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

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

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

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

What new conference matchup are you most eager to see?

Georgia-Texas

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

Ohio State-Oregon

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

Tennessee-Oklahoma

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

Oklahoma-LSU

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

Texas-Texas A&M

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


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

Ohio State-USC

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

Stanford-Syracuse and Cal-Wake Forest

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

Colorado-UCF

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

UCLA-Rutgers

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

All of the regionally challenged matchups

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


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

UCLA

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

Wisconsin

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

Penn State

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

Oklahoma

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

SMU

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

The Big 12 conference

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

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L.A.’s Betts day-to-day after stubbing toe in mishap

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L.A.'s Betts day-to-day after stubbing toe in mishap

LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.

Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.

“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”

The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.

“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”

Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.

Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.

But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.

“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”

The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.

The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.

The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.

The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.

Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.

But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.

At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.

“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”

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Tigers place pitcher Jobe (elbow) on 15-day IL

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Tigers place pitcher Jobe (elbow) on 15-day IL

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Detroit Tigers placed pitcher Jackson Jobe on the 15-day injured list Friday because of a right elbow injury.

Jobe, a rookie right-hander, mentioned discomfort after leaving his last start, against San Francisco on Wednesday. The injury was described as a Grade 1 right flexor strain, and the move was retroactive to Thursday.

“He reported that he had a little bit of soreness,” Detroit manager AJ Hinch said before the MLB-leading Tigers opened a three-game series in Kansas City. “So we took him immediately to get evaluated. When the test came back and the doctors read it, they discovered this flexor strain.

“I try not to rush to any judgment until we see how his rest goes, and see how his rehab goes. We’ll listen to the doctors and the pitching coaches on that.”

The 22-year-old Jobe is 4-1 with a 4.22 ERA in 10 starts this season. He has 39 strikeouts and 27 walks in 49 innings.

Right-handed pitcher Dylan Smith was selected from Triple-A Toledo and will make his major league debut with the Tigers. To make room for Smith on the 40-man roster, right-hander Alex Cobb has been transferred to the 60-day injured list.

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Braves lose rookie Smith-Shawver to torn UCL

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Braves lose rookie Smith-Shawver to torn UCL

ATLANTA — Braves rookie right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver has a torn UCL in his pitching elbow, the team said Friday.

Smith-Shawver left Thursday’s 5-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in a doubleheader opener and said he felt a “pop.” The 22-year-old was initially placed on the 15-day injured list before being moved to the 60-day IL on Friday.

“(His evaluation) showed a tear on his imaging,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said before Atlanta opened a three-game series against Boston. “He’ll consult with the physicians or doctors and they’ll decide what the next step is.”

Snitker said he didn’t know if Smith-Shawver would need Tommy John surgery.

On Thursday, Smith-Shawver appeared to say “pop” toward Snitker after a third-inning pitch to Trea Turner. He gave up a go-ahead, two-run homer to Rafael Marchán, then took a 96.6 mph line drive off his right ankle on a a ball hit by Bryson Stott with one out.

Smith-Shawver threw a warmup pitch and stayed in the game, then left after wincing while allowing a flyout to Turner on the fourth pitch of the at-bat.

Smith-Shawver is 3-2 with a 3.86 ERA in nine starts and 44 1/3 innings, striking out 42 and walking 21.

“It’s tough for all (young pitchers) when it happens,” Snitker said. “Especially where he was, feeling good about himself and throwing good.”

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