Despite a grim diagnosis, a deep connection to Cincinnati kept Dontay Corleone going
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David Hale
CINCINNATI — The burger is called “The Godfather,” named after Dontay Corleone, the West Cincinnati kid who blossomed into a star as one of the nation’s top defensive tackles for his hometown Cincinnati Bearcats in 2023. The way Tom Scott, owner of Bucketheads sports bar, saw it, partnering with a local star with a catchy nickname who, at 335 pounds, looked like someone who knew a good burger made for good business.
The deal was simple enough: Corleone would get $2 for each burger sold — a few dozen a week and a couple hundred during the bar’s famed “burger week” promotion. In exchange, he would make an occasional in-store appearance.
Corleone helped select the ingredients, too: A house burger topped with pulled pork, American cheese and a fried onion ring. The calorie count is, well …
“If you have to ask,” Scott said, “you don’t want to know.”
Two years after launching their partnership, with college football’s biggest stars routinely pulling in six or seven figure deals, the money Corleone earns from his burger seems like a relative pittance, Scott said. The thing is, Corleone has never complained, never asked for more and never turned down a chance to help out the business. The money was always a secondary part of the deal. For a player who prides himself on being true to his Cincinnati roots, Corleone takes care of his own.
“When I first got to college, my mom said I was here for three or four years, no transfer portal,” Corleone said. “I was never the guy to chase money. I was always loyalty over everything. I wanted that connection.”
So, when a doctor’s visit to address nagging back pain in summer 2024 turned into a potentially career-ending diagnosis of blood clots in his lung, it wasn’t just football Corleone feared losing. It was the connection to his city.
Instead, it has been the connection that endured, and it’s what carried him — through months of rehab and a season fighting his way back into game shape — and he has a new outlook on his career. As Corleone and the Bearcats kick off the 2025 season against Nebraska (9 p.m. ET on Thursday, ESPN), he no longer sees playing at Cincinnati as an act of loyalty — it’s a gift.
“Never take it for granted,” Corleone said. “That’s the thing I’m telling the young guys all the time now. Because it can all be taken away in an instant.”
CORLEONE LIKED TO play basketball to stay in good shape during the offseason, but last June, he noticed he couldn’t go more than a few trips up and down the court without being winded. He mentioned it to Cincinnati’s training staff, but he thought little of it.
A few days later, his back began to hurt. Aaron Himmler, Cincinnati’s senior associate athletic director for sports medicine, assumed Corleone had just tweaked a muscle.
A day after that, Corleone woke up in agony, struggling to breathe. This time, Himmler insisted on a trip to the campus medical center for a CAT scan.
“We just wanted to make sure nothing weird was going on,” Himmler said. “We figured we’d rule things out.”
Corleone was coming off a stellar 2023 campaign in which he had been among the nation’s most effective interior defensive linemen, racking up 11 pressures, 14 run stuffs and three sacks. He was a crucial part of the Bearcats plans in 2024, too, and Corleone assumed he would soon be off to the NFL.
Instead, the radiologist called Himmler back just a few hours after the scans with a grim diagnosis.
Corleone had a pulmonary embolism — blood clots in one of his lungs. Himmler’s heart sank. A few years earlier, another Cincinnati athlete was given the same diagnosis, and for them, it was career ending.
That was Corleone’s first thought, too.
“I thought it was all over with,” Corleone said.
Corleone was distraught. Himmler spent the next few days mostly by Corleone’s bedside, urging him not to think too far ahead. There were doctors who specialized in blood clots. Himmler had dealt with a few of them before. Medicine had gotten better, too. Himmler promised Cincinnati would “throw the full-court press” at the disease. There was hope, he promised.
But even Himmler wasn’t entirely certain.
“I’d be lying if I said that didn’t go through my mind [that it could be career ending],” he said. “I knew exactly how big that year was for him coming off all that success. That spotlight was getting really bright. It was a deflating moment.”
Himmler knew of specialists at the University of North Carolina, and he set a date to fly to Chapel Hill for more tests and a consultation with doctors there. But there would be a two-week wait before their visit.
That was Corleone’s low point. For 10 days, he barely left his apartment. Corleone’s mother, Resheda Myles, would call a few times a day to check on him, and if he didn’t answer, she would drive to his apartment and bang on the door until he opened it. She was among the few people he spoke to.
“He had high hopes of the NFL,” said coach Scott Satterfield. “The thought in his mind was he was never going to play football again. That’s devastating from a mental standpoint.”
That his career might be over was at the front of Corleone’s mind, but the weight of the loss was worsened because he felt certain he was letting down his family and friends in Cincinnati.
“I stayed [at UC] because the fan base is like a second family for me,” Corleone said. “But you also feel like the whole city’s riding on you. As an athlete, you always want to be like a superhero to people.”
Just before he was set to leave for Chapel Hill, Corleone donned a hoodie and made a trip to the grocery store down the road from his apartment. He kept the hood up and slouched his head, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed, but 335-pound defensive tackles tend to stand out.
He was walking into the store when a woman stopped him.
He froze. He knew what was coming next. Aren’t you Dontay Corleone? What’s the news on your health? What’s going to happen to the team without you?
Instead, she put her hand on his arm, looked him in the eye.
“How are you?” she asked. “Are you OK?”
He nearly burst into tears. That simple gesture was a reminder of why he was here. This city loved him as much as he loved it.
“There was this dark cloud over me, like — man, what are people going to think of me now,” he said. “I don’t think she could’ve understood how big that moment was for me.”
A few days later, on the flight back to Cincinnati, with a fresh perspective on his diagnosis and a blueprint from doctors on how to combat the blood clots, he turned to Himmler with a smile.
“I feel good about this,” he said. “I’m ready to go forward.”
DURING FALL CAMP last season, Corleone ran. While the rest of his teammates donned pads and worked through drills, Corleone ran. Not hitting, no contact, just running.
“That wasn’t getting me in [football] shape, so I knew the season would be different,” Corleone said. “I knew it would be hard. I knew it might not look good for scouts. But getting back on the field was what I needed. If I played one down, I’d cherish it forever.”
The medical team at Cincinnati had found a regiment of medicine that kept the blood clots at bay and workouts that would, gradually, get Corleone back onto the field, but it wasn’t until Week 2 of the season that he was officially cleared for contact. For a defensive tackle who makes his living delivering blows to multiple offensive linemen on each snap, that was a problem.
Corleone played 48 snaps in a loss to Pitt on Sept. 7 — less than three months after his diagnosis — and he was winded from the outset. Cincinnati dialed back his workload for the next two weeks, and by October, he started to feel something more like normal.
He ended 2024 with 26 tackles, 3.5 sacks and four QB hurries. Cincinnati ended on a five-game losing streak.
The season wasn’t what he had hoped, but he was back on the field, and that was worth celebrating, Corleone said.
Cincinnati also connected Corleone with former Tennessee offensive lineman Trey Smith, who had been a five-star recruit but nearly saw his career ended by a similar blood-clotting issue. Instead, Smith found medicine that allowed him to return to action, and he’s now entering his fifth season in the NFL.
The advice Smith offered: Stop trying to be a tough guy.
Suddenly it clicked for Corleone. His health issues weren’t something to hide from, but rather something to attack.
“The clouds went off, and there’s a big sun now where it just gave me a different approach,” Corleone said.
Corleone had often resisted working with trainers early in his career. He viewed injuries as a sign of weakness — something to play through, not treat. Now, he had a whole different appreciation for the Cincinnati training staff.
Each week, Himmler meets with members of the program’s mental health staff, dietitians, strength and conditioning coaches and sports medicine staff for what he calls a “performance team meeting,” going over the latest injury reports and scheming out game plans for players who needed extra attention. Corleone liked the idea, and so he asked to hold a separate meeting, just for him.
