ORLANDO, Fla. — The inaugural HBCU Hoops Invitational is coming to ESPN Wide World of Sports December 4-7.

Florida A&M highlights the four-team men’s bracket. The Rattlers just hired former Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward as their 16th head coach.

Tuskegee University, Florida Memorial University and Barber-Scotia College are the other three teams in the men’s bracket.

Bethune-Cookman University, Hampton University, Edward Waters University and Cheyney University are the four women’s programs in the HBCU Hoops Invitational.

The teams will compete inside the State Farm Field House at ESPN Wide World of Sports in a single-elimination format with the chance to claim the inaugural HBCU Hoops Invitational titles.

“The HBCU Hoops Invitational is far more than a basketball tournament—it’s a powerful celebration of heritage, excellence and the limitless future of HBCU athletics,’’ said HBCU Hoops Global vice president Haywoode Workman, who spent nearly a decade playing in the NBA before becoming an NBA referee. “We are building a legacy that extends well beyond the court to open doors to academic achievement, career readiness and financial opportunity for our scholar-athletes.”

“We are excited about the opportunities to bring thrilling, family-friendly events to ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and this HBCU Hoops Invitational adds to our lineup of high-caliber youth and college events,’’ said Jorge Senior, Disney’s Director of Sports Planning and Development. “If you’re a college basketball fan, there’s no better place to be during the holidays than at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.’’

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With the 2025 high school football season getting underway this week, here’s a look at some of the most intriguing storylines to watch throughout the season.

Effects of region realignment

Last December, the UHSAA finalized the new regions for the next two school years. Class 6A didn’t see much change, but the little that did shook things up in a big way.

Corner Canyon moved back to Region 3, while Cedar Valley and Westlake moved to Region 2. The move allows a wide-open Region 2 as the Chargers dominated the region during its reign.

Meanwhile, Region 3 looks to be the toughest region in the state, filled with heavy hitters like Corner Canyon, Lone Peak, Lehi, Skyridge and American Fork.

In 5A, 2024 4A runner-up Spanish Fork moves up to Region 7. Region 7 looks to be a tough league filled with eight Utah County schools, including newcomer Pleasant Grove.

Despite losing East, Region 6 has a strong argument as the toughest region in 5A as it lost its two lowest-placing teams in Highland and Skyline. It replaced its departing members with Woods Cross, 5A quarterfinalist Viewmont, and defending 5A champion Bountiful. It retained its top three members in Brighton, Olympus and West.

Region 5 gained 2024 Region 1 co-champion Fremont.

Class 4A has a few new members with 3A’s Juan Diego and 5A’s East both joining 4A’s Region 10. Deseret Peak will have its first year of competition as a member of Region 11.

The bottom of Regions 9 and 11 have a chance at new beginnings with Logan and Cedar each making the move to 3A. Cedar moved to 3A South and Logan joined 3A North.

Transfers aplenty, again

As the 2025-26 school year gets underway, this will be the second year with the UHSAA transfer rule that requires student-athletes to sit out the first half of the regular season without a transfer waiver.

A waiver includes things like a full-family move or documented bullying, but without it a player must sit out the first 50% of that season’s varsity or sub-varsity competition, or 30 days, whichever is greater.

The transfer rules were put in place for several reasons, one of which was to deter student-athletes from bouncing around from school to school year after year. The results are mixed if it’s having that impact.

Just prior to the start of last season, the UHSAA confirmed that 217 football players transferred without a waiver, forcing them to sit out the first five weeks of the season.

For the 2025 season, as of Tuesday the UHSAA reported that approximately 245 athletes have transferred without a waiver, approximately a 10% increase.

On the surface five regular-season games is a lot, but if someone transfers to a team expected to make a deep playoff run they’d still get to play in 8-9 games.

The bigger deterrent is if a player seeks a second transfer without a waiver. Under that scenario, that player would have to sit out a full season.

