Will Auburn’s big gamble on Hugh Freeze pay off?
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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn coach Hugh Freeze spoke from the front of the team meeting room before a practice this spring — his hands tucked in his orange mesh shorts pockets, pacing back and forth, his voice rising as he became more animated.
“There are five schools that have played for two national championships in the past 12 years,” he told the entire team and staff seated in the stuffy auditorium. “Five. FIVE in the country.”
He held up his left hand to show his fingers.
“FIVE,” he repeated, almost yelling now. “FIVE. And you sit in a team meeting room of one of those five schools. So some have come before you that had vision. Coaches have gone before me that have vision. Coaches and players have proven that this program can have a vision and accomplish something special. And it can be done again, but it’s going to take a culture change from what it’s been. I’m not pointing blame at anyone. I don’t know. But I still see signs of it. I can’t handle that. We must own it.”
Freeze, who was one of the most controversial hires of the offseason because of his own troubled past, is already knee-deep in trying to pull Auburn out of its own muck. Former coach Bryan Harsin didn’t last two seasons, earning him the dubious distinction of becoming the program’s shortest-tenured head coach in the past 93 years. Auburn — a program that has won five national titles but none since 2010 — was losing on the field and off it, as Harsin went 9-12 and was the focus of a weeklong university investigation into his treatment of players and staff.
Auburn and new athletic director John Cohen took a public relations gamble by hiring Freeze, whose rapid success at Ole Miss — which included beating Alabama and Nick Saban twice — was overshadowed by NCAA recruiting violations and phone calls to an escort service, which ultimately led to Freeze resigning in 2017. While coaching at Liberty in 2022, Freeze was again mired in controversy when he used Twitter to send direct messages to a sexual assault survivor who sued the university for mishandling her case and won.
Freeze said he tried for two years to fight the public backlash that accompanied the Ole Miss scandals, but realized “it just made it worse.”
“You can’t fight it because I created it,” he said.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, raising his right hand to concede guilt. “I did, but that’s not who I am. I think you can ask anybody who truly knows me and has been around me and they would say that.”
There’s no sugarcoating what a polarizing man Freeze has become in the sport. Some are aghast at the fact he’s returned to the highest level of collegiate coaching — in the same SEC West division he left in disgrace — while others have embraced his return and accepted his mistakes, eager to see if he has changed, and if he can change Auburn.
The 53-year-old Freeze will be judged at Auburn not only by how much he wins, but also how he does it. Freeze has had a blueprint for winning everywhere he’s been, but he’s never coached at a place like this at a time like this. Even on a good day, Auburn is one of the most difficult coaching jobs in the country — a pressure-packed position that’s highly scrutinized by its overzealous fan base and meddling boosters. The challenge is further exacerbated by sheer geography, which has the Alabama dynasty to the north and back-to-back national title winner Georgia to the East. Those at Auburn candidly warn the rebuild will take time following the school’s first back-to-back losing seasons since 1998 and 1999.
This is where Freeze’s story begins this spring, in the team meeting room, with everyone trying to follow the theme on the screen at the front of the room, “Flip the Script,” including the coach himself.
“WHAT IN YOUR life are you experiencing today because of the vision of someone else?” Freeze asked the roomful of players and coaches staring back at him in the meeting room.
Silence.
“Because of what someone else did for you?”
Silence.
“C’mon, somebody.”
Silence.
“We’re gonna be late to practice,” he said. “But we’re going to learn as a program to communicate.”
It’s one of the first steps, but that’s where Auburn is right now — starting from scratch while simultaneously burdened by the weight of its own history. Auburn has a new university president in Chris Roberts, who was hired in February 2022. A new athletic director in John Cohen, who was hired in November. A new $92 million facility that covers 12 acres. And Freeze, who is being paid $6.5 million to resurrect a program that for years couldn’t get out of its own way.
Two years ago, Auburn opted to pay a $21.7 million buyout to fire coach Gus Malzahn, who went 68-34 in eight seasons. It cost the school a total of $15.5 million in buyout money to fire Harsin, who was a peculiar choice to begin with, having spent nearly his entire playing and coaching career in Idaho. According to an ESPN investigative report, Auburn paid out $31.2 million in dead money between Jan. 1, 2010 and Jan. 31, 2021 — more than any other school — and that didn’t include Harsin’s payment. The persuasive power and deep pockets of the program’s boosters have influenced the trajectory of the program — “absolutely something” Freeze was aware of and weighed on his mind when he was offered the job.
