CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Head softball coach Tyra Perry announced on Friday the addition of Megan Mattingly as the program’s director of operations.

“We are thrilled to welcome Megan to our staff!” Perry said. “Having grown up immersed in the Fighting Illini sports culture, she brings a deep passion for the game and a strong connection to our community. Her dedication and competitive spirit were evident during her playing days, and we are confident that she will bring that same drive and excellence to this new role.”

Mattingly returns to her home state and joins the Fighting Illini after spending the last three years working at Southridge High School in Huntingburg, Indiana. While there, she served as the head softball coach while working within the physical education/strength and conditioning department from 2022-25. Mattingly also held roles as an assistant volleyball coach from 2023-24 and assisted with graphic design in 2024. She was the Southridge Middle School athletic director during the 2022-23 academic year.

During the 2025 NCAA Tournament, Mattingly was a regional site representative at the University of Oklahoma, acting as the NCAA’s on-site liaison while collaborating with athletic directors to ensure full compliance with tournament policies, procedures, and game day operations during NCAA Regionals. In that role, she also coordinated communication between NCAA staff, the host institution, teams, officials, and media to ensure smooth event execution; oversaw game day logistics including team arrivals, facility readiness, credential distribution, and schedule adherence; and resolved real-time issues related to weather delays, protocol enforcement, and team logistics while maintaining professionalism and NCAA standards.

A native of Danville, Illinois, Mattingly – née Megan Burton – played softball at the Division I level at Eastern Illinois, where she competed from 2018-22. As a senior in 2021, she earned OVC Player of the Year, All-OVC First Team, OVC Scholar Athlete of the Year, and NFCA All-Mideast Region First Team honors. Across her five-year career with the Panthers, Mattingly played in 220 games, making 218 starts, while hitting .302 with 212 hits, 151 runs scored, 115 RBI, 74 stolen bases, 55 walks, and 46 doubles. She was tabbed an All-OVC Second Team selection as a sophomore in 2019.

Mattingly graduated from EIU with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and sports studies in 2020 before getting her master’s in educational leadership in 2022.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to work for the University of Illinois,” Mattingly said. “I am excited to be a part of Illinois Softball and the strong culture that is embedded within the program. This is home, and I am truly excited to be part of the FamILLy.”

Summer 2025 was a period of change in college football, as the House Settlement regarding college sports was approved, forever changing the landscape of college football and how college athletes can make money.

It was also a rough time for Auburn football’s recruiting efforts. The Tigers’ 2026 class suffered a handful of decommitments and dropped all the way down to No. 89 in 247Sports’ recruiting team rankings at one point.

Head coach Hugh Freeze and athletic director John Cohen attributed the issues to the changes brought on by the House Settlement and how the athletic department put together its revenue sharing plan.

“I’m here to tell you, we’re gonna do this the right way,” Cohen told reporters on July 2 before an AMBUSH alumni event in Alexander City.

Cohen was alluding to the idea that other schools may not be following the new rules of the settlement. He hinted at schools throwing out unrealistic numbers to recruits in verbal offers, something he said Auburn wasn’t going to do.

In that same breath, Cohen told reporters that Aug. 1 would be a big day for the long-term success of Auburn’s recruiting. That’s the day that those verbal offers can start going into writing, a chance for schools to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak.

“That’s a big day,” Cohen said. “It’s not rumor, it’s not innuendo, it’s not, ‘This person said this.’ It’s an offer on paper.”

Now, that day is here. While Cohen and Freeze never said that things would turn around immediately, the recruiting efforts will be looked at through a different lens until signing day.

But how did things get here, and where could they go from here?

Within 11 days in June, Auburn lost three four-star recruits before adding one three star and a four-star quarterback by month’s end. After losing one more four-star recruit, Auburn addressed its challenges with the 2026 recruiting class before picking up four recruits to finish July, including three four-stars.