New home for Pula twins

Twin brothers Jaron and Kennan Pula were key contributors to Timpview’s state championship run as sophomores in 2023 and then last year’s semifinal appearance.

They’ll be donning new uniforms for their senior season.

The Pula twins transferred from Timpview to Lone Peak in the offseason, a big loss for their old team and a huge addition for the Knights.

Jaron and Kennan Pula recently committed to the University of Utah after de-committing from UCLA earlier this summer.

Jaron Pula hauled in 77 passes for 1,209 yards and eight TDs a year ago for Timpview, and was named first team all-state. Kennan Pula made a bigger impact on the defensive side of the ball and was named a second team all-state safety.

The brothers both rank in the top 10 in 247Sports composite rankings of Utah’s top high school football prospects from the class of 2026.

Lone Peak quarterback Kepa Niumeitolu, an Idaho State commit, will benefit with arrival of the Pula brothers and will have the two great offensive weapons at his disposal this fall.

Year of the QB

Generally, when you look at the top recruits from the state, its most often filled with linemen with the occasional skill position player sprinkled in.

That changes in a big way in 2026 as four of Utah’s top 20 recruits are quarterbacks.

Corner Canyon’s Helaman Casuga is the top-rated QB in the state, and is fifth in 247 Sports’ composite state ranking. Casuga has been a varsity starter since his freshman year at Timpview. Last year, Casuga led Corner Canyon to arguably the biggest win in Utah high school football history when the Chargers defeated Florida’s IMG Academy, 35-34.

In that game, Casuga threw for 330 yards and four touchdowns. He is listed as a four-star recruit and is currently committed to Texas A&M.

Just below Casuga is another four-star recruit in Orem’s Tayden Kaawa. Kaawa led the Orem offense last year with 2,825 passing yards with a completion percentage of .663 and scored 26 touchdowns. Kaawa is committed to Alabama.

Three-star Skyridge QB Kaneal Sweetwyne is listed as the 18th-best recruit in the state and recently de-committed from BYU. He led Skyridge to a 6A semifinal finish last year while scoring 19 touchdowns through the air and 10 on the ground.

Davis’ Tradon Bessinger is the last QB in the top 20, finishing at 19. In 2024, with Bessinger at the helm, Davis’ offense generated 38.42 points per game. The Darts had the second-best offense in 6A. Bessinger earned a spot on the 2024 6A all-state first team and is committed to Boise State.

If you look to the 2027 class, Utah has yet another top-ranked quarterback in West’s Kamden Lopati. The four-star quarterback is currently listed as the second-best recruit in Utah in 2027.

As a sophomore last season, Lopati threw for 3,050 yards on a .668 completion percentage, scoring 25 touchdowns with only four interceptions. Lopati is currently committed to Illinois.

Utah schools take on powerful neighbors

With a few of the regions thinning out in the new region realignments, teams were eager to fill up their non-region schedule. A few of Utah’s top teams took that opportunity to go head-to-head against the best that the surrounding states have to offer.

Skyridge will get its fill of tough out-of-state competition. In week two, it will host Nevada’s Liberty. Liberty is ranked as the third-best team in Nevada. In week four, the Falcons travel to Idaho to face Highland, which is ranked eighth in the state.

Finally, in week five, Skyridge finishes off its non-region gauntlet against Colorado’s top team, Cherry Creek, on the road. The Falcons faced Cherry Creek last year in late August and won 24-14.

Idaho’s top two teams, Rigby and Rocky Mountain, will face a few Utah opponents.

Rigby, Idaho’s top team, will host Woods Cross in week three. Rocky Mountain gets back-to-back road games against Utah County schools in weeks three and four at Orem and Provo.

Week four will feature three big games for Utah schools. First, Bingham travels to take on California’s Centennial, which is ranked third in the state and 12th in the country. Centennial beat both Timpview and Lone Peak in 2024.

Secondly, we’ll get the battle between the top of Arizona and Utah teams as Corner Canyon hosts Arizona’s Liberty. Liberty is listed as the top team in the state according to Max Preps. Just like the Chargers, Liberty is coming off its second consecutive state championship.

Thirdly, week four also features arguably the biggest game of the year, as Lone Peak takes on high school football giant Bishop Gorman in Nevada. Bishop Gorman is the top team in Nevada and currently ranked third in the country.

Deseret Peak opens doors, 8-player league expands

For the second straight season, a new school is joining the 4A ranks while two others begin play in the 8-player league.

Deseret Peak High in Tooele opens its doors this fall and will begin play this season in Region 11, a league that now consists of three Tooele Valley teams and five northern Utah teams.

Cooper Buchhammer, a former assistant coach at Stansbury High, will lead the school into its first season.

“We are a program full of underclassmen ready to prove themselves. Our kids have worked hard over the summer. Our numbers are great for a first-year program and only three classes. It has been a fun offseason watching our kids learn, build a culture, get to know each other and compete,” said Buchhammer.

In the 8-player league, Panguitch and Escalante are joining the league which raises the total number of teams to 12 with the addition of Milford as it drops down from 1A football for this season with its decreasing numbers.

Last season the two Utah Military Academy schools joined, which increased the total to nine teams.

“In the return of football to Panguitch High School, we aim to reestablish a successful football culture that builds for the future. Each week we will see improvement as we gain experience,” said Panguitch coach Luke Allen.

Annual coaching shakeup

The sidelines will look quite a bit different for 24% of the teams across the state this fall.

A total of 29 teams will have a new head coach in 2025, which includes first-year schools Deseret Peak, Escalante and Panguitch.

The 29 new coaches fits with the trend of a 20%-25% turnover rate over the past decade. Last year, 32 schools a new coach.

Of this year’s 29 new coaches, 26 are first-time head coaches.

Among the three new coaches with head coaching experience is North Sanpete head coach Dave Peck. He has 24 years of head coaching experience at Cyprus and Bingham, with a career record of 197-79.

The other two coaches with prior head coaching experience are Bonneville coach Taylor Walkenhorst and Maple Mountain coach Harry Schwenke.

Among the coaches who hung it up after last season are Dixie’s Blaine Monkres, Lehi’s Ed Larson and Ogden’s Erik Thompson. They departed with a combined 71 years of heading coaching experience, which is more than the combined 64 years of experience of all of this year’s 6A coaches.

Are more repeats in the cards in 2025?

As the high school football season gets underway this week, five of the seven state champs from a year ago begin ranked No. 1 in their respective classifications in the Deseret News preseason coaches rankings.

There’s a very, very good chance at least one of them will win again, and most likely several will. There has been at least one repeat high school football state champ in Utah for the past 40 years.

The last time there wasn’t was in 1985, when Weber, Springville, Delta and Kanab were all new state champs.

Last season, there were a state-record five repeat state champs (Corner Canyon, Crimson Cliffs, San Juan, Beaver and Rich). For San Juan, last season’s title was its fourth straight. The previous record of repeat state champs was four in 2014 and 2020.

San Juan will look to make it five straight, something that has only been done three times in state history: West (1898-1905), East (1919-1923) and Skyline (1995-1999).

Bounce-back seasons, perhaps?

Fourteen high schools in Utah won either one or zero games last season, and all 14 head into the 2025 season with very little external expectations. Early August, however, is a time for optimism, and there’s plenty of it at those 14 programs.

Only three of the 14 schools made a coaching change after last season (Pleasant Grove, Ben Lomond, Grand). For the other 11, they’re hoping continuity within the coaching staff allows them to build on the foundation established a year ago despite the lack of wins.

Stark turnarounds aren’t common, but every year there’s one or two teams that do improve dramatically, which gives last year’s bottom 14 hope for 2025.

