Michigan and Western Michigan will open the 2026 season on Saturday, Aug. 29, in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany, sources told On3.

The game will be held at Deutsche Bank Park, a 55,000-seat retractable roof soccer stadium that has hosted five NFL games.

“I am excited about the football and educational experience this game could provide for our players,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “We are always looking for unique opportunities to expose our student-athletes to other cultures. In the last 10 years, our program has been to Italy, France and South Africa and this game would provide another chance to grow our international fanbase.”

This will be Michigan’s first international game in the program’s 145-year history. It will also be the fifth college football game held in Germany, but the first between FBS programs and the first in Frankfurt.

“The University of Michigan is one of the few worldwide brands in college athletics and the interest in playing an international game would be unique,” Michigan AD Warde Manuel added. “This would be a great opportunity to teach ‘Go Blue’ to a new group of fans in Germany.”

Michigan will become only the sixth Big Ten member (at the time of the game) to play overseas. The others: Northwestern vs. Nebraska in 2022 in Dublin, Ireland; Penn State played UCF in 2014 in Dublin; and Wisconsin vs. Michigan State in 1993 in Tokyo.

The MAC has had several teams play in bowl games outside the United States, but Western Michigan will be the first MAC team to play an international regular season game. The Broncos have played outside the United States twice before in the 2015 Bahamas Bowl and the 2007 International Bowl in Toronto.

Next year’s contest between UM and WMU was originally scheduled to be played at Michigan Stadium on Sept. 5, 2026, before being moved to Frankfurt. It will be the 29th meeting between the Wolverines and a MAC opponent, but the first not played in Michigan Stadium.

Michigan has won all eight meetings against the Broncos, the last game in 2021.

Next year, TCU and North Carolina also will open the season in Europe. The Horned Frogs and Tar Heels will play on Aug. 29, 2026 in Dublin, Ireland.

Also known as Waldstadion, Deutsche Bank Park most recently held two NFL regular season games in 2023. Deutsche Bank Park is the home field for Eintracht Frankfurt of the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German soccer league. 

Second-year Ohio State Buckeyes football phenom Jeremiah Smith isn’t the prototypical Michigan hater. Still, after a year in which his team won the CFP title but still didn’t fully get the job done because the Wolverines won “The Game,” he gets it more than most.

So much so that Cleveland.com’s Jimmy Watkins called Smith the “perfect messenger” for the scarlet’s side of the rivalry’s venom.

“On the surface, Smith seems a strange choice for keeper of old college football customs. According to On3 Sports, Smith is worth $4.2 million in NIL money. According to the diamonds around his wrist and neck at Big Ten Media Days, those estimates look conservative. And at 19 years old, the sophomore from South Florida grew up with no connection to Buckeye country,” Watkins wrote.

“But over the last few months, Smith has been spewing the type of hate typically reserved for lifelong Ohioans. And I’m starting to think he might be the perfect messenger.”

Smith has every reason to be frustrated with the team up north. He only had 35 yards receiving and a touchdown in the Week 14 loss that dropped OSU down to the No. 8 seed in the CFP field.

He has every reason to turn that around in the next two years. At this point, knocking off the Wolverines would propel the Buckeyes with enough momentum to get through a second 12-team CFP field.

Smith is the best player on one of the most bloated payrolls in the sport. He has immense pressure not to have a sophomore slump. An NIL raise in 2026 is on the line.

Not to mention, the pressure on the defending champions to repeat is high. The 2,000+ days (and counting) it’s been since OSU won “The Game” adds another anxious element.

It’s Smith and the Buckeyes against the world.

Good thing the player and the team couldn’t be better fits for each other.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order mandating that federal authorities clarify whether college athletes can be considered employees of the schools they play for in an attempt to create clearer national standards in the NCAA’s name, image and likeness era.

Trump directed the secretary of labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of collegiate athletes through guidance or rules “that will maximize the educational benefits and opportunities provided by higher education institutions through athletics.” The order does not provide or suggest specifics on the controversial topic of college athlete employment.

