Until Saturday Newsletter  | This is The Athletic’s college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.

Today in college football news, the Mrs. and I have been rebuilding our CD collections from scratch … inspired by our kid, who’s started one of her own. CDs are so unbelievably back.

Dynasties: Oklahoma softball’s place in college history

Quick Snaps

Frisbee emoji? No, it’s a blue chip, you see. Today, Grace Raynor ranks all 25 No. 1 recruits of the 2000s. I can stop selling this link now, because you’ve already clicked it.

Three days ago, it would’ve cost Bill Belichick $10 million to leave his job at North Carolina. As of this week, it’d cost just $1 million. Still hasn’t coached a game yet!

 Jim Leavitt, USF’s founding coach who then led the Bulls to their momentary No. 2 ranking in 2007, left the program on very bad terms in 2010. He’s now joining the athletic department’s hall of fame, alongside late basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.

 Lots of slow starters in recruiting, like Alabama down at No. 45. Not without precedent at this point in the calendar, but still.

• For teams looking to vault upward in the rankings, look to the hills of … Idaho? Averaging about one blue-chipper per year these days, plus three-stars drawing a lot more attention than they used to.

“It’s little (stuff) like this. That’s not typical for 3. Watch 8. That’s the stuff I watch this game and go, hmmm … Why aren’t we playing as hard as we usually play? If this was Ohio State, Adon would knock the crap out of him.” — Marcus Freeman with Pete Sampson, explaining Notre Dame‘s loss to NIU while demonstrating how coaches watch film.

We Meet Again: Why the Big Ten is into the auto-bids thing

As we talked about last week, the current “50 million automatic College Football Playoff bids for the Big Ten and SEC, plus scraps for the other powers” plan isn’t necessarily the SEC’s favorite.

As SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has noted, four auto-bids for his league in a 16-team field could actually decrease the SEC’s number of contestants. But … wouldn’t roughly the same be true for the Big Ten? In that case, why would the B1G want this at all?

As Scott Dochterman explains, it all goes back to the exact same thing the Big Ten has been yelling at the sky for nine years now: Its teams play one more conference game per year than the SEC’s or ACC’s do. Scott writes:

“Without uniform scheduling, Big Ten officials are concerned that an open (five automatic bids and 11 at-larges) plan would cause more schools to ease up on their nonconference slates rather than play other power-conference schools; one recently called it a ‘race to the bottom.’”

Hmm. In general, this version of college football’s eternal strength-of-schedule debate has been non-stop since the CFP era began, with everybody saying each offseason that SOS should matter more, but then nobody liking it once the season begins and a three-loss team ranks ahead of a two-loss team.

As for the perpetual Big Ten vs. SEC sub-debate, by any schedule-strength metric, Big Ten and SEC teams annually play schedules that are about as comparable overall as any you’ll find anywhere in such a sprawling sport.

• In the upcoming season, for instance, Team Rankings judges Texas and Ohio State as having the hardest slates. They even play each other. College Football News has Florida at No. 1, followed by Wisconsin. Bill Connelly’s rankings start with three SEC teams, likewise followed by Wisconsin. In ESPN’s, the easiest schedule in either league is Maryland’s at No. 61 out of 136.
• To be clear, this disparity does complicate things. Having a longer conference schedule automatically means a larger number of losses to distribute throughout league records, which can make the middle and bottom of that league look weaker than it is. (Then again, in certain years, it can artificially inflate the top.) Regardless, expanding to nine games was not something anyone else forced the Big Ten to do in 2016.

(As always, because it’s impossible to discuss any of this without hearing a specific charge: I’m not an SEC alum. I’m a Conference USA alum who was raised to root for an ACC rival of an SEC team. My list of annoyances with the SEC happens to not include this one, and nobody hoodwinked me into thinking that. I still love you.)

MEADVILLE — South Fayette’s boys volleyball team made its PIAA tournament debut on June 3.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Southern Connecticut Men’s Outdoor Track & Field brought home three NCAA Division II Regional Awards for the 2025 season, as announced by the USTFCCCA. Cameron Belton was named the East Region Field Athlete of the Year, John Wallin was named the East Region Coach of the Year, and Bernardo Mbaya was named the East Region Assistant Coach of the Year. All three winners also won the award for the 2025 Indoor season. 

Cameron Belton capped off his phenomenal 2025 season by completing the indoor/outdoor sweep of the East Region Field Athlete of the Year. He finished the season with a personal-best mark, throwing 18.87m to grab silver at the NCAA DII Shot Put Championship, earning All-American honors for the second time after doing the same at the Indoor Championships. That is the second-best throw in SCSU Program History. This season, he was named the NE10 Indoor and Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year, the USTFCCCA Indoor and Outdoor East Region Field Athlete of the Year, and the NE10 Outdoor Most Outstanding Field Performer. Through both the indoor and outdoor seasons, Belton never placed lower than third in a Shot Put competition. 

John Wallin took home the Men’s Coach of the Year honors, also completing the season sweep. In his 15th year as Head Coach at Southern Connecticut, he led the Owls to their ninth-straight NE10 Championship, winning 10 events. Southern also earned one First-Team (Belton) and two Second-Team (Lawrence Hicks, Osaretin Osagie) All-America honors from the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships.

In his first year transitioning to coaching, Bernardo Mbaya saw major success. He coached the Owls’ throwers to combine for 49 points at the Northeast 10 Conference Championships, helping Southern Connecticut win the team title. His top athlete, Cameron Belton, won the NE10 Shot Put and Discus titles and finished second in the shot at the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships.

The PIAA boys volleyball and girls lacrosse postseason got underway for two Beaver Valley schools on June 3. Here is a look at how the two area teams fared in their opening round matchups.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Southern Connecticut Women’s Outdoor Track & Field brought home three NCAA Division II Regional Awards, as announced by the USTFCCCA. Hannah Caiola was named the East Region Track Athlete of the Year, Melissa Stoll Funaro was named the East Region Coach of the Year, and Brian Nill was named the East Region Assistant Coach of the Year. 

Caiola, who hails from Glastonbury, Connecticut, earned First-Team All-America honors in the 400 meters at the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships. Earlier in the season, Caiola starred at the NE10 Championships with individual titles in both the 200 meters and 400 meters, and a tote on the winning 4×100 relay. She also won the award for the 2025 indoor season. 

Stoll Funaro, in her 13th year as Head Coach at Southern Connecticut, led the Owls to the team title at the Northeast 10 Conference Championships, winning 11 events and scoring 246 points. Southern Connecticut also had one First-Team All-America at the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships – Hannah Caiola in the 400 meters.

Nill, in his 10th year as assistant coach at Southern Connecticut, coached the Owls’ middle- and long-distance runners to combined for 76 of the team’s 246 points in winning the team title at the Northeast 10 Conference Championships. Four of his athletes also earned All-New England honors at the NEICAAA Championships.

WATERVILLE, Maine (WABI) – Thomas sophomore Emma Burr finished in sixth place in the heptathlon at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships last month.

Burr landed in the top 20 as a freshman and made the podium and first team All-American in her second college season.

“Coming from a small school, I feel very helpful to growing the program and getting a lot of attention out there for MCI and for Thomas. Being able to be an athlete, I am very proud of that,” said Burr.

Burr graduated from MCI and is studying entrepreneurship during her Terriers career.

Copyright 2025 WABI. All rights reserved.