 in the league tied for 13th and on a four-game losing streak The Utes have averaged just 12.5 points over those last four contests But the ultimate season-salvaging opportunity presents itself this week if Utah can somehow summon its old winning pedigree The Utes host their bitter rival BYU Cougars with a chance to spoil their undefeated season If they can reengage leading rusher Micah Bernard that would help—he’s had four 100-yard rushing games this season but accounted for only 106 on the ground in the last two combined having beaten both the Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers in the same season for the first time since 1955 continued his mastery of Hugh Freeze by beating him for the third straight season involving four different schools Pavia was the QB at New Mexico State when the Aggies shocked Freeze and the Liberty Flames in 2022; then repeated the feat last year with NMSU after Freeze relocated to Auburn and it further validates Lea’s transfer acquisition of Pavia a nine-game mark that not even the James Franklin miracle years of 2012 and ’13 achieved Last time the Commodores were 6–3 was 1982 the second annual Nebraska stagger toward bowl eligibility the Huskers were 5–3 before going oh-for-November finishing 5–7 and missing a bowl for the seventh straight season Nebraska reached the rarified heights of 5–1 and now the losing has begun again—three straight defeats bottoming out in a home loss to the UCLA Bruins The Huskers now have a week off to regroup before beginning a final swing at the USC Trojans home against the Wisconsin Badgers and at the Iowa Hawkeyes in search of elusive win No When thirsty in the bustling college town of State College The Dash recommends an outdoor table at Cafe 210 West (40) where the people watching is entertaining and the drinks come quickly on a warm fall Friday Order a trusty old Sierra Nevada and thank The Dash later which gives the two schools more of an incentive to remain with the league thanks to an unequal revenue distribution process that is in their favor The ACC's new model will distribute 40% of the television money evenly through the 14 longstanding members with the other 60% of the revenue being distributed based on ratings from the past five years this will almost certainly upset several members of the ACC who may not have the same resources Some schools are already operating at a disadvantage and now that the revenue distribution is not equal it could force some to look at leaving the conference USA; A view of the SMU logo and ACC logo during the game between the Southern Methodist Mustangs and the Brigham Young Cougars at Gerald J Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn ImagesSports Illustrated's Pat Forde talked about this possibility in a recent video on Yahoo that are on the shorter end of this stick that are going to be looking at their options and saying Do we need to possibly look at going someplace else where we’re going to get a better revenue shake I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question for schools that aren’t just steeped in loyalty to the ACC and maybe feel like they have been handed a bad deal here I don’t say they are going to get up and leave now but you watch in five years and see what the possible exit plans are.” the previous exit fee would have cost a staggering $572 million That amount is now $165 million and cuts down to $75 million in 2030 it cost West Virginia $20 million (Big 12 covered half the cost) to leave the Big East for the Big 12 over a decade ago that dollar amount is going to be significantly higher with more money being generated in college sports today but the $75 million figure is still a pretty expensive exit fee especially for those mid-tier-bottom of the barrel ACC athletic programs West Virginia and Pitt could be conference foes once again ESPN Bracketology: West Virginia Improves Seed as DeVries Meets Former School WVU Could Add 'a Half Dozen' Defensive Backs in Next Transfer Portal Window West Virginia Pitted Against Blue Blood in Latest CBS Sports Bracketology Projection Rich Rodriguez Announces Larry Porter as Running Backs Coach and what athletic director Pete Bevacqua termed in a statement “a deeply embedded team culture dismissive of Notre Dame’s standards for student-athletes.” The team was informed of the stunning suspension Thursday afternoon The timing will enable athletes wishing to transfer—including incoming freshmen—to do so before classes begin at the school Aug The women’s team and both diving teams are unaffected by the disciplinary action Head coach Chris Lindauer and his staff were not disciplined after reviews found that “the staff was not aware of gambling or the scope and extent of other troubling behaviors because team members effectively concealed such behaviors from the coaches and staff through concerted efforts.” The Notre Dame men’s team effectively created its own sports book for the purpose of wagering on their swimming performances A majority of the returning 2024–25 team is believed to have placed bets “Over/under” lines were established for a swimmer’s times in certain races There are no known gambling companies that take wagers or produce betting lines on college swimming In the face of widespread campus gambling issues, the NCAA has modified some of its penalties. But the sanctions are most severe for athletes who gamble on their own sport and own team. According to updated NCAA legislation from June 2023 “student-athletes who engage in activities to influence the outcomes of their own games or knowingly provide information to individuals involved in sports betting activities will potentially face permanent loss of collegiate eligibility in all sports This would also apply to student-athletes who wager on their own games or on other sports at their own schools.” Eligibility issues for the Notre Dame swimmers who placed those kinds of wagers would follow them to other schools Some Fighting Irish swimmers also placed wagers on other sports and involving other schools Those wagers would produce lesser sanctions than the internal team gambling The current NCAA guidelines in that area are as follows:  Wagers of $200 or less: Sports wagering rules and prevention education Wagers from $201-$500: Loss of 10% of a season of eligibility Wagers from $501-$800: Loss of 20% of a season of eligibility Wagers greater than $800: Loss of 30% of a season of eligibility For cumulative wagering activities that greatly exceed $800 NCAA reinstatement staff are directed to consider whether additional loss of eligibility “The national office is aware that Notre Dame has declared several student-athletes ineligible in light of potential violations of sports betting rules We continue to work with the school as it determines what occurred The NCAA does not comment on specific eligibility cases due to student privacy laws and we have no further comment at this time,” NCAA spokeswoman Meghan Durham Wright said in a statement The culture issues cited in the reviews stem from a group text chat among the men’s team members The contents of the chat did not meet Notre Dame’s “expectation that they treat one another with dignity and respect,” Bevacqua said There was no evidence of any physical abuse within the team In addition to the athletic department suspension of the program individual swimmers may be subject to additional sanctions from Notre Dame’s office of student affairs concerns about the program came to light and Notre Dame initiated its own review After gathering enough information to sound alarms the school announced in late June that it contracted with the law firm Ropes & Gray for an external review The final findings of that review were delivered to the school this week “The external review confirmed and expanded on our initial concerns,” Bevacqua said “These findings are contrary to the University’s values and all that we stand for in Notre Dame athletics In order to ensure that this behavior ends and to rebuild a culture of dignity we have decided to suspend the men’s swimming program for at least one academic year the overwhelming cultural dynamic on the team necessitates a full suspension.” The one-year suspension is a potentially devastating development for a program that had reached new heights under Lindauer who is entering his third season on the job Notre Dame had its first top-10 finish at the NCAA championships in program history in March then sent its first male swimmer to the Olympics representing the United States in freestyler Chris Guiliano 100- and 200-meter freestyles and won a gold medal as part of the 400 freestyle relay team Guiliano is not believed to be one of the swimmers who wagered on his own team I am confident that Notre Dame took the correct steps to ensure this misconduct does not continue,” Lindauer said in a statement and I am committed to improving upon the student-athlete experience both in and out of the pool I am hopeful we will emerge from this situation stronger than ever “I remain committed to the women’s swimming and diving program and the men’s diving program at Notre Dame and I am looking forward to working with them this season to accomplish our goals and reach new heights.” it has been dogged by tumult over the previous decade since longtime coach Tim Welsh retired Brian Barnes unexpectedly resigned as Notre Dame’s women’s coach in September 2014; men’s head coach Matt Tallman took an indefinite leave of absence during the season in December ’15 and did not return; and in October ’21 the coach of both the men’s and women’s programs at the time resigned on the eve of the season after a Title IX lawsuit accusing him of gender discrimination against a female assistant coach was settled a former assistant at successful Atlantic Coast Conference rival Louisville was the choice to come in and calm the waters of a turbulent program But the in-pool success under Lindauer has been undermined by this scandal we take seriously our obligation to foster a community of student-athletes who not only compete and perform at the highest level academically and athletically but whose conduct reflects the University’s values,” Bevacqua said “We hope this decision sends a clear and unequivocal message reaffirming that commitment and expectation.” Every week has impactful games—some we see coming far ahead of time some that aren’t big until an upset is underway This week there are a handful of games that have gotten more interesting the closer we get to them Key matchup: USC’s improved defense against Michigan’s change-of-pace starting quarterback Sherrone Moore announced Monday that he’s benching Davis Warren in favor of Orji a more athletic QB who has thrown only seven college passes in three seasons But Warren has thrown six interceptions in 72 attempts this season including three Saturday against the Arkansas State Red Wolves Moore probably figures a game of punts and field position is preferable to turnovers that give the Trojans short fields and USC hasn’t yet faced a team with a dynamic runner at QB Key matchup: Heupel’s offensive brain against Brent Venables’s defensive acumen Famed former Sooners head coach Bob Stoops has begged off interview requests before this game having been the boss of both men and the coach when Heupel was quarterbacking Oklahoma to the 2000 national title As impressive as Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava has been the Vols have been more productive running than passing The Oklahoma run defense ranks 11th nationally in fewest yards allowed per carry at 2.22 and has yet to give up a rushing touchdown The Sooners also have a nation-leading 10 takeaways so far Key matchup: Nebraska freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola against a ballhawking completing 74% of his passes with five touchdowns and only one interception But he will be facing an Illini defense that has six interceptions and three fumble recoveries while ranking third in the Big Ten in pass efficiency allowed Can Raiola make big plays without making big mistakes Key matchup: Will Utes quarterback Cam Rising be back after missing the game Saturday against the Utah State Aggies with a reported hand injury but Utah assuredly would rather have its 25-year-old war daddy back to take on fellow old-timer Alan Bowman (age 24) of the Cowboys Rising and Bowman have played a combined 72 college games The Dash is relatively sure who is going to win this He’s never had a losing season in nine years on the job and he might have hit his highest point Saturday by trampling Mississippi State in Starkville Candle lost three-year starting quarterback Dequan Finn to the portal then replaced him with three-year backup Tucker Gleason and the offense has been every bit as good He’s an excellent coach and has proven that over a long period of time Purdue ran into an angry Notre Dame Fighting Irish team Saturday But the lack of toughness and technique the Boilers displayed in being bludgeoned 66–7 was embarrassing for a Big Ten program run through and run around in the worst loss in school history The Boilers have to do better than that going forward When thirsty in the college football hub city of Atlanta The Dash recommends grabbing an Awe Juice IPA from Gate City Brewing (40) in nearby Roswell catch a game at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium or drive to Athens then grab an Awe Juice afterward and thank The Dash later The Dash covered the most relevant games of Rivalry Week in the Third Quarter but the slate is simply too vast to be contained in a single quarter When: 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Alabama leads 50-37-1. First: Auburn 32, Alabama 22, in 1893. Latest: Alabama 27, Auburn 24, last year. Upper hand: Alabama has won the last four, and nine of the last 11, and hasn’t lost to the Tigers in Tuscaloosa since the Cam Newton comeback game in 2010. Line: Alabama by 11.5, per DraftKings Stakes: Alabama has a slim playoff chance floating out there but the emotional payload of the Iron Bowl transcends that Kalen DeBoer has not met exceeding expectations in Year 1 and things could still get a lot worse if he loses this game to 5–6 Auburn Hugh Freeze finally delivered a big win last week as the Auburn coach but he’s still trying to make up for giving up the fourth-and-31 play last year in Jordan-Hare Stadium When: 3:30 p.m. ET Friday. Series: Mississippi leads 65-49-6. First: Mississippi State 17, Mississippi 0, in 1901. Latest: Mississippi 17, Mississippi State 7, last year. Upper hand: Rebels have won three of the last four. Line: Mississippi by 25.5, per DraftKings Ole Miss can still hold out faint playoff hope if it finishes 9–3 and another weekend of upset carnage ensues this is a chance to kick a Dog when it’s down—Mississippi State is the worst team in the SEC Disappointed Ole Miss fans could at least take some satisfaction in a blowout win here while downtrodden State fans would love to shock the world and salvage something from a lost season When: 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Washington leads 63-48-5. First: Oregon 43, Washington 0, in 1900. Latest: Washington 34, Oregon 31, in the second of two meetings last year, with a playoff bid on the line. Upper hand: Huskies have won three straight, but under different leadership. Line: Oregon by 19, per DraftKings Stakes: The Ducks are in such good shape that they can lose the game and still be in the playoff—but if they lose this and the Big Ten championship game a first-round bye and/or first-round home playoff game could both be lost Oregon undoubtedly feels like it owes Washington some payback for three consecutive three-point losses When: 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Penn State leads 43-3-1. First: Penn State 57, Maryland 0, in 1917. Latest: Penn State 51, Maryland 15, last year. Upper hand: Nittany Lions have always been the hammer; Terrapins have always been the nail. Line: Penn State by 24.5, per DraftKings with a couple of long gaps between meetings and little competitiveness but Penn State has played only three schools more often (Pittsburgh Nittany Lions have all the motivation to beat the shell out of the Terps and maintain their playoff status When: Noon ET Saturday. Series: Kentucky leads 20–15. First: Kentucky 41, Louisville 0, in 1912. Latest: Kentucky 38, Louisville 31, last year. Upper hand: Kentucky has won five straight. Line: Louisville by 3.5, per DraftKings Stakes: The Cardinals don’t have a playoff shot but they can help their league’s quest for multiple (perhaps even three) bids by winning one of four ACC-SEC games this weekend They also have a lot of galling recent history to try to atone for in this rivalry against a Kentucky team that has fallen apart When: 7:30 p.m. ET Friday. Series: Nebraska leads 30-21-3. First: Iowa 22, Nebraska 0, in 1891. Latest: Iowa 13, Nebraska 10, last year. Upper hand: Iowa has won eight of the last nine. Line: Iowa by 5.5, per DraftKings now that the Huskers have cleared the bowl eligibility threshold for the first time since 2016 This will be a frigid game marked by clouds of breath in the air and sideline cutaways of Kirk Ferentz enjoying every punt When: 7 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Florida leads 37-28-2. First: Florida 21, Florida State 7, in 1958. Latest: Florida State 24, Florida 15, last year. Upper hand: FSU has won the last two and five of the last nine. Line: Florida by 15, per DraftKings Stakes: The Gators circled the wagons the last two weeks and became the SEC’s own worst enemy all but eliminating LSU and Ole Miss from playoff contention They displayed all the pride and resilience that the Seminoles have flagrantly lacked all season If you’re waiting for them to show something Stakes: The Wolfpack (5–6) are striving for bowl eligibility for the 10th time in 12 seasons under Dave Doeren The Tar Heels (6–5) are looking for a rallying point after being upset in the field hockey Final Four When: 8 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Virginia Tech leads 61-38-5. First: Virginia 38, Virginia Tech 0, in 1895. Latest: Virginia Tech 55, Virginia 17, last year. Upper hand: The Hokies have won three in a row and 17 of the last 18. Line: Virginia Tech by 7.5, per DraftKings Stakes: They both have identical records: 5–6 overall Which means the winner goes to a bowl game and the loser wallows in misery both could really use a rally-the-base victory When: Noon ET Saturday. Series: Illinois leads 57-55-5. First: A 16–16 tie in 1892. Latest: Northwestern 45, Illinois 43, last year. Upper hand: The Wildcats regained ownership of the stovepipe hat that goes to the winners, and have captured six of the last eight meetings. Line: Illinois by 7.5, per DraftKings Stakes: The Illini are shooting for their first nine-win season since 2007 and first end-of-season top 25 ranking since then The Wildcats are trying to beat an opponent with a pulse for the first time since Labor Day weekend When: Noon ET Saturday. Series: Duke leads 60-41-2. First: Duke 8, Wake Forest 4, in 1889. Latest: Duke 24, Wake Forest 21, last year. Upper hand: The Blue Devils have won two straight and seven of the last 11. Line: Duke by 4, per DraftKings Stakes: The Blue Devils are trying to complete the Tobacco Road sweep of North Carolina They also can reach nine regular-season wins for the first time in a decade The Demon Deacons are shooting for their first home win since Aug When: 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Series: Missouri leads 11–4, in what has become an arranged rivalry in the SEC era but really didn’t exist before that. First: Missouri 11, Arkansas 0, in 1906. Latest: Missouri 48, Arkansas 14, last year. Upper hand: Tigers have won the last two and seven of the last eight. Line: Missouri by 3.5, per DraftKings Stakes: Mizzou (8–3) is shooting for its best two-season record in a decade The Hogs (6–5) are trying to finish .500 in the SEC for the first time since ’21 and gather some optimism heading into ’25 The entire world had him fired after a 1–2 start to his third season Napier has had to start three quarterbacks deal with a plague of injuries and endure the toughest schedule in the SEC but he’s a victory over miserable Florida State away from his first winning record at Florida Staying the course with Napier is (tentatively) paying off The offensively futile Michigan Wolverines hadn’t scored more than 30 points all season That included 40 in the final 30 minutes and eight seconds Braun did incredible work last year as the interim coach in a difficult setting but hasn’t followed it up too well in his first season as the full-time boss When hungry and thirsty and in need of college football on TV in the greater Cincinnati area The Dash recommends a visit to Smoke Justis (45) across the Ohio River in Covington which pairs well with a hefeweizen from Cincy’s West Side Brewing There are several reasons why Marcus Freeman (11) is thriving right now at Notre Dame while his former bosses are not exactly having the times of their lives But don’t overlook this one: talented assistants have chosen the Fighting Irish and Freeman over Kelly’s LSU Tigers and Fickell’s Wisconsin Badgers Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock used to be LSU offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock (and prior to that was Cincinnati Bearcats offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock) He left LSU when Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels left—probably a well-timed exit—and returned to South Bend Notre Dame is on a six-game streak of scoring 30 or more points something it hasn’t accomplished since making the College Football Playoff in 2020 Meanwhile LSU’s scoring has plummeted by more than 16 points per game year-over-year—and while that probably has more to do with Daniels’s departure than anything else new coordinator Joe Sloan’s work with the Tigers has come under mounting criticism LSU has averaged 17.3 points during its current three-game losing streak They miss Denbrock in Baton Rouge right now where LSU’s 4.08 yards per play in a loss to Florida was its fewest in 32 games Freeman has also won some staffing wars with Fickell Quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli had been with Fickell at Cincy from the start in 2017 and briefly joined him at Wisconsin in ’23 But by spring he’d been hired away by Freeman Freeman grabbed receivers coach Mike Brown from Fickell’s staff He also retained secondary coach Mike Mickens who had come from Cincinnati to Notre Dame in February ’20 under Kelly and stayed came independent of both Kelly and Fickell—that was landing defensive coordinator Al Golden in 2022 His unit currently ranks third nationally in points allowed per game fourth in yards allowed per play and sixth in yards allowed per game a former Wisconsin assistant who predated Fickell there has done good work this season as well with a young unit Meanwhile, Fickell fired his offensive coordinator That was a strange marriage that never worked—Longo was an Air Raid guy coming to a ground-and-pound school The percentage of running plays at Wisconsin dropped from 65.4% in 2021 to 60.6 in ’22 (the year Paul Chryst was fired) to 49.2 last season but that might owe more to the Badgers’ quarterback play than anything else Wisconsin has