March Madness is in full swing with tipoff of the NCAA men's basketball tournament
• 16 games: There are plenty of upsets and buzzer-beaters on tap in one of the highlights of the sporting calendar.
• Top seeds in action: The tournament's top-seeded team, Auburn, plays Alabama State at 2:50 p.m. on CBS. Just an hour before that, at 2 p.m., Midwest region No. 1 seed Houston plays Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.
• Watch on TNT, TBS, truTV and CBS: The first game tips off at 12:15 p.m. ET and games will be rolling all afternoon and deep into the night.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Does Auburn have the right to claim additional national championships?
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton discuss if Auburn has a legitimate claim to the four additional national championships they recently added to their football resume. View more Video Transcript Auburn has officially claimed four more college football national championships, adding 1910, 1914, 1958, and 2004, wild to me. I'll use 2004 as a note because most of us listening and watching don't remember 1910, 1914, and probably 1958. But in 2004 it was a riveting year. I am the old person on this show. Uh, Auburn finished number two that year. They did not play in the BCS championship game, but they finished number two that year, but the number one title went to USC. Uh, that title was vacated by the NCAA because of the Reggie Bush situation, and all of a sudden you end up with Auburn saying, well, we finished number two, therefore we shall claim a title. I'm stunned, Caroline, to see this from a program like Auburn. Um, I actually recently just claimed a Miss America title and an Olympic gold medal. So that is how you may now introduce me every time we open up the show. Thank you so much. It was really so much hard work, and I'm really but that's how silly you sound, Auburn. And that's my biggest thing here: we are talking about Auburn football with a storied history, with a long history of greatness and championships, SEC championships. We are talking about one of the most reputable programs in the entire country. You're better than this. You are better, Auburn, than UCF-ing your way into more national championships. And of course I'm talking about UCF, who just claimed a national championship because they had an undefeated regular season but didn't get into the college football playoffs. Like these are make-believe fairy tale national championships. You don't get to just wake up one day and say, I feel like having four. More national championships today. That's not how this works. Now in 2004, obviously USC had to vacate that national championship. They beat Oklahoma in the national championship that year. But just because that win is vacated does not mean it's up for grabs. It doesn't mean that you can just say all of a sudden you want it. Uh, look, at the end of the day, Auburn has made themselves a laughingstock right now and if you're an Auburn fan, you can't even fight that. Like now you're in the same conversation as UCF. Good God. Like this is not, you can't give yourself a nickname in life. You, you're not allowed to give yourself a nickname. You can't walk into a gym, tell everybody, hey, I haven't decided what like people have to give you a nickname. You also can't give yourself a national championship. There is a process here if they really think because the title was vacated, that they should be named the champion, then I think they should go to the NCAA and see if the NCAA wanted to name them. If the NCAA had come out and said, you know what, because of the vacation of the 2004 national championship, we're going to, we're going to now give that to Auburn. Like in the Olympics, if somebody loses a gold, they have the right to go out and then give that gold to the silver. They could, they could do all these things. Fine. If the NCAA come out yesterday and said we're giving Auburn the 2004 NCAA championship, we would have laughed, but we would have laughed at the NCAA. Instead, we're laughing at Auburn, and this is the sort of thing you don't do when you're a serious. Close
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold named to Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award watch list
Jackson Arnold has been added to another preseason watch list. The 2025 Auburn Tigers have the talent to be a good team this season. This is especially the case when it comes to the offensive side of the football. Hugh Freeze and staff have assembled one of the best groups of receivers in college football. Additionally, the offensive line should be much better than it has been all season. With that said, the success of this offense will largely depend on quarterback Jackson Arnold. He does not have to be great, but just good, for this team to be successful. The talent is there for Arnold to succeed. That is why he has been named to the Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award watch list. This is an award given to the best offensive player in college football. It is also tied to being from the state of Texas. Arnold was one of the best high school football prospects to come out of the state. As part of the 2023 recruiting class, Arnold was rated as the No. 2 player in Texas by 247Sports before committing to Oklahoma. Nationally, he was rated as the No. 4 quarterback and No. 8 player. There was a lot of excitement for Arnold when the 2024 season started for the Sooners. He showed his potential in Oklahoma's Alamo Bowl loss to Arizona. In the 38-24 defeat, he threw for 361 yards and two touchdowns. Last season did not go well for Arnold, but that cannot all be placed on his shoulders. Due to the injuries at wide receiver and the lack of a good offensive line, he struggled. A fresh start at Auburn could result in Arnold showing the potential he had as a Texas high school football player. Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Phillip on Twitter @PJordanSports
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
3 things to know about the Big 12: Who will emerge from college football's most wide-open conference?
