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LONG BEFORE MONDAY’S celebration in Norman marking the dawn of Oklahoma’s new era in the SEC, Greg Tipton, the school’s executive associate athletic director for internal operations, facilities and events, had an epiphany.

It was last July, and Oklahoma was already well into its process to chronicle all of the Big 12 logos around campus to be replaced with new SEC marks.

“I need to go count those flagpoles,” he thought, about the flags that fly over the south end zone videoboard at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and represent each conference member. “You have your American flag, your state flag, your OU flag high up in the center, but then there were 10 flagpoles. I’m like wait, there’s this … We’ve got to fix this.”

As the college sports landscape continues to change, fans will focus on the intricacies of the schedule or new road trips. But there are also plenty of conversations about smaller logistical hurdles going on inside athletic departments when they’re told they’re taking their ball and going to a new conference. Yes, staff members are changing budgets and managing resources, but there’s also so much more. They’re documenting logos. They’re sanding basketball courts, mocking different routes to new cities, buying new stencils for athletic fields and ditching old quarter-zips and polos with unsightly old emblems.

And they’re counting flagpoles. Welcome to the glamorous world of realignment.

The Sooners renovated their stadium in 2017, when the Big 12 had 10 teams (naturally, due to realignment). But with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, the SEC will now have 16 teams. The flags, long-standing symbols of conference unity at stadiums across the country, needed more poles on which they could fly proudly.

Oklahoma hasn’t changed conferences since 1996, and that was really more of a merger, when the Big 8 and four members of the defunct Southwest Conference combined to form the Big 12. The SEC move is a radical departure, all shiny and new and exciting, so Oklahoma wanted to make sure it did everything right, calling in the architect of the seven-year-old south end zone project to bring in the cranes. The Sooners added eight new poles, Tipton said, so that they could represent each of the 16 SEC schools along with an American flag and an NCAA flag.

“I wanted to make sure everything matched,” Tipton said. “I wanted to make sure an architect got their eyes on it instead of getting some local vendor to come to slap up some flagpoles.”

TCU, however, is over such calculations. At a school that has been in five conferences — SWC, WAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and Big 12 — since 1995, staff is a more measured approach to the changes.

“I’m taking all the flagpoles down,” said Sassan Sahba, the Horned Frogs’ associate AD for facilities and game days. “I’m just putting a graphic on the wall. I’m not going to add in flagpoles for this year, have them be there for three years. Who knows if we’re down to eight teams in four years? It just doesn’t make any sense. So I’m just taking them all down. I’m putting graphics up on the brick wall in [the north end of Amon G. Carter Stadium]. It is what it is.”


MONDAY, JULY 1 is the official date that Texas’ and Oklahoma’s SEC dreams come true and SMU lands its coveted spot in the ACC. The Pac-12’s media rights expire on Aug. 1, so USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington become official Big Ten members on Aug. 2, the same time that Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado become new residents of the Big 12 and Cal and Stanford become part of the ACC.

The demise of the Pac-12 became official in August 2023, and staff members inside those programs have been preparing for this moment for a while. SMU accepted an ACC invite in September, giving it just nine months to prepare while also working on completing a $100 million end zone expansion in time for the new season.

There’s protocol involved. All of the schools said they wanted to be respectful of their former conferences and try to avoid any new conference logos in public spaces until they’re official members. But behind the scenes, they’re plastering new logos in recruiting spaces and interior hallways, eager to sell the future.

But they’re also trying to figure out how to get to each new place, and even the basics like where to feed their players on the road.

Rivalries or competitive advantages have been put aside. When it was announced that UCLA and USC would join the Big Ten conference, Matt Elliott, UCLA’s chief strategy officer, received a message from Minnesota’s staff asking if he would like to set up a Zoom call and talk about “what it’s like to be part of the Big Ten.” Eventually, several UCLA staffers were connecting with their future fellow schools.