Fremont made the biggest improvement last season, bouncing back from a 2-9 season in 2023 to an 8-4 record in 2024, earning a share of the Region 1 championship.

The season before, Canyon went 10-4 and reached the 4A state championship game a year after the program went a dismal 1-9.

Spread offenses rule the gridiron

The glow of high school football stadiums will be seen across the state of Utah over the next four months. If you pop into a random stadium, don’t be surprised if what you see from game to game looks pretty similar.

Based on information coaches submitted on their Deseret News preseason questionnaires this summer, roughly 75% of coaches listed spread offense as their team’s base offense, which included air-raid concepts. Another 15% listed multiple formations as their base offense, which inevitably includes some spread offenses too.

Breaking those offenses down by classification, nearly 90% of 6A/5A/4A teams will run spread offenses. However, there are still some who run traditional offenses from decades gone by. Clearfield and Hurricane run the Wing-T, Woods Cross is using the triple option, while new school Deseret Peak is also running an option offense.

Hunter listed its option as “smash mouth.” Herriman’s base is also power football, no surprise considering that head coach Matt Rickards is a Hunter alum.

While the larger schools definitely prefer spread offenses, the distribution among smaller schools leans more toward the traditional run-based offenses like the Wing-T and triple option. Two-time 1A state champ Beaver has found a lot of success with the Wing-T. There are quite a bit who prefer spread though, including four-time 2A state champ San Juan, which has dominated with the offense in recent years.

According to the law, a driver commits excessive speeding if they exceed the speed limit by 50+ mph and drive 100+ mph while changing lanes.

Editor’s note — This is the second in a series of stories that will explore the results of a Newsday/Siena Research Institute survey on how Long Islanders view their life satisfaction. Today’s story focuses on issues of livability. A future story will explore opportunity on Long Island.

Long Islanders overwhelmingly believe they have a high quality of life on Long Island, but they have doubts about how long they’ll be able to afford to live here, according to the results of a Newsday/Siena Research Institute Quality of Life survey.

Long Island performed well on many measures of livability, such as public safety, high-performing schools, access to nutritious food and quality health care.

Most Long Islanders reported positive views on the quality of public education, with 69% responding positively to 27% who offered a negative response. Similarly, survey participants had a favorable view of the availability of health care with a 68% to 30% margin of positive-to-negative responses. 

“Long Island is a fantastic place for raising a family,” said Daniel Gonzalez, 30, who lives in East Meadow. “There’s access to so many things for a family, and the education system is incredible.”

But some Long Islanders questioned whether they will be able to stay here long term.

The majority of respondents rated their ability to age in place on Long Island as either fair or poor, outnumbering those who rated their ability “excellent” or “good” by a margin of 54% to 42%.

“You see a majority questioning whether that’s something they’re going to succeed at,” said Siena pollster Don Levy. “It raises questions of affordability, social services, perhaps the weather, and housing. Is Long Island adequately planning and developing the appropriate housing that would facilitate folks who have lived [here] their whole lives to successfully age in place?”

Aging in place is typically defined as the ability for seniors to stay in their homes as they get older. But some younger respondents interviewed by Newsday said they interpreted the question as a referendum on whether they could advance through stages of life here from finding a job to starting a family.

The survey polled 802 respondents between May 27 and June 16 on questions about their quality of life on Long Island. It had a margin of error of 4.3 points.

Catherine Krueger, 75, of Bay Shore, said she rated the quality of life on Long Island as “only fair” primarily because of the cost of living. Krueger, a special education teacher, said it’s hard to keep up with expenses for costs, such as her Medicare Advantage premiums and car repairs, as a single person on Long Island.

Krueger, who rents a basement apartment, said she’s daunted by paying for housing as she gets older and as she might need more help at home.

“I’m very thankful that I am still able to work and hope to continue doing that for some time,” she said, “but it can be difficult, especially if you’re alone.”