Here’s a timeline of how the summer unfolded:

Timeline

June 6 | The House Settlement officially passes, meaning schools can officially begin paying athletes directly starting July 1

June 12 | 4-star linebacker JaMichael Garrett decommits from Auburn

June 22 | 4-star linebacker Shadarius Toodle flips from Auburn to Georgia

June 23 | 4-star wide receiver Devin Carter flips from Auburn to Florida State

June 24 | 3-star offensive tackle Nikau Hepi commits to Auburn, breaking the streak of decommitments

June 26 | 4-star quarterback Peyton Falzone commits to Auburn, becoming the first quarterback commit in the Tigers’ 2026 class

July 1 | 4-star wide receiver Denairius Gray flips to Kentucky, dropping Auburn’s class to No. 89 in the country

July 2 | Cohen and Freeze address the media in Alexander City, explaining the recruiting struggles and pointing two Aug. 1 date

July 4 | 3-star tight end Kentrell White commits to Auburn

July 8 | 4-star linebacker Adam Balogun-Ali commits to Auburn

July 17 | 4-star offensive lineman Wilson Zierer commits to Auburn

July 21 | 4-star linebacker Jaquez Wilkes commits to Auburn, becoming the Tigers’ first top 100 commit in the 2026 class

July 31 | The College Sports Commission provides new guidance for third-party NIL deals, allowing NIL collectives to pay athletes if the deals are for a “valid business purpose.”

Aug. 1 | Verbal offers to recruits in the 2026 class can begin going into writing

What lies ahead?

Aug. 8

Four-star wide receiver Jase Mathews announces his commitment. His finalists include Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.

Aug. 21

Five-star safety Bralan Womack announces his commitment. His finalists include Auburn, Ohio State, Florida and Texas A&M. If Womack and Mathews both choose Auburn, it would raise the Tigers’ class ranking from 70 to 33, according to 247Sports.

Aug. 29

Auburn opens the 2025 football season at Baylor.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com

“The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn’t believe how much I made,” he said, according to TechCrunch.

O’Neal’s portfolio also includes Big Chicken, a fast-casual restaurant chain with restaurants nationwide, and Authentic Brands Group, where he is its second-largest shareholder. The brand management company profits from not only O’Neal’s name and likeness but also Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jackson. O’Neal has also said on record that his investment decisions were influenced by billionaire Mark Cuban, who encouraged him to invest in the alcoholic beverage brand BeatBox. It is no surprise that the next generation is studying O’Neal’s footprint.

“Shaq’s portfolio is the most impressive crazy business portfolio that I’ve seen,” Johnson explained on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast. “And my coach coached him, coach Bob Starkey. So he be telling like, ‘No, you got to watch Shaq, like you got to do what he did in business and all the companies and things he’s over.’ It’s just incredible.”

As expected, Mitch Barnhart didn’t share specifics on Kentucky’s revenue-sharing plans for the 2025-26 season; however, he did pull the curtain back just a tiny bit.

In his press conference at Kentucky Football Media Day, Barnhart said six programs will split the $20.5 million the department has set aside for revenue-sharing this year: football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball. He also said that the $20.5 million is actually $18.5 million when you account for scholarships.

How much will each of those six programs get? Barnhart is keeping that close to the vest.

“The speculation is wonderful,” Barnhart quipped when asked about fans wanting to know revenue-sharing specifics. “I think that not only do the fans want to know, but our opponents want to know. And so I think we’re going to sort of keep it fluid with us and keep it inside our framework.”

That said, Barnhart made it clear that UK’s coaches are happy with the plan, specifically mentioning “great conversations” with Mark Stoops, Mark Pope, and Kenny Brooks. That’s in large part because the amounts each sport gets can change each year based on each team’s needs.

“I will say this: our coaches are pleased with where we are and what we’re doing. And I think that’s the beauty of this cap system that we’re in, is that it is pretty fluid from season to season, from sport to sport, and it can change. And so to sit here and say, we’re going to focus and put this number on that, it may change by the time we get to the end of the semester. It may change by the time we get to the end of the year, based on rosters, based on who’s in your program and who’s not in your program.

