College Football News

Class of 2025 running back prospect Anthony Rogers committed to Alabama on Friday.

The four-star running back, an Alabama native, is now with IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. He is ranked the No. 33 overall prospect in his class by 247Sports and No. 39 by ESPN.

The 247Sports composite rankings, meanwhile, peg Rogers as the eighth-best running back in the class.

Rogers, who's listed at 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds, chose the Crimson Tide over Auburn, Florida, Georgia and Oregon.

While it's still early, Nick Saban and company have the second-ranked recruiting class for 2025, according to 247Sports, a group led by five-star wide receiver Ryan Williams.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told reporters Friday that the league has "a plan" to approach another expansion of its membership.

The Big 12 is preparing to welcome BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF into the fold in 2023-24. When Texas and Oklahoma depart for the SEC, the league will be back to its size of 12 member institutions.

But reports from multiple media outlets have linked Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Memphis to the Big 12 as potential additions, along with UConn and Gonzaga as basketball-only options.

Yormark addressed the situation with the media via video conference from the league's spring meeting at the Greenbrier Resort in West Sulphur Springs, W.V.

"As I've said all along, we have an appetite to be a national conference in our makeup from coast to coast, and we do believe in the upside of basketball moving forward as a collective group," Yormark said. "That being said, we love our current composition, love the four new schools that are coming in next month. However, if the opportunity presents itself to create value, we will pursue it."

The Big 12 has emerged as the premier basketball conference in college sports in recent years, with Baylor and Kansas winning the national title in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and other schools like Kansas State and TCU competitive in the NCAA Tournament.

But Yormark and his peers know conference realignment is fueled by the money from football in particular.

"We do see the upside in basketball moving forward for all the right reasons," Yormark said without mentioning any specific schools. "We think it's undervalued and there's a chance for us to double down as the No. 1 basketball conference in America, but football is the driver and we all know that.

"As we think about the future and ways to create value," he added, "there is always that option to decouple basketball from football to see if there's further value we can create for the conference."

Colorado was a member of the Big 12 from 1996 through 2011 before leaving for the Pac-12. With that conference still struggling to complete a media rights deal, Colorado returning to the Big 12 has become an option. The league has had "substantive" talks with Colorado, recent reports said.

With Texas and Oklahoma set to join the league in 2024, the Southeastern Conference announced Thursday that it will nix its divisions while sticking with an eight-game conference schedule.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the league has approved a temporary eight-game schedule for 2024, but there could be scheduling changes come 2025, which would be Texas and Oklahoma's second season in the conference.

The current eight-game schedule allows teams to play one game against all six opponents within their division plus two interdivisional games. A proposal for a nine-game slate included three permanent opponents to maintain rivalries, while the other six games on the schedule would be against rotating opponents.

An eight-game schedule that features one permanent opponent with seven rotating has been discussed at this week's spring meeting. While that proposal would keep major rivalries safe, such as Alabama-Auburn, it does put other historic rivalries at risk.

The SEC will reveal its complete schedule for 2024 on June 14.

When it came to the financial aspect of a ninth conference game, Sankey made it clear that money was not his main concern.

"Money follows. It doesn't lead," he said.

Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida, Missouri and Vanderbilt currently make up the SEC's East Division, while the West Division consists of LSU, Alabama, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Auburn and Texas A&M.

Vanderbilt will be the first SEC team to kick off its 2023 season when it hosts Hawaii on Aug. 26 in Nashville, Tenn.

The Cheez-It Bowl is no more.

After three seasons, the bowl game is being renamed the Pop-Tarts Bowl, with the first edition being played Dec. 28, 2023, at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.

The game got its start in 1990 as the Blockbuster Bowl and has had eight names in all before becoming the Pop-Tarts Bowl, including the Carquest Bowl, Champs Sports Bowl and Camping World Bowl.

The game features top teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12 that aren't participants in the College Football Playoff or New Year's Six bowl games.

