Live updates: Big day of recruiting news begins with Canes commitment from standout corner
We've launched a live blog, and keep checking back for updates:
1:35 pm news: Four-star cornerback Brody Jennings flipped his commitment from Michigan to Miami.
Florida, Auburn and FSU also pursued him.
The 6-1 cornerback from Mandarin High in Jacksonville had been committed to Michigan since last year.
247 Sports ranks him the 24th cornerback and 277th best player in the 2026 class.
On3.com ranks him the 29th best cornerback.
He joins Charlotte-based Camdin Portis, Georgia-based Jonatavious Wyman and Seffner Armwood's Jaelan Water's as 2026 UM cornerback commitments.
He's UM's 19th commitment in a class that's rated sixth by 247 Sports.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Michigan-Ohio State, diminished? No, college football's No. 1 rivalry is as bitter as ever
Editor's note: All week, The Athletic is writing about college football rivalries at a moment of change in the sport. Read our ranking of the top 100 rivalries here and also vote for your favorites. In 1835, armed militias gathered for a tense standoff along a contested piece of land known as the Toledo Strip. At stake was the city of Toledo and a stretch of the Maumee River, a crucial shipping channel claimed by Ohio and the soon-to-be state of Michigan. Advertisement The buildup was worse than the war, which was resolved after a few gunshots and no fatalities. Ohio got the Toledo Strip, and the new state of Michigan got land in the Upper Peninsula. They did not live happily ever after. Almost 200 years later, the Michigan-Ohio War is still an apt origin story for the college football rivalry it inspired. The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry involves lots of shouting, shoving and posturing but little actual violence — except on the football field, where it remains the most intense 60 minutes of the regular season. The victors gloat, the losers seethe and neither side gives an inch. 'It's almost like two different political parties,' said Quinten Johnson, a safety who played at Michigan from 2019 to 2024. 'They're finding ways on both sides to make sure the other side can't operate. The fan bases on both sides are finding little ways to nitpick each other or diminish each other. It is a true, natural hatred.' Though Michigan-Ohio State doesn't seem to be losing any of its intensity, the rivalry isn't immune from the broader forces of change in college football. Last season, for the first time in the history of the rivalry, the loser of The Game went on to win a national championship thanks to Ohio State's run through the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. Jack Sawyer, the Ohio State defensive end who was in the middle of the postgame fracas after Michigan's stunning win in Columbus, said it would be 'crazy' to place the outcome of the rivalry game ahead of winning a national championship. 'In a perfect world, you'd do both of those things,' Sawyer, a fourth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, said on a podcast hosted by former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. 'Obviously, we didn't. Winning a national championship kind of erases all that. For me, it does, at least.' Michigan's upset victory, the brawl that ensued and Ohio State's run to the national championship started a debate that's likely to keep fans of both programs occupied for years to come. In the new era of college football, which matters more: a national championship or a win against your rival? For Michigan and Ohio State, this is the first time it's ever been a choice. While it's easy to say that a national championship trumps everything, winning the rivalry game was always the crucial step that kept both sides scheming 365 days a year. Now that the pathways to a national championship have expanded, fans and players have to assess what the rivalry means and doesn't mean. Advertisement 'Obviously, the ultimate goal is to win the national championship,' said Big Ten Network analyst Jake Butt, an All-America tight end at Michigan in 2015 and 2016. 'You want to prove that you're the best program in all of college football, but this is still the greatest rivalry in college football and one of the great rivalries in all of sports. To say that game doesn't matter because you won a national championship is a lie. That's just not true.' Anything that minimizes the outcome of The Game is bound to be controversial for two fan bases that devote so much of their energy to despising one another. On a summer day in Ann Arbor, you can walk past Michigan Stadium and see the words 'What are you doing to beat Ohio State today?' displayed on the video board. Michigan has a sign prohibiting visitors from wearing red at Schembechler Hall, and Ohio State fans spend the week leading up to The Game crossing out the letter 'M' on campus signage and even the parts of town surrounding campus. The two cities even go back and forth with jabs on billboards across town. Last November, hours before the game in Columbus, an electronic sign over the Columbus highways alluded to the Connor Stalions saga by saying, 'A signal you can't steal: Your turn signal.' 'People still look at that game as life or death,' said Tyvis Powell, a safety who played at Ohio State from 2013-15. 