The Oregon Ducks are taking all they can get from Oklahoma’s college softball dynasty.

Oregon announced on Wednesday that it hired OU great Paige Parker as the Ducks’ Director of Player Development. Parker will be reunited with her old OU pitching coach, Melyssa Lombardi, who is now the head coach at Oregon.

“Paige was an elite student-athlete,” Lombardi said in a statement. “Her relentless work ethic and drive to excel helped her win on the sport’s biggest stage and become a two-time national champion. She had an exceptional ability to spin the ball and compete on the mound. Having had the honor to coach her previously, I am overjoyed to now have the opportunity to work with her professionally.”

Paige Parker joining Ducks staff

Parker pitched for the Sooners in 2015-18 while Lombardi was on Patty Gasso’s staff. After 21 years on Gasso’s staff, Lombardi finally left Norman in 2018 for her first head coaching job at Oregon. Lombardi just led the Ducks to the Women’s College World Series for the first time in 2025.

While together at OU, Parker and Lombardi were part of two national championship teams in back-to-back seasons in 2016 and 2017. Parker ended her career as a four-time All-American and four-time Big 12 Pitcher of the Year.

“I couldn’t be more excited to reunite with Coach Lombardi and join her staff at the University of Oregon,” Parker said in a statement. “I’m so thankful to Coach Amy Hogue and the University of Utah for everything over the past four years — it’s been an incredible journey.

“I’m looking forward to what’s ahead at Oregon as we continue building toward something great. Competing for the Women’s College World Series year after year is the goal, and I’m all in. Getting to do it with Coach Lombardi makes it even more special.”

After her playing career, Parker started her coaching career as an assistant coach at William Jewel in 2019. Gasso then added her as a volunteers assistant in 2020 before she spent one season at Tulsa. Parker has been the associate head coach at Utah the last four seasons. At this rate, Parker will definitely be a big-time head coach one day.

Lombardi has loaded her Oregon staff with ties to OU beyond just Parker. Associate head coach Sam Marder was a volunteer assistant at OU in 2021 before Lombardi lured her to Oregon. Sydney Romero played for the Sooners and was a graduate assistant under Gasso before eventually becoming an assistant coach at Oregon.

Read more about OU softball

The FGCU men’s soccer team unveiled its 2025 schedule on Thursday, July 3, revealing a loaded nonconference slate and only five matches at Pickering Field at the FGCU Soccer Complex.

Posting 3-7-5 and 4-10-3 records over the last two seasons, the Eagles will look to Oliver Twelvetrees to lead the program to some much-needed stability. They will tune up in three exhibition matches against Miami-Dade College, Nova Southeastern, and Barry before the start of the regular season.

After a three-game stand at home for exhibition matches, FGCU will play five games on the road over three weeks. The Eagles kick off their season against SIUE in Illinois on Aug. 21, before traveling west to face Utah Valley in Orem, Utah on Aug. 28. The Eagles will look to avenge a 2-0 loss against the Wolverines from last season.

The Eagles will then turn south to face the American Athletic Conference (AAC) trio of USF, Memphis and UAB.

The first of these two games is against rivals South Florida on Aug. 31. The Twelvetrees-led team will face USF for the 17th time in program history. FGCU holds a 4-5-7 all-time record against the Bulls. Following the 2024 meeting, which ended in a 3-3 draw, this rivalry match presents an early opportunity for Coach Twelvetrees to secure a signature win.

FGCU will close out its road trip against Memphis and UAB on Sept. 6 and Sept. 9, respectively. Memphis recorded a 4-1-2 conference record in 2024, which secured the Tigers the No. 1 seed in the AAC.

After the extended road trip, the Eagles return home to host the Houston Christian Huskies for their home opener on Sept. 14. Four days later, FGCU hits the road again for a two-match road trip against cross-state rivals FIU on Sept. 18, where they will look to snap a five-match losing streak against the Panthers. The second match of the trip has FGCU facing off against Gardner-Webb on Sept. 23.

The Eagles return home to kick off ASUN conference play with a match against Stetson on Sept. 27.  that with a trip to North Florida on Oct. 4, where they look to avenge a 3-0 loss in the Semifinals of last season’s ASUN tournament to the eventual ASUN champions.

The team will take a break from conference play against the FAU Owls on Oct. 8 in Boca Raton, marking their fourth matchup against an AAC team this season. Last season, they lost to FAU, 3-0, marking the Eagles’ fourth consecutive loss in their previous six matchups against the Owls.

FGCU will play two of its final three matches at Pickering Field, hosting North Florida on Oct. 18 and Jacksonville on Nov. 1, splitting the homestand with a trip to Stetson on Oct. 25. 

An underwhelming 2024 campaign left a lot to be desired, but with the hiring of Coach Twelvetrees and the 2025 season being just a month away, FGCU has positioned itself to bounce back quickly.

Deion Sanders Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About the College Football Playoff and NIL Spending originally appeared on Athlon Sports.

Due to an undisclosed health issue, college football fans haven’t heard much from Colorado head coach Deion Sanders this offseason.

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However, that changed on Wednesday as Sanders was on hand for the Big 12 Media Days in Frisco, Texas. The third-year head coach who is coming off a 9-4 season in 2024, talked about everything from Colorado’s quarterback battle, his theme music and what is going wrong with college football.

Oddly enough, while the latter may be the most complex, it was the only one for which he had a definitive answer. When asked about how NIL should be patrolled with the implementation of revenue, Sanders did what he does best, which is say what everyone is thinking but not willing to say.