“Holistically, he’s leaving no boxes unchecked,” Himmler said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen somebody as motivated as he is right now.”
As much as the 2024 campaign felt like a lost season at times, Satterfield said he still turns on the film and watches in awe as Corleone eats up blockers.
“If you put one guy on him, he’s going straight to the backfield,” Satterfield said. “It happens every time.”
Still, Satterfield knows there’s more in the tank for his star defender. He’s a year removed from the lowest point of his career, armed with a new perspective, with more maturity.
This is the chance for Corleone to remind Cincinnati — and the rest of the college football world — what he can do.
Only, that’s not how Corleone is viewing this season. He insists he isn’t making up for lost time or trying to prove himself again to scouts or fans. He’s doing it because he has seen what it looks like to have football nearly disappear, and he has promised himself to make the most of whatever time he has left to play the game now.
“You go through something like that and still have the opportunity to play, that’s motivating enough,” defensive line coach Walter Stewart said. “‘I get to play ball.’ That’s been his approach. He’s very grateful.”
IN JUNE, CINCINNATI opened its new performance center and indoor practice facility — 180,000 square feet of state-of-the-art design that, Satterfield said, marked a watershed moment in the program’s climb from the Group of 5 to the upper echelons of the sport.
The event was attended by dignitaries from around campus, with an official ribbon cutting by Satterfield, AD John Cunningham and, at the edge of the stage, the kid from West Cincinnati.
Himmler couldn’t help but take a moment to consider how far Corleone had come in that moment. He arrived on campus as a quiet, understated 18-year-old, lightly recruited and eager to prove himself.
And now …
“Now he talks to donors,” Himmler said. “He’s cutting ribbons. The mountain of things he’s had to overcome — there’s just so much growth.”
Satterfield points to Cincinnati’s own trajectory over the past four years: A coaching change, a move to the Big 12, losing seasons and hope for a breakthrough. It all mirrors Corleone’s own journey.
In an era in which players might never build a bond with a campus or community, Corleone has become the epitome of what it means to be at — and be from — Cincinnati.
It’s the reason Corleone was there on stage, snipping a ribbon on the biggest investment the program has made into football in a generation. He’s the face of Cincinnati, and it’s the role he has always wanted.
“He loves having a legacy in Cincinnati,” Satterfield said. “He eats it up. He loves the city, and the city loves him.”
A few weeks before the ribbon cutting, Corleone bought a house with money he earned from NIL and revenue sharing and, of course, sales of hamburgers he can no longer eat. It’s a four-bed, four-bath brick home with burgundy shutters. It’s just two blocks from the house he grew up in, where a single mom raised three kids to work hard and cherish their roots.
Corleone has eyes on another house, too. He wants to buy one for his mom, but he’s waiting it out. After his first big NFL contract, he said he’ll get her the home of her dreams — big, beautiful and in any locale she wants. She has earned a chance to live in a paradise of her choosing.
Corleone hopes this is the season everything clicks to make that dream a reality. He’ll put up big numbers, wow NFL scouts, lead Cincinnati back to a bowl or, maybe, a Big 12 title. But his house, the one he bought this summer, is about his past, how far he has come and the people and the city that helped him get here.
“It still hits me how crazy it is,” Corleone said. “I came from nothing. Now I know wherever I go, I’ll always have a home in Cincinnati.”
The college football job market took an expected turn last year.
The headwinds of financial uncertainty, combined with a record number of jobs turning over in 2023, led to a quieter year on the coaching carousel, especially at high-end schools.
Last offseason, there was a dip in head coaching changes at FBS football, with 30 total. The year before, a record 32 jobs turned over, per NCAA statistics.
Notably last offseason, no jobs turned over in the SEC and there was just one in the Big Ten (Purdue). Only West Virginia and UCF turned over in the Big 12, and the ACC had three changes (North Carolina, Wake Forest and Stanford).
None of those jobs would remotely qualify as blue bloods, which has the industry bracing for what could end up being a big year for high-end coaching turnover. The carousel rests for only so long.