The move comes after months of speculation about whether Trump will establish a college sports commission to tackle some of the thorny issues facing what is now a multibillion-dollar industry. He instead issued an order intended to add some controls to “an out-of-control, rudderless system in which competing university donors engage in bidding wars for the best players, who can change teams each season.”

“Absent guardrails to stop the madness and ensure a reasonable, balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits, many college sports will soon cease to exist,” Trump’s order says. “It is common sense that college sports are not, and should not be, professional sports, and my administration will take action accordingly.”

There has been a dramatic increase in money flowing into and around college athletics and a sense of chaos. Key court victories won by athletes angry that they were barred for decades from earning income based on their celebrity and from sharing in the billions of revenue they helped generate have gutted the amateurism model long at the heart of college sports.

Facing a growing number of state laws undercutting its authority, the NCAA in July 2021 cleared the way for athletes to cash in with NIL deals with brands and sponsors — deals now worth millions. That came mere days after a 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court that found the NCAA cannot impose caps on education-related benefits schools provide to their athletes because such limits violate antitrust law.

The NCAA’s embrace of NIL deals set the stage for another massive change that took effect July 1: The ability of schools to begin paying millions of dollars to their own athletes, up to $20.5 million per school over the next year. The $2.8 billion House settlement shifts even more power to athletes, who have also won the ability to transfer from school to school without waiting to play.

At Big Ten Conference football media days in Las Vegas, Purdue coach Barry Odom was asked about the Trump order.

“We’ve gotten to the point where government is involved. Obviously, there’s belief it needs to be involved,” he said. “We’ll get it all worked out. The game’s been around for a hundred years and it’s going to be around 100 more.”

The NCAA has been lobbying for several years for limited antitrust protection to keep some kind of control over this new landscape — and avoid more crippling lawsuits — but a handful of bills have gone nowhere in Congress. Trump’s order makes no mention of that, nor does it refer to any of the current bills in Congress aimed at addressing issues in college sports.

NCAA President Charlie Baker and the nation’s largest conferences both issued statements saying there is a clear need for federal legislation.

“The association appreciates the Trump administration’s focus on the life-changing opportunities college sports provides millions of young people and we look forward to working with student-athletes, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump administration,” said Baker, while the conferences said it was important to pass a law with national standards for athletes’ NIL rights as soon as possible.

The 1,100 universities that comprise the NCAA have insisted for decades that athletes are students who cannot be considered anything like a school employee. Still, some coaches have recently suggested collective bargaining as a potential solution to the chaos they see.

It is a complicated topic: Universities would become responsible for paying wages, benefits, and workers’ compensation and schools and conferences have insisted they will fight any such move in court. While private institutions fall under the National Labor Relations Board, public universities must follow labor laws that vary from state to state and it’s worth noting that virtually every state in the South has “right to work” laws that present challenges for unions.

Trump’s order also:

— Calls for adding or at least preserving athletic scholarships and roster spots for non-revenue sports, which are those outside football and basketball. The House settlement allows for unlimited scholarships but does impose roster limits, leading to a complicated set of decisions for each program at each school that include potential concerns about Title IX equity rules. Trump said “opportunities for scholarships and collegiate athletic competition in women’s and non-revenue sports must be preserved and, where possible, expanded.”

— Asks the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to “preserve college athletics through litigation” and other actions to protect the rights and interests of athletes — a stance that could influence ongoing lawsuits filed by athletes over eligibility and other issues.

— Directs White House staff to work with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to protect the collegiate pipeline feeding Team USA. College sports programs produce around three-quarters of U.S. Olympians at a typical Summer Games, but some are on uncertain footing as schools begin sharing revenue with athletes and the lion’s share going to football and basketball.

___

AP National Writer Eddie Pells contributed.

Happy Friday, everyone. It’s 36 days until kickoff, so Creg Stephenson is remembering the 2008 beatdown of Auburn.

Alabama dominated in every way possible, outgaining Auburn 412 yards to 170 and limiting the Tigers to a mere eight first downs. Auburn turned the ball over three times, gained just 57 yards rushing (to 234 for the Crimson Tide) and was shut out for the first time since 2003 — the first time in the Iron Bowl since 1992.