“When you take a job like this, you have to get in who really matters,” Freeze said, “and the boosters do matter, but I can’t be swayed or distracted by their opinions or their expectations. I have to stay within the walls of this building.”
Throughout the 233,428-square-foot Woltosz Football Performance Center that formally opened in January are trophies and jerseys from the program’s NFL draft picks, constant reminders of what the Tigers are playing for. Auburn has won three SEC West titles, two SEC championships and played for the national title twice over the past 12 seasons.
There is no Cam Newton, though, on this roster.
Evaluating, developing and retaining talent has fallen far below the program’s standards. During a recruiting cycle that was disrupted by uncertainty surrounding Harsin’s future, Auburn signed only five ESPN 300 recruits in its 2022 class. By comparison, Alabama brought in 19 in the same class, Georgia added 16, and Texas A&M topped them all with 24. From Jan. 4, 2021 to now, a whopping 67 Auburn players entered the transfer portal. Forty-one left Georgia during that same span.
Freeze said the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes will be critical to the program’s ability to close the gap with Alabama and Georgia.
“If we’re not in that top-10 range, they’ll probably be firing me in Year 4 or Year 5,” he said with a half-laugh, “but you know that coming in. … The administration, John Cohen has been awesome, President Roberts, I think everybody knows they’ve gotta give us a chance to get a couple top classes in here. If we don’t do that, and are able to still win it, it would be a miracle.”
Cohen said he understands it will take some time. Patience hasn’t been a part of Auburn’s recent history, though, as the previous administration was quick to move on from Harsin after a 9-12 record in just under two seasons.
“I absolutely understand the fact that our improvement is going to come in increments,” Cohen said, “and I believe we’re going to get there, but I think Hugh totally agrees with the fact that’s our goal — incremental improvement every day, every month, and if we do that, we know it’s going to show up on the football field.”
Freeze said he’s getting the right players on campus, and there’s evidence, as he has flipped several ESPN 300 prospects to commit in the No. 20 incoming freshman class according to ESPN. He’s also brought in the No. 7 incoming transfer class according to ESPN.
It has to be even better, though, to beat Alabama and Georgia.
“How anybody really closes it on those two, the challenge is tall,” Freeze said.
Freeze has been at Auburn for about six months. As new as it is, it’s also somewhat familiar, as Freeze has been hired to reconstruct programs before, dating back to 2008-2009 at “little ole’ Lambuth,” where he won 20 games in two years and elevated the program to unprecedented heights.
Then he took over at Arkansas State, which never had a winning season since entering the FBS. Freeze won 10 games and the Sun Belt there. When he was hired at Ole Miss, the Rebels hadn’t won an SEC game in two years. In his first season, Ole Miss won seven games and went to a bowl game. At Liberty, which transitioned from FCS to FBS, Freeze directed the Flames to at least eight wins and a bowl game every season.
Freeze said it’s hard to pinpoint one thing beyond recruiting that correlated to his success at each stop (among the names he signed at Ole Miss was future Seattle Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf), but it began with “a culture that breeds confidence” and extracting the most out of the players they have. Schematically, his tempo run-pass option (RPO) offense “has been a big part of” his past 10-win seasons, which at times has overshadowed strong defenses. When Freeze was first hired at Ole Miss, the RPO concepts he had implemented were fairly new, but he conceded “people have kind of caught up with that now some.”
“I’ve done them all the exact same way,” he said, “and to this point — to this point — this has worked for me. Will it here? Which is a taller task than you would argue the other four? It’s the only way I know to do it. So we’re gonna find out.”
2:32
Doering says Auburn QB battle has long way to go
After attending the Tigers’ spring game, SEC Network analyst Chris Doering joins “The Paul Finebaum Show” and says new coach Hugh Freeze is not set on a starting QB.
FOLLOWING THE TEAM meeting this spring, the Auburn Tigers filed out to practice, where improvements and inconsistencies played out in real time.
One of the tight ends was hit in the numbers and dropped the ball near the sideline. Another receiver dropped a ball. Two quarterbacks who are relatively unknown nationally — sophomore Robby Ashford (nine starts) and junior T.J. Finley (three starts and has since entered the transfer portal) were competing for the starting job, along with redshirt freshman Holden Geriner. Freeze said the competition is wide open, and he probably won’t name a starter until the summer, when Michigan State transfer Payton Thorne will join the competition.