That has led to a fascinating tension that will serve as the backdrop for this year’s edition: In an era when a vast majority of schools are scrambling for resources and revenue, are schools ready to pay big buyout money to part with their coaches? For big movement this year, there will have to be one or two big buyouts.
“The signs are that it’s going to be a pretty big year,” said an industry source. “There’s 15 to 20 schools in flux, and it was really light last year. That combination lends itself to a big year.
“But the question is whether 6-6 is worth making a change when you need to find 20-plus million? I think the trend is going to schools looking not to make the decision.”
There’s a counter to that perspective, and it’s a peek at the college basketball market from last year. Places like Indiana, Villanova, Iowa, Minnesota, NC State, Texas and Utah all paid sizable buyouts to kick-start new eras.
“I think people are past the rev share issues,” another industry source said. “They were stalled out last year in the football carousel, but they didn’t have any trouble getting going in the basketball carousel.”
Jimbo Fisher’s football buyout from Texas A&M in 2023 was $76.8 million, which included $19.2 million within 60 days and $7.2 million annually with no offset or mitigation. That’s the Secretariat-at-the-Belmont runaway winner for the biggest in the history of the sport.
The second-biggest public buyout belongs to Auburn, which fired Gus Malzahn in 2020 and owed him $21.7 million.
If this is indeed going to be an active coaching carousel among high-end jobs, the Malzahn number will need to be toppled. And the Fisher buyout has a chance to be as well.
Ultimately, the case for an active coaching carousel starts with big-name jobs that are in flux, the so-called market moves that ripple through the industry. A majority of those potential openings — although not all — would involve heavy lifting from a buyout perspective.
One source pointed out that schools in the SEC and Big Ten will have new line items that could make a big buyout more tenable, as there’s an influx of CFP money coming.
One school told ESPN that it has budgeted an additional $8 million additional for bowl revenue for the new CFP starting in 2026. (The specific amount is tricky, as there’s a flurry of variables that make a finite number tough to pin down.)
That makes the particulars of the buyouts important. How much money is up front? Is there offset and mitigation?
Here’s a look at the jobs with the buyout tension that could set the market, as well as other jobs worth monitoring across each conference.
Jump to a topic:
Big buyouts | Other Big Ten
Other SEC | Other ACC
Big 12 | Group of 5
Big buyouts
USC | Lincoln Riley (26-14 entering Year 4)
Buyout: More than $80 million
Nearly everything has changed since Lincoln Riley came to Los Angeles. Most notably, the results. After an 11-3 debut in 2022, he has gone 8-5 and 7-6 with losses along the way to Maryland, Minnesota and UCLA. The splash of the hire has worn off amid close losses, media clashes and modest expectations for 2025.
His winning percentage with the Trojans is 65.0%, which is lower than Clay Helton’s USC winning percentage (65.7) when he was fired. It’s also nearly 20% worse than his Oklahoma win percentage (84.6).
Many of the core people Riley brought with him from Oklahoma have been removed or seen their roles diminish, with the firing of strength coach Bennie Wylie and the hiring of new general manager Chad Bowden recent examples of significant personnel changes around him.
Athletic director Jennifer Cohen didn’t hire Riley. She also has made clear that there are championship expectations. She has invested accordingly, including a new football performance center that’s under construction and plenty of staff infrastructure and NIL financial gunpowder.
Although firing Riley would generate eye-popping financial headlines, the understanding is that there is offset and mitigation on his deal. That would diminish the number owed him over time. He’s too gifted a playcaller and offensive mind to sit out through the length of his deal, which was originally a 10-year contract that began in the 2023 season. (His buyout to leave is minimal if he chose to go elsewhere, but leaving that much guaranteed money behind would be hard.)
Without high-end results, there will continue to be uncertainty. USC will be favored in its first four games, and then it enters one of the most difficult stretches on any schedule this year — at Illinois, Michigan, at Notre Dame and at Nebraska. (There’s a bye between the trips to South Bend and Lincoln.)
