Culture
UCF inquires about USC coach Lincoln Riley: Sources
By Bruce Feldman, Antonio Morales and Ralph Russo
UCF has inquired about the availability of USC coach Lincoln Riley as it searches for a replacement for Gus Malzahn, three people who have been privy to those conversations told The Athletic on Wednesday.
There has been no indication Riley is interested in making the move, the people said. He is three seasons into a reported 10-year contract that pays him about $10 million per year.
The people spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity because all the discussions were private and UCF was not publicly revealing details of its coaching search.
Riley’s contract is not publicly available because USC is a private school, but extracting him from Southern California — if he wanted to leave — would likely cost tens of millions of dollars for either the Trojans or the school looking to hire him away.
Representatives from UCF reached out to Riley’s representatives last weekend to inquire about his interest in making a move across the country, one source said. Any discussions about adjusting the terms of Riley’s contract would be between him and USC, sources said.
The first source added that UCF has not received any word from Riley’s camp that he is interested in leaving USC, and the school is still looking at multiple candidates to fill its head coaching vacancy.
Firing Riley, whose win total with the Trojans has decreased in each of his three seasons, would cost USC about $90 million, according to one of the sources. If Riley were to leave for another school, he would owe USC nothing. But UCF is not in position to replicate the deal Riley has at USC. Malzahn made $4 million in 2024 at UCF.
Two sources said even if Riley had an interest in making the move, it would require some payout of his current deal with USC to make up for what he would be giving up in the transition — like a professional sports trade where one team pays a chunk of a player’s remaining salary on a large contract and the receiving team picks up the rest.
Riley was hired at USC by former athletic director Mike Bohn, who resigned amid controversy in the spring of 2023. University president Carol Folt oversaw the hire as well and will retire this summer, which means two of the main parties involved in bringing Riley to USC will be gone.
Jen Cohen, the former Washington athletic director, was hired in August 2023 to lead the athletic department. She inherited Riley and his contract.
She’s in the unenviable position of having an underperforming football program but a coach who is too expensive to move on from. In the spring, Cohen navigated a delicate situation with men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield, whose tenure had run its course but his track record was too good to justify a firing. He eventually took the SMU job, and Cohen hired Eric Musselman from Arkansas to replace him.
Even with a suitor for Riley, getting out from under his deal looks more difficult.
Malzahn left UCF after four seasons as head coach to become offensive coordinator at Florida State. The Knights have gone 10-15 overall and 5-13 in league play in their first two seasons in the Big 12 after making the move from the American Athletic Conference. UCF received only a partial share of Big 12 revenue last year, about $18 million, and is scheduled to receive about $19 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The number jumps to a full share in 2025-26, which should be about double those figures.
Riley is 25-14 at USC since being lured to Los Angeles from Oklahoma after the 2021 regular season. It was a seismic move for the Trojans, swiping away a coach who had a 55-10 record in Norman and two Heisman Trophy winners in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.
The Trojans went 11-3 in Riley’s first season with another Heisman winner in Caleb Williams, the star quarterback who followed the coach from Oklahoma to USC. But the results have been trending in the wrong direction since.
USC went 8-5 in 2023, its final season in the Pac-12, and wrapped up its first regular season in the Big Ten with a 6-6 overall record (4-5 in league play).
After the 2023 season, Riley told The Athletic that he “didn’t come here (USC) for some short-term thing and as long as SC continues to give us the support and the things we need to continue to build this, this was not a two-year rebuild.”
Recruiting hasn’t lived up to the high expectations that came with Riley’s hire. USC continues to regress on the field each season, and the program doesn’t appear to have much direction moving forward, making the outlook for Riley look hazy at best.
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Culture
Ding dong, Miami’s dead, but did Ole Miss deserve the CFP rankings nod over Alabama?
The College Football Playoff selection committee made the words of their chairman from a week earlier look silly, and they should all be commended for it.
To a point.
To the point of the Miami Hurricanes being eliminated from CFP contention with Tuesday’s penultimate rankings. That’s the big thing the 13-person committee got right Tuesday, and it came off as a pleasant surprise after several weeks of overrating the Canes, after chair Warde Manuel seemed to telegraph that the relative weakness of Miami’s profile would not count against it.
“Teams can only play the (conference) schedule that’s in front of them,” Manuel said after the previous rankings. “They can only play the opponents that they have. So we take the stance that we’re going to really look at these games, we’re going to look at the stats, we’re going to look at the strength of schedule, but we’re also going to look at how teams are performing against the competition that they have. From our perspective, if it was just about strength of schedule, we wouldn’t be needed.”
