Former Utah Utes star Eric Weddle was as jubilant as anyone would be upon realizing they’re up for Hall of Fame consideration.

The National Football Foundation released the nominees for induction into the NFF College Football Hall of Fame’s 2026 class on Monday, and Weddle reacted to his name being on the list with a post to his X account.

Weddle, a consensus All-American in 2006, would be the second Utah player inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Alex Smith was inducted last year.

Weddle impacted the game in a variety of ways over the course of his four seasons with the Utes; from returning punts and kicks to lining up at strong safety, cornerback and nickel back in the secondary.

After taking home All-America Freshman honors in 2003, Weddle earned back-to-back Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year awards in 2005 and 2006 while helping the Utes to consecutive league titles. He also played a key role during Utah’s first undefeated campaign in 2004, which ended in the program’s first New Year’s Six Bowl appearance.

Weddle appeared in 48 games with the Utes, finishing his career with 277 total tackles (165 solos), 10 sacks and 22.5 tackles for loss. He set school records with nine forced fumbles and 18 interceptions. Weddle also recorded six fumble recoveries and had 23 pass break-ups.

Weddle was selected by the San Diego Chargers with the No. 37 pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. He went on to have a 14-year NFL career, earning a pair of First Team All-Pro selections, as well as three Second Team All-Pro choices and six Pro Bowl honors. Weddle won Super Bowl LVI as a member of the Los Angeles Rams.

The College Football Hall of Fame’s 2026 class will be revealed early next year, after more than 12,000 NFF members and Hall of Famers cast their votes.

MORE UTAH NEWS & ANALYSIS

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Alabama had three student-athletes named to the College Sports Communicators’ Academic All-District Team for baseball, the CSC announced Tuesday.

The Crimson Tide’s three honorees include Zane Adams, Tyler Fay, and Will Hodo. The trio are part of a total of 21 baseball players that have earned a combined 28 all-district accolades in Alabama history. With their selection, UA has had least one all-district honoree in each of the last six seasons dating back to 2020. Prior to the current stretch, Alabama had not had an Academic All-District Team member since 2011.

In total, Alabama has earned 10 Academic All-America honors since 1972, including first-team honorees Dr. Jeff Laubenthal (1993), Lance Cormier (2002) and Emeel Salem (2006, 07). The most recent Academic All-America selection for the Tide was Owen Diodati when he was named as a third-teamer in 2022.

The CSC Academic All-America program recognizes the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances on the diamond and in the classroom. The CSC Academic All-America program separately recognizes baseball honorees in four divisions – NCAA Division I, Division II and Division III along with NAIA.

Zane Adams

Academic All-District

• Advancing towards a degree in sport management
• Owns a 3.87 grade-point average following two seasons at Alabama
• Named to SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll in 2023-24
• Trending towards SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll selection in 2025

Tyler Fay

Academic All-District

• Pursuing a degree in marketing
• Maintains 3.76 grade-point average across three years at Alabama
• Garnered CSC Academic All-District honors for the second consecutive season
• Earned a spot on the Dean’s list on three separate occasions
• A 2024 SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll selection on-pace for an identical distinction in 2025

Will Hodo

Academic All-District

• Completed his bachelor’s degree in exercise science
• Compiled a 3.84 cumulative grade-point average in four years at UA
• Named to CSC Academic All-District Team for the second consecutive season
• A four-time Dean’s List honoree who also earned a spot on the President’s List once
• The Crimson Tide’s 2024 and 2025 nominee for SEC Scholar-Athlete
• Selected to the SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll in 2023 and 2024
• Tabbed to the SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll for 2021-22

Some people are destined to be hockey lifers. 

At some point, their playing careers will end in some random house league game with no real fanfare. Even once they’re done playing, they’ll continue in the sport, helping others find the type of love of hockey that they have had for a lifetime.

Stacey Hochkins is one of those folks.

A former college star at Holy Cross, Hochkins has already transitioned into a hybrid role. The 34-year-old still plays adult hockey and won a national title with the Little Caesars Women’s Hockey program this past April. When she isn’t playing, Hochkins coaches with a Detroit-area high school girls team and a college women’s team.

Brad Johnson has seen Hochkins’ impact for years. He has coached her since 2014 in what is now the Little Caesars program.