That means by Nov. 1, we’ll get a sense of what Riley truly has built in his fourth season and where his tenure is headed.
The best news for Riley is there’s hope on the way, as USC has the No. 1 recruiting class for 2026, which includes 19 ESPN 300 prospects.
Florida State | Mike Norvell (33-27 entering Year 6)
Buyout: $58 million
This was unthinkable two years ago, when FSU went undefeated in the regular season and won the ACC. But since quarterback Jordan Travis’ injury and the subsequent College Football Playoff snub following 2023, everything has gone wrong for FSU.
In the wake of FSU’s 2-10 season last year, Norvell has overhauled the coaching staff, given up playcalling and brought in new coordinators. Florida State can’t really afford to fire him, but it also can’t afford to trudge through another miserable season like last year.
Norvell also agreed to a restructured new deal, which includes donating $4.5 million of his salary to the program in 2025. Effectively, Norvell took a performance pay cut. (He can earn that back, too, as included in the new deal is a $750,000 bonus for nine wins.)
The 2024 implosion came at a time when Florida State had actively — and awkwardly — been lobbying to find a new conference home. That bluster has died down, and the financials of leaving the ACC are clear. FSU’s need to get back to winning is rooted in those grander ambitions.
What’s important here if FSU does have to move on is that Norvell’s remaining money is subject to offset and mitigation. He’d likely be a strong candidate to coach again, which would blunt some of the financial pain.
Norvell went 23-4 in 2022 and 2023, which built up some grace. Here’s what no one knows: What is enough progress for 2025?
Oklahoma | Brent Venables (22-17 entering Year 4)
Buyout: $36.1 million
Oklahoma extended Venables through the 2029 season in the summer of 2024. The Sooners subsequently went 6-7 in their SEC debut, which led to some scrutiny of that deal.
Venables is popular in Norman, dating back to his time as an assistant. Like many defensive head coaches early in his career, he made a misstep at offensive coordinator that quelled the momentum from OU’s 10-2 season in its Big 12 finale in 2023.
There’s an athletic director shift coming at Oklahoma, with Joe Castiglione retiring. There also has been new blood in the football program, with general manager Jim Nagy coming in this offseason from the Senior Bowl.
This season is a fascinating litmus test for OU’s viability in the SEC. The Sooners have fortified the roster with a significant upgrade at quarterback (John Mateer), expect better health at wide receiver and have made holistic upgrades.
But the reality is that most teams are going to lose half their games in the SEC, and it’d be a poor time for Venables to have a bad year. The Sooners also play seven teams ranked in the preseason Top 25, and that doesn’t include Missouri or Auburn.
Wisconsin | Luke Fickell (13-13 entering Year 3)
Buyout: More than $25 million
Wisconsin ended last year with five straight losses and missed a bowl for the first time since 2001.
Wisconsin extended Fickell after last year, but that didn’t impact his buyout. There’s optimism for a change of trajectory, as Wisconsin is undergoing a schematic shift back to the school’s identity roots as a running offense. It will be a welcomed change after the failed Air Raid experiment.
The factor that has this job coming up in industry circles is Wisconsin’s schedule, which might make it difficult for the Badgers to take a significant step forward. They play at Alabama, at Michigan, Iowa, Ohio State, at Oregon, Washington, at Indiana, Illinois and at Minnesota.
Wisconsin could be a better team but have a similar record. The institutional history, Fickell’s general track record and buyout expense suggest patience is likely.
Other jobs worth monitoring
Big Ten
Maryland: Mike Locksley’s strong run at Maryland took a hairpin turn last year, as the Terps went 4-8, 1-8 in Big Ten play and Locksley admitted he lost the locker room. There’s a lot of goodwill from Locksley’s three consecutive bowl games, which hadn’t happened since Ralph Friedgen’s tenure in 2008. But there’s also a new athletic director, Jim Smith, and an expectation to return to winning. Maryland is heavily favored in its three games to open the year (FAU, Northern Illinois and Towson), which could quiet things. Locksley would be owed $13.4 million if fired, a considerable amount for Maryland. He’d also have 50% of that due in 60 days, a sizable check for a university not flush with cash.
