Category: College Football

The SEC has long been the top conference in college football and fielded three College Football Playoff teams last year: Georgia, Texas and Tennessee. Teams like Alabama and Ole Miss fell just short of making the 12-team field. Will one of those five teams top the SEC this year or are there any underdogs to keep in mind? Here, we break down the best college football futures bets for the SEC for the upcoming 2025 college football season. For all of my daily best bets, go to the Inside the Lines blog. You can also get all of the Week 1 college football odds.

SEC best futures bets 

Best win totals

Ole Miss Over 8.5 wins (-118, FanDuel)

We love Ole Miss’ schedule layout, which we think should get them to at least nine wins. We are buying into Austin Simmons’ limited action last year in which he completed 60% of his passes. It’s important to note that Simmons reclassified and should only be a true freshman this season, so getting experience, albeit limited, last season is important. While Ole Miss won’t be as talented as last year’s team, Lane Kiffin’s team might not need to be as talented in order to go further this season. Ole Miss gets LSU, Florida, and South Carolina at home. If the Rebels can win two out of three of those games, they should have no problem going Over this total. Bet on Ole Miss at FanDuel and get $150 in bonus bets:

Tennessee Under 8.5 wins (-135, Caesars)

Tennessee had an eventful offseason with quarterback Nico Iamaleava transferring to UCLA. While Tennessee has an incredibly easy non-conference schedule, which is why their line is at 8.5, going 9-3 with a brand-new starter that needs to learn a new system will not be an easy task. We would set the line right where it’s at, but this is a fade on a team that returns just 39% of its offensive…

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Three Penn State football players received preseason All-America recognition Wednesday from the Sporting News.

Guard Vega Ioane was named to the first team, and running back Nick Singleton and defensive tackle Zane Durant were selected to the second team.

Ioane returns for his second full season as a starter after Big Ten coaches and media named him to their all-conference second teams last year

Earlier this summer, he was named to the All-America first team by Phil Steele’s College Football Preview and Athlon Sports. He also was selected to the Walter Camp Football Foundation, Lindy’s Sports and Pick Six Previews second teams.

Singleton, a former Gov. Mifflin star, leads returning FBS players with 2,912 career rushing yards, 32 career rushing touchdowns and 4,673 career all-purpose yards.

He was earlier named to preseason All-America first teams selected by the Walter Camp Football Foundation, Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, Lindy’s Sports, Athlon Sports and Pick Six Previews.

Durant returns for his third full season as a starter and has played in all 42 games he’s been on the Nittany Lions roster. He was earlier selected to the Walter Camp and Lindy’s All-America first teams, to the Phil Steele’s second team and to the Pick Six Previews third team.

In other Penn State news, Trebor Pena and Devonte Ross were named to the watch list for the Biletnikoff Award, presented to the nation’s top receiver.

Pena spent the last five seasons at Syracuse, where he led the Atlantic Coast Conference with 84 receptions last year for 941 yards and nine touchdowns. He also carried 12 times for 72 yards and a TD.

Ross transferred earlier this year from Troy, where he made 76 catches for 1,043 yards and 11 TDs last season.

Originally Published: August 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM EDT

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College football schedule metrics vastly differ this time of year with most relying on perception, last season’s results or lookahead predictions to determine toughness. On the other side of the coin, there are several Power Four programs blessed with favorable schedules that could lead to momentum-changing seasons near the top of their respective conferences.

These “easiest schedule rankings” are heavily influenced by our cumulative post-spring top 25 rankings, which averaged out various polls from CBS Sports, ESPN, Sporting News, Athlon Sports, Fox Sports and Bleacher Report. Our strength of schedule rankings for each conference were also considered.

Schedule favorability matters for a program trying to get to the playoff and these teams — like Indiana and SMU demonstrated last season — are potentially equipped to win with slates conducive to success in 2025.

College football rankings: Texas leads the way, Penn State tops Ohio State in preseason CBS Sports 136

Chip Patterson

Number of opponents in cumulative top 25: 3

Jalon Daniels is back to finish what he started with the Jayhawks in hopes of…

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Former Georgia Bulldogs edge rusher Damon Wilson II made a surprising decision when he transferred to the Missouri Tigers, an SEC rival, this offseason. Many Georgia fans wondered why Wilson II decided to transfer, but according to Joey Van Zummeren of Missouri Tigers SI, there was a connection from 1991 that helped get Wilson II to play football at Columbia, Missouri.

David Blackwell is Missouri’s defensive line coach, so he’ll be working closely with Damon Wilson II the whole season. In his playing days, Blackwell was an offensive lineman at East Carolina from 1990-1991, where he played with running back Damon Wilson Sr., Damon Wilson II’s father.

Ever since, his son had been a high school football player, Wilson Sr. had been keeping in touch with Blackwell. “He’d call to recommend a recruit,” Blackwell said about relationship Damon Wilson’s father, who helped train elite athletes in Florida. “‘Hey, you need to check this guy,’ or ‘hey, do you mind looking at this guy for me and telling me where you think, what level?’”