'It has softened a little bit, but the bragging rights mean a lot. Even last year's team, you see the rings, and if you go look under all those social media posts, you see Michigan fans saying, 'But where are their gold pants at?' You don't want to deal with that.' The year-round obsession is what separates Michigan-Ohio State from rivalries in American professional sports. In pro sports, even the best rivalries play second fiddle to the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final. While college football's postseason format is always changing, the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is the thread that connects the biggest moments in both programs' histories. Advertisement And it's that history that makes the rivalry special. 'To have a great rivalry you have to have back and forth and there always has to have something on the line, but then when you get to a point where you know an underdog has taken something from the favorite in a year, that's when it heats up,' said Bobby Carpenter, who played at Ohio State from 2002-05. 'You do that over years and decades and then one day you wake up and it's been 50 or 60 years, and in this case, it's over 100 years. … That's when you throw the records out the window. It starts like that, and then eventually there's a hatred that exists between the two teams that only time can replicate.' The 1970s produced the 10-Year War between Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes, with two programs combining to appear in 13 consecutive Rose Bowls. After the 1973 game ended in a 10-10 tie, the Big Ten athletic directors made a controversial choice to award the league's only postseason bid to Ohio State. (The Big Ten didn't allow multiple teams to play in bowl games until 1975.) At Ohio State, the words 'John Cooper' are synonymous with struggles against Michigan during the 1990s. The 2000s produced the Game of the Century — No. 1 Ohio State against No. 2 Michigan in 2006 — and a decisive swing toward the Buckeyes under Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer. Jim Harbaugh's tenure at Michigan can be divided into two eras: the soul-crushing losses to Ohio State and the three consecutive victories that heralded Michigan's return as a national power. The 2022 season was the first hint of the rivalry's shifting dynamics. Ohio State lost to Michigan to end the regular season but earned a spot in the CFP and came within a last-second field goal of upsetting Georgia in the Peach Bowl. With Michigan losing to TCU in the other CFP semifinal, the possibility of a team losing The Game and going on to win a national championship nearly came to fruition. The 2023 matchup between 11-0 Michigan and 11-0 Ohio State, played with Harbaugh serving the final game of a Big Ten-imposed suspension, may have been the last true winner-take-all showdown in the history of the rivalry. Michigan prevailed 30-24 and went on to claim the CFP championship. Last year's game featured an underachieving Michigan team against an Ohio State team that was built to win it all. The Wolverines pulled off a 13-10 upset and, as they did two years prior, celebrated by planting their flag at midfield in the Horseshoe. The Buckeyes took exception, resulting in a brawl that was broken up by police officers wielding pepper spray. Advertisement Johnson described the brawl as regrettable but also inevitable given how much hatred, pressure and pride get packed into a single game. 'Whenever they come into the Big House or whenever we come over there, you gotta be ready to fight,' Johnson said. 'That's what the whole game is, one big fight. The fight felt like a natural part of the game. Everybody knew where it was going. It's going to be that way every year unless they get, like, 100 policemen to prevent both sides from doing it.' Ohio State's fourth consecutive loss to Michigan was a rock-bottom moment for the Buckeyes and coach Ryan Day. By almost any measure, Day is among the most successful college football coaches of his era. Yet the vitriol directed at Day by a segment of the fan base — what ESPN analyst and former Buckeye quarterback Kirk Herbstreit called the 'lunatic fringe' — forced the Day family to enlist security protection at its home following the Michigan loss. While nobody in college football is condoning that type of reaction from fans, the emotions of losing The Game are what will keep it relevant even in an era when the stakes aren't as high, Carpenter said. 'I was worried college football would lose its fastball, but I will tell you that if you were in Columbus the week after Ohio State lost to Michigan, there was no fastball being lost,' Carpenter said. 'Everybody was furious. It doesn't need to matter as much in the context of your schedule and like if you lose a game, now you're done for the year, but as long as it still emotionally matters, you're fine.' For most of the rivalry's history, that loss to Michigan would have been a season-killer for Ohio State. Instead, the loss galvanized the Buckeyes and fueled their victories against Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame in the first year of the 12-team CFP. Ohio State's run to the national championship produced conflicted feelings on both sides. As much as Michigan fans hated it, some took solace in putting a blemish on Ohio State's otherwise triumphant season. While Ohio State fans and players acknowledged the pain of losing to Michigan, winning a national championship eased the sting, at least for some. Advertisement 'I'm not a sore loser, but I hate losing, and losing to that team up north was pretty crazy,' Ohio State sophomore receiver Jeremiah Smith told The Athletic's Manny Navarro last week. 