Category: College Football

Colorado and Syracuse have filed paperwork with the NCAA requesting the ability to hold spring practices and a spring game on April, Orange coach Fran Brown said. NCAA bylaws prevent teams from holding intercollegiate practices and exhibition games against each other in the spring. 

The NCAA Division I FBS Oversight Committee will meet on April 10 and could decide to allow the waiver. Colorado’s spring game is scheduled for April 19 in Boulder and Brown offered to fly his roster out for the game. Syracuse has a spring game scheduled for April 12. 

“For us to be the first to do it at two historic schools would mean a lot,” Brown told reporters. “Two African-American men, too. To have the opportunity of doing that means a lot. Especially with [Deion Sanders] being an icon.”

On Monday, Colorado coach Deion Sanders pitched the idea of scrimmaging another college football team as the Buffaloes prepare for a nationally televised spring game. Many major programs have opted to cancel spring games altogether with concerns over injuries and depth pieces getting scouted for the transfer portal. Practicing against other live opponents is a model commonly found in the NFL during its preseason.

Deion Sanders is right: College football needs intersquad scrimmages in the spring

Will Backus

“To have a competitive [game] against your own guys gets kind of monotonous,” Sanders said. “You really can’t tell the level of your guys because it’s the same old, same way … I would like to practice against someone for a few days, then you have the…

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The Georgia Bulldogs have to replace a lot of talent from the 2024 UGA team. Georgia lost a combined 32 players to the 2025 NFL draft and the transfer portal this offseason, so the Bulldogs have a little bit less experience than normal.

“I asked the guys to stand up who have practiced at least three spring practices, so this obviously would make their fourth, and there was basically nobody standing,” said Georgia head coach Kirby Smart.

The Bulldogs lost a ton of depth and experience in the trenches and three potential first-round picks on defense. However, ESPN’s Heather Dinich (subscription required) thinks that Georgia’s biggest obstacle this year will be offensive improvement.

“Offensive improvement,” said Dinich. “One specific area would be easier to zero in on this spring, but the reality is that Georgia ranked No. 102 in rushing yards per game (124.4), No. 132 with 35 drops by receivers and No. 117 with a 6.9 drop percentage. The Bulldogs also ranked No. 126 with 24 fumbles.”

Georgia will play an easier schedule in 2025, so the Dawgs have a chance to put up better numbers this year. However, Georgia lost four of its five starting offensive linemen from last season, running back Trevor Etienne and leading receiver Arian Smith this offseason.

Georgia returns plenty of experience at tight end and added some juice to the wide receiver room via the transfer portal. The Bulldogs will need to find a cohesive, productive starting offensive line and a running back to pair with rising sophomore Nate Frazier. Of course, Georgia’s top concern lies at quarterback. The Bulldogs need Gunner Stockton to deliver in what is expected to be his first season as starting quarterback.

“Georgia’s offense wasn’t bad last year, but it has to improve,” added Dinich. UGA was not efficient in the first half offensively and paid the price for…

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Luther Burden’s flashy speed, ball skills and open-field electricity had pro scouts’ attention before he ever signed with Missouri as 247Sports’ No. 2 receiver in the 2022 high school class. Many lauded the East St. Louis (Illinois) product’s decision to stay close to home and play for the Tigers — and with his help, Missouri went from 6-7 his freshman year to a 21-5 record over the next two seasons. 

His loyalty to the program and cornerstone status in the program’s turnaround made him a hero among Missouri fans, but it may have also cost him in the NFL Draft process.   

In his most recent board, ESPN NFL Draft reporter Matt Miller expressed concern about Burden’s stock. Miller rated Burden No. 13, but said he would likely fall out of the top 15. 

“He might be drafted lower due to concerns NFL teams have about his statistical drop-off,” Miller wrote. 

CBS Sports NFL Draft experts echo the concern. Despite ranking No. 13 in the CBS Sports NFL Draft Prospect Rankings, none of the six CBS NFL Draft experts project Burden to go higher than No. 21. Multiple project two or three receivers going ahead of Burden in the draft. 

By any metric, Burden took a step back in 2024. After exploding for 86 catches for 1,212 yards and nine touchdowns, he fell to only 676 yards and six touchdowns during a frustrating final campaign. Despite entering the year as the prohibitive favorite to win the Biletnikoff Trophy as the best receiver in the country, he failed to finish among the SEC’s top 15 in receiving yards. 

Many of the struggles were not his fault. Mizzou’s offense took a massive step back in 2024 thanks to inconsistent offensive line play and injuries to quarterback Brady Cook. The running game dropped to 4.1 yards per carry after the loss…

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As the Oklahoma Sooners prepare for the 2025 season, we still have a ways to go until fall Saturdays are upon us again. However, it’s in the winter, spring and summer where champions are built, and the Sooners are eager to get back to the championship ranks of college football.

With Oklahoma on a break from spring football this week, three of the team’s biggest pieces on offense were still putting in the work on their own.

