Florida
Notre Dame football brings boom to Florida State with eight sacks
Notre Dame football brings boom to Florida State with eight sacks
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Maybe Notre Dame defensive tackle Rylie Mills will get a shout-out from the “Costco Guys” for his three-sack performance against Florida State on Saturday night.
Following the 52-3 win over the Seminoles in Notre Dame Stadium, Mills gave credit to the viral father and son duo of A.J. & Big Justice for his favorite sack celebration. The dance, which involves a double-armed flex over the shoulders with some toe tapping, started to become popular in sports after it was paired to the duo’s song, “We Bring the Boom.”
Mills, a 6-foot-5, 295-pound graduate senior, and Notre Dame’s defense had plenty of opportunities to celebrate Saturday. The CFP No. 10 Irish (8-1) recorded eight sacks, intercepted two passes, one of which safety Luke Talich returned for a 79-yard touchdown when the backups were in the game late, and limited Florida State to 208 yards of total offense.
“I think as a defense we brought the boom,” Mills said.
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Florida State’s offense felt the doom. The Seminoles (1-9) managed to kick a 23-yard field goal to end a 16-play, 75-yard drive on their opening possession of the game, but they fell apart from there. Florida State punted on its next five possessions before halftime and finished the game with six three-and-outs.
The interceptions came in the second half as Notre Dame’s pass rush started to wear on Florida State’s two-quarterback rotation. Starter Brock Glenn threw both of them, the first of which nickelback Jordan Clark snagged to end FSU’s first drive of the second half. The interception came one play after Mills’ third sack of the game.
Clark credited Notre Dame’s defensive line for pressuring Glenn into throwing a bad pass to tight end Kyle Morlock.
“I didn’t have to work too long or too hard tonight,” Clark said. “All credit to those guys. They work their tail off. [Defensive line] Coach Wash (Al Washington) does such a great job just keeping them ready, keeping them dialed. You saw that tonight. You’ve really seen that all year. They make our job as a secondary really, really easy.”
The job could have become harder for Notre Dame’s defensive line when starting nose tackle Howard Cross III left the game with a left ankle injury early in the second quarter. Mills stepped up immediately with back-to-back sacks in the next two plays after Cross’ injury.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman described in the postgame press conference Cross’ injury as an ankle sprain. He thought Cross may have been able to come back into the game if needed. But in the moment, Mills didn’t know how seriously Cross may or may not have been hurt.
Earlier in the week, Freeman praised the Mills-Cross duo for playing a big role in Notre Dame’s ability to generate a pass rush despite losing its top two vyper defensive ends, Jordan Botelho and Boubacar Traore. Mills did enough for the two of them Saturday night with five tackles, three sacks and another quarterback hurry.
“When Howard went down, I was just gutted for him, because I know how much he put in this week and how much he makes everyone better,” Mills said. “For me, it kind of gave me a little frustration. We saw our guy go down, which you never want to see. Hopefully, that led to that.
“I just wanted to make sure Howard was OK. He was great after that. He was a leader on the sideline, talked to young guys, talked to me and kind of gave everybody words of encouragement.”
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Junior Donovan Hinish played more with Cross sidelined. He took advantage of the opportunities with five tackles and two sacks of his own. Senior defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio recorded one tackle and batted down a screen pass to make his presence felt.
The rest of Notre Dame’s eight sacks came from junior vyper Junior Tuihalamaka, junior linebacker Jaylen Sneed and a shared sack between freshman defensive end Bryce Young and sophomore linebacker Jaiden Ausberry. The Irish reached eight sacks in a game for the first time since totaling eight against Virginia in 2019.
“Rylie got some individual glory today,” Freeman said. “He got the sacks, but there’s a lot of people that contributed to Rylie having the sacks. You talk about coverage, and you talk about some other guys up front.”
Florida State’s quarterbacks combined to complete just 10 of their 26 passes (38.5%) for 88 yards. Glenn finished 5-of-18 for 51 yards. Luke Kromenhoek was 5-of-8 for 37 yards.
Those numbers aren’t possible without good play in the secondary to complement Notre Dame’s pass rush. But Clark wanted the big fellas to received the glory.
“It was really the D-line,” Clark said. “Honestly, we’d like to take credit for it, but when you got guys pass rushing like Rylie Mills was pass rushing tonight and the rest of those guys, it makes it really easy for us.”
Florida State became the fifth team to fail to reach the 250 yards of offense against Notre Dame this season. Notre Dame hadn’t limited so many teams to so few yards since the 1988 season.
Even though a strong performance was expected against a feeble Florida State offense, the accomplishments for this defense are starting to pile up and add to a College Football Playoff résumé that will be stamped with three more wins.
“I think from the whole defense it was dominant,” Mills said. “That just kind of shows when the front end and the back end are on the same page. When you see the backs covering like they did, it’s hard to get completions on us.
“That’s one of the great things about our defense. We feed off each other. If the D-line’s doing really good, the corners, they’re coming up to us being like, ‘You guys are killing it. This is great.’
“And then vice versa. They’re getting picks, and we’re like, ‘Dude, this is great. Make them hold the ball.’ It works both ways.”
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Florida
Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’
It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.
Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.
But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.
William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.
Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.
Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.
“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.
“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”
The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.
He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.
At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”
Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.
Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.
Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.
“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.
That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”
In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.
“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”
Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.
Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.
Florida
Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip
Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.
“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.
Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”
The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.
“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”
That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.
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