SEC
Auburn: Hugh Freeze faces a classic win-or-else season at Auburn. The Tigers have strong talent upgrades from both the portal and recruiting. But Auburn is not a traditionally patient place, so Freeze’s 11-14 record there needs to improve quickly. He’d be owed just under $15.4 million, which is expensive but not something Auburn would flinch at if there are modest results again. Don’t expect him to be around if Auburn has another losing season.
Arkansas: The goofiest buyout in college sports looms over any potential decision on Sam Pittman. If he’s .500 or above since 2021 — he enters the year 27-24 in that time frame — Arkansas would have to pay him nearly $9.8 million. To keep the buyout at this higher level, he’d need to win five games. If Pittman goes 4-8, the number would be nearly $6.9 million. Credit Pittman, who revived Arkansas from the depths of Chad Morris’ era and keeps on surviving. If he’s above four wins, Arkansas would face scrutiny for issuing such a bizarre contract and the extra money it’d cost the program to fire him.
Florida: The temperature on Billy Napier has cooled considerably, and the Gators have a top-flight quarterback and great expectations again. He’s 19-19 through three seasons, and his buyout remains eye-popping at $20.4 million. (There’s no offset or mitigation on the deal.) Athletic director Scott Stricklin gave Napier a midseason vote of confidence last year by announcing he’d return, and Florida responded with a strong finishing kick by winning four straight to close the year. Stricklin clearly has his back. And per an ESPN source, Stricklin has three additional years added to his contract, which now runs through 2030. That bodes well for Napier, as they are clearly aligned.
ACC
Stanford: General manager Andrew Luck’s first significant hire looms. With interim coach Frank Reich clear that he’s on The Farm short term, Luck needs to decide whether he wants someone from the college ranks or the NFL. What’s unique about this job is that the hire will be made through the shared prism of how Luck sees the identity of the program, not necessarily just a coach coming in and bringing the identity.
Virginia Tech: It’s a classic prove-it year for Brent Pry, who has two years remaining on his original contract. He’d be owed $6.2 million if fired on Dec. 1. He’s 16-21 over three years and 1-12 in one-score games, and Tech’s ambitions are clearly greater than that. Considerable improvement is needed, or Tech will hit reset as the administration appears motivated by the fear of getting left behind in the next iteration of the collegiate landscape. Athletic director Whit Babcock has hired Pry and Justin Fuente, which would mean his future could be in flux if a change comes here. ADs don’t often get to hire three coaches.
Virginia: There was a discernable uptick in investment and aggression by Virginia in the portal this offseason. That’s a sign the pressure is ratcheted up on Tony Elliott, who is 11-23 through three seasons. He entered a job with arguably the worst facilities in power conference football. He also dealt with unspeakable tragedy: the murder of three players in a campus shooting. UVA showed signs of progress last year with five wins, and that needs to continue. Elliott is owed more than $11.1 million if fired on Dec. 1, and UVA is more likely to need to direct that to the roster than a payout.
Cal: Can Cal do better than Justin Wilcox? It’s unlikely, as he has led the team to four bowls since taking over in 2017. Cal has no athletic director, landed in an awkward geographic league and is working to financially catch up to the rest of the sport. Wilcox would be owed $10.9 million if he’s fired, which would seemingly be too rich for Cal to handle. But with so much change afoot, there’s an industry expectation that something could happen here, as Wilcox could also have other suitors.
Big 12
Oklahoma State: The school forced Mike Gundy into a reduced salary and buyout. Those are fluorescent signs of a school preparing to move on, although the buyout remains significant at $15 million. It would be a seminal moment for a school to fire a coach who has more than 100 more wins than the next most successful coach in school history. Gundy is 169-88, but the program fell off a cliff last year at 3-9. The roster doesn’t offer much optimism for drastic improvement, and essentially the entire coaching staff is new. Gundy has done some of his best work with low expectations, and that’s what OSU has in 2025.