brought in two starting QBs via the transfer portal in Fickell’s two seasons—Tanner Mordecai from SMU in 2023 and Tyler Van Dyke from Miami in ’24 Mordecai wasn’t very effective (his 127.15 pass efficiency rating was seventh in an aerially challenged Big Ten) Van Dyke was lost to injury for the year early this season but his numbers weren’t great in the first two games is 16th in the Big Ten in efficiency at 114.48 If the Badgers dip back into the portal for a QB this offseason Fickell also needs to get the coordinator hire right—perhaps by offering it to Guidugli Fickell’s hiring at Wisconsin looked like the home run of the 2023 coaching carousel It has instead been a bloop single thus far stuck in the middle of an increasingly difficult conference Finding an offensive coordinator that fits him and fits Wisconsin will be a vital move going into a pivotal third year The other splashy head coaching hire in the Big Ten last year was the Nebraska Cornhuskers landing Matt Rhule (14) returns to date are surprisingly underwhelming Rhule has trapdoored his offensive coordinator As the Cornhuskers languished after a 5–1 start Marcus Satterfield was demoted earlier this month Rhule brought in former West Virginia and Houston head coach Dana Holgorsen in search of an emergency transfusion hoping touted freshman Dylan Raiola will take some strides but the first game with Holgo calling plays was about the same as what preceded it Holgorsen joined the Huskers for an emergency offensive fix / Maria Lysaker-Imagn ImagesThrough September Nebraska has gone five straight games without scoring more than 20 points or averaging five yards per play And the Huskers have now lost four straight still seeking their first bowl game since 2016 Coordinators have been taking hits elsewhere beyond the Big Ten The lack of head coach firings at the power-conference level has been striking—schools are not spending as recklessly on buyouts NCAA settlement that will cost them tens of millions starting in 2025 And some coaches on the hot seat have done enough to stabilize their standing most notably Dave Aranda at Baylor and Billy Napier at Florida while Oklahoma has gotten its teeth kicked in upon entry into the SEC Gus Malzahn has struggled to upgrade the program for the rigors of the Big 12 After winning nine games in each of his first two seasons while UCF was in the American Athletic Conference Malzahn is now 10–13 and 5–11 in league play in 2023 and ’24 In a wide-open league where teams picked to finish at or near the bottom have risen to the top The other notable power-conference coordinator change is at a place where the head coach is on retirement watch Utah Utes (18) offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig stepped down in October a development that has not stopped the tailspin—the Utes have now lost six in a row and have thrown the second-most interceptions in the nation at 17 Head coach Kyle Whittingham is 64 years old not in love with the modern realities of the sport and has already named defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley his successor-in-waiting Is this the year Whittingham walks away as the best coach in Utah history The Michigan Wolverines (19) aren’t likely to stand pat on the offensive side of the ball after seeing that unit fall apart Coordinator Kirk Campbell is under fire with the Wolverines averaging 20.4 points per game on pace for their lowest average since 2008 head coach Sherrone Moore was promoted from OC and has his own fingerprints on that unit; he will be under pressure in ’25 to restore a program that has gone from 15–0 last season to 5–5 this year The Arizona Wildcats (20) also are experiencing a jarring head coach transition going from 10 wins under Jedd Fisch to the current 4–6 under Brent Brennan Arizona retained its standout pass-and-catch combination of Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan but that hasn’t translated to success with the new coaching staff The Wildcats still have a chance to finish well having routed the Houston Cougars last week and with big opportunities against the TCU Horned Frogs and Arizona State Sun Devils still to come But keep in mind that first-year athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois didn’t hire Brennan and there is the additional dynamic of the Sun Devils having a breakthrough season when least expected Never underestimate the pressure that is applied when one school is having a bad season and its neighboring rival is having a great one The landscape is rife with fan bases who have reached a point of fatigue with their well-paid coaches But have you seen how much it would cost to fire them The Dash offers a 51% unserious domino effect that would allow a bunch of schools and coaches to reset or relocate without a lot of nasty terminations coaches and agents for concocting this master plan The Gators are the one school that has to hand out the expensive pink slip in this scenario Napier has recovered decently from a rocky 1–2 start to the season but quarterback injuries and a ridiculous schedule appear to have doomed him to a third straight losing record how about Franklin parachuting out of an increasingly stale and discontented situation at Penn State Florida fans and boosters might not immediately be thrilled by hiring a guy who cannot beat the biggest dogs in his league fearing an inevitable decade of continued losing to Kirby Smart But consider: Franklin is on his way to a sixth season of double-digit wins at Penn State and Florida has half that many in the same span of time Gator Nation has no standing to look down its reptile snout at going 11–2 A large swath of Florida fans and boosters want Lane Kiffin The Dash could construct a highly entertaining scenario off that possibility as well but for purposes of brevity let’s keep moving to the next domino This would be a bitter blow to the Indiana Hoosiers who made the hire of the year in taking Cignetti away from the James Madison Dukes Losing Cignetti after one season could set the program back toward the decades-deep quagmire from which it came But Penn State is a demonstrably better job and Cignetti is a guy with Pennsylvania roots He was born in Pittsburgh and coached at a couple of places in the state as an assistant with the Pitt Panthers and as a head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania That’s especially true at a school that once employed a head coach until he was 84 And $8 million isn’t exorbitant in the current economy of the sport Some people at Penn State—including athletic director Patrick Kraft—might have their hearts set on bringing Matt Rhule home He’s a graduate of the school from the Joe Paterno era and a friend of Kraft’s—in all likelihood this would be his dream job But he’s also struggled to gain traction leading the Nebraska Cornhuskers—he’s 10–11 overall Cignetti has the same number of league wins in one-third of the league games The Iowa State Cyclones’ Matt Campbell could be waiting in the wings if Penn State were to open and Rhule is deemed too big a risk But let’s keep this set of wild scenarios on a single track Stoops has helped Kentucky to eight straight bowl game appearances / Jordan Prather-Imagn ImagesStep Three: The Indiana Hoosiers (23) hire Mark Stoops.Stoops is a winner whose run has tapped out with the Kentucky Wildcats His record the past three seasons stands at 17–18 and eight of those wins are against Miami (Ohio) He tried to jump to Texas A&M last year He’s an extremely effective recruiter in the Midwest Indiana has made the commitment in terms of facilities and (enough) NIL backing and land in an adjacent state and a slightly easier league The coach of the Liberty Flames would very much want the UK job at Liberty and the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers the most popular fan choice at Kentucky would be alum and former assistant Jon Sumrall who has killed it with the Troy Trojans and in his first season leading the Tulane Green Wave He’s 30–6 in his third season as a head coach The Dash is sending Chadwell to Lexington to set up the next move …  He was called by the Lord to leave behind the calls of Tyler from Spartanburg he called plays for the Georgia Bulldogs’ back-to-back national champions giving Stetson Bennett the platform to attain improbable star status Venables would have to swallow a considerable amount of pride in taking a demotion and a pay cut But he’d be leaving a burning building in Norman and the brutality of the SEC to return to his happy place where he was the star defensive coordinator during Swinney’s best years Lashlee has seamlessly shepherded SMU's return to a power conference in his first year in the ACC / Jaylynn Nash-Imagn ImagesStep Seven: The Oklahoma Sooners (27) hire Rhett Lashlee This would require athletic director Joe Castiglione to hire Oklahoma’s first sitting head coach since Howard Schnellenberger was a one-year disaster in 1995 rejuvenating an offense and retaining Texas recruiting acumen which won the AAC last year and might win the ACC this year making a spectacular transition back to power-conference status The Pony Express boosters might be able to money-whip Lashlee into staying in a league that’s far easier to win but SEC revenue coupled with Oklahoma tradition is allegedly tough to turn down That would create an opportunity for this gem of a backdoor cut … Riley needs a change of scenery even more than Franklin and going back to his Texas roots might be the perfect career reboot His run with the USC Trojans is a deepening mess with his record plummeting from 11–3 to 8–5 to 4–5 he can go recruit Dallas with the backing of billionaires If the man wants to wear a drab T-shirt on the sideline in the L.A And he can do so without the shadow of Nick Saban looming over him USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen hired him at Washington so this would be getting two main players in a very successful band back together again The former Crimson Tide star leaves the Houston Texans and comes home to restore Bama And stop the dominoes from falling any further in the college game “I’m having a little bit of a break,” Forde says “Though I don’t ever really break—I just work from different places.” Forde has certainly had a busy year thus far With a roster of clients including stars like Emma D’Arcy the top stylist is fast becoming a go-to talent for cultivating an effortlessly cool look on the red carpet but the common thread is there’s a sense of weight to all of them,” says Forde of her growing A-list roster “They’re very considered about their own work and they love to delve into inspirations and storytelling with their clothes.” paid homage to Versace’s ’90s archives.) “When I do fittings I do most of the pinnings myself—I really have to get in there and construct it myself,” says Forde modern takes on suiting have also become one of Forde’s specialties it’s all about finding subtle updates to make the tailoring feel fresh Forde styled D’Arcy in a two-tone black and white Çanaku suit she also put Alwyn in custom dusty-blue Prada tailoring—with a monochromatic tie to match “I spent a lot of my early career working with tailors on Savile Row,” says Forde “I’m not very binary with it; I love playing with silks and soft fabrics that have a fluidity to them.” her approach to smart—yet relaxed—tailoring also reflects her personal style While Forde often dials up the drama for her clients she says she prefers a more muted (but sleek) vibe for her own wardrobe—and that influences her work “I have a bit of a uniform—if I could wear a lab coat every day “I love tailoring and more utilitarian pieces that are well-made And I love