Auburn’s passing game struggled mightily last year, ranking No. 119 in the country with 172.7 yards per game. Auburn was also No. 101 in first downs per game, and No. 98 in third down conversion percentage. Freeze isn’t going to change his high-tempo, RPO-driven offense, but he’s surrendering control of it to coordinator Philip Montgomery, who spent the past eight seasons as Tulsa’s head coach.
“Both of us want to be on the same page, and open and honest about how we’re approaching it,” Montgomery said. “The point that we got to was, he was bringing me here to be the playcaller, but also he’s always got an influence and a trump card and if there’s something he wants to run, that’s what we’re going to do. Understanding this is the first time he’s relinquished some of those duties, and that’s hard.”
Prior to taking over at Tulsa, Montgomery had Baylor’s offense flying as the Bears’ offensive coordinator. During his three seasons (2012-2014) in Waco, they averaged almost 600 yards and 50 points per game.
Defensively, Auburn has been average or subpar in most categories, a far cry from the elite level needed to win the SEC. Ron Roberts, who was the defensive coordinator at Baylor the past three seasons, took the same position at Auburn in mid-December. The 2021 Bears defense led the conference in interceptions (19), turnovers gained (27) and defensive touchdowns (three). Baylor also finished second in the Big 12 in run defense (118.4 yards per game) and scoring defense (18.3 points per game).
Auburn needed an upgrade in every one of those categories.
“If we can get in that top 10 coming out of the gate great, but the expectation is we’re at Auburn, and we need to be top 20 in the country in defense every year, and if we’re not, then we’re underachieving,” Roberts said, “so I gotta find a way to get that done.”
Freeze has experience returning to his roster. According to ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Tigers return the third-most production in the SEC, including the top three players in receiving yards (Ja’Varrius Johnson, Koy Moore and Jarquez Hunter), and two of the three 500-yard rushers (Ashford and Hunter). Auburn also returns two players with at least 50 tackles in Cam Riley (65) and Keionte Scott (53).
Tight end Luke Deal sees a solution for a team that finished 2-6 in the SEC last season, but became more competitive in the final third of the year.
“It’s just consistency,” Deal said. “If you if you watched last year, if you watch that team, toward the end of the season, completely different ballclub and we bring that same energy earlier in the season, who knows?”
MUCH LIKE THE program he has taken over, Freeze can’t escape his past. While he desperately wants to move forward, he also uses his past transgressions as open lessons with his team.
Freeze said he’s “so sick of rehashing it,” but it’s also “the facts.”
“It’s made me better,” he said. “It’s made my wife and I better, it’s made you know, everybody around me better. I think it made me a better coach because I share the real life examples with our players and let me tell you when Coach got it wrong. Let me tell you when he got it right. Let me tell you why.”
In the span of seven years, Freeze ascended from a high school coach in Tennessee to a successful SEC West coach, where he took the Rebels to their first Sugar Bowl in 45 years. He said he “was obviously not mature enough to handle everything that came at me.”
Now he gets another shot at the big time. In some ways — from meddling boosters to the specter of the Alabama and Georgia dynasties — it will be his most difficult job yet. But with that comes a huge opportunity.
“We just always felt like this is a place that you can win big, yet they haven’t done it,” Freeze said. “I’ve got a few years left in me before I say I’ve had enough, truthfully. I don’t want to do this until I’m 75 like my buddy Nick [Saban]. … I just think for the years I have left I want the challenge of it.”
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Chris Low
In every sport, there are hallowed records, dubious records and records that are seemingly unbreakable.
College football has evolved greatly over the years — everything from rules changes and style of play to the number of games in a season — but there are some records and accomplishments that have stood the test of time.
Some good, some not so good.
We’ve examined the past 75 years in college football, tracing back to the 1950 season, and have ranked the 10 most “unbreakable” records in the sport, listing them in order of least likely to be topped. We also dug up some of the more obscure accomplishments (and failures) during that period.
Again, we’re only considering play since 1950, so iconic records such as Tennessee going the entire 1939 regular season unbeaten, untied and unscored upon under then-Major Robert Neyland, or Georgia Tech’s 222-point margin of victory over Cumberland in 1916 are not on our list.
Undoubtedly, you’ll let us know if we missed anything.