When Elliott asked the Bruins’ nutritionist to build a list of food recommendations, he was surprised that it was already done, thanks to that type of collaboration.

“[They] had already met and talked numerous times with the performance nutrition teams in the Big Ten,” Elliott said. “Each person provided options from their town to say, ‘This is what we think is best for your teams when they visit.'”

But there are still regional quirks to iron out.

“People still don’t understand our time zone,” said Doug Tammaro, who runs Arizona State’s media relations department. The state of Arizona — with the exception of the Navajo Nation — does not observe daylight saving time. Therefore, the time difference from Tempe to, say, Orlando or Morgantown will be different at different times of the year.

“Mountain Standard Time perfectly makes sense half the year. This time of the year, Mountain Standard Time is the same as Pacific. And everybody in the Pac-12 understood that. I don’t know if half the teams in the Big 12 are going to understand it. When you come here in the fall, we’re actually on Pacific time. But if you come here and play November through March, you’re actually on real Mountain time.”

Tammaro said he’d gotten to know all the Pac-12 announcers, so this year they’ll be focused on educating new faces on their program. But there are other important details everyone will have to learn together.

“I think the most-asked question will be, ‘Do you know where the restroom is?'” Tammaro said. “When we play at Texas Tech, I don’t know where the restroom is.”


EACH SCHOOL SAID it has a strategy team that goes about hunting logos. UCLA had its facilities team members walk up and down their venues charting every Pac-12 logo they saw. Texas tasked its employees with taking photos of Big 12 logos so it could catalog them, wary of a wayward logo making its way to social media after it had made the move.

Like Oklahoma, the Longhorns aren’t very experienced in moving. Their last move, from the SWC, was more of a resignation that the sport was changing, but there was still romanticism in the old league, much like there was for Oklahoma and the Big Eight and for the Pac-12 by all the former members who are now headed elsewhere. No one felt the pressure if one of those logos remained. This time around, it’s serious business.

Still, the veterans have learned their lessons over the years.

Cincinnati has been here before, switching conferences twice in its recent history, including from the American to the Big 12 last year. In fact, Cincinnati has been a member of nine conferences going all the way back to 1910. It has learned to be prepared for change. When Under Armour sponsored the program, its logo was featured prominently throughout the facilities, including as part of electronic light fixtures affixed to walls.

“Now? Maybe it’s vinyl or some kind of wall treatment instead of like a hard install,” said John Daniel, the school’s deputy athletic director and chief financial officer. “We can do some real things with dynamic wall treatments that aren’t running power and lights and like you’re ripping out the entire wall to take off one logo.”

Houston’s T.J. Meagher, a senior associate AD who oversees facilities, has been at the school since 2000 and was there when the Cougars briefly joined the Big East in 2011. So naturally, he was wary when the American launched with Houston as a member.

“We thought long and hard about what we needed to do to meet the minimum requirements of the American because they’ll tell you, ‘This is what you need to do, this what needs to be seen on TV, on the fields and basketball courts,'” Meagher said. “Let’s just say that when we joined the American we weren’t 100% sure that would be our final destination, so we followed the branding guide to the minimum, and we tried to do it so that if a change would come, we wouldn’t be too far into it to have to change course.”

When the Cougars finally landed their long-sought-after Big 12 bid, Meager said it took him “about 10 minutes” to list off where all the logos were for his bosses.

Once they find them, they’re not that difficult to change, especially on things like media backdrops or other areas that carry sponsorships they’re used to changing often.

But the biggest challenges by far come with volleyball and basketball courts. The courts have to be stripped, the wood sanded, the logo reapplied, then everything else painted around it again.

UCLA’s famed Pauley Pavilion is set to be resurfaced after a coordinated effort with the Bruins’ new conference.

“Even figuring out where the Big Ten logos need to go,” Elliott said. “How they fit on the court with a volleyball setup and a basketball setup so that the logos are the right way and, and everybody can view them appropriately on TV. That’s planning and that’s a back and forth.”