shoes; I wear loads of Prada shoes.” She will also collect certain pieces—“I have an archive of bowties,” she says—and then incorporate them into ensembles for her clients But it’s not all tuxedos and bowties—even Forde’s more casual looks have stood out. When Alwyn touched down for this year’s Cannes Film Festival in a Bottega Veneta outfit—namely perfectly-fitted jeans and a sleek bag—it felt laid-back but utterly modern it was about finding an elevated version of himself He kind of has that old-school film star quality D’Arcy attended Wimbledon with a striped knit tied artfully across the body and it doesn’t feel like fashion,” says Forde “That’s something I do with all of my clients—even if it’s a real statement piece Ohio State Buckeyes athletic director Ross Bjork voiced his support for Ryan Day (11) on Sunday to the Columbus Dispatch Which is the only rational approach when the team still has a chance to win a national championship “Our full focus right now is on the College Football Playoff and making a strong run,” Bjork told the Dispatch We have a great team made up of talented players and great young men Coach Day does a great job leading our program The larger question, which was addressed in part Saturday after the debacle against an undermanned Michigan Wolverines team is whether Day wants to stay in this pressure cooker A man with a 66–10 record also has options—although not many in the current landscape where just four power-conference jobs are currently open (more on those later) The timing of the playoff and the college job cycle adds to the tension in Columbus Given the absence of Day’s nightmare nemesis from the playoff field Ohio State would seem to have a chance to play for all the marbles Anything short of winning the national title might be viewed as a reason for one party or the other to move on—but the playoff lasts a month It could be a while before Ohio State’s season-ending bridge can be crossed If the Buckeyes are playing well into January Day’s best escape options would be in the NFL But it’s unlikely that a franchise would hire him as a head coach—a coordinator The optics of taking a demotion to get away from Michigan would be humbling few places would be able to match Day’s $10 million annual salary But many of them could pay him in peace of mind it’s onward into the playoff for Ohio State—if the Buckeyes can get over the psychic damage of a full-system failure against the Wolverines the fans are already fantasizing about who’s next If Ohio State wants a Jim Harbaugh parallel He’s a former star Buckeye who was on Urban Meyer’s staff then went to the NFL and largely succeeded Vrabel was the six-year head coach of the Tennessee Titans three playoff appearances and a 54–45 record The Titans made the AFC championship game in 2019 He will likely have other NFL suitors this hiring season and there are questions about whether he wants to reenter the world of recruiting your own roster But there are plenty of people in Ohio who would welcome him back If Ohio State wants a Dabo Swinney parallel there is current assistant coach Brian Hartline He’s a recruiting monster who theoretically would stand the best chance of keeping Ohio State’s current talent glut together (including the standout freshman receiver he coaches sans head-coach and play-calling experience If Ohio State wants a Deion Sanders parallel there is Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL star Eddie George currently winning games at an HBCU school in the FCS ranks George broke through with a 9–4 record and a berth in the FCS playoffs he doesn’t appear to have a star quarterback son and five-star If Ohio State wants someone who will walk to Columbus from his current location his fickle results in two years with the Wisconsin Badgers (he’s gone 12–13) have sullied his résumé and Fickell hit apex marketability in 2021 by leading the Cincinnati Bearcats to the playoff while Day was still riding high with the Buckeyes Finishing tied for 12th in a conference Ohio State expects to win isn’t a good launching point Freeman is among the candidates with a connection to Ohio State that the Buckeyes may covet should they choose to move on from Day Ohio State has every reason to think big and swing big It’s one of the top handful of jobs in the country and can offer a coach pretty much anything they desire the first guy without program ties who should get a call would be Dan Lanning (13) His undefeated Oregon Ducks are one win away from being the No 1 playoff seed and national title favorite His record in three seasons as a head coach: 34–5 Lanning has a near-perfect setup right now If Lanning is the hottest young coach in the country the hottest younger coach is Kenny Dillingham (14) of the Arizona State Sun Devils The 34-year-old former Lanning assistant took over a program in trouble and two years later has the Devils in the Big 12 title game with a 10–2 record he’s an ASU alum—but the difference between Ohio State and Arizona State outweighs a diploma Or how about Dillingham’s coaching opponent in the Big 12 title game Matt Campbell (15) of the Iowa State Cyclones Prior to becoming the best coach in school history at Iowa State Campbell’s life was steeped in Ohio—from Massillon You wonder whether he could move up the ladder to hit the highest notes at Ohio State while recruiting five-star talent and enduring the fishbowl existence but Jim Tressel once faced those questions There are a lot of potential candidates for a job that isn’t open The Ryan Day saga at Ohio State has weeks—perhaps years—still to play out thanks in large part to the looming financial reckoning of the House v A Dash quick look at candidates that make sense Let’s start with this disclaimer: Jon Sumrall (16) of the Tulane Green Wave would be an attractive candidate for all of them He’s 32–7 in three years as a college head coach and is playing this week for his third conference championship He might also be in position to wait for a good SEC job to open West Virginia Mountaineers (17). Neal Brown is out after going 37–35 in six seasons There is opportunity to be had in the Big 12 The candidate who makes sense: Barry Odom of the UNLV Rebels He has a history with athletic director Wren Baker dating to when they both worked at Missouri in 2015–16 Odom was probably prematurely fired as coach of the Tigers and has rebounded impressively in Las Vegas The 48-year-old is 19–7 in two seasons at a dead-end job and has UNLV within reach of a playoff spot if it can beat the Boise State Broncos on Friday night The candidates who make story lines: West Virginia native Jimbo Fisher if he chooses to get up off his pile of buyout cash from the Texas A&M Aggies; and former Mountaineers hero coach Rich Rodriguez who made two unfortunate career decisions—he turned down the Alabama Crimson Tide then accepted the job coaching the Michigan Wolverines That lasted three seasons before he was fired North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown embraces North Carolina State Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren after Saturday's rivalry game. / Bob Donnan-Imagn ImagesNorth Carolina Tar Heels (18). Mack Brown 2.0 in Chapel Hill ended with his dismissal last week and subsequent backseat complaining from its trustee chairman (The trustees do enjoy their backseat driving of UNC athletics.) Assuming they have no shot at alum Ben Johnson currently the best coordinator in the NFL with the Detroit Lions they still should be able to make a quality hire The candidate who makes sense: Jamey Chadwell of the Liberty Flames but this is a good opportunity in a winnable league Chadwell is 47 years old but has been a college head coach for 16 years at a variety of levels His record the last five seasons (three leading the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers He’s also recruited the area extensively for years The candidate who makes story lines: Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator and former Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith He’s a North Carolina alum with some booster juice The real intrigue is whether his billionaire father would become a program rainmaker the way he has for his hometown Memphis Tigers Ryan Walters was an impressive assistant coach who did not translate at all to being a head coach going 5–19 and losing 11 straight games to FBS opponents The immediate success of Curt Cignetti with the rival Indiana Hoosiers only highlighted Walters’s struggle The candidate who makes sense: Dave Clawson of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons but Clawson has a demonstrated ability to win in hard jobs—and frankly Purdue is probably easier than Wake Forest in some ways Clawson had six straight winning records—that’s without precedent in school history Richmond and Fordham—not a dissimilar career track to Cignetti The candidate who makes story lines: Jeff Monken of the Army Black Knights and he’s a stone-cold winner who has guided Army to an 11–1 season The leap of faith would be Purdue buying into an option offense which Monken is convinced can win at the power-conference level “It would work well anywhere,” Monken told Sports Illustrated in October “If we can take a team of players that isn’t as talented as the teams we’re playing and we can still win more talented players could do with the option offense “You’d rather watch your team in mediocrity than run a different offense that may win them those games that they traditionally lose every year There are teams in each conference that are the superior teams How do you as a team that’s right in the middle get yourself close to those teams to the top and win a conference championship It seems to The Dash that there was tampering at work in the Sunshine State News leaked Saturday during the Florida State Seminoles’ game against the Florida Gators that the Noles were hiring UCF coach Gus Malzahn as their new offensive coordinator Malzahn coached his last game the night before There JUST MIGHT have been some discussions between the two parties before Malzahn’s duties were done in Orlando Someone please get Congress on the line to investigate this horror When players are “tampered with,” the system is in shambles The candidate who makes sense: Andy Kotelnicki Penn State Nittany Lions offensive coordinator Athletic director Terry Mohajir worked at Kansas as both a coach and administrator Kotelnicki called plays for Lance Leipold when the Jayhawks went 9–4 there last year and he’s calling the plays for Penn State’s current 11–1 team Pair him with a really good defensive coordinator and try to get upwardly mobile in the Big 12 The candidate who makes story lines: Scott Frost Much like a potential RichRod return to West Virginia this would be a shot at rekindling past magic Frost might need to find himself another McKenzie Milton to make it work solidifying a scheduling agreement between the two leagues—and locking in a certain number of automatic bids for each of the Power 4 conferences and guess which two leagues would be told to go along with it who get something for their complicity (multiple guaranteed bids) but help sell the industry a little further down the river It’s another opportunity for the Big Ten and SEC to choke out competition and it provides a solution that lacks a problem The Minutes doesn’t hear a lot of clamoring for change for ironclad guarantees granted to certain conferences before games are even played—yet change appears to be at hand getting to the stated purpose of this weekly column similarly unwanted change is looming over the NCAA basketball tournament Everyone is couching an expansion of that tourney in cautious