1. Oklahoma’s 47-game winning streak
When surveying the most dominant college football machines in history, the conversation begins and ends with the Bud Wilkinson-led Oklahoma teams of the 1950s. The Sooners bulldozed their way to 47 consecutive wins, a streak that began in 1953 and lasted most of five seasons, producing back-to-back national championships in 1955 and 1956. Oklahoma held its opponents to single digits in 35 of the 47 wins and recorded 22 shutouts.
Unranked Notre Dame, a 19-point underdog, ended the streak on Nov. 16, 1957, with a 7-0 victory in Norman. The Irish scored the winning touchdown inside the final four minutes on a fourth-and-goal play from the 3-yard line, then intercepted a pass in their own end zone in the final seconds to seal the upset, leaving the home crowd stunned. Many of the fans sat in the stands for nearly 30 minutes trying to process the unthinkable — an OU loss.
Nearly 70 years later, nobody has come close to that streak. Toledo won 35 straight from 1969 to 1971. Miami (2000-02) and USC (2003-05) each won 34 in a row. Even those star-studded Georgia teams under Kirby Smart failed to seriously challenge the mark. The Bulldogs won 29 in a row during their run to back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022.
With the College Football Playoff era upon us and teams having to play as many as four postseason games to win the national title, not to mention conference championship games, it’s difficult to imagine a team going what would amount to three straight seasons unscathed. This is a record teams will be chasing for a long time, maybe forever.
2. Barry Sanders’ magical season
One of the most electrifying players in the history of the sport, Barry Sanders put up dizzying numbers in 1988, his junior season at Oklahoma State.
Yes, his single-season NCAA record of 2,628 rushing yards was challenged last season by Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty (2,601 yards), but there’s a catch. Sanders’ total came in just 11 games, while Jeanty played in 14. What’s more, bowl statistics didn’t count when Sanders was playing, and he had an additional 222 yards against Wyoming in the Holiday Bowl. So if those yards are added, Sanders’ total jumps to 2,850.
What seems untouchable is Sanders’ NCAA record of 238.9 rushing yards per game. For perspective, Jeanty averaged 185.8 yards last season. In fact, only two other running backs in major college football history have averaged 200 rushing yards per game in a season, USC’s Marcus Allen in 1981 (212.9) and Cornell’s Ed Marinaro (209) in 1971. Sanders had four 300-yard games in 1988, and counting the bowl game, rushed for 43 touchdowns.
3. Florida State’s top-5 finishes
For all the late Bobby Bowden accomplished during his Hall of Fame career, his remarkable consistency could be the most impressive thing. His Florida State teams finished in the top 5 of every final AP poll from 1987 to 2000, an amazing run no matter the era.
Bowden finished his legendary 34-year career at FSU with two national championships (and could have won a few more had it not been for those dreaded missed field goals against Miami), and more importantly, he put Florida State football on the map.
Think about it: Fourteen straight top-5 finishes. Pete Carroll had some dominant teams at USC, and the Trojans’ longest streak was seven straight top-5 finishes (2002-08). The same is true for Oklahoma under Wilkinson (1952-58). And while Alabama won six national titles under Nick Saban, his longest run of top-5 seasons was five in a row (2014-18).
4. Oklahoma’s wishbone onslaught
If an offense is rushing for more than 250 yards per game today (there were four in 2024), that’s considered a punishing running attack. In 1971, with Barry Switzer as offensive coordinator, Oklahoma averaged a staggering 472.4 rushing yards per game.
The Sooners had installed the wishbone the year before, and nobody could slow them down. They averaged 45 points per game and lost only once, to eventual national champion Nebraska 35-31 in what was billed as the “Game of the Century.” Even in that loss, Oklahoma rushed for 279 yards.
The last team to come within 50 yards of the Sooners’ record was the 1987 Oklahoma team, which averaged 428.8 yards per game. No team in the past 30 years has reached even 400 yards. Even triple-option teams haven’t come close. Army was first nationally in rushing last season, averaging 300.5 yards per game.
5. Throwing it to the wrong team
Not all records are enshrined in trophy cases. Florida quarterback John Reaves threw an NCAA-record nine interceptions (on 66 passing attempts) in a 38-12 loss to Auburn in 1969. Reaves was a prolific passer and put up better career numbers than Gators Heisman Trophy winner Steve Spurrier, but Florida’s only loss of the 1969 season was “one of those days.”