“It would have felt good just to get a win,” Alabama senior safety Rashad Johnson said, “but to dominate the way we did and beat them without giving up any points, I definitely think we made a statement by coming out and letting them know that we were focused and not looking past this game.”

Good times.

The President followed through on his promise of an executive order to “save college sports.” In reality it serves as little more than a nudge to Congress and his cabinet, but here are a few of the listed initiatives.

Protecting scholarships for non-revenue sports: The executive order, most notably, requires schools to maintain or even increase the number of scholarships they provide to non-revenue sports. This is geared to protect Olympic and women’s sports that are at risk of elimination as schools direct more funding away from those and to the sports that generate the revenue like football and men’s basketball. Those with $125 million or budgets (most of the power league schools) must provide more scholarship opportunities than they did last year, for instance. Those with budgets of $50 million must provide at least the same, as seen in a screen shot of the section here.

Prohibit third-party, “pay-for-play”: You might call this the prohibition of booster collective pay to athletes, which, in a way, codifies the House settlement terms that prohibit collective pay to athletes if they are not deemed to be for legitimate endorsement or commercial opportunities. This issue is at the heart of negotiations among attorneys that is expected to result in a resolution soon that permits collectives to operate in a more open capacity than first thought. The executive order reinforces that provision in the House settlement.

How does Trump plan to enforce these parameters? Well, that remains a bit murky, but he suggests in the order that members of his cabinet, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have 30 days to create a plan on the enforcement of such, including potentially withholding federal funding for violators, opening up Title IX investigations, etc.

Additionally, the order does require the National Labor Relations Board to formally clarify the status of athletes, which could have significant implications on whether they’re eligible to collectively bargain. The attorney general and Federal Trade Commission offices will also have 60 days to evaluate status and create plans to clarify and defend athlete rights. Firm deadlines will inspire at least some movement.

However, more than anything else, the executive order does change one thing: It puts college sports high on the agenda for Capitol Hill.

There are numerous bills that have been proposed over the years to address the state of athlete compensation, including several that involved both sides of the aisle. Former Stanford player Cory Booker, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville and Texas senator Ted Cruz rank among the numerous senatorial dignitaries who have worked to get bills passed to no avail.

Continue to color me skeptical that anything resembling consensus will be found here, but Greg Byrne seems pleased about the development.

Chase Goodbread notes that Ryan Grubb has shown a penchant for gadgetry.

With Grubb calling plays, the 2023 Washington offense averaged a trick play per week — 15 of them in a 15-game season. And with plenty of variety: reverses, reverse passes, double passes, flea flickers, even a rooskie. It’s also worth noting that Alabama wide receiver Germie Bernard threw a few passes among all that razzle dazzle at Washington, and if Grubb trusted Bernard’s arm and poise as a sophomore, he’d certainly trust it as a senior.

There’s plenty of fun on a Grubb play sheet. The Sheridan offense, by contrast, wasn’t one for trickery at all. And that’s not a criticism, as trick plays can be as high-risk for an offense as they are dangerous for a defense. A missed assignment or bad execution on a gadget play can result in a big loss or a turnover fairly easily. But they can be game-changers, too, when called at the right moment. And if Grubb’s penchant for them resurfaces in Tuscaloosa, one can’t help but presume star receiver Ryan Williams will be on the receiving end of some of it.

There was a time when Alabama fans would be nauseated to hear such things.

This was pretty amusing.

Kalen ain’t even bothered to walk in the one at Alabama.

Michael Penix Jr. was asked at Falcons camp about time he spent recently with DeBoer.

“He’s got a crazy house man,” Penix said. “The market in Alabama is crazy because his house is like way bigger than mine, and it cost less than mine. I’m like ‘Dang, that’s crazy.’ But he’s got a good gig over there.”

Penix spoke of spending time with DeBoer and some of his old Washington teammates. The Huskies went to the 2023 national championship game, with DeBoer and Penix leading the way.