rhetoric—it’s not done it may not happen—but sources across the landscape say there is continued momentum toward a 76-team field for 2026 It’s a terrible idea that lacks public support and “fixes” something that is not broken March Madness reached its sweet spot at 64 teams in 1985 The addition of four more teams was a crass move by the power conferences to get more of their teams in the field and woe unto those who dismiss the importance of the bracket and associated office pools to casual fan interest It further stresses the schedule of an event that fits perfectly across three weekends And it further marginalizes the smaller schools and conferences who provide so much of the flavor of the event Killing Cinderella (5) is a remarkably soulless and tone deaf idea the powermongers in charge are interested in it one from the Mountain West and one from the Atlantic 10 They don’t want a second team from the Missouri Valley Conference—where When the SEC drafted a modest proposal at the NCAA convention for the Power 4 conferences to take control of postseason championships away from the NCAA itself that was the latest unveiling of the power grab they want to further stack the deck to their advantage and they don’t care what elements of fairness and tradition get broken and discarded along the way They’re far less interested in giving the public what it wants than taking what they want The Minutes is appraising a few teams that were expected to be much better than they are Spoiler alert: They all suffered from defective roster construction much of which owed to transfers who have not worked out as hoped Big 12 teams historically have had to play one of their best games of the season to beat the Kansas Jayhawks (8) a 14–11 team tied for 10th place in the league beating Kansas on Saturday night while malfunctioning badly on the offensive end The Utes made just 41.4% of their two-point shots (13% below their season average) 32.4% of their three-pointers (down 1.5%) and 60.7% of their free throws (down 1.2%) Utah went more than seven minutes of the second half without scoring and one Ute went 1-for-9 at the foul line—and it didn’t matter Which has become a recurring theme for the team that started the season No Kansas is 3–4 over its last seven games and 5–5 over its last 10 the Jayhawks could be headed to a second straight Wednesday appearance in the second round of the Big 12 tournament The league has gotten tougher with the addition of the Houston Cougars and Arizona Wildcats but this is still a shocking two-year comeuppance for a program that won 18 out of 19 Big 12 titles from 2005 to ’23 the Jayhawks have been at full strength all of February They haven’t gotten sufficient bang for their transfer portal bucks with a couple of players: AJ Storr (9) has seen his scoring plummet from 16.8 points per game last season at Wisconsin to 6.3 at Kansas; and Rylan Griffen has dropped from 11.2 points per game at Alabama to 6.5 as a Jayhawk Kansas’s ability to get to the foul line has withered—Bill Self’s team is 357th nationally in free throw rate Kansas’s place in the NCAA tournament is secure, with victories over Michigan State, Duke and Iowa State topping the resume. But it was a No. 4 seed Saturday afternoon in the selection committee’s early top 16 reveal they could be headed to their lowest seeding since 2000 Another Big 12 team is struggling to maintain its previous excellence: the Baylor Bears (10) Baylor is tied with Kansas at 8–6 in the league which follows two seasons of 11–7 conference records won a national title and claimed at least a share of two Big 12 championships For a team that started the season ranked eighth working in five new players has proved to be harder than expected Guard Langston Love missed 10 league games in which the Bears went 5–5 He’s been back for the last three and should be an important piece down the stretch Duke Blue Devils transfer Jeremy Roach (11) hasn’t shot or scored at the level he did the previous two seasons (he’s also missed six games) Baylor just hasn’t been as good defensively from 2023 to ’25 as it was from 2020 to ’22 the Bears haven’t been great this season guarding the perimeter or on the defensive glass But the Bears have two big home opportunities left Roach transferred to Baylor in the offseason and has not produced at his previous level this season. / Michael C. Johnson-Imagn ImagesThe Indiana Hoosiers (12) have been trending the wrong way for a while, which is why they’ve already reached an agreement for coach Mike Woodson to step down after this season ends this is a team that doesn’t always look happy together Indiana ponied up to keep Mackenzie Mgbako and Malik Reneau then added transfers Oumar Ballo from the Arizona Wildcats and Myles Rice (13) from the Washington State Cougars making just 31.5% of their three-pointers on the season Mgbako has made just 4-of-23 threes in the past four games Indiana is a hot finish away from getting back into the bubble conversation—if it can find its edge after taking nine days off from Feb Opportunity awaits against the Purdue Boilermakers in Bloomington The most anticipated season in many years for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (14) has not gone according to plan Rutgers is the latest illustration of the perils of building around freshmen in an era of old teams. The Knights signed the Nos. 2 and 3 players in the Class of 2024 in Ace Bailey (15) and Dylan Harper (16) But this team doesn’t have enough of a veteran backbone to handle the rigors of the Big Ten Assuming both Bailey and Harper go pro after the season Rutgers will have very little to show for those recruiting coups the defending national champions are excelling in only one area: trash talk from their coach The UConn Huskies (17) took an incomprehensible loss Saturday at the Seton Hall Pirates—that’s 7–18 Seton Hall UConn’s chances of repeating as Big East champs are certainly gone at this point and a national championship three-peat would require a dramatic upgrade in performance That includes losing two of the Huskies’ last three since getting standout freshman Liam McNeeley back from an ankle injury This team looks nothing like its championship predecessors on the defensive end fouling too much and not guarding the perimeter well Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney (18) has gone into witness protection after two very successful seasons for the Gaels He’s gone from 33 minutes and 13.9 points per game to 13.4 minutes and 4.8 points the Villanova Wildcats (19) continue to lose the plot from the Jay Wright heyday They hired a Wright-approved former assistant in Kyle Neptune after he’d spent just one season at Fordham and in three seasons ’Nova has backslid into mediocrity—50–44 overall Eric Dixon (20) leads the nation in scoring at 23.2 points per game but Villanova’s problems are at the other end of the court 8–7) don’t guard the perimeter well and don’t disrupt opposing offenses much ranking 232nd nationally in turnover percentage Whatever progress ’Nova made toward getting into the bubble conversation by beating St John’s was erased by a beatdown loss to Providence with games against UConn and the Marquette Golden Eagles no list of crashing disappointments is complete without the North Carolina Tar Heels (21) who lead a long line of underachievers in the ACC They’ve gone from preseason top 10 to the wrong side of the bubble—and while that’s still better than 2022–23 Against the top three teams in the ACC—Duke Clemson and Louisville—the Heels are 0–3 with an average losing margin of 16.7 points They’ve also got a bad home loss to Stanford A neutral-court win over the UCLA Bruins in December is doing a lot of work on an otherwise undistinguished résumé Hubert Davis didn’t satisfactorily address the loss of forever big man Armando Bacot and the result has been a disappearance of the Heels’ usual prowess on the offensive glass—they’re 238th nationally in offensive rebounding percentage This is also a pedestrian three-point shooting team Davis and the Tar Heels have been a major disappointment this season / Ken Ruinard / staff / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn ImagesFour of the final six are at home and the two road games are against bad teams so there is a path back if Carolina is good enough A motley assemblage of competitors will report to Charlotte for the ACC tournament which is taking only the top 15 teams and leaving three at home the defending champion North Carolina State Wolfpack (22) are out The sport has been moving away from reliance on freshmen for several years But there are a few first-year guys who have had major impacts on high-profile teams and will play vital roles down the stretch He has some quality freshman company at Duke in Kon Knueppel (second on the team in scoring) and Khaman Maluach (second on the team in rebounding and blocks) The Blue Devils will be the most freshmen-dependent team in the NCAA tournament It was a coup when Kevin Willard kept the big man from Baltimore in his home state 246-pound (at least) Queen has an intriguing combination of power and soft touch in the paint averaging 16 points and 8.8 rebounds while making 59% of his two-point shots He’s made only two three-pointers this season which could at least give Willard a selling point for staying in school a second year to polish up his perimeter game Only four freshmen have ever led the SEC in scoring and two of them are all-time greats: Bernard King of the Tennessee Volunteers and Chris Jackson of the LSU Tigers averaging 19.8 per game to Johni Broome’s 18.1 He’s long and wiry at 6' 6" and 190 pounds and increasingly assertive—he scored a career-high 30 points in a comeback win over Texas A&M last month then topped that with 32 in a comeback win over Kentucky on Saturday Texas will need more big games out of Johnson down the stretch to lock up an NCAA bid arriving from Russia and immediately impressing everyone with his overall skill level as a 6' 9" point guard/forward and his production and confidence decreased Demin is making just 42.6% of his shots overall and 28% from three but he’s still the go-to table-setter in the BYU offense averaging 5.5 assists to go along with 11 points per game This is a big week for Demin and the Cougars on Tuesday and then a trip to Arizona on Saturday which happened to be against Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium Pettiford buoyed the Tigers in their showdown against Alabama / Will McLelland-Imagn ImagesKasparas Jakucionis (28) Jakucionis immediately became the hub of the Illini offense 5.