That comment came before Miami lost 42-38 at Syracuse. Still, it could have been used to justify keeping the 10-2 Hurricanes in, and it almost did. They dropped from No. 6 to No. 12, with 9-3 Alabama jumping two spots to No. 11 and taking the last at-large bid as of now — if No. 17 Clemson beats No. 8 SMU in the ACC title game, SMU could hang in and bump Alabama out.
In penalizing Miami, the committee thought beyond the simplicity of counting loss totals, valued good wins over “good losses” and ejected a team with a poor strength of schedule and no ranked wins. It’s not Miami’s fault that it didn’t play Clemson and SMU this season, but it’s not to Miami’s credit either.
It is to the credit, or good fortune, of The SEC Three — three-loss Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina — that they played and beat better teams than Miami. The Hurricanes should have dropped below all of them, which has nothing to do with ACC/SEC and everything to do with body of work.
Also, the more I look at it, the more I think No. 13 Ole Miss should have received the nod over Alabama. That one is very, very close. No. 14 South Carolina has a case, too, but when it’s this tight and the Gamecocks lost to Alabama and Ole Miss, the head-to-head results should register and differentiate. And they did.
Really ?? ….what put Bama over the top of Miami for the last spot in is that Miami went 1-2 in their last 3 games (by an average of 4.5 pts, to a ranked Syracuse and GT team that just took UGA to 8OT). Bama went 2-1 (to 5-7 Auburn, destroyed by OU, and beat FCS Mercer)
— Dan Radakovich (@DanRadakovich) December 4, 2024
First, let’s celebrate the positive, all due respect to Miami. The committee seemed in previous rankings to be valuing those confounding “good losses” over quality wins (that’s still the case with Penn State, for the record). As someone who has done the mock NCAA men’s basketball selection process and has observed that process for a long time, wins mean more to that committee than losses. That committee, in essence, asks: “Can this team win games in this tournament?”
Miami could have done damage. Certainly, Cam Ward and the Hurricanes can score, leading the nation at 44.2 points per game. ESPN’s Heather Dinich, who covers the committee, noted it “likes this offense and Cam Ward” in predicting Miami would make the cut Tuesday.
Ward is second in the nation at 343.6 passing yards per game, behind only Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord — has anyone mentioned recently he once played for Ohio State? — at 360.5 per game. McCord helped those numbers with a cool 380 and three touchdowns in Saturday’s upset of the Hurricanes to push 9-3 Cuse into the rankings at No. 22.
That dropped Miami to 60th nationally in scoring defense (23.9) and 42nd in yards per play allowed (5.19). Against a schedule ranked No. 68 in The Athletic analyst Austin Mock’s metric.
Sure, the most recent outing to cost Miami a spot in the ACC title game was a close loss, just like a 28-23 loss to 7-5 Georgia Tech on Nov. 9. But the Hurricanes’ best win this season continues to be a 52-45 escape of a Louisville team that couldn’t quite sneak back into the rankings after thumping rival Kentucky.
The SEC Three also could only play the schedules that were in front of them, and Ole Miss came away with a 28-10 home win over No. 5 Georgia and a 27-3 road win over South Carolina. Alabama beat Georgia 41-34, South Carolina 27-25 and No. 19 Missouri 34-0, all at home.
South Carolina might be playing as well as anyone — and that’s something the committee should be discussing as well. Is a team getting better or worse? South Carolina and Miami, for example, would appear to be teams going in different directions. South Carolina just beat Clemson 17-14 on the road. The Gamecocks also beat Missouri 34-30 and newly unranked Texas A&M 44-20.
All of those wins from The SEC Three are better than any of Miami’s wins. Transitive football does tell us Miami crushed 7-5 Florida on the road, 41-17, while Ole Miss blew it by losing 24-17 at Florida on Nov. 23. That counts as the other mentionable win on Miami’s schedule, but anyone who has watched Florida this season also sees dramatic improvement from September to November.
Ole Miss also lost at home to 4-8 Kentucky, which is bad. And had a 29-26 loss at LSU, which isn’t. I give Ole Miss the edge over Alabama (which is a change from the 12 I submitted after Saturday’s results, for the record) based on current quality of play.