“We can talk about hockey, and we can talk about her talent, talk about her leadership, but none of that happens if she also just genuinely doesn’t care about her teammates and what we’re doing and care about in a bigger picture,” Johnson said. “Because I also don’t believe that if she was just in it to show up and play and then go home without trying to build our players up and help them get better — without trying to encourage more of our players to get involved in youth hockey, to be role models, some of the role models that these players maybe didn’t have when they were younger with predominantly male coaches — I don’t think if she genuinely didn’t care about all of that that I’d be talking to you right now.”

Hochkins’ impact on and off the ice is why USA Hockey named her the 2025 Adult Player of the Year. Hochkins and others will be honored at the USA Hockey President’s Dinner in Denver on June 6.

A knee injury while trying to play overseas with the Salzburg Eagles in Austria cut her professional career short. That came after a decorated run at Holy Cross, where she finished as the career leader in goals (103), assists (86) and, of course, points (189). She also scored a record 18 game-winning goals and was a four-time first-team All-ECAC selection and conference Player of the Year as a sophomore. 

In 2024, she became the first Crusaders women’s hockey player to have her jersey retired.

Knowing there wasn’t a lot of high-level hockey left for her after the injury, Hochkins returned to Michigan and connected with Johnson through a mutual acquaintance. He quickly found out why the New Boston, Michigan, native was so successful as a player.

“She’s a very competitive player, still at her ripe age now,” Johnson said. “Still very competitive. Wants to win and works her butt off in everything she does, but definitely on the ice one of the fiercer competitors in my 30 years of coaching … and now I’ve had the opportunity to coach her for over a decade. … But she’s also not over the top with the competitiveness. So as far as sportsmanship goes, she’s always on the right side of that.”

Hochkins is a staunch advocate for growing girls and women’s hockey. She is certainly around it enough. Hochkins is an assistant coach on the combined Orchard Lake Saint Mary’s and Saint Catherine’s high school team as well as an assistant at Lawrence Tech at the college level. 

In addition to playing with Little Caesars, she also laces up the skates for adult league rec games and dabbles with inline hockey. Sometimes she shows up at the Little Caesars games to be an unofficial assistant coach, too.

“We wouldn’t have a program without her,” Johnson said, “but a great deal of success that we’ve had over the years, which includes a couple of national championships at the adult level — one in 2018 and then most recently just a couple weeks ago — I don’t know if we win either of those national championships without Stacey on our team. We’ve got a lot of great players, I don’t want to take anything away from other players, but her being around the team, both on and off the ice is a major contribution to our success.”

Much like her younger days, Hochkins has often been the best player on whatever team she was playing on. While there has been — and still is — a “Get the puck to Stacey” mindset, Hochkins has always been about boosting up those around her to set the stage for this and future generations of female hockey players.

“She builds a foundation for players to respect her, both as a player and as a leader,” Johnson said. “Again, going back to leading by example, she does it in a respectful way and she does it in a way that the players see how hard she works, but she doesn’t talk down to them or ride players or anything like that. They feel like it elevates their level. Our players do skate harder when Stacey’s going because you watch her go out there on a shift and work harder than anybody else on the ice. They want to go out and do the same thing. It’s unspoken, but it’s definitely palpable and I see it.”

A perfect description of a hockey lifer who goes about her business each day yet is important in ways she might not imagine.

“I don’t think it’s something that she’s going to wear this [award] as a badge of honor, but I think it also helps her understand that she’s made a difference — and she absolutely has,” Johnson said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Middlebury College has announced the transition of Ali Paquette into the newly endowed assistant director of athletics position. Paquette will assume her new role on July 1, while a national search for a director of athletic communications is currently underway.

The move is part of a departmental reorganization, prompted by an anonymous gift that provides for an endowed leadership position in athletics, as well as endowed funding for the crew programs, which will now be overseen by the department. Franklin Dean-Farrar, the assistant director of athletics for operations and events, will now supervise both club programs. In her new position, Paquette will support some of Dean-Farrar’s current responsibilities, such as postseason NCAA events and strategic facility projects. She will maintain oversight of the Athletic Communications Department and will continue to serve as a liaison with the Office of Advancement and to oversee student-athlete education.

