How a rumored ‘moonshine cave’ unearthed living history of North Wilkesboro Speedway
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Tuesday, March 26, was supposed to be a routine morning at the resurrected North Wilkesboro Speedway. The legendary 0.625-mile short track is carved into the foothills that rise from the red dirt northwestern corner of North Carolina, where the Piedmont region gives way to the Appalachian Mountains. The NASCAR All-Star Race, which takes the green flag Sunday night, was still eight weeks away, what should have been a comfortable span for the speedway ground crews that were starting the process of waking the 77-year-old bullring from its wintertime slumber. The drone of leaf blowers echoed off the crusty concrete frontstretch grandstand.
Then the machines fell silent.
Steve Swift was there, up from his office at Charlotte Motor Speedway, headquarters of Speedway Motorsports Inc., owner of a portfolio of NASCAR facilities including North Wilkesboro.
“One of the crew came to us and said, ‘Hey man, we might have a problem here,'” remembers Swift, SMI’s vice president of operations and development, aka The Guy Who Makes Sure the Racetracks Work Properly.
“We all ran up there and there was a foot-and-a-half crack in the grandstand, where we had taken some of the old seats out to do some maintenance work. Next thing you know, we take a look through that hole and it’s a not a hole. It’s a cavity. I mean, you could put a Ford pickup truck in there. I thought, this is a cave. Well, that isn’t good.”
Not good for track operators, sure. But for everyone else, be they NASCAR fans, historians, people who love liquor, or Swift’s coworkers who are in the business of promoting races, that hole in the grandstand was awesome. Like, Indiana Jones awesome.
Was it a moonshine cave?
BREAKING NEWS | Sinkhole unearths rumored moonshine cave underneath front stretch grandstands. ??
FULL STORY ?: https://t.co/Iri8nwI9Nt pic.twitter.com/V1IXPnANdc
— North Wilkesboro Speedway (@NWBSpeedway) March 26, 2024
For those who do not know, a quick primer on the intertwined, inebriated history of NASCAR and Wilkes County, North Carolina. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Carolinas were settled largely by Scots-Irish immigrants, who brought their ways of distilling homemade whiskey across the pond with them. The process, in short, is that one heats up a mixture of corn mash and water in a large vat, captures the steam via a system of twisted pipes, and collects the resulting clear 150 proof alcohol into containers for distribution and consumption.
Decades of battling with the government over the taxation of that liquor pushed the majority of the liquid cooking into the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. Why? Because the red clay soil was perfect for growing the ingredients, and the endless rolling hills provided all sorts of nooks and crannies where distillery rigs could be secretly built and fired up under the cloak of night.
When the United States Congress passed the 18th Amendment in 1920, banning all alcohol sales, illegal moonshining became instantly and massively lucrative. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, federal agents — aka revenuers — were still charged with enforcing the taxation of homemade liquor. And there was a lot of it. Thousands of bottles of moonshine were produced daily in Wilkes County alone, waiting to be sold and hauled out of those mountains to buyers in the trunks of tricked-out cars.
A single load of 22 cases produced about $110 profit, nearly $1,300 in 2024 dollars. Most of those delivery vehicles were Ford sedans, retrofitted with high-horsepower Indy 500-worthy engines and smoothly bouncing around on custom spring suspension systems. That allowed moonshine runners to outpace would-be arresting offices by slinging their machines through zigzaggy mountain roads, all while loaded down with hundreds of pounds of liquid weight sloshing around in crates of mason jars and plastic jugs.
When the men piloting those machines inevitably began arguing over who had the fastest rides, they started holding races to find out. That’s why the North Wilkesboro Speedway was plowed out of the dirt. Stock car racing — and ultimately, NASCAR — was born.
But in between all of those deliveries and all of that racing, all of that liquor had to be kept somewhere.
