Former Missouri quarterback Drew Pyne is headed for his fourth Division I school; he told ESPN that he has committed to Bowling Green.

Pyne is 9-3 as a starter over his three previous stops. He started his career at Notre Dame (2020-22) then transferred to Arizona State (2023) before playing at Missouri last year. He returned to Notre Dame for a semester after ASU in order to graduate from the school.

Pyne took a visit over the weekend to Bowling Green and said he has been impressed with new coach Eddie George and the spread offense run by new offensive coordinator Travis Partridge.

“The opportunity to go play for Eddie George, a returning offensive line that’s strong and experienced,” Pyne said. “And a team that’s very good, played in three straight bowl games and can compete for a championship.”

The 24-year-old has two seasons of eligibility remaining. There should be a strong opportunity for him to earn the starting job at Bowling Green, as quarterback Justin Lamson left for Montana State soon after coach Scot Loeffler’s departure for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Pyne said he’s excited about Bowling Green’s style of offense. George and Partridge had a productive spread style coaching at Tennessee State last year. Tennessee State starting quarterback Draylen Ellis finished in the top 15 in the FCS in both passing yards and passing touchdowns.

Pyne noted that Bowling Green played both Penn State and Texas A&M to one-score games last year on its way to a 7-6 season.

“The sell was the team is very gritty, works hard and wants to win games,” he said.

Pyne can’t jump into spring ball, as he already played in the spring at Missouri. He’ll enroll on May 18.

Pyne went 8-2 as a starter at Notre Dame, arriving there as an ESPN 300 recruit. He went to ASU for a year, where he emerged as the favorite to start in camp, but his season got derailed by injuries. He started just one game there, a loss to USC.

Pyne won his lone start at Missouri, throwing the game-tying touchdown pass to Theo Wease Jr. in the final two minutes. Pyne went 14-for-27 for 143 yards and three touchdowns in that game.

When asked what he has learned over his journey, Pyne said: “To persevere and never give up. I’ve never been scared of competition. I’ve always wanted to play ball and lead guys. What I’ve learned is that I love being able to get a group of guys and lead them.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — More than a year after Kalen DeBoer replaced perhaps the greatest coach in college football history, his Alabama players don’t necessarily sense that he’s a different person.

But they sense a subtle difference as the second spring practice under DeBoer winds down this week.

“Coach DeBoer had his battles last year, replacing a legend like Coach [Nick] Saban in the middle of the transfer portal, and it was hard to implement everything the way he wanted,” said linebacker Deontae Lawson, a returning captain.

“It was kind of hard for him to come in and be the bad cop or whatever last year. He’s still laid back and still wants the players to lead, but his fingerprints are on everything now — and he’s made it known that you better be locked in.”

DeBoer flashed an easy smile when told of Lawson’s “bad cop” analogy.

“It was more that we were in retention mode,” DeBoer told ESPN on Monday. “I wouldn’t say we slacked off on any of the things that would be the standard of what we need to do and how you need to operate.

“But I do think there’s another level of an edge, a harder edge.”

The Crimson Tide missed the College Football Playoff in DeBoer’s first season. They finished 9-4 and were plagued with the type of inconsistency that isn’t uncommon when a coach takes over such a high-profile program. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years, lost to rival Tennessee and lost to Michigan in a bowl game, but beat Georgia and LSU.

The most crushing blow for Alabama came in the next-to-last week of the regular season when the Crimson Tide were still in position to make the playoff. They went on the road and were blown out 24-3 by an Oklahoma team that was 5-5 and 1-5 in the conference.

“That’s not the standard here, and we all know it,” Lawson said. “But you go back and look at the way Coach DeBoer handled it. He wasn’t pointing the finger at anybody else. He took it all on himself, and I think what you see now is everybody has bought in. We’re one.”

DeBoer said this season, and the way he has evolved, aren’t unlike his second season at other coaching stops such as Washington and Fresno State.

“Your relationships are deeper,” DeBoer said. “You establish that harder edge because of the understanding of what we need to do to accomplish it, and now we have the experiences for the most part together, the staff and players.

“We’re more comfortable now calling each other out because our relationships are stronger, and we know that we all want the same thing. I feel like now we’re closer to having the alignment between staff and players and having the right people here. Everyone has an appreciation for what each other brings to the table.”

One of the things DeBoer did this offseason was bring back one of his most trusted colleagues, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who was with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks last season. They first coached together in 2007 at Sioux Falls. Grubb was DeBoer’s OC on the 2023 Washington team that lost in the national championship game.

As it happens, Saban, prior to his final season in 2023, tried to hire Grubb as his OC, but the coordinator elected to stay at Washington.