Alabama lost 40-35 at 6-6 Vanderbilt, 24-17 at No. 7 Tennessee and, recently and alarmingly, 24-3 at 6-6 Oklahoma. That one pushes Ole Miss ahead in my mind. South Carolina actually has the best losses, to the other two of The SEC Three, and to LSU. Again, wins beating losses. Yay, committee.
Strength of schedule rankings? South Carolina 12, Alabama 19, Ole Miss 51. Maybe that’s the difference for Alabama. I don’t think it’s brand name, though I expect Lane Kiffin to amplify all such complaints from Ole Miss fans in the days to come.
It’s just so close. Certainly closer than Miami compared with any of the three.
(Photo of Mario Cristobal: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
Culture
Juan Soto bidding reaches $600M, MLB sources say; process of eliminating teams underway
By Ken Rosenthal, Evan Drellich and Brendan Kuty
LOS ANGELES — The floor for Juan Soto is $600 million.
The bidding for the free-agent MLB outfielder has surpassed that amount, according to two people briefed on the negotiations who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Agent Scott Boras said Tuesday at Dodger Stadium that Soto has started the process of eliminating potential landing spots, but did not specify which ones.
The clubs publicly known to be most serious about Soto are the New York Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers. The two people briefed on the negotiations said that all remaining contenders have made offers above $600 million.
The expectation within the industry is that Soto will make his decision by the end of the Winter Meetings, which begin in Dallas on Sunday, and possibly even before the meetings kick off. But Boras said he doesn’t expect an “imminent” decision.
“When you’re going through these things, he’s just got a lot of information to meld through,” Boras said Tuesday. “We’ve had meetings with a number of franchises. He’s begun the process of eliminating teams and doing things. Juan is a very methodical thinker, so we’ll see, but I don’t think anything is imminent in the near future.”
Soto, 26, is on the verge of a landmark contract for two reasons: He is young for a free agent, and teams consider him a once-in-a-generation offensive talent.
His deal is expected to be for at least 12 years, and its present-day value almost certainly will beat the record Shohei Ohtani set with the Dodgers last offseason when he signed a heavily deferred 10-year, $700 million contract. Ohtani’s deal was valued at $460 million for luxury tax purposes, and $438 million by the players’ union.
Soto, in his first season with the Yankees, batted .288 with a career high 41 homers. His .989 OPS ranked third in the majors behind Aaron Judge and Ohtani, and he finished third in American League MVP voting
Juan Soto has walked at least 129 times in 4 consecutive seasons. Barry Bonds is the only other MLB player ever to do that. pic.twitter.com/RpbwuFZnJi
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) November 11, 2024
The Mets are widely regarded as the favorite for Soto, with many in the industry believing the team’s owner, Steve Cohen, will top any rival bid. But the Yankees desperately want to keep Soto as a complement to Judge, and the Red Sox have emerged as a surprising force in the negotiations. The Blue Jays and Dodgers are considered longer shots, though the Jays were willing to match the Dodgers’ bid for Ohtani last offseason, and seem to be just as intently focused on Soto.
That said, Boras was at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday for the introduction of a different client, left-hander Blake Snell, who signed a five-year deal for $182 million. Snell settled for a short-term contract last offseason, which moved slower than this year’s.
“Clubs weren’t interested. They just didn’t call,” Boras said. “The market for free agents last year started maybe in the middle of February, it was that different. People like to register that it has something to do with me — I’m just a functionary of the system. We’ve signed six, seven players already this year. These are the processes of demand and when teams and ownerships choose to move in the marketplace.”
Boras said he wasn’t sure why teams were moving faster this year, but pointed to MLB’s future plans for local media rights as one reason.
“I wish I could answer those questions, I do,” Boras said. “I think a lot of it has to do with media certainty. … This streaming thing that they have going on is very viable, very profitable. I don’t think they like to say that, but obviously the markets indicate that there is a different attitude about what it is.
“Who’s in the market has a lot to do with things too. You have major-market franchises, you have a generational talent in the market (in Soto).”
The Dodgers’ payroll, including luxury tax projections, is around $310 million for 2025, per Cot’s Contracts. Boras was asked whether the Dodgers are attempting to buy championships, and he invoked the team Soto played for last season, the Yankees.
“I would say that, as George … Steinbrenner said, whatever you do to compete, the fact that I can compete in a different way than others, so be it,” Boras said. “I don’t think that has anything to do with the number of trophies that hang over your stadium, I don’t think fans remember that.”
