Pac-12 leaders are scheduled to meet this week and Commissioner George Kliavkoff is expected to present the members with details of a long-awaited and critical potential media rights deal, a person familiar with the conference’s plans told The Associated Press on Monday.
Florida coach Billy Napier opened fall practice talking to his team about expectations — internal ones, anyway. The once-mighty Gators are mostly an afterthought in the Southeastern Conference these days. Coming off consecutive 6-7 seasons — one in former coach Dan Mullen's final season and the other in Napier's inaugural campaign — Florida was picked to finish fifth in the Eastern Division in the league's annual preseason media poll. It was the lowest preseason prognostication for the Gators since also coming in fifth in 2015. Florida responding by winning the East that year. Could it happen again?
Yogi Berra supposedly said that "it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Not to worry. AP Sports Columnist Paul Newberry has a tongue-in-cheek forecast of where college football is headed over the next decade in terms of realignment. Among his not-so-real predictions: The SEC swiping the top teams from the ACC in 2028 and Notre Dame joining the Big 12 before the SEC and Big Ten finally claim every top program in the country.
Peggy Coppom says it was a good day to be a Colorado Buffaloes fan when university regents approved the school's move back to the Big 12 next year. The Buffs have been in the Pac-12 since 2012. The 98-year-old Coppom has been attending CU football games since 1940. She says the Big 12 makes more sense to her. Former CU fullback Jim Kelleher says he's in wait-and-see mode. He says CU had to make the move for financial reasons as the Pac-12 struggles to land a TV contract.
The nine remaining Pac-12 schools have been mostly quiet since Colorado announced it would leave the conference in 2024 and join the Big 12. The Buffaloes joined Big Ten-bound Southern California and UCLA in an exodous that could continue in coming weeks and months. The Pac-12 issued a statement pledging to soldier on and pursue new members once its media rights deal ends at the end of the 2023-24 academic year. Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes said he trusts the league to land a new TV deal that will hold together the Pac-12.
Luke Fickell and Matt Ruhle already have experience leading major college football programs. Ryan Walters and David Braun are getting their first taste. If all goes well, perhaps the Big Ten West will finally snap its 10-game losing streak in the conference championship game. The conference's four new coaches have followed different paths to the same Big Ten division. Fickell spent one season as Ohio State's interim coach before turning Cincinnati into a national power. Ruhle was a hotshot coaching prospect who failed in the NFL. Walters followed a more traditional path, and Braun was thrust into the job amid a major scandal.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has his issues with today's college football model. He's mostly passed up the transfer portal, prefers to promote from within his staff and once said he'd quit the game if players were paid. But despite it all, Swinney and the Tigers enter the season as defending champions and hoping for an eighth Atlantic Coast Conference title in nine seasons. Swinney said on the final day of the league's football media days that he's used his beliefs and standards to build a program built for long-term success.
The Colorado board of regents has scheduled a special meeting for Thursday. Athletics operations is on the agenda, raising speculation the school may leave the Pac-12 Conference and return to the Big 12. A source told The Associated Press that Big 12 school leaders have already voted to accept Colorado if the Buffs formally apply. The Pac-12 has seemed vulnerable to more poaching. It will lose USC and UCLA to the Big Ten next year and has spent months trying to land a new media rights contract.
Bronny James has been discharged from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and is resting at home, three days after the 18-year-old son of LeBron James went into cardiac arrest. Dr. Merije Chukumerije, a consulting cardiologist for Bronny James, said in a statement issued by the hospital Thursday that James was "successfully treated for a sudden cardiac arrest" thanks to "the swift and effective response by the USC athletics' medical staff" after the incident Monday at the University of Southern California's Galen Center, where James was participating in basketball practice.
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is facing a four-game suspension for breaking NCAA rules.
Officials from many of the sports on the Olympic program are still split on how to treat Russian athletes one year before the Paris Games and nearly a year-and-a-half since the country's invasion of Ukraine. Various governing bodies are increasingly allowing teams of Russians back into Olympic qualifying competitions as neutral competitors without national flags or anthems. Most sports initially barred Russians from competing soon after last year’s full-scale invasion.
The hazing scandal at Northwestern University has widened to include a volleyball player who has become the first female athlete to sue the university over allegations she was retaliated against for reporting mistreatment and a new lawsuit by former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates. Identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, the volleyball player says she was physically harmed to the point of requiring medical attention during a hazing incident in 2021.
Josh Heupel made clear when hired at Tennessee he saw the NCAA investigation hanging over the program as a mere speed bump. Now it's full speed ahead with the probe concluded and his Volunteers escaping a postseason ban. Heupel said Thursday it's great to have the NCAA investigation in the rearview mirror and not something they have to drive by all the time. His Volunteers wrapped up the fourth and final day of Southeastern Conference media days. An investigation that started in November 2020 concluded last week with the NCAA fining Tennessee $8 million among other punishments. Heupel now can focus on the Tennessee standard. That's winning titles.
A bipartisan group of senators is proposing new oversight of college sports and the NCAA. A bill being worked would pre-empt state laws and create national regulations for name, image and likeness compensation for players. It would also establish an entity to oversee enforcement of those rules, and fund long-term health care for athletes. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey along with Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas have previously introduced separate college sports bills.
The Colonial Athletic Association has changed its name to the Coastal Athletic Association. The association of schools located in nine states along the Atlantic seaboard announced the name change on Thursday to reflect its recent expansion, with members spanning from Massachusetts to South Carolina. The league will still be referred to as the CAA and it will continue to use the same conference logo. In the past two years, the CAA has added five new members stitutions to push its membership to 14, the highest in its nearly 40-year history. The league's football conference has 15 members in 10 states.