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists put him in elite company nationally: If he can maintain those numbers he will be the first freshman from a power conference since Markelle Fultz eight years ago to average 15-5-5 Riley averaged 18 points over Illinois’s last six games.) third in rebounds (5.3) and first in steals (2.2) until he started high school and should have considerable upside a struggling Baylor team needs him (and fellow freshman Robert Wright III) to be as good as they can be right now UConn will need him to back up his coach’s mouth if it is going to make a serious run at a threepeat He decommitted from Illinois in the summer of 2024 flipped to Oklahoma and nearly reclassified before staying in the Class of ’25 Fears’s fast start under Porter Moser helped the Sooners jump to a 13–0 record with Fears’s scoring average dropping from 18.1 to 12.1 and his shooting accuracy decreasing 9% from two-point range and 5% from three But he remains Oklahoma’s most vital player in pursuit of an NCAA bid after narrowly missing out last season Both are mentioned above in the context of their struggling team 2 and 3 recruits in the country are filling the stat sheet—Bailey leads the Scarlet Knights in scoring (18.6) rebounds (7.4) and blocks (1.2) and Harper leads in assists (4.0) and steals (1.1) while scoring 18.5 per game Tuesday: Texas A&M Aggies at Mississippi State Bulldogs (32) Mississippi State is zigging while everyone else conventionally zags—the Bulldogs have won their last three road games and lost their last three at home They’re hosting a veteran A&M team that keeps pulling out the close ones since giving away a game at Texas on Jan the Aggies are trying to keep hold of a top-four finish and SEC tourney double bye Wednesday: Alabama Crimson Tide at Missouri Tigers (33) matching two teams that love to play fast and fire up threes The Tigers are in sole possession of fifth place at the moment at 8–4 Saturday: Tennessee Volunteers at Texas A&M (34) This is shaping up as a quien es mas macho battle on the glass and defensively the Aggies lead the SEC in both offensive and defensive rebounding—and there figure to be a lot of second chances at both ends Tennessee leads the league in overall defense and two-point field goal defense while A&M will be coming off that showdown in Starkville Stock up: Florida Gators (35). Their four-game winning streak elevated them to a No. 1 seed in the selection committee’s early top 16 reveal Saturday Florida followed up big road wins over Auburn and Mississippi State with significant personnel news getting 7-footer Micah Handlogten back nearly a year after he broke his leg two blocks and two steals in 20 minutes in a win over the South Carolina Gamecocks The Sooners took the kind of loss a bubble team can’t afford—at home to 15th-place LSU—on Saturday Oklahoma has now lost four in a row heading into a daunting trip to Florida on Tuesday the Sooners figure to be one of the more strenuously debated bubble teams by the selection committee This masterpiece by the Oakland Grizzlies (37) may be the clutch sequence of the year junior forward Isaiah Jones stepped in to steal a pass with 14 seconds remaining Jones drove into the frontcourt and passed to guard DQ Cole who nearly launched but instead passed back to Jones who then passed it once more back to Cole for the tying three Isaiah Jones intercepts the Titans' pass and plays keep away with DQ Cole (@Dqcole) who sinks the game tying 3 with 5.6 left. The crowd goes crazy and Oakland forces OT where they would win 93-83 over Detroit Mercy pic.twitter.com/R5duUR6FiO Cole was definitely the right choice for the shot instead of Jones (26 threes in three seasons) jacking it up himself But it took some patience and wherewithal to move the ball faster than the defense for the open look He’s now the winningest coach in Big Ten history Izzo’s 354th conference victory came Saturday at Illinois not only making history but keeping the Spartans within a game of the Michigan Wolverines at the top of the league race Michigan and Michigan State still have two games remaining against each other Friday in Ann Arbor and March 9 in East Lansing Izzo will take Michigan State to the NCAA tournament next month for the 27th consecutive time At the other end of the Big Ten standings we find Penn State losers of seven in a row and 11 of the last 12 The Nittany Lions haven’t won a road game this season and three of the last five are away from home but that’s part of the game and not a blanket excuse for this collapse pay homage to the late SEC commissioner Mike Slive with breakfast at Salem’s Diner (40) Slive loved to take visitors to the unvarnished diner and to gab with the staff over a meal They’ll serve you a Philly cheesesteak anytime of day but order “The Trashcan” breakfast platter and thank The Minutes later teams and minutiae making news in college football (post-Saban counseling sold separately in Tuscaloosa): Parity has collided with opportunity, and the result is the greatest season-ending frenzy we’ve ever experienced. That’s what Saturday constituted in the sport. This isn’t quite 2007, when everyone lost two or more games and the No. 2 ranking was actually cursed A 12-team College Football Playoff plus a deep cast of good-not-great teams has spread both playoff fever and upset vulnerability nationwide No fewer than five teams forfeited control of their playoff destiny Saturday a chain-reaction meltdown that resembled a bunch of golfers on the leaderboard bogeying their way through the back nine on Sunday when the earth stopped shaking Saturday night and the fans stopped storming fields from Arizona to Florida the playoff race is now downright … orderly another weekend like this past one could reopen a Pandora’s box of possibilities—three-loss teams in the tournament?—but for now the invite list looks firm: The Big Ten (1) is sitting on a four-team jackpot Penn State Nittany Lions and Indiana Hoosiers this far with a total of three losses between them All four are favored by at least 17 points in their regular-season finales Ohio State and maybe Penn State) could all afford a loss and still stay in the bracket The Southeastern Conference (2) has been downsized to three playoff teams after The Night That Drove Ol’ Dixie Down The dismissal of the Alabama Crimson Tide was the most shocking result of the day being routed 24–3 by an Oklahoma Sooners team that hadn’t beaten an FBS team since September the Mississippi Rebels completed the triple crown of bad losses—the Kentucky Wildcats the LSU Tigers and now the Florida Gators—to drop from contention And the nightcap was the Texas A&M Aggies’ four-overtime loss to an Auburn Tigers program that has been a dysfunctional mess for five seasons—but is always capable of producing some mayhem in Jordan-Hare Stadium Georgia already has clinched a spot in the SEC championship game and will play the winner of Texas-Texas A&M after its fans and some media that cover the team spent last week prematurely caterwauling about Indiana Texas is in by virtue of its record at this point (Texas A&M could yet play an interesting role that disrupts the bracket The Atlantic Coast Conference (3) could be a two-bid league now if both the SMU Mustangs and Miami Hurricanes reach the league title game at 11–1 But there is a third option—and the lone lurking bubble team—in the 9–2 Clemson Tigers They have a quality-win opportunity Saturday against the rival South Carolina Gamecocks that could give them a shot even if they don’t make the ACC championship game Best-case scenario for the ACC: Either SMU or Miami wins the league at 12–1; the loser of a close title game ends up 11–2; and Clemson finishes 10–2 If an upset imperils a team currently in the bracket next week Another factor that could help the league’s standing: a strong showing in four rivalry games vs the Louisville Cardinals play Kentucky; the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets play Georgia; and the Florida State Seminoles play Florida (don’t get your hopes up in that one The Big 12 (4) strongly resembles a one-big league and even its champion could fall outside the protected top four that earn first-round byes The two teams atop the standings both went down at the same time Saturday afternoon—the Colorado Buffaloes to the Kansas Jayhawks and the BYU Cougars to the Arizona State Sun Devils the latter a two-field-storm carnival ending nine—teams still with a chance to make the title game in the final weekend Arizona State (9–2) and the Iowa State Cyclones (9–2) have the inside track The Notre Dame Fighting Irish (5) need to handle a road game against the rival USC Trojans on Saturday but the Irish have been playing on a much higher plane than USC for the past two months It’s possible that Notre Dame (10–1) could even absorb a loss and stay in the bracket with the Boise State Broncos solidifying their status as the top contender They’re in the Mountain West Conference title game But to maintain status as the primary G5 team they also need to beat the Oregon State Beavers on Saturday UNLV or the Tulane Green Wave–Army Black Knights winner of the American Athletic Conference title game looms as the alternative So the most likely bracket as of now is comprised of four from the Big Ten But there is one other scenario that regularly comes into play in the NCAA basketball bracket: a bid thief (7) But if they beat Texas on Saturday and beat Georgia in the SEC title game they’d grab the automatic SEC slot and bump someone else from the field Indiana and Texas might be the two teams rooting hardest against them Other bracket dynamics that appear to be developing: There likely will be multiple cold-weather games (8) Ohio State and Penn State could be positioned to host first-round games on campus on either Dec Fans in those locales have been hankering for years to get warm-weather teams in their backyard for winter football Among those who would figure to be the least enthusiastic about a potential snow-and-cold road game: Miami and Arizona State The best outcome for both the Hurricanes and Sun Devils would be to win their league’s automatic bids and hope that lands them in the top four earning a first-round bye and a trip to a bowl site for a quarterfinal Three of those are indoors (the Sugar Bowl Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl) and the fourth is in Southern California at the Rose Bowl Texas (9) would seem to be the most likely free-faller with a loss the Longhorns lead the SEC at 6–1 and 10–1 overall If they lose to Texas A&M on Saturday and miss the SEC title game they could fall behind the other two-loss playoff teams—perhaps behind a 10–2 Clemson as well Beating the Aggies would at least put something on the resume and if Texas finishes 11–2 with both losses to Georgia that’s probably good enough to stay in the field for multiple reasons the resumption of that Lone Star State rivalry in College Station If The Dash’s current bracket comes to fruition in two weeks we will have playoff teams that lost to the Northern Illinois Huskies (10) Cincinnati Bearcats and Texas Tech Red Raiders this is based on the premise that today is Selection Sunday but still nowhere near as enamored as the selection committee or the pollsters: First-round games: Arizona State at Ohio State; Indiana at Notre Dame; Miami at Texas; Tennessee at Penn State A former Warwick Police captain passed away on Friday the department announced in a Facebook post Saturday Forde died at the age of 64 after a battle with cancer Forde served in the department for over 30 years in the patrol division He was also a member of the SWAT Team for 13 years “On behalf of the entire Warwick Police Department we extend our most profound condolences to the Forde Family and to all those fortunate enough to have known him,” the department said The Dash is certain the switchboard is already lit up with callers to The Paul Finebaum Show for Monday ready to declare the following: the Alabama Crimson Tide’s season is over; Kalen DeBoer is a sorry excuse for a coach who is unworthy of mowing Nick Saban’s lawn much less replacing him; the Tide once-proud defense is dead; and Jalen Milroe’s Heisman Trophy campaign is There is no panic button sturdy enough to withstand the smashing this one will get from Alabama fans after the program’s first loss to Vanderbilt in 40 years Has anyone fallen harder and faster than the Tide week-over-week? From upsetting Georgia and rising to No. 1 in the AP poll, with all the accompanying hosannas to being the first top-five team to ever lose to Vandy—that is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute the Nick Would Never criticisms are these: Saban famously lost to Louisiana-Monroe in his first year at