“That was the biggest problem, was where to put it all after we’d made it,” NASCAR Hall of Famer Junior Johnson explained during a drive around then-dilapidated North Wilkesboro Speedway in December 1999. Johnson, who grew up in nearby Ronda, North Carolina, drove his first race at the track in 1949, when he was just 17 years old. His father, Glenn Johnson Sr., was perhaps the most prolific moonshiner in the region, as proven one day in 1935.
“The federal guys came into the house. I was 4 years old. It was me, my mom, daddy, and my four brothers and sisters living there. They found boxes of whiskey in every room of the house. The kitchen. Under the porch. Every single bedroom. Everywhere. Because we didn’t have nowhere else to hide. You just put wherever you could until it was time to haul it off to somebody.”
I am digging through all my old North Wilkesboro files and just found this. The Moonshiners & Revenuers Reunion from 2010, held at Benny Parsons’ place in Wilkes County. Yes, that’s Junior Johnson doing donuts in a 1940 Ford. Shot it on my FlipCam! #NASCAR75 pic.twitter.com/CPBaNHHjb3
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) May 17, 2023
The feds found 7,254 cases of moonshine stuffed into every corner of the Johnson house, the largest illegal liquor seizure ever seen on dry land. On that cold, rainy day in ’99, standing next to the old speedway that had been shuttered nearly four years, Johnson pointed into the mountains … and wait … did he point toward the racetrack itself?
“I know I built about a thousand stills in my lifetime. That’s a lot of whiskey. We hid the stills and we hid the whiskey everywhere. Anywhere where we thought someone might not look. Some of ’em was pretty much right under everybody’s nose.”
Or perhaps under their butts.
Back in Section O, Row 7, Swift and his team started peeling back the concrete like the top of a Spam can. As they did, he couldn’t help but think of a warning given to his crew in 2022, when they started the seemingly impossible process of resurrecting the racetrack for its first Cup Series event since 1996.
“During the construction process we were working on the suites that were that were left from back in the day, the ones that sit up above that main grandstand on the frontstretch,” Swift says of the buildings that were basically double-wide trailers atop stilts that tower over the modest sixteen 20-row sections of seats that line the frontstretch.
The hill that serves as their foundation was made from dirt that was piled up during the track’s construction in 1947, the oval famously laid lopsided. The frontstretch runs downhill and the backstretch uphill because track founder Enoch Staley couldn’t afford to make it perfectly flat.
“When we started running equipment up that hill, Paul Call came up here and warned us that we needed to be really careful because there were things underneath that grandstand that might cause that equipment to fall through,” said Swift.
Paul Call was the caretaker and unofficial welcome director for North Wilkesboro Speedway. He lived in a house adjacent the racetrack and started working there in the 1960s for Staley. During most of the 26-plus years that the bullring sat empty, he was its only employee, mowing the grass and telling stories to anyone who stopped by to take a look at the place as it slowly disintegrated.
In Wilkes County, the surname Call is like Smith. It’s everywhere. See: Willie Clay Call, aka “The Uncatchable,” who streaked through the hills around the racetrack in his liquor-packed 1961 Chrysler New Yorker. Paul Call saw every single NASCAR event run at North Wilkesboro, including last year’s All-Star revival. He died four months later, taking the secret of exactly what was beneath the grandstand with him.
When Swift spelunked his way into the chasm, he expected to find evidence of a sinkhole. They aren’t very common in the Carolina high country, but that had to be it, right? After all, this was the racetrack that had been plagued by infamously awful drainage issues, including the 1979 Holly Farms 400, which had to be postponed two weeks because of a gully-washer of a rain shower that canceled pole qualifying, but also caused the surfacing of — in the words of the Charlotte Observer — “millions of earthworms” that squirmed out of the dirt of the soaked infield to cover the asphalt racing surface with slime and also completely clogged the pipes that had been installed to whisk away the water.