We saw last year why winning your conference is so important in the 12-team College Football Playoff era. Which team will do it in the Big 12 in 2025? There is no significant favorite; the conference is up for grabs and anybody's to win. In 2024, the top four conference champions got first-round byes. This year, the top four teams in the final set of rankings will be the top four seeds. If a conference champion finishes at No. 7 in the rankings, that team will be the No. 7 seed. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] With the 2025 season quickly approaching, here's our look at the Big 12. The conference title game's participants could once again be decided by tiebreakers. Big 12 championship odds Texas Tech (+550) Utah (+550) Kansas State (+600) Arizona State (+600) Baylor (+650) TCU (+800) Iowa State (12-1) Kansas (16-1) BYU (20-1) Colorado (22-1) Cincinnati (35-1) Houston (35-1) West Virginia (40-1) Arizona (40-1) Oklahoma State (50-1) UCF (60-1) How many teams are contenders for the league title? The Big 12 looks to be the most unpredictable conference in the country. According to the odds, there are six teams with legitimate shots to win the conference title. That number would be at least seven if it weren't for Jake Retzlaff's departure from BYU for honor code violations. With Retzlaff in the fold, the Cougars were among the favorites. Don't write off Iowa State, either. The Cyclones need to replace two NFL Draft picks at wide receiver in Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, but QB Rocco Becht is back along with RBs Carson Hansen and Abu Sama. Texas Tech is atop the list of favorites — if only slightly — thanks to the transfer portal additions the team made during the offseason. But the Red Raiders have already suffered a significant injury with USC transfer RB Quinten Joyner's ACL tear. He'll miss the 2025 season. If Texas Tech really is going to contend for the conference title, the improvements need to come on defense. That's where the Red Raiders loaded up in the offseason, too. Tech gave up nearly 35 points per game in 2024 and could have a starting defensive line made up entirely of transfers. The secondary added Brice Pollock from Mississippi State and former FCS All-American Cole Wisniewski from North Dakota State. Utah's defense should be ol' reliable once again and the Utes are hoping a steady hand at quarterback will get them back into the conference title race. The Utes were the preseason favorites in 2024, but porous QB play after Cam Rising's Week 2 injury doomed Utah's chances. The team added former New Mexico QB Devon Dampier in the transfer portal; he threw for over 2,000 yards and rushed for over 1,000 in 2024. Kansas State QB Avery Johnson is a sleeper Heisman candidate if he can take another step forward in the pass game. Johnson rushed for 605 yards in 2024 and leading receiver Jayce Brown (47 catches for 823 yards) also returns. The defense brings back leading tacklers Austin Romaine and VJ Payne. Before a loss to LSU in the Texas Bowl, Baylor was one of the hottest teams in college football. The Bears won their final six regular-season games after a 2-4 start. Sawyer Robertson emerged as a solid starting QB with over 3,000 yards and 28 TDs. The Bears should take care of business against Auburn at home in Week 1. The defending Big 12 champion Sun Devils were projected to finish last in the conference in 2024. Though the Big 12 didn't officially say why, it's reasonable to assume that preseason poll miss is a big reason why the conference didn't have a preseason media poll ahead of the 2025 season. QB Sam Leavitt and WR Jordyn Tyson return for ASU as former Army RB Kanye Udoh is in line to replace Cam Skattebo. They're different types of running backs, but Udoh rushed for over 1,100 yards in 2024. TCU has a chance to make a statement in front of a big audience to cap off Week 1. The Horned Frogs head to Chapel Hill on Labor Day in Bill Belichick's first game as North Carolina coach. TCU also has its annual rivalry game vs. SMU and has road games at ASU, Kansas State and BYU. What will Colorado look like? It's a season of adjustment for Deion Sanders in Boulder. The Pro Football Hall of Fame member revealed over the summer that he had his bladder removed after he was diagnosed with cancer. Sanders detailed how he's getting used to life with a new bladder and was candid about his recovery process. He told fans not to be surprised if they saw a portable toilet on the Colorado sidelines during games. The Buffaloes took a huge step forward in 2024 as Travis Hunter won the Heisman Trophy and Shedeur Sanders threw for over 4,000 yards. Both players are now in the NFL as the Buffaloes also need to replace three other leading receivers outside of Hunter. The QB competition is between freshman Julian Lewis and Liberty transfer Kaidon Salter. Lewis enrolled early at Colorado and was on the sidelines for the Alamo Bowl. Salter had a rough 2024 season, but starred in 2023 as Liberty went undefeated before losing to Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl. No matter who is officially named the starter, we're going to bet that both get significant playing time in 2025. Either way, Colorado still needs to figure out a run game that's been horrific throughout Sanders' first two seasons. Colorado averaged 2.5 yards a carry last season after averaging 2.3 yards a carry in 2023. Yes, those numbers are influenced by Shedeur Sanders' minus-50 rushing yards thanks to sacks, but even without the sacks, you can't call Colorado's run game anything other than 'bad.' Left tackle Jordan Seaton can be a star, but he can't play all five positions himself. The Buffaloes are hoping that more transfer additions will bolster the line. Familiar coaches return West Virginia and UCF have long odds to win the conference titles as former coaches are back at their old jobs. Rich Rodriguez returned to the Mountaineers after a stint at Jacksonville State and has talked a lot about TikTok this offseason. TikTok first became available nine years after Rodriguez's last season at WVU in 2007. Scott Frost, meanwhile, did coach UCF in the TikTok era. He's back in Orlando after the Knights went undefeated in 2017 on his watch. Frost has publicly lamented his return to Nebraska — where the Cornhuskers never went above .500 — and we're going to go out on a limb and say that his second stint at UCF will be slightly more successful. Despite their conference title odds, UCF has a decent chance at making a bowl game thanks to a favorable schedule. UCF avoids Utah, Arizona State and Iowa State in conference play and has a feasible path to six wins despite all the roster turnover after Gus Malzahn left for Florida State. Oklahoma State still has a familiar face in charge as Mike Gundy enters his 21st season. The Cowboys went 0-9 in Big 12 play in 2024 and Gundy's contract was restructured at the end of the season. Is 2025 a make-or-break year? Oklahoma State has shown the ability to come out of nowhere to be a player in the Big 12 in seasons with little or no expectations. The Cowboys have new coordinators on each side of the ball, will have a new starting QB, starting RB and no receiver on the roster with more than 12 catches in 2024.