Alabama but that was early in the rebuilding stage—DeBoer did not inherit a team in need of a massive rebuild avoiding stunning upsets ranks pretty high Even the Tide’s most recent loss while ranked No 1 to an unranked opponent—41–38 at Texas A&M in 2021—was to a team that finished 8–4 in a truly rabid road atmosphere Maybe Vanderbilt will finish 8–4 or better But winning in Memorial Stadium has never been near as hard as winning at Kyle Field Alabama was never the better team Saturday there is no question that the current Alabama defense has sprung alarming leaks over the last six quarters In the second half against Georgia and the full game against Vanderbilt the Tide allowed eight touchdowns and two field goals while forcing just three punts and two turnovers for the sheer novelty of it: Alabama could not stop Vanderbilt The Commodores nearly doubled Alabama in rushing yardage (166–84) and their skill players repeatedly ran through contact to get first downs and keep drives alive Alabama’s chances of making the playoff: Still in the bracket for now (see below) with that win over Georgia carrying a lot of weight But there are some increasingly urgent games coming against Tennessee and Missouri on Oct Then LSU and Oklahoma loom on the road in November The Tennessee attorney general carried Big Orange water by going to court and nuking the NCAA’s power to enforce rules on pay-for-play transactions for recruits That effectively ended an investigation into Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his reported $8 million agreement to play for the Vols the question now is what bang Tennessee is getting for all those bucks and their last five possessions were all punts or turning the ball over on downs Iamaleava passed for a season-low 156 yards and ranks 10th in efficiency in league games Tennessee’s chances of making the playoff: Still alive with the road win over Oklahoma the best part of the résumé But depending on what’s happening elsewhere the Vols might need to beat either Alabama or Georgia in addition to winning the rest of their games The Missouri state legislator and former Mizzou Tigers football player sponsored legislation that was signed into law in 2023 that put the Tigers ahead of the game in terms of NIL compensation Gregory should schedule a hearing on the Tigers’ squandering of their advantage After a 4–0 start that wasn’t terribly impressive Mizzou no-showed its first big test at Texas A&M The Tigers were trampled 41–10 in College Station seemingly crumbling after a couple of questionable calls went against them at the start of the game The score was 34–0 before Missouri got on the board and the Aggies more than doubled them in total yardage (512–254) couldn’t run effectively and got a poor game from veteran quarterback Brady Cook Missouri’s chances of making the playoff: Maybe that win over Vanderbilt will be worth something in the committee room and given the light (by SEC standards) overall schedule which would entail beating either Alabama or Oklahoma in addition to everyone else on the schedule figuring the Pac-12 would be a manageable route to the playoff and let’s just say that road trips in that league have not been enjoyable for Lincoln & Co Losing to the Wolverines in front of more than 100,000 fans is one thing; losing to the Golden Gophers It’s almost like traveling multiple time zones takes a toll on a team that shows up in the fourth quarter or something USC’s chances of making the playoff: The Trojans may need to win out which would entail beating Penn State and Notre Dame A third loss seems likely to be a disqualifying development in terms of making the Big Ten title game and perhaps from an at-large standpoint as well Minnesota quarterback Max Brosmer runs for a touchdown against USC. / Matt Krohn-Imagn ImagesThe ghost of Terence McKenna (5)The late ethnobotanist and “mystic” was a Cal alum who posited that eating psychedelic mushrooms helped humans advance beyond their primitive forebears. (This has been evocatively labeled the “Stoned Ape Theory.”)  McKenna was a classic Cal intellectual hippie Though he doesn’t seem like the type to be overly interested in football he might have been amused by the Calgorithm movement of sardonically “woke” football fans of the Golden Bears And he might thus have been disappointed by the crushing collapse Cal suffered against the Miami Hurricanes blowing a 25-point lead in the second half The pileup of incremental misfortunes that led to this loss were truly stunning—and truly Cal-like California’s chances of making the playoff: It’s not happening But the Calgorithm is encouraged to keep churning out the content with fans declaring that the fix is in on behalf of the Miami Hurricanes and SMU Mustangs Three replay review decisions have got some people in the ACC’s very large footprint scanning the skies for black helicopters which is the highest-ranked ACC team at the moment An overturned Virginia Tech Hail Mary took the potential winning points off the board against Miami last week and a no-call on a targeting review kept the Hurricanes in the game at Cal on Saturday night The overturned Hokies touchdown probably was the right call whereas the targeting no-call came under heavy criticism from the ESPN crew calling the game Then there was an SMU fumble that was overturned against Louisville on Saturday afternoon the Mustangs scored the winning touchdown to improve to 5–1 That bang-bang play looked like it might be too close to overturn The replay analyst on the broadcast announced his surprise when the review decision came in The ACC’s chances of getting multiple teams in the playoff: With two still unbeaten (Miami and Pittsburgh) and Clemson very much revived after the opening flop against Georgia the ACC’s chances for multiple bids seems stronger than the Big 12’s And by God if it takes a little extra effort from the replay review center in Charlotte The greatest quarterback of them all has to be aghast at the current state of QB play at his alma mater one-interception effort in a loss to Washington is viewed as a sign of hope Michigan’s chances of making the playoff: Only if the forward pass is outlawed sometime this month They are the lead authors on a study paper entitled, “Timing and Consolidation of Human Sleep, Wakefulness, and Performance by a Symphony of Oscillators.” In other words they’ve studied circadian rhythms—and this season is putting those rhythms to the ultimate stress test in terms of kickoff times (some very late The returns so far in the Big Ten are not pretty Teams traveling two or more time zones to play are 1–8 the cumulative effect on the West Coast teams going East multiple times could be substantial The symphony of oscillators might churn out some discordant melodies West Coast Big Ten teams’ chances of making the playoff: Oregon Ducks or bust at this point Rutgers Scarlet Knights coach Greg Schiano might have started the keep-chopping-wood mantra that has become something of a cliché now among coaches But it’s worked for him—Rutgers was 4–0 this season heading into its game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers That’s when the wood stopped getting chopped What Rutgers lacks offensively cannot be overcome solely with defense and special teams The Knights gave up just 14 points to the Cornhuskers but scored just seven—and that came with four minutes left in the game A whopping nine Rutgers possessions ended in Nebraska territory with a single touchdown to show for it That included a blocked punt that set up the Knights on the Nebraska 2-yard line Rutgers’s chances of making the playoff: Not out of it especially when you look at a schedule that is devoid of the Big Ten’s remaining unbeaten—no Ohio State But points will have to be scored eventually to keep the improbable dream alive The first-year Arizona Wildcats athletic director looked like she was walking into a promising situation—a returning star quarterback (Noah Fifita) a returning star wide receiver (Tetairoa McMillan) and an accomplished coach (Brent Brennan) who had just been hired by her predecessor But something is being lost in translation—or at least on the way to the end zone After losing to the Texas Tech Red Raiders Arizona ranks third in the league in yards per play but 15th in points per game After scoring 61 points in the season opener against New Mexico the Wildcats have scored a total of 74 points in the four games since A nice win over Utah has been sandwiched on either side by losses to Kansas State and Tech Arizona’s chances of making the playoff: Not great but the only teams that appear to be out of the Big 12 championship game race at this point are the Oklahoma State Cowboys McMillan runs ball while defended by Texas Tech's Macho Stevenson / Aryanna Frank-Imagn ImagesFrank and Lorenzo Fertitta (11)The UNLV mega-boosters who have their names on the football facility at UNLV had never enjoyed their fandom more than this year—until Friday night UNLV capped off an eventful run in the spotlight with an overtime loss to Syracuse at home spoiling a 4–0 start on the season amid a high-profile player defection and much realignment drama Their first AP Top 25 ranking in school history was short-lived The Rebels should have a good chance of reaching the Mountain West Conference title game which they would have to win while actively rooting against an undefeated American Athletic Conference champion Shortly after he was hired as Big 12 commissioner the TCU Horned Frogs went on a charmed run to the national championship game With Texas and Oklahoma on the way out of the league TCU looked like a candidate to lead the conference into the new era The bottom fell out Friday night with a loss to previously inept Houston The 2022 team looks more and more like a one-hit wonder TCU’s chances of making the playoff: Only if the Hypnotoad works some serious mojo on the rest of the Big 12 First-round matchups: Boise State at Oregon; Iowa State at Penn State; Pittsburgh at Indiana; Alabama at Georgia FIND YOUR ONE NATION CANDIDATE, LOCAL POLLING BOOTHS AND HOW-TO-VOTE CARD HERE. Matt Lambert is proud to stand as Pauline Hanson’s One Nation candidate for the seat of Forde A successful Queensland business owner employing over 50 Australians Matt understands the real pressures facing small businesses and working families today.Growing up in Forster Matt learned early the value of hard work and resilience He earned a teaching degree from Newcastle University before shifting into business He knows firsthand the frustrations of government red and green tape that cripple local businesses while handing advantages to corporate elites.A proud father of five and grandfather to six Matt is motivated by a deep concern for the future facing Australian families He entered politics to fight for a return to common sense—lowering the cost of living and securing real investment in Australia’s own skilled workforce Matt believes small and medium businesses are the true backbone of the economy and that government needs to stop punishing them with endless taxes and regulations.With One Nation’s strong policies on apprenticeship subsidies Matt will champion policies that benefit real Australians—not political insiders He strongly supports building new high-efficiency coal power stations and putting Australia’s abundant natural resources to work for Australian families not just foreign buyers.Matt Lambert is not a career politician He is a straight-talking Australian who believes in hard work He is standing up against political correctness and governments that have lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent.If elected Matt promises to be a tireless voice for the people of Forde fighting for commonsense reforms that put Australian jobs and values first."I’m not in this for power or prestige I’m doing this because I refuse to stand by while career politicians sell out the future of everyday Australians." The One Nation political party was launched on the 11th April 1997 at Ipswich by its founder 2/6-12 Boronia Rd Brisbane Airport QLD 4008 Among teams experiencing breakthrough seasons, some things have changed year-over-year to enable the improvement. The Dash zeroes in on some of them, from the obvious to the more subtle. Mike Elko inherited a soft team up front, and that clearly wasn’t going to last long. At SEC spring meetings in May, he hinted at what was to come with the A&M offensive line: “I don’t think they’re very excited about the reputation they have in the Texas A&M community from last year. I think they’re very hungry to change that narrative.” Consider it changed. Despite losing potential feature back Rueben Owens to an injury in the preseason, the Aggies lead the SEC in rushing yards per carry (5.31) and are second in rushing yards per game (221.5). Offensive line coach Adam Cushing did great work under Elko at Duke and that has carried over to this unit. And quarterback Marcel Reed, newly returned to the lineup, is a better running threat than Conner Weigman.  