“And so we want to be really thoughtful about how we do that. And we think our best advantage in being able to help our coaches in the best way possible is to be really, really nimble in what we do, and we can only do that, we think, if we structure it this way.”

When asked, Barnhart said that the revenue-sharing money doesn’t roll over, meaning that you have to either use it this year or lose it. Helping matters is that this year’s rosters were funded by NIL dollars set in place before the House Settlement went into effect on July 1. How NIL will be handled now, and the role of collectives seems to change by the minute, especially as lawsuits mount. Federal legislation would certainly help.

“The change that has occurred has been massive,” Barnhart said. “We don’t even have a governance structure in place, really, to be honest with you. So you’re asking people to say, hey, this is absolutely the highway or the pathway we’re supposed to go down. I don’t think that’s a reality in anybody’s world. There’s going to be a clunkiness to it, and a getting-started piece to all of this. And hopefully the waters will smooth a little bit, but it is going to be a little bit clunky at the beginning, you have coaches coming out and saying the NIL piece of NILGo is not working. You have others saying it’s working fine. You have the revenue cap.

“So, everyone’s in the weeds, and everyone understands exactly what’s going on. I’ve been in the middle of those conversations for 10 months, 12 months, and it’s a lot. It is an absolute lot. And I’m thankful for people who want to jump alongside federal legislation and help out of Washington. If anybody wants to help, that would be awesome. That’d be great. If we can get an alignment and get people to help. That would be great. But to sit here and be critical of the system that’s only been in place for four weeks, it’s really, really difficult. So, we’ve got to find our way through it and just gently walk through this thing and let it smooth itself out.”

One of the most exciting aspects of the sport of college football is the upsets. Whether it’s Appalachian State upsetting No. 5 Michigan at home in 2007, James Madison upsetting No. 13 Virginia Tech in 2010, or even Northern Illinois upsetting eventual national title runner-up No. 5 Notre Dame last season, smaller programs upsetting power-four programs never fails to be absolute cinema.

There are many matchups this season between power four and group of five programs this season that could soon be added to the list, including a clash between 2024 College Football participants and in-state rivals that have never met on the football field.

Check out ESPN’s full list of the 12 most dangerous Power 4 vs. Group of 5 games of the 2025 season below:

Kentucky went just 4-8 (1-7) in 2024 as it missed a bowl game for the first time since 2015. Toledo, however, enjoyed a successful season in which it went 8-5 (4-4) and downed Pittsburgh 48-46 in 6OT in the GameAbove Sports Bowl.

Toledo is no stranger to upsetting SEC teams, as it trounced Mississippi State 41-17 in Starkville last season. The ‘Cats haven’t lost a non-conference home game to a group of five team since Sept. 3, 2016 (Southern Miss).

James Madison has enjoyed immense success since making the jump to FBS three seasons ago, as it is 28-9 in that span. It went 9-4 last season under new head coach Bob Chesney and downed Western Kentucky to win the Boca Raton Bowl. Louisville, however, continues to improve with Jeff Brohm at the helm and will likely be in contention for an ACC Championship this season.

The Cardinals will have to keep their head on a swivel when the Dukes come to town, as James Madison put up 70 points at North Carolina last season in a 70-50 win. It is 2-1 against ACC competition in the past three years, with wins over UNC and Virginia and a 34-10 loss to Louisville in 2022.

UNLV made a big splash this offseason when it hauled in former Mississippi State and Florida head coach Dan Mullen, who boasts a 103-61 record in 13 seasons of SEC play. With Mullen at the helm, ESPN has put Nico Iamaleava and UCLA on upset alert when they travel to Vegas on Sept. 6.

The Runnin’ Rebels finished inside the final AP Poll top-25 last season after compiling an 11-3 record and a 24-13 win over California in the LA Bowl. UCLA went just 5-7 last season, but owns the all-time series against UNLV 2-0 (last meeting in 2016).

