Dantonio added to CFP selection committee
Former Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio is one of five new College Football Playoff selection committee members named to the 13-member group tasked with ranking the top 25 teams that ultimately are considered for the 12-team field this fall.
The CFP announced Tuesday that Dantonio will join Maryland athletic director Damon Evans, former ESPN college football reporter Ivan Maisel, Middle Tennessee State AD Chris Massaro and former Ole Miss All-America tight end Wesley Walls in the incoming class.
The CFP also asked former USA Today sportswriter Steve Wieberg, who served on the CFP selection committee 2014-2017, to return for a one-year term. He will replace former coach Gary Pinkel, who has stepped down after one year with the group because of other commitments.
“The additions of Mark, Damon, Ivan, Chris and Wesley will bring some great new voices to the selection committee as we enter our 12th season,” CFP executive director Rich Clark said in a prepared statement. “Each of them has tremendous knowledge, passion and dedication to college football, along with outstanding character and integrity. Their skills and wide variety of experiences — from coaches and athletes to university leaders and journalists — will ensure that they will transition in with our returning members successfully. We also appreciate Steve returning for the upcoming season. His understanding and wisdom from his previous term will be a real benefit to the group.”
Baylor AD Mack Rhoades, who is entering his second year with the group, will replace outgoing committee member and Michigan AD Warde Manuel as the committee chair.
“I am truly honored to be asked to serve as chair of the selection committee,” Rhoades said in a prepared statement. “It was a privilege to join such a dedicated group of individuals last year, and I look forward to continuing that work again this fall. Each and every member of the committee is passionate about college football and focused on ensuring the integrity and excellence of the playoff process.”
The new members will begin their three-year terms this spring and will also replace Navy AD Chet Gladchuk, former Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe, former Nebraska offensive lineman and NFL Hall of Famer Will Shields, and former sportswriter Kelly Whiteside, whose terms have expired.
Dantonio, who retired from Michigan State in 2020, served as the head coach at Cincinnati (2004-06) and Michigan State (2007-19), compiling a career record of 132-74. In his 13 seasons at Michigan State, he led the Spartans to 12 bowl games, three Big Ten titles and a berth in the 2015 College Football Playoff. His 114 career wins in East Lansing made him the winningest head coach in Michigan State history, and in 2015, he became the first head coach in the Big Ten to win at least 11 games in five of six seasons. Dantonio was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame and the Michigan State Ring of Honor in 2024.
Evans is in his seventh year as Maryland’s AD. He was hired by the Terps in 2014 as executive athletic director and chief financial officer. During Evans’ 11-year tenure at Maryland, the Terrapins have won 49 Big Ten championships and tournament titles, the third most of any conference school during that span, and seven national championships. He also served as the director of athletics at the University of Georgia from 2004 to 2010. A four-year starter on Georgia’s football team, Evans played in three bowl games under coach Vince Dooley.
Maisel has over four decades of experience covering college football, most recently at On3 Media, which he helped launch in 2021 before spending two years writing for the website. He began covering national college football in 1987 for the Dallas Morning News, then moved to Newsday in 1994. He rejoined Sports Illustrated in 1997, 10 years after his earlier stint there. In 2002, ESPN hired him as its first college football writer.
Maisel’s work at ESPN included coverage through podcasts, radio appearances and multimedia projects. He played a key role in launching ESPN’s College Football Daily podcast and served as the editor-at-large of ESPN College Football 150, the multiplatform project commemorating the 2019 sesquicentennial of the sport.
Massaro has spent the past 20 years as athletic director at Middle Tennessee State University, the fifth-longest-tenured athletic director in the FBS. Under his leadership, the Blue Raiders have won 87 conference championships (45 in the Sun Belt and 42 in Conference USA) and three individual national championships. The 42 CUSA titles is the most by any school since the Blue Raiders entered the league in 2013. Massaro earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Colorado, where he was a five-year football team member.
As a senior at Ole Miss in 1988, Walls was an All-American as a tight end after excelling as a linebacker and defensive end his first three seasons in Oxford. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
Returning committee members include longtime Nevada athletic director and coach Chris Ault, former Arizona State All-American offensive lineman Randall McDaniel, former Oregon State and Nebraska coach Mike Riley, Miami (Ohio) athletic director David Sayler, Virginia athletic director Carla Williams, and Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek.
The current group will include five former players/coaches, six sitting athletic directors representing the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, C-USA and Mid-American Conference, and two former sportswriters.
NASCAR driver Katherine Legge said she has been receiving “hate mail” and “death threats” from auto racing fans after she was involved in a crash that collected veteran driver Kasey Kahne during the Xfinity Series race last weekend at Rockingham.
Legge, who has started four Indy 500s but is a relative novice in stock cars, added during Tuesday’s episode of her “Throttle Therapy” podcast that “the inappropriate social media comments I’ve received aren’t just disturbing, they are unacceptable.”
“Let me be very clear,” the British driver said, “I’m here to race and I’m here to compete, and I won’t tolerate any of these threats to my safety or to my dignity, whether that’s on track or off of it.”
Legge became the first woman in seven years to start a Cup Series race earlier this year at Phoenix. But her debut in NASCAR’s top series ended when Legge, who had already spun once, was involved in another spin and collected Daniel Suarez.
Her next start was the lower-level Xfinity race in Rockingham, North Carolina, last Saturday. Legge was good enough to make the field on speed but was bumped off the starting grid because of ownership points. Ultimately, she was able to take J.J. Yeley’s seat in the No. 53 car for Joey Gase Motorsports, which had to scramble at the last minute to prepare the car for her.
Legge was well off the pace as the leaders were lapping her, and when she entered Turn 1, William Sawalich got into the back of her car. That sent Legge spinning, and Kahne had nowhere to go, running into her along the bottom of the track.
“I gave [Sawalich] a lane and the reason the closing pace looks so high isn’t because I braked midcorner. I didn’t. I stayed on my line, stayed doing my speed, which obviously isn’t the speed of the leaders because they’re passing me,” Legge said. “He charged in a bit too hard, which is the speed difference you see. He understeered up a lane and into me, which spun me around.”
The 44-year-old Legge has experience in a variety of cars across numerous series. She made seven IndyCar starts for Dale Coyne Racing last year, and she has raced for several teams over more than a decade in the IMSA SportsCar series.
She has dabbled in NASCAR in the past, too, starting four Xfinity races during the 2018 season and another two years ago.
“I have earned my seat on that race track,” Legge said. “I’ve worked just as hard as any of the other drivers out there, and I’ve been racing professionally for the last 20 years. I’m 100 percent sure that … the teams that employed me — without me bringing any sponsorship money for the majority of those 20 years — did not do so as a DEI hire, or a gimmick, or anything else. It’s because I can drive a race car.”
Legge believes the vitriol she has received on social media is indicative of a larger issue with women in motorsports.
“Luckily,” she said, “I have been in tougher battles than you guys in the comment sections.”
Legge has received plenty of support from those in the racing community. IndyCar driver Marco Andretti clapped back at one critic on social media who called Legge “unproven” in response to a post about her history at the Indy 500.
“It’s wild to me how many grown men talk badly about badass girls like this,” Andretti wrote on X. “Does it make them feel more manly from the couch or something?”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway