Got to Category

College category, Page 29

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
SEC could boast best QB crop in conference history
For four quarters, Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker and Florida counterpart Anthony Richardson went back and forth before more than 100,000 fans packed inside Neyland Stadium in one of the most entertaining games of the season. It was a game of one-upmanship: Hooker threw for 349 yards and two touchdowns without...
How App State became story of college football — again, after another improbable win
Three games into the 2016 season, Appalachian State’s third after transitioning into the FBS, the Mountaineers hosted what was then considered to be the most significant football game in their history. Anticipation built for weeks. A capacity crowd of nearly 35,000, then a school record, filled Kidd Brewer Stadium in...
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney gets raise, extended through 2031
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has a reworked contract that will pay him $115 million over 10 seasons through 2031. Swinney’s enhanced contract follows megadeals given to Alabama’s Nick Saban, Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Ohio State’s Ryan Day earlier this season. Swinney’s average yearly salary of $11.5 million...
College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams by 2026 season
After 14 1/2 months of haggling over details and questioning motivations, a plan to expand the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 finally was approved Friday to set the stage for a multibillion-dollar tournament as soon as the 2024 season. What still needs to be determined is just...
Veteran QBs have ACC set for season of big offensive totals
Devin Leary hasn’t forgotten lessons that came as a first-year starting quarterback struggling just to consistently complete passes, much less avoid turnovers and move North Carolina State’s offense. “I think one of the biggest things is pretty obvious,” the fifth-year QB said. “It’s hard to win games.” Things look much...
O’Connell’s steady rise keeps Purdue in Big Ten title hunt
Aidan O’Connell arrived at Purdue in 2017 as a hopeful, exuberant teenager. He set out to prove a walk-on could win the starting job at the “Cradle of Quarterbacks” and lead the Boilermakers to postseason success. O’Connell routinely stayed after practice for extra snaps, gladly fine-tuned his skills with the...
NIL deals put just a few bucks in most athletes’ pockets
Texas offensive lineman Christian Jones remembers walking up to Bijan Robinson not long ago and asking for a lift, figuring it was least the All-American running back could do for one of the big guys doing all the blocking. “He said there’s a height limit,” Jones said with a smile....
New, improved quarterbacks give some Big Ten teams new look
Northwestern quarterback Ryan Hilinski looked like a different player in the season opener. Illinois quarterback Tommy DeVito and Nebraska quarterback Casey Thompson actually did become the new faces of their programs. Connor Bazelak could join the club Friday in Indiana’s opener. In a conference where upperclassmen and experienced starters are...
Big Ten clash as college football resumes international play
College football has been around the world since Ireland first hosted a game more than 30 years ago, with locales as disparate as Tokyo and Toronto staging games. Australians loved the touchdowns and halftime theatrics, not to mention the hot dogs and beer, the latter of which ran out during...
AP sources: ESPN out of Big Ten TV rights negotiations
As the Big Ten prepares to become a 16-team, coast-to-coast superconference with the additions of USC and UCLA in 2024, it is ending a 40-year relationship with ESPN and moving toward partnerships with two new networks. Two people familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the...
Ex-Pitt receiver Jordan Addison says move to USC was only about football
LOS ANGELES — Former Pitt star Jordan Addison said he didn’t know Southern Cal was the school for him until the moment he set foot on campus for his recruiting visit shortly after entering the transfer portal in May. And the Biletnikoff Award-winning receiver said anybody who thinks his decision...
As ACC looks to address revenue gap, competing worldviews emerge on future of college sports
In the span of about a week, in cities separated by about 600 miles, two of the most powerful leaders in college athletics offered contrasting worldviews in this summer of massive change and uncertainty. One of them espoused the supposed values of the traditional collegiate sports model; the other embraced...
Pac-12’s Kliavkoff jabs Big 12, touts future after USC, UCLA departures
LOS ANGELES — Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff said his conference is far from finished, despite the defections of Southern California and UCLA. Kliavkoff confirmed the Pac-12 is actively exploring expansion and lobbed several feisty jabs at the Big 12 during an eventful opening speech at his conference’s football media day...
