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The 2024 college football season will be full of changes, including new coaches, big-name transfers who have switched schools and the expanded, 12-team playoff.

Perhaps the most sweeping changes of all will be in the makeup of the remaining power conferences: the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC. To review, Texas and Oklahoma will be in the SEC; USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington will be in the Big Ten; Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State will be in the Big 12, and Stanford, Cal and SMU will be in the ACC.

We asked our college football reporters to share their thoughts on the new-look conferences: what new matchups they’re most excited to see, which ones they’re struggling to come to grips with, and which teams will be most impacted by the realignments.

Other roundtables:
Most excited to see | 12-team playoff

What new conference matchup are you most eager to see?

Georgia-Texas

After falling short of a third consecutive national title, Georgia will go into the season favored to claim a third championship in four seasons. But the team’s schedule away from Athens isn’t easy, and features Clemson (neutral), Alabama (road) and Ole Miss (road), in addition to its first visit to Texas since 1958. Texas seems as prepared for entry into the SEC as a team could possibly be, after reaching its first CFP, beating Alabama on the road last year and taking the Tide to the brink in 2022 at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium. The Carson BeckQuinn Ewers quarterback matchup could carry Heisman Trophy implications. — Adam Rittenberg

Ohio State-Oregon

Both Ohio State and Oregon could be in the preseason top 10 and both will come into the season very motivated after falling short of the College Football Playoff in 2023. A pair of new quarterbacks — Will Howard from Kansas State to the Buckeyes and Dillon Gabriel from Oklahoma to the Ducks — should have the offenses humming when they meet for the first time as Big Ten foes Oct. 12 in Eugene. As the playoff expands to 12 teams, recall these programs met for the first CFP crown in 2014 and likely aren’t leaving the national stage anytime soon. — Blake Baumgartner

Tennessee-Oklahoma

Oklahoma makes its SEC debut at home Sept. 21 against Tennessee, and much of the storyline will revolve around Josh Heupel, who brings the Vols back to his old stomping grounds. Heupel quarterbacked the Sooners to a national championship in 2000 and was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. He was later the offensive coordinator at OU, but was fired by Bob Stoops following the 2014 season. So there aren’t a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings surrounding Heupel’s exit from his alma mater. A lot of eyes will also be on both quarterbacks. This will be Nico Iamaleava‘s first true road game as Tennessee’s starter and the first marquee game for Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold as he takes over for Dillon Gabriel. And in a lot of ways, this could be a playoff elimination game. The loser would have a huge mountain to climb to claw its way back into the playoff picture with a loss so early in the season and so many difficult games ahead. — Chris Low

Oklahoma-LSU

I’ll steer clear of old-turned-new rivalries for this — Texas-Texas A&M, Texas-Arkansas, Oklahoma-Missouri — and point out that it’s noteworthy that Oklahoma’s first SEC campaign ends in Baton Rouge. Playing in Death Valley is the ultimate “You’re in the SEC now!” moment, and the stakes could be pretty high as well. While neither OU nor LSU will be the SEC favorite in 2024, both could be within reach of a CFP at-large bid heading into the season’s home stretch. In fact, there’s a nonzero chance this one’s an elimination game of sorts. Playing in Death Valley in a must-win situation? Welcome to the SEC, indeed. — Bill Connelly

Texas-Texas A&M

OK, this isn’t exactly a “new” matchup, but if you’re college-aged or younger, it’s probably new to you. The overarching complaint about realignment for the better part of the past 20 years is that it has destroyed old rivalries, and this latest round appears to have at least temporarily upended some good ones (RIP Bedlam). But it also reunites Texas and A&M in the same league, giving them a head-to-head matchup for the first time since the Aggies left for the SEC after the 2011 season. There were several attempts over the past 12 years to get the game going again, but none came to fruition, leaving the state — and the college football world — without one of its most intense rivalry games. Well, thanks to realignment, Aggies-Longhorns is back for 2024, and we couldn’t be more excited. That the game might also have genuine playoff and SEC championship implications only adds to the appeal. And with this year’s game played in College Station, that enthusiasm should lead to massive ticket sales, which will help A&M pay some small portion of all the money it owes Jimbo Fisher. Win-win. — David Hale


Which new matchup will be the hardest for you to wrap your brain around?