Texas’ Drew Martin, a senior associate AD, said the Longhorns replaced the Big 12 logo with the SEC mark in December on their volleyball court more than six months before they were official league members because Gregory Gym, their volleyball court, also serves as a rec sports center. Texas replaces the court every five years, doing it when school is out over winter break. So they discussed it with both conferences and came to an agreement.

“We all collectively made a decision of, hey, this just makes sense,” Martin said.

At TCU, it was more of an undertaking, due to the Nike-designed lizard-skin pattern on the court at Schollmaier Arena.

“Sanding down the basketball court to put a new logo is kind of a big deal — and a lot of money — depending on how unique your court is,” Sahba said. “Our court’s got the skin, and it takes a very long time and it’s very expensive to do.”

Its Metroplex rivals at SMU, meanwhile, are starting to see their arena dressed out in ACC colors, a thrill for a school that’s been trying to claw its way back to the top of the food chain for 37 years since the Mustangs got the NCAA’s death penalty for their pay-for-play scandal in 1987.

“I walked through our basketball gym last week, and I hadn’t seen it yet,” athletic director Rick Hart said. “I looked up and we have the ACC logos up of all the schools, and I just got chill bumps.”

The new decor is much easier to swap on grass, thanks to the turf managers who paint the logos on the athletic fields and have their stencil-makers on speed dial.

“The ACC, for example, has brand standards where you paint a logo on your soccer field,” SMU’s Sutton said. “That’s not something that we’ve done before.”

That’s good news for Pat Dickens, one of the guys on the receiving end of those turf calls. His employer, World Class Athletics Surfaces in Leland, Mississippi, makes field paint and, according to the company, has a 17-foot-wide, 74-foot-long cutting machine that cuts logos in stencils from giant plastic sheets and ships them out to schools.

“They’re idiot-proof,” Dickens said. “We’re making stencils 24/7 because, as you know, college athletics has changed so dramatically. It is now a real, real driving force in our little business. We’re going crazy, but we’re thankful for the business.”


OREGON GOT LUCKY. One of the most tedious undertakings in a conference change is swapping out patches on uniforms. And nobody has more uniforms than the Ducks.

Every year, Oregon introduces a new shade or new color combination to its ever-growing palette. The variety — and often the shock value — has become a part of the school’s brand. But when it comes to quite literally swapping out new threads, from helmets all the way down to socks, the program paces its turnover.

“Every three years we do a reset where everything’s brand-new,” said Aaron Wasson, Oregon’s associate athletic director in charge of equipment. “And this happens to be the year that that’s happening for football.”

Gone are the Pac-12 patches. Enter the “B1G” emblems.

Wesson has spent ample time not just learning about what the Big Ten wants, but also how it may or may not fit with what Oregon is used to doing.

The “B1G” logo can change colors depending on a school’s uniform, but when it comes to Oregon, the amount of colors it can and likely will use, make this a tricky proposition. Wesson has worked with the league to strategize how the Big Ten logo will fit in whatever color scheme the Ducks decide to sport on Saturdays.

Football will be an easy swap, as Nike will apply the new mark over every uniform. Other sports such as baseball and basketball aren’t so fortunate. The patch has to be removed and a new one sewn by hand. The sewing business is booming in Eugene.

“We have a local seamstress that will sew them down for us,” Wesson said. “They’re ladies that either come into our equipment room and do it, or will do it out of their house just as a side job.”


AFTER MONTHS — AND years, in the case of Texas and Oklahoma — of preparing to make sure everything goes off without a hitch, the finish line is in sight for each school’s makeover. They just hope they’ve tied up all the loose ends. Then there’s the matter of dispensing with the leftovers.

“My dad, Bob Tammaro, back in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, is about to get a real good solid collection of Pac-12 gear,” Doug Tammaro said. “He’s lucky we’re the same size.”