'In the end, I think it really helped us play the way we did in the playoffs. But I didn't want to go to Ohio State and lose to that team up north. I just hate them. Just something about them. 'For the next two years, I promise you, I will not lose to them. I can't lose to them in the next two years.' In college football's new era, both sides will have to learn to live with some nuance, Butt said. Michigan's win doesn't invalidate Ohio State's national championship, nor does Ohio State's national championship erase the disappointment for Buckeyes seniors who went winless against Michigan in their careers. Both things will always be true. 'The loss to Michigan didn't define their season,' said Butt, a native of Pickerington, Ohio. 'And yet, I know for a fact that those guys are always going to remember the fact that (they) let one slip away and got upset as three-score favorites in their stadium in a game they never should have lost. Those guys are never going to forget this. I know this, because I'm a guy that never beat Ohio State.' In the story of Ohio State's season, the loss to Michigan became the disappointment that fueled the Buckeyes' dominant run through the CFP. For the first time in the history of the rivalry, both sides had to deal with the kind of ambivalent compromise that reflects that spirit of the original Michigan-Ohio War. Ohio State got the national championship. Michigan got bragging rights. As for which side got the better deal, the debate might never end, but the importance of The Game has not lessened at all. 'The only way it could get diminished is if they don't play anymore,' Powell said. 'If one team left the Big Ten, that's the only way this wouldn't be the best rivalry in sports. As long as they continue to play this game, there's nothing that will be better.' (Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; photos: Todd Kirkland, Joe Robbins, Scott W. Grau / Getty Images)
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Bill Belichick's hand-picked QB recruit has the background to thrive under legendary coach
Playing for Bill Belichick might seem like a daunting proposition for a kid still in high school. On one hand, Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history, having won an unprecedented six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. On the other hand, the 73-year-old Belichick's gruff persona, with his monosyllabic utterances at news conferences, has become the stuff of legend. Advertisement Travis Burgess, the 17-year-old son of a retired U.S. Army captain, though, is not your typical high school recruit. 'I know a lot of guys have mixed emotions about Bill Belichick just because they see some of his interviews on the internet, but actually meeting him in person, I got a relationship with him,' said Burgess, a Class of 2026 prospect who committed to North Carolina in May. 'Being able to talk with him and understand him, he is very relatable.' The quarterback from Georgia said it was Belichick who sold him on the Tar Heels and convinced him North Carolina was the program that could best develop his skills. When Coach Belichick calls you answer!OV this weekend see yall at Chapel Hill🐏🐏 #TarHeelNation #GoHeels @UNCFootball @grayson_fb #4theG — Travis Burgess (@TravisBurgess_) May 29, 2025 Burgess and his parents visited Chapel Hill in May and were blown away by Belichick and his staff. Belichick said to Burgess, 'I'm gonna show you why I wanted to recruit you,' and then proceeded to pull up his game film from the 2024 season, when the quarterback led Grayson High School in Loganville to a 7A state title. For an hour, Belichick went through Burgess' plays, asking him why he made this read and why he made that read, but also talked about his progress throughout the 2024 season, his first year as the starting quarterback. The 6-foot-5, 205-pound Burgess threw 24 touchdown passes with just four interceptions and also ran for four more TDs and almost 600 yards. When he committed to UNC in late May — picking the Tar Heels over Auburn, NC State and others — he was ranked as a three-star prospect and the No. 30 quarterback in the country by 247Sports. Now, after an impressive week at the Elite 11 Finals in June, he is a four-star and ranked No. 16 among QBs. Advertisement 'He really stood out,' said Elite 11 coach Justin Hoover, who has trained several NFL quarterbacks. 'He was a big riser for me.' The recruiting process, especially the part connected to the online rankings, can be frustrating for many high school prospects. With quarterbacks, it can be even more soul-crushing since there's a domino effect in play, with most colleges only looking to take one QB per class. Being patient can be difficult for many prospects. 'Honestly, for me, it wasn't because I knew that my time was coming,' he said. 