“I wish it was a cap,” Sanders said. “You know like the top of the line player makes this. And if you’re not that type of guy, you know you’re not gonna make that. That’s what the NFL does. So the problem is you gotta a guy that’s not that darn good, he could go to another school and they give him a half a million dollars. You can’t compete with that, it don’t make sense…All you have to do is look at the playoffs and see what those teams spent and you understand darn near why they in the playoffs.

“It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25-30 million to a darn freshman class.”

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Sanders later added that the team that pays the most will ultimately be the last team standing.

Over the past couple of years, with the evolution of NIL and the transfer portal, college football has turned into a lawless land. While some have spoken out slightly, Sanders isn’t shying away from attempting to save the sport from itself.

Related: Deion Sanders Fuels Quarterback Competition Between Kaidon Salter and Julian Lewis

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.

TCU coach Sonny Dykes knows college football needs to have adults in the room and enforce the rules, especially in the age of NIL. He referenced the new partnership with Deloitte, which is supposed to manage NIL deals across the sport.

The biggest point Dykes tried to make was that college football needs parity and that the sport is better off with it. The NFL has plenty of teams that can ultimately win it all each season and Dykes wants college football to have that ability.

“I think right now, you know, obviously college football has partnered with Deloitte, and what Deloitte is going to do in terms of assessing real NIL, and what that’s going to mean and okay, so what happens if you violate that,” Dykes said at Big 12 Media Days. “What’s going to be the cost of doing that and all the things? There’s so much passion around college football right now that you’re going to have people, you’re going to have boosters, you’re going to have fans, you can have people that you know want to break rules. I mean, that’s been part of the game of football for forever … 

“I think finally now we have a system, or we’re developing a system that is supposed to help provide some guidance in that. And my hope is that Deloitte, that they have teeth that the NCAA provides them with an opportunity, or college football provides them with an opportunity to, you know, to help manage these things, because college football is better when there’s parity. That’s what makes the NFL Great. There’s 16, 18, teams right now in the NFL that probably have a legitimate chance to go to the Super Bowl and win the championship. You know, that’s more than 50% of the league. Is that the case in college football? No, it’s certainly not.”

Dykes argued the parity movement in college football. He does not want the rich to get richer, as has happened recently in college athletics.

“And we need to have as much parity in the game as we can possibly have,” Dykes said. “And the only way that you can do that is by having revenue sharing, which we finally have, but then also controlling the NIL money that is made on top of that. So my hope is that they do that. My hope is that that system is developed at a very high level, operates at a high level, punishes people that need to be punished and results in college football becoming even better, because the game is great.” 

The game of college football is great as it is. But as Dykes pointed out, it could always be better by rectifying some holes in the machine.

“I mean, it’s a great time for the game of football right now. As I said, the players are being compensated,” Dykes said. “The players have freedom to make decisions that’s going to benefit them and their families. It’s about time that they’ve had those, it’s resulted in some awkward situations for all of us involved in the game, but I think it’s where it needs to be, and I’m really, really excited about the future of college football. 

“I really believe in the game. I believe in the players. I just, I want the adults to be adults, and I want us to operate within the framework of the rules, and I want us to do what is best for the game and what’s best for the kids and and we need to have that mentality as we move forward.”

After bowing out in the finals of the Clemson regional last month in the NCAA Tournament, not much has gone wrong for the Kentucky baseball program. All signs point to the Bat Cats having a very good team on the diamond in 2026. The program received some more good news on Tuesday.

Right-handed pitcher Jaxon Jelkin will return to campus after missing all of the 2025 season with a elbow injury.

Roster retention has become as difficult in college baseball as any sport out there. Coaches consistently see their rosters flip over from previous years. But when a program like Tennessee wants to keep you, it usually means another high-level school is in the market too.

Turns out, some “undercover offers” are being handed out to Tennessee players despite never officially entering the NCAA transfer portal. Head coach Tony Vitello revealed as such on Wednesday when speaking on 99.1 THE Sports Animal in Knoxville. Concerning to hear however, the good news for Vols fans is that they have accepted those offers.

“There’s one school in our league that likes to make undercover offers to guys, and our two or three guys that were on the end of that have stayed strong,” Vitello said.

Vitello did not specify which SEC team he was talking about. Fans have begun to speculate on social media but unless Vitello himself decides to reveal the information, we will never know. But one thing is for sure — no conference in college baseball appears to be as competitive as the SEC.

Originally, the conversation started by discussing the guys Tennessee has going through the 2025 MLB Draft process. Both players who were on the 2025 roster and high school commits. Vitello could have some scrambling to do once the event is over, needing to fill a few holes.

Unsurprisingly, Tennessee remains active in the transfer portal itself. On3’s Pete Nakos dropped some intel on the Vols’ efforts on Tuesday, which you can find here.

More on Tennessee baseball entering 2026 season

Just over a year ago, Vitello brought Tennessee baseball to its highest ever point. Going to Omaha was a massive success but winning the national championship had the Vols on a different level. The first one in program history, everyone is once again searching for that high.

A nice run to the Super Regionals took place before running into another SEC opponent. Arkansas took down Tennessee for their own trip to the College World Series. Not many Super Regionals were as competitive as that one, even if the Razorbacks advanced in two games.

Vitello is now working to build a squad capable of competing in the SEC. Performing well in the league is usually a good indicator for how well the postseason will fare. But as usual, roster management can be a difficult task, even for players presumably locked up.