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Culture
Miami AD, ACC commissioner sound off on Canes’ exclusion from CFP field in favor of Alabama
University of Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich did not hold back his disappointment upon learning that his Hurricanes were ranked No. 12 in Tuesday’s latest College Football Playoff rankings, and thus out of the 12-team field in favor of No. 11 Alabama, who earned the last at-large bid in this iteration.
Michigan AD Warde Manuel, the chair of the College Football Playoff selection committee, explained the reason Alabama was ranked ahead of Miami: The Tide are 3-1 against current Top 25 teams and Miami is 0-1. Warde also noted that Alabama is 6-1 against teams above .500 and Miami is 4-2.
“Really ??” Radakovich said on X on Tuesday. “What put Bama over the top of Miami for the last spot in is that Miami went 1-2 in their last 3 games (by an average of 4.5 pts, to a ranked Syracuse and (Georgia Tech) team that just took (Georgia) to 8OT). Bama went 2-1 (to 5-7 Auburn, destroyed by (Oklahoma), and beat FCS Mercer).”
Really ?? ….what put Bama over the top of Miami for the last spot in is that Miami went 1-2 in their last 3 games (by an average of 4.5 pts, to a ranked Syracuse and GT team that just took UGA to 8OT). Bama went 2-1 (to 5-7 Auburn, destroyed by OU, and beat FCS Mercer)
— Dan Radakovich (@DanRadakovich) December 4, 2024
Radakovich and football coach Mario Cristobal both pitched for the Canes’ inclusion in the 12-team field earlier Tuesday.
GO DEEPER
College Football Playoff guide: 12-team format, important dates, game locations
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips also came to Miami’s defense: “We are certainly pleased that SMU moved up in the rankings and that the Committee continued to recognize the Mustangs’ incredible season, which should unequivocally earn them a Playoff spot, regardless of this weekend’s outcome. With that said, we are also incredibly shocked and disappointed that Miami dropped six spots to No. 12.
“Miami has more wins and fewer losses than the team directly ahead of them and a dominant victory over an SEC team whose late-season surge includes a win over No. 13 Ole Miss. Moreover, with two losses by a combined nine points — to a ranked Syracuse team and a Georgia Tech team that just took No. 5 Georgia to eight overtimes. Miami absolutely deserves better from the Committee.
“As we look ahead to the final rankings, we hope the Committee will reconsider and put a deserving Miami in the field. We will continue to look forward to this weekend, when Clemson and SMU have an opportunity to earn an ACC championship and represent the conference in the CFP.”
Miami is now projected to play against BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Dec. 28. According to The Athletic’s latest projections, the Hurricanes have only an eight percent chance to make the Playoff. The field will be finalized Sunday, Dec. 8 after the FBS conference championship games.
GO DEEPER
College football bowl projections: SEC gets all the love for the Playoff field
The case for Miami
Miami had a strong case to finish ahead of the Crimson Tide. Where Manuel and the selection committee missed the boat is by dismissing the fact that Miami’s two losses were to quality opponents. Georgia Tech finished 7-5 but took Georgia, a Playoff team and SEC finalist, to eight overtimes. Syracuse is 9-3 and No. 22 in the CFP rankings.
Two of Alabama’s three losses were to Vanderbilt (6-6) and Oklahoma (6-6). The loss to the Sooners happened just two weeks ago and was by 21 points. — Manny Navarro, Miami beat writer
The case against Miami
Miami being eliminated from CFP contention came off as a pleasant surprise after several weeks of overrating the Canes, and after Manuel seemed to telegraph that the relative weakness of Miami’s profile would not count against it.
“Teams can only play the (conference) schedule that’s in front of them,” Manuel said after last week’s rankings. “They can only play the opponents that they have. So we take the stance that we’re going to really look at these games, we’re going to look at the stats, we’re going to look at the strength of schedule, but we’re also going to look at how teams are performing against the competition that they have. From our perspective, if it was just about strength of schedule, we wouldn’t be needed.”
GO DEEPER
Ding dong, Miami’s dead, but did Ole Miss deserve the CFP rankings nod over Alabama?
In penalizing Miami, the committee thought beyond the simplicity of counting loss totals, valued good wins over “good losses” and ejected a team with a poor strength of schedule and no ranked wins. It’s not Miami’s fault that it didn’t play Clemson and SMU this season, but it’s not to Miami’s credit, either. — Joe Rexrode, college sports columnist
(Photo: Al Diaz / Miami Herald / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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