Arizona: Arizona’s dip from 10-3 in Jedd Fisch’s first year to 4-8 in Brent Brennan’s first season has led to scrutiny. Also, there has been a new athletic director brought in since Brennan was hired. The buyout price is steep at $10.6 million, but it’s something Arizona is expected to consider if there’s no improvement. It doesn’t help matters for Brennan that rival Arizona State burst into the CFP in Kenny Dillingham’s second year.
Cincinnati: There have been growing pains entering the Big 12 for the Bearcats, who are 4-14 in league play in the first two years. There’s an expectation for continued improvement in Scott Satterfield’s third year, as he went 3-9 in Year 1 and jumped to 5-7 last year. The Bearcats lost their final five games last year. The buyout tab is nearly $12 million, which is a lot for a school that moved its opener against Nebraska to Kansas City for financial reasons.
Baylor: The temperature on Dave Aranda’s seat has cooled exponentially compared with the past two seasons. He snapped a skid of two losing seasons by going 8-5 last year and 6-3 in the Big 12. A change would require a precipitous downturn, as Aranda is beloved in Waco. There’s an unforgiving schedule, however, that opens with Auburn and a trip to SMU. His buyout is in the $12 million range, and it’s unlikely to be tested.
Group of 5
American: The American might have been the biggest surprise in the 2024 coaching carousel, with FAU, Tulsa and Charlotte all firing coaches after just two seasons. Temple, Rice and East Carolina also fired their coaches. Oddly, the worries over revenue share spending didn’t intimidate these schools from making moves.
There’s really only one job squarely in the crosshairs, and that’s Trent Dilfer at UAB, who is 7-17 in two seasons. He’d be owed nearly $2.5 million if dismissed. UAB has struggled to translate its strong run in Conference USA to the American since joining in 2023.
Conference USA: This also projects to be a quieter year in Conference USA, with only Louisiana Tech having a coach potentially in flux. Sonny Cumbie went 5-8 last year after opening with back-to-back 3-9 seasons. He’ll need continued improvement to stick around for that school’s eventual transition to the Sun Belt. He’d be owed nearly $875,000 if let go, as 2026 is the last year of his deal.
MAC: There’s already one MAC job open, after Kenni Burns’ firing this spring at Kent State. There are significant financial challenges both there and at Akron, which also could be in flux with Joe Moorhead entering Year 4 at 8-28. (He’d be owed about $650,000 if fired, which is significant.) There’s still a market for Moorhead as a college offensive coordinator, which could be the pivot if the Zips don’t get moving. (Perhaps the NFL, too.) Overall, this looks like a quieter year in the MAC.
Mountain West: The lack of a contract extension for Jay Norvell at Colorado State is a smoke signal that a decision is coming. He has just one year left on his deal and would be owed $1.5 million if fired before Dec. 1. He also wouldn’t have to pay any money to go elsewhere. Norvell has an administration that didn’t hire him and, despite solid improvement, there will be speculation over his future until something changes contractually. Colorado State went 8-5 last year and 6-1 in the Mountain West. Norvell is 16-21 in his three years.
Sun Belt: Two coaches will be watched closely here. Tim Beck is 14-12 at Coastal Carolina over two seasons, having reached bowls in each of them. He had the misfortune of replacing Jamey Chadwell, who averaged more than 10 wins over his final three seasons. Beck would be owed $1.5 million if Coastal fired him, and Coastal has both a new athletic director and president. Ricky Rahne at Old Dominion is 20-30 overall and still in search of his first winning season there. He has just one year remaining on his deal after this one, a sign that a decision on his future one way or the other is imminent. He’d be owed $600,000 if fired.
Pac-12: None.