After a mad dash, all involved can take a deep breath. That is, until it all starts over again.

The Big 12 is exploring naming rights for a sponsorship that would change the entire name of the conference.

And one thing is for sure: The sponsor will want its name represented boldly in that logo. Which means … it’s time to do it all over again.

“You want to use a new logo, but the logo could change,” ASU’s Tammaro said.

TCU, meanwhile, is eyeing that lizard-skin court, too.

“We’re just waiting to see what happens with all of that talk with potentially a new logo in the future,” Sahba said.

The ACC, meanwhile, is facing legal threats from Florida State and Clemson that could hurt the league in the same way USC and UCLA hobbled the Pac-12 by bolting.

As always, the insiders will keep their stencil-makers and seamstresses close and keep counting flagpoles. Administrators know the only sure bet is that college athletics will keep them guessing.

“It’s either highly unpredictable or remarkably predictable,” Meagher said. “The one thing you can count on is change.”

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Oilers ‘reset,’ handle Stars for 2-1 series lead

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Oilers 'reset,' handle Stars for 2-1 series lead

EDMONTON, Alberta — Zach Hyman had two goals and an assist, Connor McDavid also had a two-goal outing and the Edmonton Oilers took a 2-1 lead in their Western Conference final series with a 6-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Sunday.

Evan Bouchard, with a goal and an assist, and John Klingberg also scored for the Oilers. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added three assists.

Stuart Skinner made 33 saves in the Edmonton net to improve to 4-4 in the postseason this year, his first victory in the playoffs that wasn’t a shutout.

“We had a bit of a dip, they had a bit of push,” Nugent-Hopkins said of the Stars’ play in the second period, lauding Skinner for keeping the team in it. “He stepped up big time for us, and made some big saves. You need your goalies to do that.”

The Oilers have won two straight since their third-period collapse in Game 1 in Dallas, and improved to 10-3 in the postseason since dropping the first two games of their first-round series vs. the Los Angeles Kings.

Jason Robertson scored for the Stars, who are hoping to avoid being knocked out in the third round by the Oilers for a second consecutive season.

“They were definitely the better team in the second period,” Skinner said of the Stars. “And we kind of knew that going into the third. So, we just had to reset.”

Jake Oettinger stopped 18 shots in Dallas’ net, falling to 5-10 in his career in West final contests.

Game 4 will be in Edmonton on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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U.S. wins 1st worlds in 92 years, honors Gaudreau

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U.S. wins 1st worlds in 92 years, honors Gaudreau

STOCKHOLM — Buffalo Sabres star forward Tage Thompson scored the winner 2:02 into overtime, and Team USA outlasted Switzerland 1-0 in the final of the ice hockey world championship at Avicii Arena on Sunday.

It is the first on-ice trophy for USA Hockey in this tournament in 92 years, after the Americans brought it home back in 1933. And it was an emotional one. As Team USA posed for its championship photo at center ice, players held up a No. 13 jersey of Johnny Gaudreau, the former NHL and USA Hockey star forward who died tragically last August when he and his brother, Matthew, were hit by an allegedly drunken and enraged driver as they cycled at night in New Jersey.

Thompson, who had 44 goals and 72 points with the Sabres this season, is hoping to polish off his resume for a spot on the U.S. roster for the 2026 Olympics, and he’s off to a great start. A Team USA reserve for the 4 Nations Face-Off in February who did not suit up, Thompson made the most of his time playing with a host of young NHL forwards who either did not make, or have been eliminated from, the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Thompson’s shot, off passes from Utah Hockey Club forward Logan Cooley and Nashville Predators defenseman Brady Skjei, flew past the blocker of Swiss goaltender Leonardo Genoni, ending a dramatic but tight title game. Team USA outshot Switzerland 40-25.

Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman capped off the shutout in the final, finishing with 25 saves a year after his NHL teammate, David Pastrnak led the Czech Republic to this same title.