“It was great to be with those guys,” Penix said. “Be around those guys. You know, obviously those guys played a big role in helping me get to this position and all my success in my football career. So it’s always good to be around those guys and spending time with them.”

Last, Labaron Philon looks forward to facing some old teammates on the hardwood.

Philon now gets another opportunity to go up against some of college basketball’s best due to Oats’ scheduling philosophy. However, Philon is looking forward to some matchups against former teammates within the SEC. Still friendly now, once on the court, competitive spirits will come out.

“Probably all my teammates that transferred to other SEC schools,” Philon said. “It’s going to be really fun. We still all talk to each other to this day. But those guys at different schools, pretty sure they’ll be trying to take our heads off too. It’s no friends once we step onto the court.”

Alabama saw four guys leave this offseason via the NCAA transfer portal. Two of them are still in the SEC. Mo Dioubate will suit up for the Kentucky Wildcats while Derrion Reid landed in Norman with the Oklahoma Sooners. Both teams will go up against Alabama at some point.

That’s about it for today. Have a great weekend.

Roll Tide.

America is getting its first taste of Long Island’s finest. 

Loradana Paletta, Syosset’s soccer phenom who inked an NIL deal at age 14, is ready to showcase her star-caliber talents to the world by debuting with the USA’s under-17 national team this week. 

“It’s always been a dream when I was little — being on the national team,” Paletta told The Post just before joining training camp for the Four Nations Tournament vs. Mexico, Costa Rica and Canada, which begins Saturday in Mexico City. 

“I really want to make the U-17 World Cup roster, which is coming up soon. … For long-term goals, definitely the [senior] World Cup — winning gold,” added the midfielder, who initially was “really happy, excited, terrified, nervous.” 

Pitch perfect 

Paletta — the team’s youngest member and a last-second call-up for the tournament — has been on the national U-16 team for about a year, where she has already thrived among the girls, many of whom are two years older than her. 

“I try to stay humble and not really brag about it,” the soon-to-be ninth grader at Syosset High School said. 

“I do tell my close friends, but I don’t really tell anybody else. They really just find out.” 

Now, her story resonates well beyond the teen cliques of the North Shore. Paletta became the first American athlete — professional or amateur — to sign a deal with the luxe Italian cleat and gear brand Lotto. 

She was plastered all over social media in a hype video for the mid-July announcement and received widespread praise from the soccer world. Paletta, who proudly sports tons of vividly colored cleats from Lotto, is interested in designing her own cleats someday as part of her branding portfolio. 

“Maybe in high school I could learn more about the business side of things,” she said. “But right now, I just want to focus on my game and getting ready.” 

Girl power 

Paletta said that she doesn’t balk at the pressure of playing the nation’s best soccer stars who are years older than her — and the young teen has her family to thank for that. 

“My dad always put me in teams with boys since I was little, even if they were two or three years older than me,” she said. 

“I always had a passion — I wanted to be better than them … playing with the boys makes me stronger.” 

Along with her soccer die-hard father Alain’s eagerness of challenging Paletta to reach new heights, older brothers Gianluca, 17, and Leonardo, 15, also played their part. 

“My brothers really toughen me up, and just really make me a better version of myself. I can be a leader around them,” said Paletta, who added her 5-year-old sister, Luvisa, is next in line for football greatness. 

“They motivate me. They’re always there for me whenever I need them, especially when it comes to soccer. They would always pull me and go out to the field. It’s just nice to have big brothers there to support me.” 

The family boot camp was so successful that Paletta was in such high demand with male teams that one even adjusted its schedule so she could play with them. 

Aside from Team USA, Paletta is also part of NYCFC’s boys U-14 academy squad, just like her brother Leonardo, who plays on the U-18 team. 

“My family is just my biggest supporters — my mom, my dad, my brothers, my little sister, they just all really connect to my story.” 

And whether it’s at home or abroad, keeping a top-tier standard is priority number one for the future World Cup hopeful. 

“I’m going to give it my all and play the best that I can because I don’t want to disappoint anybody,” Paletta said. 

“Also, I just want to be myself. Soccer brings me joy and love — and that’s the sport that I fell in love with, too.”