In 2020, when Blackwell was the defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech, Wilson Sr. introduced Blackwell to his son. Blackwell and Louisiana Tech never ended up recruiting Wilson II, who signed with Georgia on Dec. 21, 2022.

Now, 34 years after Blackwell’s playing career, he is coaching the son of the running back he used to block for in East Carolina. Blackwell’s connection to Wilson II helped get the elite Georgia transfer to consider Missouri and ultimately visit the Tigers’ campus.

Of course, Wilson II wasn’t the only Georgia Bulldog in recent memory to play for Missouri. Former Georgia wide receiver Dominic Lovett played two years at Missouri and earned All-SEC recognition before transferring to the Bulldogs in 2023. Lovett talked positively about the development program at Missouri.

“He (Lovett)…

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Texas is less than a month away from its highly anticipated season opener against Ohio State, and one of the Longhorns’ biggest question marks just got more pronounced. Redshirt sophomore Andre Cojoe, who had been competing for the starting right tackle spot, is expected to miss significant time after suffering a knee injury in preseason camp, Horns247’s Chip Brown confirmed.

Cojoe’s absence leaves Texas scrambling for answers up front as quarterback Arch Manning prepares for his first season as the Longhorns’ full-time starter — with a marquee road opener against the reigning national champions looming on Aug. 30 in Columbus.

Cojoe had been splitting first-team reps at right tackle with sophomore Brandon Baker during the early stages of camp following the early NFL departure of former starter Cameron Williams. The 6-foot-6, 335-pound Cojoe had earned praise from offensive line coach Kyle Flood just days before the injury.

“I think both those guys have changed their bodies, improved their skill sets, and we’ll figure out in training camp how that all plays out,” Flood said last Tuesday of Cojoe and Baker. “So, both guys are going to go out and compete, and we’ll see how it plays out through training camp.”

Texas is No. 1 in college football rankings, tops preseason Coaches Poll for first time in storied history

Shehan Jeyarajah

With Cojoe now sidelined,…

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Michigan State football has extended an offer to one of the top wide receiver prospects in the 2027 class.

Matthew Gregory of Pottstown, Pa. announced on Monday morning that he’s received an offer from the Spartans. Gregory posted about the offer from Michigan State on his social media X account.

Gregory is a five-star wide receiver prospect in the 2027 class. He holds a recruiting rating of 98.36 in 247Sports’ composite system.

Gregory is technically listed as an athlete on 247Sports, and ranks as the No. 3 athlete in the composite system. He is also ranked as the No. 39 overall prospect in the class.

Michigan State joins a long list of schools to offer Gregory, with offers from 20 schools, according to 247Sports. Some of the more notable schools to offer him are Arkansas, Auburn, Boston College, Florida State, Maryland, Miami (FL), Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Tennessee, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Robert Bondy on X @RobertBondy5.

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Michigan State football has poached a staff member from one of the prominent programs in the sport, with Jonathan Smith adding a new member to his support system.

Michael Morales has been hired as a Player Personnel Analyst with the Spartans. Morales brings a background in player evaluation, football operations and data analysis. Prior to joining the MSU program, he has spent three years with the Texas Football program.

A big player in the data analytics, Morales spent time working for Pro Football Focus, where he honed in different facets of statistical analysis. He will bring that analysis background to the Michigan State recruiting department.

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Cory Linsner on X @Cory_Linsner

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There is a new enforcement body in college athletics that promises to regulate NIL transactions, potentially solving one of the critical issues that coaches, administrators and fans alike have bemoaned over the last handful of years. But Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy is not convinced that the College Sports Commission is the right answer to the troubles facing college football.

Constructed with the finalization of the NCAA v. House settlement, the CSC will determine the validity of NIL deals and oversee the revenue-sharing model that took effect July 1. The CSC has already faced pushback from NIL collectives, though, and this week walked back its previous guidance suggesting that collectives could no longer directly pay athletes.

“The CSC is scared right now, right?” Gundy said in his Saturday media availability. “I mean, what power do they have? They’re already being sued.”

The CSC was not formally sued, as Gundy claimed, but instead it faced opposition from attorneys who claimed its guidelines violated the House settlement terms. In response, it clarified the permissible scope of payments to include those from NIL collectives, so long as they satisfy the “valid business purpose” requirements outlined in the settlement.

Gundy took exception to the new oversight structure in general. Rather than to have two enforcement bodies (the NCAA and CSC), Gundy said college sports needs one individual leader to call the shots.

“You gotta get one person in charge, and then they gotta get the four power people in room, and they all gotta start talking about equality and how can we revenue-share across the country, Gundy said. “We follow the NFL pattern. If you’re not going to make them employees and collective bargain, I get it. But how are we…

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