Ohio State-USC

With the four Pac-12 schools coming into the Big Ten, I could have gone a few directions with this. But the pull of having Ohio State and USC — two traditional college football powerhouses — competing inside the same conference is too intriguing to pass up. The Buckeyes travel to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2026 before the Trojans go to Columbus in 2027. Two programs with a combined 14 Heisman Trophy winners and 19 national championships locking horns for the first time as Big Ten compatriots will take a minute or two to digest. — Baumgartner

Stanford-Syracuse and Cal-Wake Forest

The recent realignment will make a lot of matchups feel odd, but it will really hit home when Cal and Stanford travel across the country to play Friday night games within the league. Stanford makes its ACC debut Sept. 20, as it goes all the way to Syracuse for its first-ever game with the Orange. Seven weeks later, Cal makes its cross-country voyage to face Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The new-look ACC has a ton of bizarre games — Florida State at SMU, Miami at Cal, Stanford at Clemson — given its new coast-to-coast footprint. — Rittenberg

Colorado-UCF

Colorado and Coach Prime travel to UCF on Sept. 28 in the Buffaloes’ first road game in the new-look Big 12. It’s just under 1,900 miles to get from Boulder, Colorado, to Orlando, Florida, and the idea of Colorado and UCF playing in a Big 12 game (in the shadow of Disney World, no less) is going to take some getting used to. But for Buffs coach Deion Sanders, it could have the feel of a home game. He played at Florida State and grew up in Fort Myers, Florida. — Low

UCLA-Rutgers

UCLA is 2,800 miles away from Rutgers. The Bruins are only 2,700 miles away from Guatemala! I’m not sure I will ever get used to this. — Connelly

All of the regionally challenged matchups

Let’s be real. Many of them have been listed above, whether it’s one of the former Pac-12 schools competing in the ACC, or something as stark as UCLA-Rutgers. The rivalries and tradition of college football, a huge part of the sport’s appeal, were built in large part on regionality. We will always take our college football however it is served to us, but that doesn’t mean these matchups aren’t weird. — Harry Lyles Jr.


Which team’s fortunes will change the most under the new alignment?

UCLA

UCLA last won a conference championship in 1998, when Bob Toledo guided the Bruins to the Pac-12 title, and they haven’t come close to a College Football Playoff appearance since its inception in 2014. Now toss them into the Big Ten with some of their old rivals in Oregon, USC and Washington (the Bruins went a combined 12-18 against those teams over the past 10 years) along with the likes of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, and it’s not far-fetched to think UCLA will become even less relevant over the next decade. — Low

Wisconsin

The school hired coach Luke Fickell primarily to make the 12-team CFP, which the Badgers would have already reached a few times had it existed earlier. Fickell had an uneven first season, especially on offense, as Wisconsin adjusted to the Air Raid-style scheme run by coordinator Phil Longo. But Fickell is taking steps to prepare Wisconsin for a Big Ten with greater depth, especially on offense, in part by being aggressive in the transfer portal. If Longo’s offense can click behind quarterback transfer Tyler Van Dyke, Wisconsin should take a step forward. While other teams in the former Big Ten West have maintained the status quo in their structure, Wisconsin is modernizing to contend in the new league. — Rittenberg

Penn State

Under James Franklin’s stewardship, Penn State has had five 10-win seasons, four 11-win seasons and a Big Ten title in 2016 since his arrival from Vanderbilt in 2014. But given the stability Franklin has provided, the program has yet to take the next step. The Nittany Lions’ conference fortunes might not get dramatically better because they haven’t been able to consistently beat Ohio State or Michigan, but the opportunity to finally reach the CFP for the first time is there with the expansion to 12 teams. — Baumgartner

Oklahoma

Back to the Sooners. OU fans wanted bigger home games, and they’re going to get them, starting with a home finale against Alabama in 2024. But they also drew a ridiculously stiff set of conference opponents this time around. Even without a marquee nonconference opponent, they have the third-hardest schedule in the country in 2024, according to my SP+ strength-of-schedule ratings. You ask for it, you get it. — Connelly