Seniors weren’t the most pessimistic about aging in place. Respondents ages 35 to 54 were more likely to respond negatively about aging in place, at a margin of 59% to 39%. That compares with 49% of those ages 55 or older who doubted they could age in place. 

Renters were the group most likely to doubt their ability to age in place, at 69%.

Gwen O’Shea, CEO at Community Development Long Island, said she wasn’t surprised that middle-age Long Islanders had such a pessimistic view given the high cost of living, which raises the stakes for anyone suffering a setback, such as a medical emergency or a layoff. 

“You’re spending so much of your income on your monthly costs. A big piece of that may be a mortgage or may be rent,” she said. “There’s no room for a misstep or a loss in income for the majority of Long Islanders.”

CDLI, a Melville-based affordable housing nonprofit, offers several programs that can help people stay in their homes, including foreclosure prevention counseling and grants to make repairs or accessibility modifications.

O’Shea said she was struck that it was not just low-income Long Islanders, but those whose households earn $100,000 or more who felt pessimistic about aging in place.

“The affordability crisis is hitting everyone right now,” she said.

Martha McKenzie, a 37-year-old lawyer, said she and her husband have appreciated the friendliness of their neighbors and the quality of health care since moving to Kings Park from Brooklyn in 2022. But as they look to buy a house, they’re considering options in Texas where she believes they will get more for their money and pay lower property taxes.

“Our experience here has been wonderful. We love the people and the scenery,” said McKenzie, “but why does a house that’s basically a gut renovation cost $650,000?”

Long Islanders were also critical of the responsiveness of local government, with 63% responding that it does an “only fair” or “poor” job of responding to the needs of residents. 

Althea Denegall said she would prefer to live in a more walkable community. Denegall, a Valley Stream resident in her late 50s, said she plans to look for job opportunities in other states when she finishes her studies in health care management at St. John’s University.

Denegall said she doesn’t like how much she needs to drive on Long Island and that she often needs to go to big-box stores to find the best prices on groceries.

“I have to drive everywhere. I can’t really walk to any store,” Denegall said. “So I don’t think I’m going to stay here. Once I finish my degree program, I’ll be looking for another state to live in or another city.” 

Strong marks for safety

Long Islanders overwhelming feel safe in their communities. Of respondents, 95% said it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that a typical person in their community would feel safe and secure at home.

“That is almost an unheard of score in polling,” Levy said.

That held true across most demographics and political affiliations. Hispanic residents said people were likely to feel safe at a slightly lower rate, 90%. People who rented their homes had the lowest positive response rate, at 89%.

The majority of Long Islanders also responded that police do an “excellent” or “good” job keeping residents safe, by a margin of 73% to 27%.

Those responses differed across racial lines. Of white respondents, 82% said police were doing an “excellent” or “good” job compared with 60% of Hispanic respondents and 59% of Black respondents.

Gonzalez said he was recently impressed when police showed up within minutes of his call to report a car crash in his neighborhood. He said he feels safe here and believes he got a high-quality education at East Meadow High School, where he played the trumpet in its award-winning marching band.

Gonzalez, a mechanical engineer, said he would be willing to continue to endure Long Island’s traffic if he can eventually afford to buy his own home. He is living with his parents while he saves to buy a house or condo rather than spending money on rent.

“The only unfortunate thing in terms of living on Long Island is the cost of living has continued to go up over the years,” Gonzalez said. “That would be the only driving factor to have me move away from Long Island, should I move away.”

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain’s New York Business.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) – The high school football season in the Coastal Empire starts this week and when it does, WTOC’s high school highlight show returns for a new season.

The End Zone will air Friday’s in The News at 11 every week of the season.

WTOC sports director Zach Fox and reporter Rachel West will present a full breakdown of scores and highlights from games in Southeast Georgia and South Carolina.

The new season of The End Zone begins Friday, August 15.

Copyright 2025 WTOC. All rights reserved.