'And just like with me not starting till my junior season, once I got the opportunity you could see, I won a state championship. The rankings never really affected me because I knew my time was coming, whether I was a three- or a four-star. And once you get to college, that stuff doesn't matter. It might help as far as popularity or maybe NIL.' He actually received his first offer late in his sophomore year from Arizona State. 'They were able to see a little bit of JV film, but they took a chance on me,' he said. In addition to leading Grayson to a state championship in football, Burgess also helped the Rams win their first title in basketball. His mom, Jennifer, played basketball at Brewton-Parker University, an NAIA school in Mount Vernon, Ga. 'He gets all his athleticism from his mom,' said Burgess' dad, Harold. Harold, who retired after serving 24 years in the Army, sees Belichick and North Carolina as an ideal fit for his son. 'He's very disciplined,' Harold said. 'He sticks to his routine. Every morning, he does the same routine over and over. Friday nights and Saturday nights, when a lot of his friends are having fun, we're at the house watching film. The next morning, we're getting up, working out. And he's waiting on me in the morning, like, 'Hey dad, let's go!' I think the discipline that he's been around for his entire upbringing will definitely benefit him.' Advertisement The elder Burgess said Travis picked up good habits from being around the military while growing up. But he also credited the culture at Grayson, where he learned the attention to detail required to play the position from JD Davis, the Rams' previous starting quarterback, who recently transferred to Alabama A&M after one season at Western Michigan. As part of his daily routine, Travis will put his phone away for three hours every night to read a book, do homework or watch film, his dad says. 'He sets a goal and he doesn't get distracted,' Harold said. 'Him being around a lot of military people, he's seen how once they have an objective, they try to conquer it. The distractions are minimalized. His ultimate goal is to be in the NFL one day and he knows the little things matter. He's realized that at an early age, it's how you do anything is how you do everything.' The Burgesses have raised their three children (Travis is the oldest) in a very competitive environment. After each of the kids has a sporting event — whether it's a flag football game for Trinity, an eighth grader and the youngest child, or one of Travis' varsity football games — the family will convene in Harold's Dodge Ram 1500 truck and each rate the performance on a scale of 1-10. It's a tradition Travis' mom implemented. 'In the truck, we keep it real,' Harold said, adding that they've given out some 1s in there. The Burgesses grew up as Falcons fans, which meant Belichick spoiled what would've been the greatest day in their team's history when his Patriots rallied from a 28-3 deficit to beat Atlanta in Super Bowl LI in February 2017. The family sees Belichick much differently now that he wears Carolina blue. Travis describes being recruited by Belichick as 'awesome.' Even though Belichick is best known for his defensive acumen — he also won two Super Bowls as the Giants defensive coordinator — his grasp on all aspects of the game will prove to be a great resource for Burgess. After all, Belichick drafted and helped develop Tom Brady from a sixth-rounder into the greatest quarterback in NFL history. Burgess said he's already reaping the benefits of being part of Belichick's program, meeting often with the coach and the rest of the quarterbacks either by Zoom or in person when he visits the campus. Advertisement 'The quarterbacks meet every Wednesday and talk about the game of football,' Burgess said, 'and then they talk about the life of football because there is the physical and the mental, so just being able to sit in there in those meetings with Bill Belichick and the other quarterbacks has been awesome. He could coach any position.' (Photo courtesy of the Burgess family)
Axios
2 hours ago
- Axios
Durham sports startup hits $1B valuation
Teamworks, a Durham-based startup making software for professional and college sports teams, is now valued at $1 billion after raising new money from investors. Why it matters: The valuation would put Teamworks into the Triangle's small club of unicorn startups (startups with valuations of $1 billion or more) and comes at a time when funding rounds have been less plentiful than in recent years. Driving the news: Teamworks unveiled the valuation on Tuesday during a new $235 million funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group. What it does: Founded in downtown Durham by former Duke offensive lineman Zach Maurides, Teamworks runs a software platform that helps sports teams manage their players' schedules, nutrition and even their online brand — a feature that has become popular in the era of NIL. The company says that more than 6,500 sports teams and military organizations worldwide use its software platform, including every NFL team, most Division I college athletic departments and 90% of MLB teams. The goal of the new funding round is to add more artificial intelligence-driven products using the massive amounts of data it has collected on athletes worldwide.