SMU

The best answer is probably Oklahoma, but what’s the fun in agreeing with Connelly? Instead, let’s go with SMU, which is moving to the ACC and forgoing all conference revenue distribution for the foreseeable future, all so it can have a seat at the big-boy table (at least for as long as the ACC keeps its invite to the party). SMU is 43-19 since 2019, and the Mustangs won the American championship last year. Their reward? A bowl game against 6-6 Boston College, which they lost. So what happens when SMU transitions full time to the ACC? This year’s schedule includes Florida State and Louisville (the teams that played in last year’s ACC championship game) as well as road trips to Duke and a home game against the aforementioned Eagles, plus nonconference games against BYU and TCU. It’s entirely possible SMU follows in the footsteps of programs such as TCU and Utah, who transitioned to the Power 5 and blossomed, but even those schools took a year or two to adjust. Building depth to handle the rigors of a 12-game power conference slate takes time and resources, and the Mustangs might be in for a few growing pains along the way. — Hale

The Big 12 conference

Sorry for being broad again, but in a conference that is losing two teams in Texas and Oklahoma that won a combined 12 of the past 14 conference championship games (yes, I know the Longhorns had only three of those), now is a great time to establish yourself as the new leader of the pack. The incumbent teams of years past don’t have to worry about the two biggest roadblocks along their path to greatness. And for last season’s newcomers — BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF — and the Pac-12 additions in Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, this league feels more wide open than it has in a long time. — Lyles

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Keselowski: NASCAR rulebook like IRS tax code

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Keselowski: NASCAR rulebook like IRS tax code

LEBANON, Tenn. — Brad Keselowski said RFK Racing has made some small changes and talked about the “complexities” and team burdens under the NASCAR rulebook after an appeal reduced a penalty given to driver Chris Buescher and his team at Kansas Speedway.

Keselowski compared the NASCAR rulebook a bit to the IRS tax code during practice and qualifying Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway for Sunday night’s Cracker Barrel 400.

“You read this paper and then you got to reference this paper to reference this paper to reference this paper, and when your head’s down and digging and you’re running 38 weeks a year, oversights are going to happen,” Keselowski said.

The co-owner of RFK Racing said that’s not an excuse. Keselowski said the team changed some roles and responsibilities this week to help the team be “better prepared and more mindful of what it takes to to be in compliance.”

NASCAR penalized Buescher and his team May 15 for illegal modifications to the bumper of his No. 17 Ford at Kansas. The team was docked 60 driver points, 60 owner points, five driver playoff points and five owner playoff points for the level one violation. It also fined the team $75,000 and suspended crew chief Scott Graves from the next two races: the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600.

Those penalties came three days after Buescher finished eighth at Kansas and dropped him from 12th to 24th in the Cup Series point standings.

RFK Racing appealed and had a partial win Wednesday with the appeals panel ruling the team violated the rule on the front bumper cover but not the exhaust cover panel.

Buescher got back 30 points, moving him to 16th in the Cup Series points standing. That’s a slot below the playoff cutline and six points behind RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece.

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Thousands attend race event honoring Gaudreaus

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Thousands attend race event honoring Gaudreaus

SEWELL, N.J. — A few days after brothers John and Matthew Gaudreau died when they were struck by a driver while riding bicycles on the eve of their sister Katie’s wedding, family friends were visiting parents Guy and Jane at their home during a rainstorm. Looking outside after the skies cleared, they saw a double rainbow that brought them some momentary peace.

Since then, Jane Gaudreau had not gotten any signs she attributed to her sons, so she sat in their room Friday and asked them for some divine intervention to clear out bad weather in time for an event to honor their legacies. After a brief scare of a tornado watch the night before, a rainbow appeared Saturday morning about an hour before the sun came out for the inaugural Gaudreau Family 5K Walk/Run and Family Day.

“I was so relieved,” Jane said. “I was like, ‘Well, there’s my sign.'”

Thousands attended the event at Washington Lake Park in southern New Jersey, a place John and Matthew went hundreds of times as kids and around the corner from Hollydell Ice Arena, where they started playing hockey. Roughly 1,100 people took part in a walk or run in person, along with more than 1,300 virtually in the U.S., Canada and around the world.