“We did it, the wait is over,” Swayman said in a post to USA Hockey fans on the organization’s social media platforms. “Thanks for sticking along with us. It’s going to be a great summer.”

The Americans were also formally awarded the title in 1960 when they won the Olympic tournament and the worlds did not take place. But they hadn’t won it on the ice in more than nine decades.

The Swiss played without injured star center Nico Hischier, the captain of the New Jersey Devils. After the loss, Genoni was named the tournament’s MVP.

Earlier Sunday, Sweden defeated Denmark 6-2 in the bronze medal game. Calgary Flames center Mikael Backlund and Minnesota Wild forward Marcus Johansson scored two goals each for the hosts, marking the second-straight third-place finish for Sweden. The fourth-place result was the best-ever finish for Denmark.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Edmonton takes control over Stars: Game 3 grades, takeaways

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Edmonton takes control over Stars: Game 3 grades, takeaways

While fans in Edmonton and Dallas are always singing about how they have friends in low places, only one of them has the high ground in the Western Conference finals. And that’s the Oilers after their 6-1 win Sunday in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.

With the series tied heading into Sunday, the objective for Game 3 was to gain a firm grasp of the conference finals, and the Oilers did just that by having five players with multipoint performances. As for the Stars, losing Game 3 left them trailing a series for the second time this postseason, with the only other such occurrence coming after Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.

Now that the Oilers are in control of the series, what does it mean for them going forward? What must the Stars do differently ahead of Game 4 for them to return home tied rather than a game away from elimination? Ryan S. Clark and Greg Wyshynski examine those questions while delving into what lies ahead for two teams that not only faced each other in the conference finals last season but between them have been involved in every conference final since 2020.

Edmonton Oilers
Grade: A

Much could change between now and whenever the playoffs end. But for now, the argument could be made that this was the most important playoff game the Oilers have had this postseason.

The Oilers have had numerous strong performances, such as Game 3 against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round or their final two games against the Vegas Golden Knights in the conference semifinals. But what made the Oilers’ performance in Game 3 against Dallas arguably their most important was that they found a balance between being difficult in the defensive zone while not relying on a shutout to accomplish that objective.

The Stars finished with 37 shots, 13 high-danger chances in 5-on-5 play and scored only once. Connor McDavid has repeatedly stressed that the Oilers can play defense, and that has been made clear over their past five games. But Sunday proved they didn’t need Stuart Skinner or their defensive structure to blank an opponent to win. — Ryan S. Clark

Dallas Stars
Grade: C+

The final score doesn’t reflect the majority of this game, which Dallas coach Pete DeBoer can mine for positives among the many (many) negatives and some mitigating circumstances. Having Roope Hintz warm up but not be able to go because of the foot injury he suffered from a Darnell Nurse slash in Game 2? That’s deflating. Having the on-ice officials miss a delay of game call on Brett Kulak in the first period only to have Evan Bouchard open the scoring 10 seconds later? Also deflating.

So it’s to the Stars’ credit that they got to their game at 5-on-5 in Game 3 better than they have in any game of the series, at least before Edmonton ran up the score in the third. The results weren’t there and a loss is a loss — and a loss by this margin is difficult to stomach — but their second period and the performances from some of their slumbering depth players give the Stars at least a glimmer.

However, there’s no question Edmonton has this thing in well in-hand and the Stars have to find a way to solve Skinner, which is not something I thought I’d be writing at this stage of the postseason. — Greg Wyshynski


Three Stars of Game 3

Two goals and an assist for his seventh career multigoal playoff game. Hyman’s second goal was the Oilers’ fourth off the rush, the most in one game by any team this postseason. Hyman also was plus-5 Sunday.

Bouchard scored his sixth goal of the postseason and these two were on the ice for the first two Edmonton goals. At 5-on-5 this postseason, the Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-1, and 5-0 in this series, when Bouchard and Kulak are on the ice.