When Reaves left Florida in 1971, he was college football’s all-time leading passer with 7,549 yards, and he was selected in the first round of the NFL draft. Reaves died in 2017 at the age of 67. He joked years after that forgettable game that the “safeties were the only guys who were open that day.” In this age of college football, any coach that kept a quarterback in a game long enough to throw nine interceptions probably would be looking for a new job the next week.
6. Derrick Thomas’ sack parade
Derrick Thomas was a generational pass rusher. He once had seven sacks in an NFL game, which is still a record. As a senior linebacker at Alabama in 1988, Thomas gobbled up opposing quarterbacks at an astonishing rate, finishing with 27 sacks (39 tackles for loss) on his way to earning SEC Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Thomas was unblockable that season, but you won’t find his eye-popping numbers in the NCAA record book. At the time, sacks weren’t an official NCAA statistic, meaning Arizona State’s Terrell Suggs has the “official” NCAA sack record with 24 in 2002. While defenders play more games now (Thomas played in 11 games in 1988), no FBS player has reached the 20-sack plateau in the past 20 years. Last season, the FBS sack leader was Marshall’s Mike Green with 17.
Thomas, who finished with 52 career sacks at Alabama, played 11 seasons in the NFL, all with the Kansas City Chiefs. He died in 2000 at the age of 33 following a car accident.
7. Hat trick for Antonio Perkins
If a player returns one kick for a touchdown in a game, he’s probably not going to get a chance to return another one. And if he returns two, the only way he’s going to touch the ball again is after it goes out of bounds. But three punt returns for a touchdown?
Perkins did the unfathomable in 2003 when he became the first player in NCAA history to score on three returns in a game, going 84, 74 and 65 yards, in Oklahoma’s 59-24 rout of UCLA in Norman. So, yes, a valid question is: Why in the name of Boomer Sooner did the Bruins keep kicking to him? Perkins’ final touchdown came with 2:39 to play in the game.
Perkins also broke the NCAA record for punt return yards (277), a mark previously held by the late Golden Richards, who had 219 punt return yards in 1971 against North Texas while playing for BYU. Perkins, a cornerback for Bob Stoops’ OU teams, finished his college career with eight punt returns for touchdowns.
8. Marcus Allen’s amazing run
After coming to USC as a defensive back and playing some as a fullback early in his career, Marcus Allen did things in his 1981 senior year that not even Sanders accomplished in his record-setting 1988 season.
For starters, Allen rushed for more than 200 yards in eight of 11 games (Sanders had seven 200-yard games in ’88) and finished with 2,342 yards on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy. But what really jumps out is that Allen started the season with five straight 200-yard games, a streak that seems surreal 44 years later.
In many ways, Allen is the most accomplished football player ever. He’s the only player to win a national championship, Heisman Trophy, Super Bowl championship, Super Bowl MVP award and NFL MVP award, a distinction that may never be duplicated. He’s also both a Pro Football and College Football Hall of Famer.
9. Patrick Mahomes’ wizardry
Before he started collecting Super Bowl rings with the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes played a starring role in one of the wildest shootouts in college football history. Oklahoma and Baker Mayfield outlasted Texas Tech and Mahomes 66-59 in 2016, an offensive smorgasbord that produced one record after another.
Playing through a separated throwing shoulder and fractured left wrist he suffered in the first half, Mahomes set an FBS record with 819 yards of total offense. He completed 52 of 88 passes for 734 yards and five touchdowns and also rushed for 85 yards and two touchdowns.
Mayfield, who had transferred from Texas Tech to Oklahoma, had the “lesser” of the stats between the two future NFL quarterbacks that day. He threw for only 545 yards and seven touchdowns — but got the win. The teams combined for an FBS-record 1,708 yards of offense. “To have both those guys play the way they did … We’ll never see it again, I don’t think,” said Kliff Kingsbury, who was Texas Tech’s head coach that season.
10. No upsetting Nick Saban
Nick Saban won a slew of games against nationally ranked teams during his career, 104 to be exact, but his streak of beating the teams he was supposed to beat during his 17 seasons at Alabama was unmatched. The Crimson Tide won 100 consecutive games against unranked foes under Saban and went 14 years without losing a game to an unranked opponent, a streak that was snapped by a 41-38 loss to 19-point underdog Texas A&M on Oct. 9, 2021 with a walk-off 28-yard field goal by the Aggies’ Seth Small. It was the longest such streak in the AP poll era, and Saban was 123-4 overall at Alabama against unranked teams.