Instead of water, mud or even a handful of nightcrawlers, Swift, a construction guy, found just that. Construction. They ran sinkhole tests, even pumping water into the hole to see where it went, hoping to trace any potential paths of erosion that might create future grandstand collapse. Instead, the hole filled up like a cement pond and the water had to be pumped back out.
“We found a wall that had been placed and some columns that were underneath, stuff you don’t find inside of what is supposed to just be a dirt bank,” Swift recalls, still audibly shocked. “There was things in place there that just didn’t appear as something that had happened over time. This was a purpose-built structure.”
But for what purpose? Swift still doesn’t know for sure. Though he does sound like a man who has a pretty good idea.
“Down in there, all I could think about was Paul Call. He tried to warn us.”
Swift’s job is typically an endless race against time, especially when he discovers serious structural issues within a facility that is preparing to host a big league event. However, this go-round, he told his crew to slow down, take their time and make sure they sifted through every bit of dirt for some sort of clues as to why they were standing inside a designed concrete box.
“You felt like an archaeologist,” Swift says, laughing. “But you aren’t looking for the tomb of Cleopatra or anything. Instead, I had Marcus Smith calling me all the time, asking, ‘Did you find anything yet? Any moonshine down there?'”
Smith, a NASCAR history junkie, is the son of a NASCAR history-maker, promoter and track owner Bruton Smith, who spent nearly his entire 95 years dealing with a roster of questionable stock car racing characters dating back to 1940s. Marcus, now chairman of the company his father started, SMI, knows the stories about Middle Georgia Raceway, a half-mile oval in Macon, Georgia, that hosted nine Cup Series (then Grand National) races from 1966 to ’71, won by the demigod likes of Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison.
On Sept. 23, 1967, three months after Petty won the Macon 300 and three years before Jimi Hendrix played a show on the frontstretch, federal agents discovered what one described as “the most cleverly run moonshine operation I have ever seen.” A secret trapdoor in the floor of a faux ticket booth entered into a 125-foot tunnel that led to a chamber hidden 17 feet beneath the grandstand, containing a pair of stills that produced an estimated 80 gallons of moonshine daily.
“I won the next race they ran there, just a few weeks later,” recalls Allison, a three-time Macon winner and a four-time victor at North Wilkesboro. “I asked them if there was any of that whiskey left, but they said the feds blew it all up.”
Alas, North Wilkesboro’s cave wasn’t Middle Georgia’s. In the end, Swift and his team found nothing more than dirt and speculation. After a couple of weeks of investigating, the urgent business of NASCAR All-Star Race prep was unavoidable. The hole was filled with concrete, the grandstand was repaired and the seats were bolted back onto the cement.
The skeptics of the internet have labeled it all as either a publicity stunt or this generation’s version of Geraldo Rivera stepping into an awkwardly empty Al Capone vault on live TV. But those who love NASCAR, liquor and fun chose to roll with the legend of it all, like a bootlegger hanging onto the steering wheel of a Flathead Ford as he hears oncoming sirens behind him in hot pursuit.
“I think there was definitely something down there,” surmises Petty, the career leader in North Wilkesboro wins with 15 checkered flags. “But if someone was keeping a bunch of cases of liquor down there and someone else knew about it, then it wasn’t going to be down there for long. Some guy either drunk it all or sold to a guy who drunk it all.”
This weekend, those lucky fans with All-Star tickets in the next-to-last section before Turn One will know they are rooting for their favorite racers while sitting atop the most notorious spot of NASCAR’s most notorious speedway, right smack in the middle of America’s most notorious moonshine running valley.
And they can do so while sipping from a jar of perfectly legal, government-approved moonshine purchased from the North Wilkesboro Speedway concession stands, including a jar of “The Uncatchable” with Willie Clay Call’s mug on the label.
“The best part of this whole project, even as hard as it has been getting a place that had been sitting there empty falling apart, ready for racing, has been living the history of that place while also bringing it into the present,” Swift explains proudly. “You just got to work one day and you find a cave that someone built that no one knew about? That place is almost 80 years old and it has history going on.”