Miami linebacker Adarius Hayes has been charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and one count of reckless driving with serious bodily injury following an investigation into a May crash that killed three people.
Hayes surrendered to police Friday morning in his hometown of Largo, Florida, officials said, and records show he was booked into the Pinellas County Jail. It was not immediately clear if he retained an attorney.
Miami said Hayes “has been indefinitely suspended from all athletic related activities per athletic department policy” in response to the charges. The Hurricanes declined further comment.
The three people who died as a result of the May 10 afternoon crash — a 78-year-old woman, plus two children ages 10 and 4 — were all in a Kia Soul that collided with a Dodge Durango being driven by Hayes, police said at the time.
The children were ejected from the vehicle, police said, and investigators later found that Hayes was “maneuvering aggressively through traffic shortly before the crash.” He was driving at 78.9 mph in a 40 mph zone at the time of the crash, police said.
Another passenger of the Kia had been hospitalized with serious injuries.
“The investigation concluded that Adarius Hayes’ egregious speed, aggressive and reckless lane changes, and complete disregard for surrounding traffic conditions demonstrated a willful and deliberate disregard for the safety of others, constituting reckless driving. These actions directly led to the tragic deaths of the three victims,” Largo police said in a statement Friday.
The Kia, police said, was “lawfully executing a left-hand turn” when Hayes’ vehicle “made a rapid and dangerous maneuver” and crashed into the car.
Hayes played in 12 games as a freshman for Miami last season, mostly on special teams. He was a four-star recruit coming out of Largo High School.
Largo is about 20 miles east of Tampa and about 15 miles north of St. Petersburg on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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David Purdum
The point spread on Saturday’s Texas-Ohio State showdown has been on the move all week, with the Longhorns becoming a favorite at some sportsbooks, including ESPN BET, as of Friday morning.
The Buckeyes opened as a 3-point favorite months ago, but sportsbooks have been reporting a steady stream of money on the Longhorns throughout the summer, causing the line to move toward Texas.
The consensus line was a pick ’em as of noon ET Friday, with ESPN BET and DraftKings listing Texas as a 1.5-point favorite.
Circa, a sportsbook known to cater to professional bettors, had seen enough interest on the Longhorns to move them to a 1-point favorite on Thursday. Derek Stevens, the owner of Circa, said on VSIN that a $550,000 bet on Texas preceded the move to Longhorns -1. The line had ticked back to pick ’em by early Friday at Circa.
“It seems like the public is moving the line,” Chris Bennett, sportsbook director at Circa, told ESPN. “We’ve seen a lot of interest in Texas, but not from the usual suspects, and by that I mean a subset of sharp customers we have a lot of history with.”
The Buckeyes have not been a home underdog since 2018 against Michigan and have been favored by less than three points at Ohio Stadium only once since 2012. If the line closes with Ohio State as the favorite, Texas would become the first team ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 to be an underdog in its first game.
“The perception is that Texas is just more experienced than Ohio State,” said Ed Salmons, veteran football oddsmaker for the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. “Arch Manning is considered a much better quarterback than the Ohio State quarterback [Julian Sayin]. Both are such unknowns, no one really knows.”
Salmons said it became obvious over the summer that the betting public was supporting Texas and that, once the line dropped from the opening number of Ohio State -3, it had the potential to move all the way to the Longhorns being the favorite.
“The public right now likes Texas, but we’ll see the day of the game,” Salmons said. “Sometimes you think that, and then all of a sudden you’ll see these big Ohio State bets. It’s a game we’re expecting a ton of handle on.”
The bulk of the betting action, both on the moneyline and spread, was on Texas at Caesars Sportsbook as well, but some of the bigger bettors had not weighed in on the marquee matchup of Week 1.
“There has not been a lot of wise guy action thus far,” said Joey Feazel, lead football trader for Caesars Sportsbook. “I believe that says more to the true variation of this game and not knowing exactly what you are going to get from either side of the ball. I expect we will see some action closer to game time.”
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