Category: College Football

Most of the offseason dust has finally settled as college football enters its (relatively) quiet summer period. The transfer portal is officially closed until December. Barring any surprises or scandals, coaching staffs are set. Programs wrapped up spring practice, meaning teams won’t formally take the field together again until fall camp.

With the chaos toned down, CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello ranked the top 25 teams in college football exiting the spring window. While the landscape will certainly shift between now and kickoff, it’s a solid gauge of where things stand three months out from August.

Now is a good time to assess the most important game on each top 25 team’s schedule. Week-by-week performance matters more than ever in the expanded College Football Playoff era, as the 12-team format creates more opportunities for at-large teams outside the top four.

It’s no surprise that most teams’ biggest games are against conference opponents, where high-profile matchups and traditional rivalries reside. But a few nonconference clashes also made the cut.

Here’s a look at each post-spring top 25 team’s most important game during the 2025 season. 

Most important game: at Michigan (Nov. 29) 

Could it be anyone else? Ohio State climbed to college football’s mountaintop last season, but still stumbled against Michigan along the way. The Buckeyes have now lost straight against their most despised rival and that streak is really the only bugaboo left haunting Ohio State coach…

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Four-star wide receiver Myles McAfee picks up offer from Michigan State

Michigan State football is the latest power program to enter the mix for Myles McAfee — an elite wide receiver in the 2027 class.

McAfee — who hails from Severn, Md. — announced earlier this week that he’s received an offer from the Spartans. He made the offer from Michigan State known by posting on his social media X account.

McAfee is listed as a four-star prospect in the 2027 class. He holds a rating of 90 and is listed as a near five-star prospect in the class.

McAfee ranks as the No. 37 overall prospect and No. 5 wide receiver in the class, according to 247Sports. He is also listed as the No. 3 player from Maryland in the class.

Michigan State is one of nearly 20 schools to offer McAfee, according to 247Sports. He also holds offers from Ohio State, Penn State, Auburn, Boston College, Duke, East Carolina, Florida State, Indiana, Maryland, Miami (FL), Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Charlotte and UNLV.

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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Spring practice is in the books across college football, and now that the spring transfer portal window has closed we can take a look at each team with a refreshed idea of what has happened and what to expect moving forward. With more than 100 days until the opening kickoff of the year, there will be plenty of time for sensible, level-headed analysis regarding each team’s potential and expectations. 

But this is not that time. 

No, this is the time for overreacting. With no more practice updates or roster changes for at least three months this is a penalty-free time to go way over the top with reactions to what has transpired since the end of last season. We have gone through each of the 17 ACC teams to find one talking point worthy of an overreaction, sometimes focusing on coaching changes or the transfer portal, but in some cases taking stock of where a team is positioned in terms of the conference or national picture. 

The Eagles are better off without Thomas Castellanos: Bill O’Brien decided to move on from the multi-year starter at quarterback nine games into the year, naming Grayson James the starter for the conclusion of the season. Castellanos followed that up by announcing his intentions to move on, and he landed at Florida State in the winter portal window. 

O’Brien took over late in the offseason calendar as a result of Jeff Hafley’s exit to the NFL in late January, so to not only guide the team to a 7-6 debut but do so with awkward timing and a midseason quarterback…

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Ever since announcing his retirement from coaching, former Alabama Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban has remained part of the game that he simply dominated for so many years while in Tuscaloosa, most evidently via a role of analyst on ESPN’s weekly show, “College GameDay.”

Well, according to multiple reports, Saban’s role around college football, as well as collegiate athletics overall, could be changing in the near future, as the former long-time Alabama head coach is expected to become co-chair of the presidential commission on college sports, created by President Donald Trump.

According to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, Saban will joined by Texas Tech Board chair Cody Campbell to help lead the presidential commission, which will focus on the challenges facing college athletics today.

More details on the commission, as well as Saban’s role in particular, will likely come out in the near future. What is currently known however is that Saban will likely continue to have an impact on the college game moving forward.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion.

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Dramatic changes in college sports have drawn the attention of the White House, and two prominent men from the world of college football are set to co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission on college athletics—an effort to get the train back on the tracks amid mounting issues in the collegiate model.

It’s too early to know how former Alabama coach Nick Saban and Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell will co-lead the commission and who will be on it. As Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s NIL legislative effort launched in 2023 languishes and administrators still await the House settlement’s final approval, patience has long run thin for substantive change in college athletics. One power conference official told CBS Sports they didn’t need any more college sports insiders in a group like this; rather, they wished for outsiders who can bring fresh ideas and aren’t lifers. 

“We don’t need a committee to tell us what’s wrong with college sports, we know that,” the official said. “We need this group to cut through bureaucracy and actually get stuff done.”

Saban and Campbell have shared their positions on several pertinent issues recently, including NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignment, multimedia deals and how they would improve an unwieldy collegiate athletics system. 

Both also have relationships with the Trump administration. Saban, who won six national titles at Alabama and retired after the 2023 season, bent Trump’s ear last week to discuss college sports legislation during a graduation ceremony at the University of Alabama. Campbell, the chairman of Texas Tech Board of Regents, hosted Vice President JD Vance at a Fort Worth Luncheon in September during the run-up to the presidential election. He’s connected in the…

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All focus over the past few weeks has been on the 2026 recruiting class for the Oregon Ducks, but behind the scenes, Dan Lanning and his staff have quietly been making a strong push down the road as well.

Earlier this week, Rivals’ recruiting director Adam Gorney gave a breakdown on the recruitment for some of the top players in the 2027 class, and he stated that the Ducks are the “team to beat” for 4-star defensive tackle Kasi Currie, who stands at 6-foot-5, 315 pounds. As a California native from Sierra Canyon, Oregon has been an early name to watch in the recruitment for Currie, who the 247Sports Composite rates as the No. 156 player in the class, and No. 13 defensive lineman.

“Emerging as one of the top 2027 defensive tackles nationally, Oregon has a big early edge for the Chatsworth (Calif.) Sierra Canyon standout as he’s loved his trips to Eugene and will be back on June 1,” Gorney wrote.

While it is still early in his recruitment, and offers continue to pour in for the fast-rising sophomore, Lanning and his team have put themselves in a good position early on. They will have to battle some other big names down the stretch, though.

“Texas A&M, Tennessee, and USC are three others to watch, and LSU just offered on Tuesday,” Gorney said. “But Oregon is definitely the team to beat.”

Currie was on campus in Eugene for the Ducks’ spring game, and he plans to return on June 1 later this summer.

The Ducks don’t have any commitments in the 2027 class, but Currie would be a great player to kick things off should he give his verbal in the coming months.

Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.

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There are many great entrances in college football, but few are as electric or as loud as Virginia Tech running out to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” for a big game (especially at night). 

What started as a fan’s choice between three songs — “Enter Sandman,” “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sirius” — when Virginia Tech debuted its new video board in 2000 became an iconic tradition at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia. Eventually, fans started jumping up and down in unison as the thunderous intro kicks in, with 60,000-plus (most of whom weren’t born when this song came out) belting out the lyrics as the Hokies run onto the field. The stadium’s bounce has registered on local seismographs on multiple occasions. 

Despite calls for Metallica to play a live intro or make its way to Blacksburg, the closest they’ve ever gotten to having the legendary band on site was a pre-recorded video before a 2011 game against Miami. That is until Wednesday night, when Metallica finally makes its first appearance at Lane Stadium for a stop on their M72 World Tour. 

It is going to be an incredible atmosphere for Metallica live in Blacksburg, particularly when that opening rift for “Enter Sandman” kicks in and the stadium gets to jumping. We don’t often see stadium tours hit college towns outside major metropolitan areas — places like Blacksburg aren’t exactly the easiest trip to make — but Metallica’s visit to Lane Stadium sold out quickly. For a long time, resale tickets were extremely pricey for what figures to be the most unique stop on their tour. 

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Scott Frost isn’t taking much of a pay cut moving back to UCF after all.

Frost, who was hired to return to lead the Knights in December, received a five-year, $22.1 million deal with the school, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday. Frost will start out making $3.9 million a year, just shy of the $4 million he was making in his last season at Nebraska. He will slowly increase his salary before it hits $5 million in the final year.

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There are several standard bonuses in the deal, including a $75,000 bonus if the Knights reach the Big 12 championship game. If the Knights reach a bowl game this season, his contract will automatically be extended by one year.

By comparison, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is the highest-paid college football coach in the country. He makes just more than $13 million per season. Only eight other coaches in the country, including Colorado’s Deion Sanders and new North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick, make at least $10 million.

Frost got his start at the college level at UCF, where he led the team to a 13-0 season in 2017 and a win at the Peach Bowl. That led him to take the Nebraska job the following fall, though he struggled with the Cornhuskers. He went just 16-31 there and failed to reach a bowl game before he was fired after just three games in the 2022 campaign.

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Frost spent last season working as an offensive analyst with the Los Angeles Rams under Sean McVay. He previously worked as an offensive coordinator and assistant at Oregon, too.

Frost is returning to take over for Gus Malzahn in Orlando. Malzahn left UCF in November to become the offensive coordinator at Florida State after just four seasons. The Knights went 4-8 last year and went just 2-7 in Big 12 play. They failed to reach a bowl game for the first time since 2015.

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