Still.
While optimism runs high at most every college football program this time of year, even the rosiest picture has some lurking shadows.
That is true even for the 25 teams in our post-spring Power Rankings. No matter how deep the rosters seem, everyone has some question marks or potential weak spots.
Our college football reporters take a look at the biggest areas of concern for each of the top teams, the potential Achilles’ heel that could keep them from reaching their goals for the season.
Area of concern: Wide receiver
The Nittany Lions addressed the wide receiver spot in the portal with Syracuse’s Trebor Pena and others, but until they actually elevate their production, questions will linger. Penn State has had only one wide receiver rank among the top 10 in the Big Ten in receiving in the past three seasons (Tyler Warren played tight end). Both Warren and top receiver Harrison Wallace III are gone, and Penn State needs its portal haul — Pena, a second-team All-ACC wideout in 2024, as well as Devonte Ross (Troy) and Kyron Hudson (USC) — to give quarterback Drew Allar enough capable targets this fall. Although Allar’s big-game struggles are also concerning, he hasn’t had a great group of receivers at his disposal during his Penn State career. — Adam Rittenberg
Area of concern: Running back
The position group that has been discussed more than any other since the spring at Clemson is running back — the only position on offense that loses the bulk of its production with Phil Mafah off to the NFL. But the Tigers have plenty of depth at running back, and that should help ease any concerns as they move into fall camp. Particularly because running back traditionally has been an area where Clemson has excelled, even when other groups on offense took a step back. (Clemson has had a 1,000-yard rusher 11 of the past 16 years, and that does not include 2023, when Mafah and Will Shipley split the carries nearly evenly and combined for more than 1,700 yards.) It is easy to see true freshman Gideon Davidson as a breakout player, considering the success Clemson has had with true freshman backs since Dabo Swinney arrived. Clemson also has receiver Adam Randall taking reps at running back to help round out the depth in a room that also features Keith Adams Jr. and David Eziomume. Jay Haynes continues to rehab a knee injury. — Andrea Adelson
Area of concern: Offensive line
The Longhorns lost four starters on the O-line to the NFL draft and are breaking in a new quarterback, although Arch Manning made two starts last season, as well as several key receivers with the losses of Matthew Golden, Isaiah Bond and tight end Gunnar Helm. They lost tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., the 2025 No. 9 draft pick, but Trevor Goosby got some key playing time last year at the position when Banks was injured. The Longhorns also lost 56-game starter Jake Majors at center and face Ohio State in Week 1, posing a quick learning curve for an almost completely new offensive line group. — Dave Wilson
Area of concern: Pass rush
The Bulldogs lost six veteran contributors on their front seven on defense, none more important than edge rushers Jalon Walker, Mykel Williams and Chaz Chambliss. Walker and Williams were first-round picks in the NFL draft, and Chambliss was an unheralded contributor over four seasons. They combined for 18 sacks and 28.5 tackles for loss in 2024. Making matters worse, Damon Wilson, a projected replacement on the edge, transferred to Missouri. Georgia feels good about Gabe Harris Jr., and it added Army transfer Elo Modozie, who had 6.5 sacks for the Black Knights last season. — Mark Schlabach
Area of concern: Quarterback
Quarterback Will Howard was everything the Buckeyes could have hoped for last year in his lone season at Ohio State. He was spectacular during the College Football Playoff, posting a QBR of 97.2 over four games during the Buckeyes’ march to the national championship. With Howard now in the NFL, the Buckeyes will be turning to either former five-star freshman Julian Sayin or Lincoln Kienholz this season, pending who wins the job during camp. Throwing to all-world wideout Jeremiah Smith will bolster whomever the starting quarterback winds up being. But even with Smith and All-American safety Caleb Downs anchoring each side of the ball, it’s difficult envisioning the Buckeyes truly contending again unless Ohio State gets good-to-great quarterback play like it did last season. — Jake Trotter
Area of concern: Offensive line
I don’t know that LSU has to necessarily worry about the offensive line because of moves made this offseason, but it has to be something to keep an eye on just because of the magnitude of the losses. The Tigers had one of the best tackle duos in all of college football last season in Will Campbell and Emery Jones, who were first- and third-round NFL draft picks. They lost four starters across the line in total. DJ Chester and Tyree Adams are back in different spots, while Brian Kelly added Braelin Moore from Virginia Tech. — Harry Lyles Jr.