“I am excited for this next chapter of Middlebury Athletics,” said Director of Athletics Erin Quinn ’86. “Ali Paquette has been serving our department exceptionally well over the past several years in the dual role of director of athletic communications and assistant director of athletics. This reorganization will allow Ali to provide leadership to the new director of athletic communications while scaling her contributions to the department more broadly.”

Paquette joined the athletic communications staff at Middlebury in January of 2020 as the assistant director and was promoted to assistant athletic director/director of athletic communications in May of 2022. In her role as director, Paquette oversees promotion and coverage for all 31 varsity programs including statistics, releases, website management, contract administration with Northeast Sports Network, and running and curating content for Middlebury athletics flagship social media accounts, as well as working with local news media. Paquette has been a media relations staff member for multiple NESCAC and NCAA Championship events. She has served as the athletic communications professional for several national championship events, including the 2022 NCAA Women’s Ice Hockey Championship, which drew more than 2,000 fans in Chip Kenyon ’85 Arena and concluded with Middlebury hoisting the trophy.

“I am thrilled to take on this new role within Middlebury Athletics,” said Paquette. “I am very grateful for Erin’s mentorship over the years and for his support in me as a leader. I want to thank the donor who made this position possible. This is a great opportunity for me to make a broader impact on our athletics community, as it will bolster support for our student-athletes, coaches, and staff in many ways. I am very excited for the future of our department and athletics programs, and look forward to the new year ahead.”

Paquette is an active member of the College Sports Communicators (CSC), currently serving as a member of the professional development committee. She is the 2024–25 D3SIDA president and has been a member of the CSC Division III cabinet since 2020. She is also a member of NACDA. Paquette has earned several national CSC awards, including the then-CoSIDA Rising Star Award in 2022, along with the 2021 CoSIDA ChangeMaker Innovation Award and the 2019 CoSIDA Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Award in the general feature category.

In 2018, she received her Master of Science in Sport Management and Athletic Administration from Southern New Hampshire University. A 2013 graduate of Salve Regina, Paquette was a four-year member and captain of the Seahawks’ cross-country and track-and-field teams.

The department has begun a national search for the director of athletic communications role. Interested parties can apply here.

IRVING, Texas — Former Massachusetts football running back Rene Ingoglia has been named to the 2026 ballot for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame as a 2026 Divisional Player candidate, the National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced on Monday (June 2).

Ingoglia finished his collegiate career as one of the top running backs in school history and was a two-time All-America selection (1994 and 1995) and he was also a three-time All-Yankee Conference selection. Ingoglia became the school and Yankee Conference’s all-time leading career rusher with 4,623 yards after he ran for 656 yards during his rookie year, 1,284 yards as a sophomore, 1,505 yards as a junior and 1,178 yards as a senior.

Ingoglia closed out four years of dominance with 10 program records and a pair of the Yankee Conference’s top statistical marks. He was the first UMass player in history to average more than 100 yards per game rushing over a career (112.8), posted 21 career 100-plus yard games, three career 200-plus yard performances and outrushed the entire opposing team 18 times in his career.

Following his college career, Ingoglia played parts of three NFL seasons (1996-98) with the Buffalo Bills and the Washington Redskins. He then competed for the Frankfurt Galaxy of NFL Europe in 1999, where he helped the team to the World Bowl Championship.

A Massachusetts Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, Ingoglia continues to work as a color analyst for ESPN.

The 2026 ballot includes 79 players and nine coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision and 100 players and 35 coaches from the divisional ranks.

NFF College Football Hall of Fame Criteria:

To be eligible for the NFF College Football Hall of Fame, players must have been named a First Team All-American by a major/national selector as recognized and utilized by the NCAA for their consensus All-America teams; played their last year of intercollegiate football at least 10 full seasons prior; played within the last 50 years; and cannot be currently playing professional football. Coaches must have coached a minimum of 10 years and 100 games as a head football coach; won at least 60 percent of their games; and be retired from coaching for at least three full seasons. If a coach is retired and over the age of 70, there is no waiting period. If he is over the age of 75, he is eligible as an active coach. In all cases, the candidate’s post-football record as a citizen may also be weighed. For more information on the voting procedures click here.

The announcement of the 2026 NFF College Football Hall of Fame Class will be made in early 2026, with specific details to be announced in the future. The Class will be officially inducted during the 68th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on Dec. 8, 2026, at the Bellagio Hotel & Resort, and permanently immortalized at the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.