Pittsburgh street named after W.Va., Brashear football standout Major Harris 
The irony of having a Pittsburgh street named after a West Virginia Mountaineer football star was not lost on those who showed up for a special ceremony Friday in the Hill District. But everyone seemed to be in agreement that the honor bestowed on former Brashear High School quarterback Major...
Big 12 changes coming after 1 last season with 10 schools 
ARLINGTON, Texas — On the surface at Big 12 football media days, nothing really appeared much different. The 10 mannequins lining the main stage donned the uniforms of the same schools that have made up the conference for a decade. As the annual two-day kickoff event wound up Thursday, workers...
Big 12 ponders conference realignment from position of strength with new commissioner
WICHITA, Kan. — At about this time last year, the Pac-12 and its new commissioner made a decision that transformed the Big 12 from prey to hunter in the world of conference realignment. When George Kliavkoff announced that his league had no plans to add schools looking for a life...
ACC helped kickstart the conference expansion race which now threatens its survival
On the other end of the phone, Mike Tranghese sighed quietly. It was a sound that conveyed a sense of empathy, if not resignation. The emotions returned, almost 20 years later. Back then, as the commissioner of the original Big East Conference, Tranghese watched with a sense of helplessness while...
Luke DeCock: Where does ACC go from here? Here are 5 options
Remember when deciding whether to move the conference office out of Greensboro was the trickiest question ACC commissioner Jim Phillips had to answer? Seems like a long time ago that was the ACC’s hot-button issue … in part because that decision has been marinating for a year. It’s small potatoes...
Luke DeCock: As Big Ten, SEC consolidate their power, the ACC finds itself under existential threat
RALEIGH, N.C. — When Oklahoma and Texas announced their intention to jump to the SEC last summer, it felt like distant thunder on the horizon in ACC country. Concerning, maybe even menacing, but not imminently threatening. But when the Big Ten poached UCLA and Southern Cal from the Pac-12 last...
Uncertain future for Pac-12 after defections to Big Ten 
The Pac-12 can make a case as the most successful conference in collegiate athletics, amassing more than 500 NCAA championships while leading the nation in titles 56 of the past 62 years. But when it comes to the biggest moneymakers, football and men’s basketball, the “Conference of Champions” has come...
How ACC went from one of most successful in college sports history to uncertain future
RALEIGH, N.C. — In an instant late last week, the ACC went from a period of relative stability — yet one not without significant questions about its long-term future — to prognostications of doom and visions of worst-case scenarios. Pick a related metaphor and they all fit the perception that...
During ‘other’ 1982 championship run, Michael Jordan led USA Basketball past Yugoslavia
RALEIGH, N.C. — Michael Jordan’s iconic shot against Georgetown 40 years ago that gave North Carolina coach Dean Smith his first NCAA title wasn’t the only championship performance he had that year. Far less known, but at the time equally as important, Jordan helped the United States restore its claim...
Everything you need to know about UCLA and USC joining the Big Ten
A Southern California native and veteran of several Big Ten winters, Myles Johnson knows the first words likely uttered by former Pac-12 athletes once their new conference smacks them like a midwinter Lake Michigan breeze. “Help! Help!” Johnson, the onetime Rutgers center who spent his final college basketball season at...
Jim Souhan: What needs to happen now that USC, UCLA have blown up Big Ten?
MINNEAPOLIS — With the imminent arrival of USC and UCLA, the Big Ten’s overdue name change has become obvious. Welcome, West Coasters, to The Big Tent. When Kevin Warren left the Minnesota Vikings to become commissioner of the Big Ten three years ago, I predicted he could use the job...
Conference realignment makes another seismic shift 
Conference realignment in college sports has been going on since 1984, when the Supreme Court invalidated the NCAA’s national television contract for football. The conference juggling has gone through ebbs and flows through the years since, from small schools bumping up to bigger leagues to power programs switching to other...


Editor's Picks

Front Porch Theatricals’ musical ‘Baby’ is a labor of love

Washington townhouse on the market for $1,225,000
Folk legend Bruce Cockburn gives uplifting performance at City Winery
‘Champagne & Chapeaux’: Westmoreland Symphony’s annual soiree for a good cause
Jimmy Stewart’s P-51 Mustang stops in hometown for museum anniversary
More Editor's Picks >