Area of concern: Tight end
Since 2011, the Fighting Irish have had a whopping 10 tight ends selected in the NFL draft, including last season’s leading receiver, Mitchell Evans, who had 43 catches for 421 yards with three touchdowns. While the Irish feel they’ve upgraded their wide receiver group with the additions of Virginia transfer Malachi Fields and Wisconsin’s Will Pauling, tight end remains a bit of a question mark heading into preseason camp. Senior Eli Raridon has the size (6-foot-7) and hands to excel at the position, but he was plagued by injuries during his first couple of college seasons, after tearing an ACL as a freshman. He had 11 catches for 90 yards with two touchdowns in 2024. The status of another tight end, Cooper Flanagan, who tore his left Achilles tendon in the Sugar Bowl, is in question. — Mark Schlabach
Area of concern: Defensive line
It’s hard to say whether this is an area of concern just yet, but there are question marks with Oregon’s defensive line as the Ducks lost both Derrick Harmon and Jordan Burch from last year (as well as Jamaree Caldwell). Defensive end is a strength with Matayo Uiagalelei holding down the edge, but the rest of the line will require some newcomers to step up, such as USC transfer Bear Alexander and rising lineman Aydin Breland, who could be in line for a breakout season. A’mauri Washington, one of the few returning players, will likely be a fixture of the new-look line as well. — Paolo Uggetti
Area of concern: Pass rush
Alabama finished 13th in the SEC last season in quarterback sacks, and while sacks aren’t the end-all when it comes to rushing the passer, the Crimson Tide need to be more consistent in getting to the opposing quarterback. There’s not a pure edge pass rusher in the mold of Will Anderson Jr. or Dallas Turner on this roster, meaning Alabama will need to get more pressure from its interior linemen and perhaps a breakout season from redshirt sophomore outside linebacker Qua Russaw. — Chris Low
Area of concern: Quarterback
When the season ended, quarterback figured to be an obvious strength for BYU considering Jake Retzlaff was set to return. But with him expected to transfer as of late June, the Cougars are left without an established starter. McCae Hillstead showed flashes at Utah State in 2023, Treyson Bourguet started eight games in two years for Western Michigan and true freshman Bear Bachmeier was a big-time recruit who enrolled briefly at Stanford earlier this offseason before leaving for Provo. The expectation is that all three will have a chance to earn the starting job in fall camp, without a clear-cut front-runner. — Kyle Bonagura
Area of concern: Offensive explosiveness
The Illini had a good and efficient offense in 2024, but they weren’t particularly explosive, tying for 64th nationally in plays of 10 yards or longer and tying for 66th in plays of 20 yards or longer. Although quarterback Luke Altmyer and a veteran offensive line return, Illinois needs to replace its top two receivers in Pat Bryant and Zakhari Franklin, who are off to the NFL, and leading rusher Josh McCray, who transferred to Georgia. Offensive coordinator Barry Lunney thinks Collin Dixon, who averaged 14.7 yards per catch in limited work last fall, and incoming freshman Brayden Trimble can spark the offense. “Overall, we’re going to have a little bit more vertical speed in what we’re doing to stretch the defense than what we did,” Lunney told me. “That’s no slight on Zakhari or Pat at all. Those were just kind of bigger, stronger guys.” — Rittenberg
Area of concern: Pass rush
ASU’s late-season surge, from a decent team to one capable of coming within one play of the CFP semifinals, took place primarily thanks to players who are returning in 2025. Obviously losing star running back Cam Skattebo hurts, but the Sun Devils have some of the best overall returning production numbers in the country. We don’t know that they have a pass rush, though. It was an issue last season — ASU ranked just 110th in sacks per dropback — and while both of their sacks leaders (Clayton Smith and Elijah O’Neal) return, that duo combined for just 8.5 sacks between them. Kenny Dillingham evidently thought he had the answers in house, as he didn’t add a single edge rusher in the transfer portal, but while the secondary is sound and experienced, giving QBs too much time to find receivers can bring down even the most seasoned defense. — Bill Connelly
Area of concern: Defensive front