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0:48

Connor McDavid restores Oilers’ 2-goal lead

Connor McDavid finds the back of the net to restore the Oilers’ two-goal lead vs. the Stars.

3. Connor McDavid
C, Oilers

For all the talk about the lack of goals from the best hockey player in the world (which was odd because he had 20 points in 13 games and was a plus-7 entering Game 3 despite having only three goals), McDavid punched out a pair of tucks for his sixth career multigoal playoff game. Also, seeing McDavid with the puck barreling toward the net on a 3-on-1 is nightmare fuel for opponents. — Arda Ɩcal


Players to watch in Game 4

Zach Hyman
LW, Oilers

To go from 16 goals last postseason to just three goals entering Game 3 of the conference finals is one way to assess Hyman. Another is to realize that he’s been the most physical player on a team that is among the tallest and heaviest in the NHL.

Hyman came into Game 3 leading the NHL with 99 hits. He remained physical Sunday by leading the way with six hits in a game that saw the Oilers continue their punishing style with 47. But to then see Hyman score two goals and finish with three points in addition to that physicality? It once again adds to the narrative that the Oilers might not only have more dimensions than last year’s team, they could be better than the team that finished Stanley Cup runner-up in 2024. — Clark

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Zach Hyman’s 2nd goal puts Oilers up 4

Zach Hyman taps home his second goal of the game to put the Oilers up 5-1 vs. the Stars.

This is the first two-game losing streak for the Dallas goaltender in the playoffs. A lot of what happened in Game 3 wasn’t necessarily on him — a Connor McDavid beauty and a Zach Hyman breakaway were among the Edmonton tallies — but outside of the third period of Game 1, he’s not been a difference-maker in this series. Oettinger came into the game leading the playoffs with 5.58 goals saved above expected, according to Stathletes. The Stars have been able to depend on him as a slump-breaker. But this is his third game with a save percentage south of .900 in the series. As the Stars try to build on some positives from this game, they need Otter to provide the foundation for it — and in the process, silence those “U.S. backup!” chants from the Oilers fans. — Wyshynski


Big questions for Game 4

Are the Oilers about to do to the Stars what they did to the Golden Knights?

Simply put, the Oilers are where hope goes to die. Teams in a championship window that have yet to win a title are always being judged on their evolution. What the Oilers did to the Stars a year ago in the conference finals by winning the last three games showed that they could close out a series after trailing. This postseason Edmonton has shown a calculated and methodical coldness when it comes to putting away opponents.

The Golden Knights won Game 3 on a last-second goal to create the belief they may have found an opening. They didn’t score again for the rest of the playoffs after being in the top five of goals per game throughout the regular season. Breaking out for six goals to open the series seemed to be a sign the Stars may have found an opening. Since then? They’ve scored only once in the last six periods while facing questions about what’s happened to another team that went from being in the top five in goals per game in the regular season. — Clark

Can Dallas make Edmonton uncomfortable at all?

Our colleague Mark Messier made this point between periods of Game 3: The Stars have yet to do anything to get McDavid or Leon Draisaitl off their games. That extends to the rest of the Oilers. Outside of an anomalous run of three power-play goals in the third period of Game 1, there have been precious few instances of the Stars carrying play for long stretches or putting a scare into Edmonton at 5-on-5.

They had that for a bit in Game 3 with a dominant second period: plus-14 in shot attempts, plus-11 in scoring chances and a 10-1 advantage in high-danger shot attempts. But they were digging out of a 2-0 hole, only managed to get one goal of their own on the board and then McDavid stuck a dagger in them with 19 seconds left in the second.

The Stars need a lead. They need zone time. They need to get their rush game going: Skinner had a .897 save percentage on shots off the rush entering the game. Edmonton is playing with a champion’s confidence. Dallas has to find a way to inject a little doubt into its opponent or this series is going to end quickly. — Wyshynski

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