Two of the qualities Grubb hopes to bring to Alabama’s program are consistency and strength.

“You don’t play into the good too much and force yourself through the tough parts,” Grubb said. “Kalen is the same way, keeping it calm when it needs to be calm and being really, really strong when you’ve got to be strong.”

Receiver Germie Bernard, who played under DeBoer and Grubb when they were together at Washington before transferring to Alabama, said they always had answers for everything, no matter what the opposing defense threw at the Huskies.

“And really it’s the belief they instilled in you as a player and the way they played off each other, adding things, tweaking things, playing to what we did best,” Bernard said.

One of the big decisions that still needs to be made on offense won’t be finalized until later this summer. Ty Simpson, Austin Mack and Keelon Russell are competing for the starting quarterback job.

“I think we’ve got three really, really good quarterbacks, and I mean that,” Grubb said. “I don’t think anybody has separated. They’re all playing good, but they’re not playing great yet. You’re looking for the guy that’s going to be consistent, that can show up the same and make the same plays all the time.”

In an ideal world, Grubb would like to know who his quarterback is heading into the summer.

“But I wasn’t expecting that either. I wasn’t going into this thinking, ‘Oh, I bet by practice 11 this will be done,'” Grubb said. “I didn’t think that at all, and I didn’t think that because I thought all three of them were good players.”

Grubb said that the staff has charted every throw this spring and that Mack (162 reps) and Simpson (158 reps) have received most of the work in team drills.

At Washington, the coaching staff didn’t name a starter until Week 2 of preseason camp when Michael Penix Jr., a transfer from Indiana, beat out incumbent Dylan Morris.

“That was a little bit different than our situation here,” Grubb said. “Mike had started a lot of games. Dylan had started games. We had two guys that had Power 5 starting experience. So, yes, you would have loved for this guy to have grabbed it and run with it, but we’re just not there yet.”

SAN DIEGO — Cedric Dempsey, the former NCAA president who helped turn Arizona into a national power as athletic director before leading the national organization through key years of transition and growth, died Saturday in San Diego, the NCAA said. He was 92.

Dempsey was revered as an administrator on campus. His nine-year tenure as the NCAA’s leader included moving its headquarters and significant fiscal growth for the organization, including landmark television deals worth billions.

“Ced was instrumental in shaping the NCAA as it moved into the new century, overseeing a restructuring of the organization, and strengthening the foundation of college sports for years that followed his tenure,” current NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement released by the organization.

“His impact on the lives of student-athletes and administrators across the nation will be felt for years to come,” Baker said.

Dempsey oversaw the organization’s move from the Kansas City suburbs to Indianapolis in 1999 and helped reimagine how the governing body could work best in the 21st Century.

His most enduring legacy may be the role he played in creating television deals with ESPN and CBS that brought in $6.2 billion over an 11-year span.

Dempsey charmed his way through it all with a smile and wit that was lauded throughout the headquarters and the college sports world.

“Twenty-one years ago, Cedric painted a picture for me that I could one day be an athletic director,” current Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois said in a statement. “His guidance helped me see a calling I never knew could be possible. I am forever grateful for the impact he had on the trajectory of my career and on my life as a whole. He will be deeply missed by our family and by everyone in the University of Arizona community.”

Reed-Francois first met Dempsey when she was serving as an associate athletic director for Compliance and as the Senior Woman Administrator at Fresno State.

Dempsey’s hires in Tucson included coaches such as Lute Olson and Dick Tomey, who became iconic figures for Wildcats fans. During his 11-year tenure, Arizona State teams won five national team championships, 39 individual NCAA titles and 17 Pac-10 crowns.

He also served as the men’s basketball selection committee chairman in 1988-89.

Dempsey grew up in Equality, Illinois, and went on to play football, basketball and baseball at Albion College in Michigan. From 1959-62, he served as the men’s basketball and cross country coach at his alma mater before stepping back in 1963 to become an assistant basketball coach.

In 1965, he started a 46-year career in administration by becoming an associate athletic director also at Albion. He left there to be the athletic director at Pacific in California, before stints at San Diego State and Houston before moving to Arizona in 1983.

Dempsey left Arizona in 1994 to become the sixth executive director/president in NCAA history, and it was there he became a national figure.

“I think the NCAA is where it is today because of Ced,” former NCAA executive committee chairman Bob Lawless said when Dempsey announced he was retiring in January 2002. “He has been a real treasure for the NCAA.”

He also served as commissioner of the All-American Football League from 2007-10 and battled cancer three times. Dempsey is a member of multiple Halls of Fame and is survived by his wife, June, and two children.