What was perhaps South Carolina’s biggest strength last season could be its biggest concern going into 2025. Gone up front are stalwarts Kyle Kennard, Bam Martin-Scott, Demetrius Knight and TJ Sanders, among others. That left a lot of holes to fill, and the Gamecocks largely addressed them by hitting the portal hard. Rising star Dylan Stewart will be the flashiest player and Bryan Thomas is the lone established senior, with transfers Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy, Davonte Miles and Justin Okoronkwo filling a big void. But perhaps the biggest name to know is sophomore Fred “JayR” Johnson, a rangy linebacker with lauded leadership skills who South Carolina hopes will blossom into the centerpiece of the defense after playing a small role as a freshman in 2024. — David Hale
Area of concern: Wide receiver
With receivers Jaylin Noel and Jayden Higgins both off to the NFL — having been drafted by the Houston Texans in back-to-back rounds — receiver is a good place to start. Noel and Higgins combined for nearly 2,400 receiving yards last season and that type of production will need to be replaced by more than just two players. But even with those holes to fill, the lack of a pass rush last season remains a glaring question mark. If the Cyclones can’t improve upon their conference-worst sack total, it’s hard to see how they can make a run at the Big 12 title, especially given the unknowns at receiver. — Bonagura
Area of concern: Defensive line
One of the most underappreciated keys to SMU’s playoff run last season was the veteran talent up front on defense. Elijah Roberts, Jared Harrison-Hunte and Jahfari Harvey all came from Miami and had multiple years as a starter under their belts in 2024. There won’t be nearly so much experience this year. Add in the departures of Ahmad Walker and Kobe Wilson at linebacker, and there’s a vacuum waiting to be filled in terms of leadership. SMU does return safety Isaiah Nwokobia, who was an All-ACC performer last season, and there’s buzz surrounding East Carolina transfer Zakye Barker at linebacker, but establishing some key voices — and performers — on the D-line remains a question. — Hale
Area of concern: Defense
Does the defensive makeover actually work? The Red Raiders’ D can’t get much worse than what it was in 2024, and that’s not hyperbole. Texas Tech finished 126th in total defense in 2024. The secondary was 132nd in passing yards per game. Shiel Wood takes over as defensive coordinator, and there have been tons of portal additions to this side of the ball. Players such as Stanford linebacker David Bailey and Georgia Tech end Romello Height stand out, along with five transfer defensive backs. There’s really only one way for this group to go, and it’s up. — Lyles Jr.
Area of concern: Defense
Despite the fact that talented defensive end Mikail Kamara is returning, the transfer-heavy unit that allowed the fewest rushing yards per game in the Big Ten last season lost some key contributors. Gone to the NFL are CJ West and James Carpenter, and while Indiana did not hesitate to dip into the transfer portal to reload with players such as Hosea Wheeler (Western Kentucky), Stephen Daley (Kent State), Dominique Ratcliff (Texas State) and Kellan Wyatt (Maryland), one of the Hoosiers’ strongest position groups last year has a lot to prove and live up to in 2025. — Uggetti
Area of concern: Stopping big plays
K-State’s offense was delightfully explosive last season, but the defense often gave up as many big plays as the offense created. The Wildcats blitzed a lot and harassed QBs well, but they ranked 110th in Total QBR allowed and 107th in completions of 10 or more yards allowed. That’s a concern considering the defense lost both leading pass rusher Brendan Mott and four of last year’s five starters in the secondary. Defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman might have to fiddle with the risk-reward balance to get the most out of this defense and help the Wildcats contend in the ultracompetitive Big 12. — Connelly
Area of concern: Wide receiver
One of the reasons Florida is expected to improve in 2025 is because of the talent that quarterback DJ Lagway brings. But the Gators’ top receivers from last season, Elijhah Badger and Chimere Dike, left for the NFL. Eugene Wilson III is back, but also coming off season-ending hip surgery. It will be up to Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson, Naeshaun Montgomery and J. Michael Sturdivant (UCLA transfer) to help establish themselves. — Lyles Jr.
