Michigan football moved quickly to help fill its running back room on Thursday, adding the No. 1-ranked rusher in the 2024 recruiting class to the roster.

Taylor Tatum, who spent the last two seasons at Oklahoma, signed with the Wolverines for the 2026 season, The Ann Arbor News/MLive confirmed.

Tatum, listed at 5-foot-10 and 212 pounds, has three seasons of college eligibility remaining.

He appeared in 12 games for the Sooners, most of it during his true-freshman season in 2024. That first season, Tatum rushed for 278 yards and three touchdowns, highlighted by a five-carry, 69-yard game in Oklahoma’s season opener against Temple.

Tatum was hampered by injuries in 2025, appearing in just one game against South Carolina, where he rushed once for negative-1 yard.

A former four-star recruit, Tatum was considered the nation’s No. 1 running back in 2024 out of Longview High School in Texas, where he set the school record for career rushing touchdowns (53). He picked Oklahoma over Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, USC, among others.

Tatum was also a member of the Oklahoma baseball team, though he didn’t appear in a game in 2025.

The signing comes just a day after Michigan’s leading rusher in 2025, Jordan Marshall, announced his return to the Wolverines. Since the transfer portal opened last Friday, reserve running backs Bryson Kuzdzal and Jasper Parker have entered. Parker has since signed to play at Arkansas next season.

Meanwhile, Michigan awaits a decision from its other star back, Justice Haynes, who’s left the door open to a return to college. A pair of freshmen backs, Savion Hiter and Jonathan Brown, also joined the team this week.

Tony Alford, Michigan’s running backs coach, was one of three assistants retained by new head coach Kyle Whittingham.

The Wild closes out a seven-game, 14-day road trip tonight against the Seattle Kraken at 9:00 p.m. CT on FanDuel Sports Network and KFAN FM 100.3. Minnesota has earned a point in five of the first six games of the trip (3-1-2), earning wins over Winnipeg, Vegas and Anaheim, and getting a point in shootout losses to San Jose and Los Angeles. History shows Minnesota is ending this grueling trip in a place where it has had great success. Since dropping its first ever game in Seattle in October of 2021, the Wild has won its last six games at Climate Pledge Arena, including a 4-1 win over the Kraken on December 8. With a 12-7-3 record on the road this season, Minnesota is T-6th in the NHL in road wins and points (27).

Jesper Wallstedt gets the nod for Minnesota tonight, facing Seattle for the first time in his career. He has earned a point in all three of his starts on this trip, going 1-0-2 with a 3.21 GAA and a .891 SV%. In games played away from Grand Casino Arena this season, Wallstedt owns a 5-1-3 record with a 2.20 GAA, a .922 SV% and two shutouts.

Stopping Seattle will be no easy task for Wallstedt tonight, as the Kraken comes into tonight’s game on a nine-game point-streak (8-0-1), its longest point streak of the season. Seattle is outscoring its opponents 36-18 during its streak and has only allowed more than three goals in a game once. Kaapo Kakko has been the driving force for Seattle over its nine-game stretch, as he has nine points (2-7=9) in nine games. Former Wild center, Freddy Gaudreau, has three points (1-2=3) in his last two games and six points (3-3=6) in Seattle’s nine-game stretch.

Players to watch for Minnesota:

Kirill Kaprizov: Kaprizov comes into tonight’s game two points behind Marian Gaborik (219-218=437) for the second-most points in Wild history. Kaprizov scored a goal in the first meeting between these teams and owns 15 points (6-9=15) in 10 games against Seattle in his career.

Matt Boldy: In 11 games against the Kraken, Boldy owns 14 points (8-6=14) and has only been held off the score sheet twice. He comes into tonight’s game with a point (8-5=13) in eight consecutive games against Seattle, including a hat trick on March 27, 2023.

Joel Eriksson Ek: In the first matchup between these two teams, Eriksson Ek recorded three points (1-2=3), a plus-3 rating and a season-high six shots. In his 11 games against Seattle, Eriksson Ek owns 10 points (4-6=10) and a plus-6 rating.

Missouri lawmakers returned to work Wednesday, Jan. 7, to kick off the 2026 legislative session, with Republicans determined to eliminate the state income tax and Democrats vowing to oppose any effort to replace it with increased taxes on sales or services.

Missing from the first day were the partisan fireworks that defined the end of last year’s session and a special session in September. Instead, both the House and Senate functioned normally on Wednesday, quickly running through motions of a first-day and adjourning with little fanfare.

But the partisan schism simmered under the surface.

Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe is pushing for elimination of the state’s income tax and is expecting to lay out his plan next week when he speaks to a joint session of the legislature for his annual State of the State address.

Democrats — still smarting from last year’s GOP moves to cut off debate to pass bills repealing expanded paid sick leave, gerrymander the state congressional map, change the initiative petition process and reimpose an abortion ban — said they are withholding judgment until they see the details of Kehoe’s plan.

But they note the income tax represents 65% of last year’s $13.4 billion in state revenue.

Democrats will not support raising taxes that disproportionately impact lower-income Missourians to pay to eliminate the income tax, said Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, an Affton Democrat.

“People are already having a really hard time making ends meet in this state,” Beck said. “People are living paycheck to paycheck. So if anyone wants to raise taxes on those folks, that is unacceptable to us. As Democrats, we say there should be no new taxes.”