The A&M game also marked the first time one of Saban’s former assistants (Jimbo Fisher) had beaten him. Saban had been 24-0 against former assistants.
Saban had not lost to an unranked team since his first season at Alabama in 2007, when Louisiana-Monroe upset the Tide 21-14 in Tuscaloosa. The next closest winning streak against unranked teams in the AP poll era (since 1936) is 73 by Florida from 1990 to 2000 under Steve Spurrier. Miami won 72 in a row from 1985 to 1995.
Now that we’ve ranked the top 10, here are some honorable (and dishonorable) mentions:
• Florida has scored in 461 straight games, the longest active streak and the longest in FBS history. The last time the Gators were shut out in a game was on Oct. 29, 1988, a 16-0 loss to Auburn. A distant second is TCU, which has scored in 407 straight games.
• Houston quarterback Andre Ware passed for 517 yards and six touchdowns — all in the first half before sitting out the rest of the game — in a 95-21 battering of NCAA probation-beleaguered SMU in 1989 in the Astrodome. Houston finished with an NCAA-record 1,021 yards of offense. The Mustangs were coming off a two-year NCAA “death penalty” for violating rules and more than half their starters were freshmen. SMU coach Forrest Gregg was furious afterward about Houston running up the score and called it a “sad day for college football.” Houston also was on probation that season and wasn’t allowed to play in a bowl game or appear on live television, but Ware still won the Heisman Trophy.
• Michigan’s Mike Hart had 1,005 consecutive rushing attempts without a losing a fumble from 2004 to 2008. Two of his three career lost fumbles came in his last game, the Capital One Bowl against Florida, which the Wolverines won 41-35.
• Nebraska has sold out every home football game at Memorial Stadium dating back to Nov. 3, 1962, a streak of 403 straight games. The Huskers have suffered through some lean times over the past decade, and while packed stadiums and sellouts aren’t necessarily the same thing, every ticket available to the public has been sold for 60-plus years. Admittedly, Nebraska has been forced to get creative to keep the streak alive, with corporations and donors buying up unused tickets at discount prices. But still… 403 straight sellouts!
• Alabama won a record 27 straight games against SEC opponents from 1976 to 1980, a streak that ended with a 6-3 loss to Mississippi State in Jackson, Mississippi on Nov. 1, 1980. That setback to the Bulldogs was the only loss to an SEC opponent Alabama captains Major Ogilvie and Randy Scott had their entire college careers. The Crimson Tide’s average margin of victory in the streak was 21.6 points, and only three times in 27 games did their opponent score more than 20. Florida won 25 straight against SEC foes under Spurrier from 1994 to 1997.
• East Carolina’s Dominique Davis completed 36 consecutive passes in 2011, completing his last 10 against Memphis and his first 26 the following week against Navy. That broke Aaron Rodgers’ record of 26 in a row in 2004 when Rodgers was at Cal.
• Georgia had an NCAA-record 13 turnovers in a 48-6 loss to rival Georgia Tech and Bobby Dodd in 1951. Zeke Bratkowski threw eight interceptions (in 35 attempts) and the Bulldogs lost five fumbles. Bratkowski still holds the SEC record for career interceptions (68), but as a second-year starter in 1952, he led the nation in passing and earned All-America honors before going on to play for the Green Bay Packers following the 1953 season.
• With Chris Klieman in his third season as coach, North Dakota State allowed just three punt returns in 14 games for a net total of zero yards in 2016. Of North Dakota State’s 61 punts that season, 37 were fair catches.
• Northwestern lost 34 straight games from 1979 to 1982. The closest any school has come to that futility is New Mexico State dropping 27 in a row from 1988 to 1990.
• Vanderbilt went the entire season in 1993 without a single touchdown pass, the last FBS team to do so. The Commodores’ only SEC win that season was 12-7 over Kentucky. They ran the I-bone option offense under Gerry DiNardo and attempted 157 passes with no touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Three different quarterbacks played that season, and the Commodores attempted a total of 17 passes in their four wins.
• Wake Forest’s Nick Sciba holds the NCAA record with 34 consecutive made field goals in the 2018 and 2019 seasons. He made his first 23 attempts in 2019 before missing from 48 yards in the regular-season finale against Syracuse.