Area of concern: Wide receiver
The Wolverines ranked 129th last season with just 1,678 passing yards. Quarterback play was part of the issue, as Michigan cycled through three quarterbacks (Davis Warren, Jack Tuttle and Alex Orji) in its first season after losing national champion JJ McCarthy. But Michigan’s receivers collectively didn’t make enough plays, as no wideout caught more than 27 passes or totaled more than 248 yards. The onus will be even greater on Michigan’s receivers with tight end Colston Loveland — the Wolverines’ only reliable target last year — now playing for the Chicago Bears. Instant impact from transfers Anthony Simpson (UMass) and Donaven McCulley (Indiana), combined with internal improvement from the likes of Fredrick Moore and Semaj Morgan, will be paramount if Michigan is going to threaten opposing defensive backfields in 2025. — Trotter
Area of concern: Linebacker
The Hurricanes did another fantastic job shoring up positions across the roster in the transfer portal, especially considering how much turnover they had from last season. But if there is one position that still has some questions, it is linebacker, mainly because depth may become an issue as the season wears on. Miami returns three key veterans in Wesley Bissainthe, Jaylin Alderman and Popo Aguirre, and signed NC State transfer Kamal Bonner and Rutgers transfer Mo Toure. Miami often looked slow and out of position at linebacker last season, but the new scheme from defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman should help. The player to keep an eye on here is Toure, whom Hetherman coached while he was at Rutgers. Toure is coming off a knee injury (his second torn ACL in three years), but his potential to fit into this defense, considering his past with Hetherman, is huge. — Adelson
Area of concern: Defensive end
For the past three years, Louisville was able to rely on a genuine star off the edge in Ashton Gillotte, who racked up 21.5 sacks from 2022-24. Gillotte is off to the NFL now, a third-round pick by the Chiefs. That leaves a major void at defensive end. Louisville has a couple of transfers — Wesley Bailey from Rutgers and Clev Lubin from Coastal Carolina — hoping to fill the void, but the strength of the D-line will certainly be on the interior, where the Cards have much more established depth. As Louisville works to remedy issues defending the pass, finding someone — or, ideally, a few guys — who can get after the QB will be one of the most critical jobs for the defense as it prepares for 2025. — Hale
Area of concern: Wide receiver
Just like last season, a big question for the Aggies’ potential is how their wide receiver room will shake out. The Aggies lost Noah Thomas, a bright spot in an otherwise spotty position for A&M and new offensive coordinator Collin Klein, to Georgia after Thomas caught 39 passes for 574 yards and eight touchdowns last year. No other player caught more than two TDs or eclipsed 400 yards on the season as the Aggies fought through a QB change from Conner Weigman to Marcel Reed. This year, the Aggies are looking toward NC State transfer KC Concepcion (71 catches, 839 yards, 10 TDs in 2023, 53-460-6 last year), Mississippi State transfer Mario Craver (17-368-3 as a freshman), as well as returners Ashton Bethel-Roman, 6-2, 220-pound freshman four-star recruit Jerome Myles and dynamic 2024 five-star recruit Terry Bussey, who played something of an all-purpose role last year. As this group goes, so will Reed and the offense. — Wilson
Area of concern: Quarterback
Austin Simmons seems like a talented individual — we’re talking about someone who is athletically gifted enough to play baseball for Ole Miss as well. But anytime you are replacing one of the better quarterbacks in your conference, in this case Jaxson Dart, who was a first-round NFL draft pick, there has to be some level of concern. But from what we’ve seen out of Simmons, there’s promise. His drive against Georgia last season, where he led a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to tie the game while Dart was injured, should give the Ole Miss faithful something to be excited about. — Lyles Jr.