This is a vastly improved defensive team, ranking third nationally in both yards allowed per game (259) and points allowed per game (11.6)—and they still haven’t had the pleasure of facing the No. 15 offense in the SEC (Kentucky this week) or No. 12 (Mississippi State next week). The Vols still have not allowed 20 points in a game this season. Coordinator Tim Banks, who should be getting some head-coaching looks in the job market this offseason, added some key pieces to the secondary. Oregon State transfer Jermod McCoy has a pair of interceptions, five passes broken up and is fourth on the team in tackles. Freshman Boo Carter had a big impact in a tight win over Florida. Middle Tennessee transfer Jakobe Thomas made some disruptive plays in the victory over Alabama. Offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino arrived in the offseason to save Sam Pittman and has done his job so far. Petrino has always been an underrated run game guy, and the Hogs are backing up his acumen in that area with a two-headed transfer attack. Running back Ja’Quinden Jackson (from Utah) and quarterback Taylen Green (from Boise State) are combining for 134 rushing yards per game. Overall the Hogs have improved their rushing yards per game by 60 over last year, and yards per carry by 1.73. They’re better in almost every area, but the pass defense stands out up to this point. The undefeated Cougars are third nationally in interceptions with 14, with at least one in every game and at least two in each of the last five games. Eleven different players have picked off passes through eight games. Five percent of opposing passes are being intercepted by BYU, which is allowing 10 fewer points per game than both of the last two years. but the College Football Playoff math is finally mathing We are at a point where the most likely at-large pool of contenders will consist of nine teams for seven spots—five from the Southeastern Conference An upset or two could bring others back into the picture but the demise of undefeated teams in the other power conferences has probably reduced them to one-bid status Two games should go a long way toward firming up the pecking order in the Big Ten and SEC—the Indiana Hoosiers at the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday and the Texas Longhorns at the Texas A&M Aggies on Nov But you never know what other developments could occur The loser of Texas-Texas A&M (1) is in trouble It’s a huge game between the league co-leaders with the winner the likely SEC regular-season champion (unless one or both of them steps on a land mine this Saturday when the Longhorns host the Kentucky Wildcats and the Aggies visit the Auburn Tigers) But the loser remains without a quality win it would be its third defeat and an easy disqualifier the Horns would be 10–2 with zero victories over ranked opponents And even the winner could miss the playoff if it goes to the SEC title game and loses So if you thought the stakes for that game weren’t already enormous with the resumption of an ancient and bitter rivalry and Texas trying to win the SEC in its first season in the league The LSU Tigers and Missouri Tigers both removed themselves from playoff consideration Saturday but the two-loss SEC pileup behind the Texas two-step remains a mess Good luck putting them in order—but the order will matter greatly Someone in that group could well miss the playoff and the others are jockeying for home first-round games if they don’t win the automatic bid The Georgia Bulldogs (2) have the most quality wins of any playoff contender beating Texas by 15 on the road and then beating the Tennessee Volunteers by 14 on Saturday But they also have losses to two other SEC playoff contenders at the Alabama Crimson Tide and by 18 at the Mississippi Rebels “We’ve played the toughest schedule in our league,” coach Kirby Smart said Saturday and he’s right (at least among contending teams) but the Dawgs have a scary game at dangerous underdog rival Georgia Tech on Nov it should be a playoff lock—but if it makes the SEC title game and loses badly to finish 10–3 dominating Georgia and an increasingly impressive beatdown of the South Carolina Gamecocks on the road in October But the Rebels also now have two losses to unranked teams with the demise of LSU and the general mediocrity of Kentucky Does a thorough beating of the Bulldogs outweigh Georgia’s overall better resume Tennessee (4) has a single win over a ranked opponent But the Vols also have a bad loss (to the Arkansas Razorbacks) and the 14-point defeat at Georgia Of the four SEC teams with two league losses the Vols might be the most vulnerable to being left out of the playoff at 10–2 a win over South Carolina and dominant wins over former contenders LSU and Missouri A 32-point win at Wisconsin looks a little stronger today as well after the Badgers pushed the No But Bama also has the loss at Vanderbilt and the loss at Tennessee The records of those four teams against each other: Mississippi 1–0 The Big Ten’s best path to getting four teams in the playoff would be an instant classic (6) in The Horseshoe on Saturday between Indiana and Ohio State—no matter who wins Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti faces his biggest challenge of the season when the 10–0 Hoosiers face Ohio State on the road on Saturday / Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn ImagesIf the Buckeyes win but the Hoosiers keep it close the league could have undefeated Oregon and three one-loss teams—those two plus the Penn State Nittany Lions Ohio State probably still could get in at 10–2—the Buckeyes would have lost to a pair of undefeated teams and would have the road win over Penn State the Hoosiers’ lack of quality wins becomes a big issue The persistent admiration directed toward Penn State by poll voters and the committee remains perplexing The Nittany Lions’ two best accomplishments are losing a relatively close game to Ohio State and not losing to the rest of the riffraff on their schedule Penn State could benefit a little from a win at Minnesota on Saturday but it still wouldn’t qualify as a big victory The Big 12 (7) is in big trouble … at least for now. The BYU Cougars’ overdue fall from the unbeaten ranks increases the likelihood that this is a one-bid league it should at least temporarily put the Big 12’s top team behind the Mountain West front-runner Boise State Broncos Boise State would vault into the top four seeds and get a first-round bye while the Big 12 winner would be relegated to a first-round game—perhaps on the road The Big 12 winner still could move back ahead of Boise State (or another Group of 5 champion) by Selection Sunday Either BYU or Arizona State is going to pick up a quality win when the two meet Saturday in Tempe and the league title game is likely to match up a pair of ranked teams would likely rank ahead of 12–1 Boise State if it comes to that resume contest Could the UNLV Rebels enter the CFP top 25 and restore a ranked win for the Broncos that they’d likely otherwise lose with the upset of the Washington State Cougars by the New Mexico Lobos One potential comparative score scenario to keep in the back pocket: Colorado beat Colorado State by 19 early in the season; the Rams (7–3) could end up being Boise State’s opponent in the Mountain West title game The ACC (8) is also up against it in terms of landing multiple bids The league champion will have at least one loss if it’s the Miami Hurricanes or SMU Mustangs It will have at least two losses if it’s the Clemson Tigers the runner-up is guaranteed at least two losses None of the three have beaten a currently ranked team If you want the best multi-bid scenario for the ACC it’s this: SMU and Miami win out and advance to play each other in the league title game Clemson finishes 10–2 with a win over a ranked South Carolina team to close the season Could the Tigers have an argument for inclusion But they might need some upset help elsewhere The Notre Dame Fighting Irish (9) continue to be the team trying to put 60 terrible minutes against the Northern Illinois Huskies behind it their position looks secure if they keep winning Beating a ranked Army Black Knights team this week would only help and perhaps further solidify the opportunity to host a first-round game But it also would help Notre Dame if Texas A&M avoids calamity against Auburn on Saturday and even more so if the Aggies beat Texas on Nov The American Athletic Conference champion (10) could be lurking as a spoiler 30 and beats the Tulane Green Wave in the AAC title game it would be hard to deny them a bid at 12–0 The Black Knights might simply swap in for Notre Dame or they could push out either the Mountain West or Big 12 champ for the fifth automatic bid But Tulane will be hard to beat—the Wave have been dominant after a 1–2 start Tulane would probably need an upset in the Mountain West to nab the G5 bid the rankings are based on what has actually transpired this season rather than preseason expectations:  First-round games: BYU at Ohio State; Alabama at Indiana; Tennessee at Notre Dame; Mississippi at Georgia who was a finalist on Season 24 of “The Voice,” is playing a show in Sebastopol with her band in late August a finalist on Season 24 of “The Voice,” will be playing with her band at HopMonk in Sebastopol on Thursday Lila’s music is “a captivating blend of poignant lyrics distinctive melodies and infectious grooves,” and the artist’s style “evokes timeless artists such as Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt with a modern edge reminiscent of Kacey Musgraves and Emily King.” On “The Voice,” Lila made it to the Top 5 under the guidance of John Legend which was funded entirely by a Kickstarter campaign Lila expressed to the Gazette that her band is “really good” and is poised to put on a great show She can definitely sing — just check out her audition for “The Voice.” Also performing at HopMonk that night is Ben Greenberg guitarist and songwriter who recently release his debut album Tickets for the show range from $20 to $25, depending on your section. Doors open at 7 p.m. The venue, HopMonk Sebastopol’s “Abbey,” is located at 230 Petaluma Ave. in Sebastopol. The Abbey is an outdoor music venue that borders the establishment’s beer garden. Buy tickets to the show at seetickets.us/event/lila-forde/612963.