• With 6,405 yards in 54 games, San Diego State’s Donnel Pumphrey broke Ron Dayne’s NCAA career rushing record in 2016. Dayne had 6,397 in 43 games at Wisconsin. It’s hard to imagine a player putting up those numbers — and taking the beating a running back does — and staying four years in the current climate of college football to make a run at Pumphrey’s record.
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Adam Rittenberg
CHICAGO — Illinois coach Bret Bielema wants to see the College Football Playoff expand to 16 teams in 2026, but only if all the major conferences, including the SEC, play nine league games per season.
Speaking Tuesday before Illini Night at Wrigley Field, Bielema said the 16-team model doesn’t necessarily need to include four automatic spots for Big Ten teams, as Ohio State coach Ryan Day advocated for earlier this month. But Bielema, who coached in the SEC at Arkansas and has spent most of his career in the Big Ten, said both leagues need to be aligned in the number of conference games. The Big Ten currently plays nine, while the SEC has remained at eight.
“I don’t think there’s any way we can do a 16-team playoff if they’re not at nine,” Bielema said.
He also referred to conversations coming out of the SEC spring meetings in Florida, where LSU coach Brian Kelly suggested in SEC-Big Ten nonleague challenge.
“We voted unanimously as Big Ten coaches to stay at nine league games and actually maybe have an SEC challenge,” Bielema said. “I was told that they voted unanimously to stay at eight and not play the Big Ten. But then some people pop off and say what they want to say because they want to look a certain way.
“I get it, but like, I think until you get to nine for everybody, I don’t think it could work.”
The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua are meeting this week in Asheville, North Carolina, to discuss the future format and other issues.
Bielema, who has stood up for the Big Ten and taken some playful shots at the SEC on social media, said his wife has told him to “slow my roll.” But as one of the more experienced coaches in the Big Ten, he also remembers what Ohio State’s Jim Tressel and Michigan’s Lloyd Carr told him as a young coach in the league.
“They just said, ‘Hey, you really got to look out for not just your team, but the better of college football,'” Bielema said. “And so I think as I come back, especially this last three or four years at Illinois, I’m in meetings, and there’s a lot of good coaches, but some of these guys are on the younger version of their themselves, and they just don’t understand what’s coming at them. So I’ve really tried to stand up for the game a lot.”
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Eli Lederman
Alabama completed a flip of three-star Iowa State quarterback pledge Jett Thomalla on Tuesday, finishing the Crimson Tide’s efforts to land a passer in the 2026 class this spring.
A record-setting quarterback from Omaha, Nebraska, Thomalla is ESPN’s No. 18 quarterback prospect in the latest cycle. He initially committed to Iowa State in April before receiving a scholarship offer from Alabama on May 15. Thomalla visited the Crimson Tide two weeks later, during which he connected with the quarterback development backgrounds of Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and quarterbacks coach Nick Sheridan.
“My dream is to go to the NFL,” Thomalla told ESPN earlier this month. “The resources around the place and all the eyes that are on you, I know I can develop there. Those coaches can be really good for my process of becoming the best quarterback I can be.”
Thomalla’s flip closes a monthslong pursuit of a 2026 quarterback pledge for the Crimson Tide.
After signing five-star, dual-threat Keelon Russell in the 2025 cycle, Alabama had largely stayed away from the top end of the passer market in the 2026 class before stepping up its efforts this spring. Alongside Thomalla, the Crimson Tide offered three-star prospects Matt Ponatoski and Tayden-Evan Kaawa over the past month. Alabama also expressed interest in three-star passer Bryson Beaver, who visited for a throwing session with the program this past weekend.
The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Thomalla is set to enter his senior season at Nebraska Millard South High School this fall. He led Millard South to a 12-1 record and Class A state title as a junior in 2024, setting state classification records for passing yards (3,663) and touchdowns (47).
Thomalla lands as the eight member of DeBoer’s second recruiting class at Alabama. The Crimson Tide’s latest class includes four ESPN 300 pledges, led by top 100 cornerbacks Jorden Edmonds and Zyan Gibson and four-star offensive tackle Sam Utu (No. 77 overall).
Alabama is set to host a cast of high-profile prospects this weekend for a final round of official visits before the recruiting dead period begins Monday. In-state targets Anthony Jones (No. 25), Ezavier Crowell (No. 30) and Cederian Morgan (No. 47) are among the key prospects expected on campus as the program prepares to bolster its 2026 class in the coming months.
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