Area of concern: Tight end
It’s been a struggle at tight end for the Sooners, and there’s again uncertainty around the position heading into the 2025 season. Granted, there was plenty of blame to go around for Oklahoma’s struggles on offense last season, but finding more consistency at tight end in both the receiving and blocking categories would be a big boost for an offense that has tons of new faces. There isn’t a definitive starter at tight end entering preseason camp. Transfers Will Huggins (Kansas and Pittsburg State) and Carson Kent (Kennesaw State) are expected to battle with converted linebacker Jaren Kanak for the job. — Low
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Adam Rittenberg
FRISCO, Texas — Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is “doubling down” on the so-called 5+11 future College Football Playoff format, while acknowledging that it might benefit his league more in the future than currently.
The Big 12 and ACC have pushed the model, which would award automatic bids to the five highest-rated conference champions, plus 11 at-large bids determined by the CFP selection committee. The 5+11 model gained some support at the SEC’s spring meetings, while the Big Ten has focused more on a model that would award four automatic bids to Big Ten teams and to SEC teams, plus two apiece to the Big 12 and the ACC.
Yormark, his fellow commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua must determine the CFP format for 2026 and beyond by Dec. 1.
The Big 12 had only one representative, champion Arizona State, in the inaugural 12-team CFP last year. Arizona State lost to Texas in two overtimes in a CFP quarterfinal matchup at the Peach Bowl.
“Five-11 is fair,” Yormark said Tuesday in his opening address at Big 12 media days at The Star. “We want to earn it on the field. It might not be the best solution today for the Big 12 … but long-term, knowing the progress we’re making, the investments we’re making, it’s the right format for us. And I’m doubling down today on 5+11.”
Yormark added that he expects ACC commissioner Jim Phillips to take the same position when that league holds its media days this month in Charlotte, North Carolina. The ACC sent two teams, champion Clemson and runner-up SMU, to the 12-team playoff last year. Yormark touted the Big 12 as the “deepest football conference in America” and said he believes the league will have multiple CFP entries this season.
“I have a lot of faith in the selection process,” Yormark said. “They are doing a full audit of the selection process to figure out how they can modernize and contemporize and how they use data and how certain metrics can be more heavily weighted.”
Yormark told ESPN that he’s “relatively confident” that the CFP will go to 16 teams in 2026 and laid out the next steps to making it happen.
“The first step is we got to figure out, with the selection process, we’re kind of doing a deep dive,” he said. “Where can we improve it? Where can we modernize it? Are we using the right metrics? Are things weighted appropriately or not? So we’re going through that conversation, and I think on the heels of that, we’ll move into the format because I think for the room people need to get confident, more confident, in that selection process. And assuming they do, which I’m confident they will, we’ll be able to then address the format that makes sense.”
In March, the CFP named a Big 12 athletic director, Baylor’s Mack Rhoades, as the chair of its selection committee. Yormark said that in addition to schedule strength, “new metrics” will be added to the selection process to ensure fairness to all conferences.
The Big 12 will have the Week 0 stage as Iowa State and Kansas State renew their rivalry in Dublin. Other key nonleague Big 12 matchups include Baylor-Auburn, Baylor-SMU and Iowa State-Iowa.
“I’m confident we’ll get to the right place,” Yormark said. “And ultimately, I’m confident we’ll go to 5+11.”
ESPN’s Pete Thamel contributed to this report.
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