Last season, Florida State defeated Oklahoma 35-32.

Terms of the multi-year deal were not announced, but it includes naming rights, social media content and product sampling.

Florida programs are back on the college football map in Week 1 of the 2023 season.

Florida will visit Utah in a primetime game on Thursday, Aug. 31. The contest between the Southeastern Conference and Pac-12 powers begins five straight days of games, highlighted by a rematch of LSU vs. Florida State on Sept. 3.

Week 1 gets underway in earnest on Saturday, Aug. 26, with seven games, including Navy at Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland.

Five games will be played on Sept. 1, highlighted by Louisville vs. Georgia Tech in Atlantic Coast Conference action at Atlanta.

The first full slate of football is on tap for Sept. 2, featuring a battle of the Carolinas in primetime. North Carolina will play South Carolina at a neutral site in Charlotte, N.C. West Virginia also visits Penn State in primetime on Sept. 2.

Also that day, Virginia will play its first game since the shooting deaths of three players -- D'Sean Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis -- which resulted in the cancellation of the Cavaliers' final two games of the 2022 season. Virginia will play Tennessee in Nashville.

Deion Sanders debuts as head coach of Colorado as the Buffaloes visit TCU in a noon ET game on Sept. 2.

The contest between the Seminoles and LSU on Sept. 3 is a rematch of the thrilling 24-23 game won by FSU on Labor Day weekend last year. The Seminoles blocked an extra-point attempt with no time remaining to preserve the win in Brian Kelly's debut as LSU head coach. This year's tilt will be played in Orlando, Fla.

Week 1 culminates with Clemson at Duke on Labor Day, a primetime game.

Texas is set to hire former Wisconsin and Pitt head coach Paul Chryst as an offensive analyst and special assistant to head coach Steve Sarkisian, according to multiple media reports on Sunday.

The Longhorns recently added two other special assistants to their staff, per multiple reports: former NFL special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis and ex-Portland State defensive coordinator Payam Saadat.

Chryst, 57, posted a 19-19 record as the head coach at Pitt from 2012-14. The former Badgers quarterback then took over the head job at Wisconsin in 2015, where he went 67-26 until he was fired after a 2-3 start to the 2022 season. In each of his full seasons as a head coach, he led his team to a bowl game.

Chryst previously was an assistant coach at Wisconsin in 2002 and from 2005-11. He also had stints as an assistant with West Virginia (1989-90), the World League of American Football's San Antonio Riders (1991-92), Wisconsin-Platteville (1993), the Canadian Football League's Ottawa Rough Riders (1994), Illinois State (1995), the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders (1996), Oregon State (1997-98, 2003-04) and the San Diego Chargers (1999-2001).

Texas is coming off an 8-5 season that ended with a 27-20 loss to Washington in the Alamo Bowl.

Former Jackson State safety Shilo Sanders announced his transfer to Colorado, a move that allows him to join his father and younger brother.

His father, Deion, is the new head coach of the Buffaloes, while Shedeur is the team's expected starting quarterback.

Shilo Sanders entered the transfer portal on Dec. 17 but remained at Jackson State to complete his undergraduate degree this spring.

He confirmed his transfer destination late Saturday night with a glitzy video posted on Twitter that concluded with him wearing a Colorado uniform and the word "COMMITTED."

Shilo Sanders recorded 20 tackles and one interception in 2022 in seven games, one season removed from collecting four picks, two forced fumbles and 39 tackles en route to earning second-team all-Southwestern Athletic Conference honors.

He spent his first two seasons at South Carolina before transferring to play for his father.

Deion Sanders inherited a program at Jackson State that went 4-8 in 2019, the season before his arrival. The Pro Football Hall of Fame member quickly turned around the Tigers with 11-2 and 12-1 seasons from 2021-22 before landing the Colorado job.

The Buffs are coming off a 1-11 season under Karl Dorrell (fired after an 0-5 start) and interim coach Mike Sanford.