Both Army and Kansas State could potentially be ranked inside the top-25 when this matchup takes place on Sept. 6. The Wildcats, led by budding quarterback Avery Johnson, went 9-4 last season and look to contend in the Big 12 this season. Army sniffed the College Football Playoff but ultimately fell short, as Boise State grabbed the Group of Five bid.

The Black Knights, however, went 12-2 last season and will seriously be in contention for the GO5 bid once again this season. This game has major potential for being one of the most underrated matchups of the 2025 season.

Of all the games that ESPN ranked as ‘dangerous’ for power four programs, this one seems the least likely. Although that does ultimately depend on DJ Lagway‘s health, as he is reportedly banged up heading into the final month of camp before the season begins.

South Florida has posted back-to-back seven-win campaigns under head coach Alex Golesh, but Florida is expected to have its most talented roster in years this season under head coach Billy Napier. The Gators own the all-time series over USF 3-0.

Arkansas State and Arkansas will clash this season in Little Rock, taking away a bit of homefield advantage for the Hogs. Somehow, these in-state programs have never met, so that will provide some extra juice for this matchup.

The Red Wolves are led by former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones and are fresh off an 8-5 campaign in 2024. Arkansas compiled a 7-6 record in 2024, but head coach Sam Pittman remains on the hot seat. A loss to ‘little brother’ could make that seat scalding for Pittman, who is headed into his sixth season as the head man in Fayetteville.

This game will serve as a homecoming matchup for former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah, who transferred to Duke in the offseason. While the Blue Devils enjoyed an impressive 9-4 campaign last season, Tulane also won nine games and gave Kansas State a scare in New Orleans.

A win over Duke at home would provide a major boost to Jon Sumrall and Tulane‘s Playoff hopes, as it seeks the GO5 bid in the second season of the 12-team College Football Playoff. The Blue Devils, however, own the all-time series 3-0 (last meeting in 2015).

Arkansas once again pops up on this list as a power-four team on upset alert against a Group of Five team. This time it’s against Memphis in a Sept. 20 away game.

Memphis remains in the American Conference after failed attempts to join the Big 12. Last season it went 11-2 and enjoyed two wins over power four programs in Florida State and West Virginia. Arkansas won the last game played between the two rivals in Memphis on Oct. 10, 1998 (23-9).

Jon Sumrall‘s Green Wave once again have a major opportunity to pick off a power-four football team on Sept. 20 when they travel to face Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin. Since Kiffin has been the head man in Oxford (2020), Ole Miss has not lost a game to a Group of Five opponent.

Ole Miss did drop an unexpected matchup against Kentucky last season, so the potential is definitely there. The Rebels, however, have won 13 consecutive matchups over Tulane, including a 37-20 win in 2023.

It’s been a tumultuous offseason for BYU, which lost starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff following his withdrawal from the school. The Cougars, which went 11-2 last season, travel to East Carolina on Sept. 20 for what will be a highly anticipated matchup for Pirate fans.

East Carolina has won its two most recent meetings against BYU (2017 & 2022) and are coming off an 8-5 season with a bowl win over NC State. BYU has not lost a non-conference game in two seasons since joining the Big 12.

This meeting is actually a rematch from last season’s Bill Walsh Legacy Game, in which San Jose State won 34-31 thanks to a go-ahead touchdown from TreyShun Hurry with just under two minutes remaining. This led to the firing of Troy Taylor at Stanford, who was subsequently replaced by former NFL head coach Frank Reich.

These college programs seem to be going in separate directions, as Stanford is now rebuilding itself with Andrew Luck as the general manager, while the Spartans have won seven games in three consecutive seasons. The possibility of another San Jose State win may be greater than any other GO5 team on this list.

Finally, an Ashton Jeanty-less Boise State has Notre Dame on upset alert according to ESPN. Both of these programs made the College Football Playoff last season, where the Broncos lost in the First Round and the Fighting Irish made an appearance in the college football National Championship game.

As prestigious as both programs are, they have never met before. This should be a premier matchup (possibly between two top-25 teams) when it takes place on October 4.