Quarterback John Mateer and wide receivers Javonnie Gibson and Deion Burks linked up to get a throwing session in earlier this week, as they look to build a connection that pays big dividends this fall.

Mateer is gearing up for a season where he’ll be asked to carry the OU offense on his shoulders. After following offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Ben Arbuckle to Oklahoma from Washington State (with the aid of a hefty NIL deal), the FBS leader in total touchdowns a season ago looks to be the next great one in a line of excellent Sooner QBs throughout history.

Gibson is a fellow transfer, coming to Oklahoma from FCS Arkansas Pine-Bluff. He boasts good size at the position and has been a standout in spring ball to this point, making some big catches from Mateer. That duo will be seeing a big jump up in the level of competition, but there’s clearly physical talent there.

Burks returns for his second season in Norman. He was supposed to star in 2024, but only played in five games due to injury. Last spring was his breakout moment after transferring to OU from Purdue after the 2023 season. He hopes that the hype can pay off with health and production in 2025.

As OU changes to a new offensive system under Arbuckle, and the offense has been remade quite a bit in the transfer portal this winter, there are plenty of benefits to this trio spending extra time to workout together. Firstly, good chemistry is…

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SMU is hiring Maryland athletic director Damon Evans to serve in the same position, the school announced Friday.

Evans will replace Rick Hart, who helped guide SMU into the ACC last year. Previously serving as Georgia athletic director, Evans has been at Maryland since 2014 and worked as the school’s AD since 2018. He was recently named to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. 

SMU recently hired away Jay Hartzell from Texas to be its new president. Hartzell is believed to have made a run at Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte, who brushed away those rumors in February. 

The timing of SMU hiring Evans is particularly interesting for Maryland as speculation continues to swirl around Villanova’s interest in Terrapins basketball coach Kevin Willard. He guided Maryland to a second-place regular season finish in the Big Ten and a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. 

The Terps are scheduled to play 13-seed Grand Canyon on Friday afternoon. Willard previously spent 12 seasons coaching in the Big East at Seton Hall, and sources have indicated he still has a strong affinity for the conference. 

Speaking ahead of the first-round game, Willard said Evans “is probably going to SMU,” and he spoke about the challenges of NIL demands. 

College basketball coaching changes: NC State expected to land Will Wade; WVU’s Darian DeVries to Indiana

Matt Norlander

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FSU football running back Kam Davis talks first day of spring football

FSU football running back Kam Davis talks first day of spring football

Florida State running back Kam Davis is well aware of what critics are saying about him on social media after his freshman year. He is embracing their opinions and is motivated to have a better second year after the Seminoles went 2-10 last season.

“I worked very hard last year. Feeling the performance that I had and seeing some of the stuff said on social media gave me motivation,” Davis said.

“I don’t really blame the fans. Some of the people who said what they did. I took it as motivation. I worked and did what I had to do to make sure I felt my best, and I’m still working on it, so I’m trying to get to the best of Kam Davis.”

Expectations were high for the former four-star running back. He did well enough to earn his way into the starting rotation, especially after FSU was dealing with multiple injuries in the backfield. Davis played in nine games and rushed for 173 yards, averaging 3.3 yards a carry.

It was a disappointing freshman campaign for the Albany, Georgia, native. He took it heart what was said even when he tried to block out the noise.

“We are football players. We take it sometimes. Some players might have a bad season, or we’re not at the level everybody wants us to play at, so we have to deal with that all our lives,” Davis said.

“We are mentally tough for it. Coaches put in our mind to just block it out and go out every day at practice and give it all, so that’s mainly what the mindset is. That’s the goal, and that’s what we’re working to working towards.”

Davis is motivated by the Seminoles’ getting back into the playoff conversation and their hopes of contending for the national championship, like in 2023 when they went 13-1. He is determined to reach that…

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USATSI

Former Michigan co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss was indicted Thursday in a case accusing him of hacking into the private accounts of student athletes around the nation and stealing intimate, personal photographs, according to a release by the United States Department of Justice. The indictment includes 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. 

“Today’s indictment of Matthew Weiss underscores the commitment and meticulous investigative efforts of our law enforcement professionals,” Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Michigan, said in a statement. “The FBI Detroit Cyber Task Force, in close collaboration with the University of Michigan Police Department, worked relentlessly on this case to safeguard and protect our community.”

The indictment alleges that Weiss gained unauthorized access to third-party databases containing the information of student athletes at more than 100 colleges and universities. He then downloaded personally identifiable information of over 150,000 athletes and used that information to enter the social media, email and cloud storage accounts of more than 2,000 athletes. He also targeted regular university students and alumni from various institutions. 

The complaint says Weiss primarily targeted female college athletes. 

Weiss was suspended and eventually fired by the University of Michigan in Jan. 2023 when U-M police launched its initial investigation. At least a portion of his alleged crimes occurred from Dec. 21-23 in the team’s football facilities, days before the…

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