“I think it speaks to them as a family, how close they were and how everybody loved being around them,” said Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, one of a handful of NHL players who were close to the Gaudreaus and made a point to be there. “You just see the support from this community and from other players as well that are here and traveled in. It just says a lot about Johnny, Matty, their legacy and this family as a whole, how much support they have because they’re such amazing people.”

Along with honoring the NHL star known as “Johnny Hockey” and his younger brother who family and friends called Matty, the goal of the event was to raise money for an accessible playground at Archbishop Damiano School where Jane and her daughter Kristen work. It was a cause John and Matthew had begun to champion in honor of their grandmother Marie, who spent 44 years at the school and died in 2023.

It became their mother’s project after their deaths.

“Jane works every day with children with disabilities, and she knew how important it was for the playground to be built,” said family friend Deb Vasutoro, who came up with the idea for a 5K. “The playground has been a project for, I think, four or five years, and there just never was enough funding. When the boys passed and Jane needed a purpose, she thought, ‘Let’s build the playground.’ It was the perfect marriage of doing something good to honor the boys and seeing children laugh and smile.”

The Rev. Allain Caparas from Gloucester Catholic High School, which the brothers attended and played hockey for while growing up in Carneys Point, said raising funds for the playground is an extension of the impact they had on the community.

“They’re continuing to make a difference in the lives of so many others,” Caparas said. “Johnny and Matthew lived their lives with purpose, and now we’re celebrating that.”

Social media filled with mentions from folks in Columbus and Calgary, the NHL cities in which John Gaudreau played, and as far away as Ireland and Sweden. Paul O’Connor, who has been tight with the Gaudreau family from son Dalton being childhood best friends with Matthew, couldn’t empty out his inbox because he kept getting notifications about signups and donations.

“It just keeps growing,” O’Connor said. “And people that couldn’t be here, they’re doing a virtual [5K]. If they can’t do either, they’re just throwing money at the cause.”

Tears welled up in the eyes of Guy and Jane as they talked about the event. His speech to the crowd was brief and poignant at the same time.

“I’d like to thank everybody for coming,” Guy said after running the 5K. “It really means a lot to Jane and the girls and the family. We miss the boys, and it really means a lot for us to have you here to honor my boys. Thank you.”

The sea of people first in the rain and then the sunshine included folks in gear from all across hockey. Tkachuk wore a “Johnny Hockey” hoodie with Gaudreau’s name and No. 13 on the back.

He handed sticks, collected from various vigils in late August and early September, to race winners along with fellow players Erik Gudbranson, Zach Aston-Reese, Tony DeAngelo and Buddy Robinson.

“Our family wouldn’t have missed this,” Gudbranson said after flying in Friday night following a trip to Walt Disney World. “Hockey’s a very tight community. It’s still a tragedy. We miss the boys.”

The aim is to hold the event annually moving forward, potentially in Calgary and Columbus.

“We thought this was such a good thing to honor the boys we want to keep it up,” Jane said. “I just think each year it’ll just get better and better.”

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Panthers’ Lundell, Luostarinen clear for Final G1

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Panthers' Lundell, Luostarinen clear for Final G1

Florida Panthers forwards Eetu Luostarinen and Anton Lundell will be ready for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night in Edmonton, coach Paul Maurice said Saturday.

Both players were injured in Wednesday’s series-clinching Game 5 win against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Panthers forward A.J. Greer‘s status for the series opener against the Oilers remains uncertain. He missed Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals and was on the ice for only 4:22 in Game 5 due to a lower-body injury.

All three players did not participate in Saturday’s practice, the first team skate since the defending champions booked their spot in the Final rematch.

“I think the only question mark is Greer,” Maurice said. “We will list him as day to day. The other guys are fine. They will be back on the ice tomorrow when we do a little bit of an optional.”

Luostarinen, 26, recorded 24 points (9 goals, 15 assists) in 80 games during the regular season and 13 points (4 goals, 9 assists) in 17 games this postseason.

Lundell, 23, tallied 45 points (17 goals, 28 assists) in 79 games in the regular season and 12 points (5 goals, 7 assists) in 17 playoff games.

Greer, 28, posted 17 points (6 goals, 11 assists) in 81 games in the regular season and three points (2 goals, 1 assist) in 12 playoff contests.

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