Sports
Week 7’s top 10 college football games: Ohio State-Oregon, Ole Miss-LSU, Red River and more
I was at a family wedding last Saturday, waiting in line at the bar when I noticed another guest checking his betting app. When I asked how he was doing, he grumbled about Alabama, well, screwing up, his parlay.
Week 6’s seemingly lackluster slate instead demonstrated why there are no bad weekends of college football, as many have pointed out in the days since. It was also a reminder not to dismiss a matchup based purely on the magnitude of its gambling line, particularly in conference play (Alabama was a 23.5-point favorite over Vanderbilt). In an NFL-dominant landscape where double-digit favorites are rare, it’s easy to forget how fickle those big spreads can be in college football. Until Alabama mucks up your parlay.
Let’s rank the top 10 games of Week 7, starting with honorable mentions and counting down.
Honorable Mention: Washington at Iowa, Wisconsin at Rutgers, Cincinnati at UCF, Stanford at No. 11 Notre Dame, Louisville at Virginia, Memphis at USF, Arizona at No. 14 BYU, Florida at No. 8 Tennessee, Vanderbilt at Kentucky
(All point spreads come from BetMGM; click here for live odds. Stream college football on fubo. All kickoff times are Eastern and on Saturday unless otherwise noted.)
10. Cal (3-2) at No. 22 Pitt (5-0), 3:30 p.m., Fubo, ESPN
Put some respect on the Pitt Panthers, who entered the Top 25 this week and are 5-0 for the first time since 1991. Quarterback Eli Holstein, an Alabama transfer, looks like one of the best pieces of portal business this offseason. He’s eighth in the FBS at 313.4 passing yards per game and the first Pitt QB to win his first five starts since Dan Marino in 1979. Add transfer running back Desmond Reid and first-year offensive coordinator Kade Bell, and the new-look offense has turned Pitt into one of the early surprises of 2024. Cal and the Calgorithm make a cross-country trek looking to rebound from the high-to-low swing of last Saturday’s “College GameDay” atmosphere and late-night collapse against Miami.
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Line: Pitt -3
9. No. 17 Boise State (4-1) at Hawaii (2-3), 11 p.m., Fubo, CBS Sports Network
Ashton Jeanty is reason enough to tune in for Boise State. The running back and Heisman hopeful leads the FBS with 1,031 rushing yards — 260 more than the next closest player — and 16 rushing touchdowns, averaging 10.9 yards per carry. That’s on top of the fact that the Broncos are in pole position among Group of 5 programs for a Playoff berth. Boise’s offense is third in the FBS at 8 yards per play (the equivalent of a subpar handoff to Jeanty) and first at 50.6 points per game. That should be more than enough to handle a Hawaii team that has yet to log an FBS victory, though the Rainbow Warriors have been respectable on defense. And with a bye week followed by a trip to UNLV on the horizon, the Broncos can’t afford to get caught looking ahead.
Line: Boise State -20.5
8. No. 16 Utah (4-1) at Arizona State (4-1), Friday, 10:30 p.m., Fubo, ESPN
Not to be confused with the other Big 12 game featuring a ranked team from Utah against a team from Arizona, but this one gets the nod in our list. The Utes, preseason favorites in the Big 12, will try to avoid a second conference loss on the road against the surprisingly feisty Sun Devils, a team defying its dead-last position in the league’s preseason poll. The never-ending Cam Rising injury saga continues as well, with Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham again noncommittal on the quarterback’s status for Saturday. The Big 12 race is already looking like the toss-up everyone expected, but two losses this early would put a real dent in Utah’s conference title ambitions.
Line: Utah -5.5
7. South Carolina (3-2) at No. 7 Alabama (4-1), Noon, Fubo, ABC
Big moment for the Tide. How will they respond to the loss at Vanderbilt, back home against a very hot-and-cold South Carolina? The Gamecocks beat Kentucky, should have beaten LSU, then managed only three points at home last Saturday against Ole Miss. But this is all about a humbled Alabama, featuring a defense that has been gashed since halftime of the Georgia game. Losing to Vanderbilt not only put Alabama on notice, but it will instill a level of confidence in every other team it faces this season — the type of confidence that was usually lacking from opponents when Nick Saban was on the sideline. Kalen DeBoer’s squad has Tennessee and Missouri waiting on the other side of this one, but it first needs to prove it can weather the scrutiny and bounce back.
Line: Alabama -21.5
6. No. 18 Kansas State (4-1) at Colorado (4-1), 10:15 p.m., Fubo, ESPN
A marquee, prime-time television window for Colorado against a ranked opponent that is sure to draw significant viewership numbers — be prepared for something wild to happen. Both teams are coming off bye weeks, before which Kansas State had a big win in the best performance of quarterback Avery Johnson’s young career, and the Buffs played arguably their best all-around game of the Deion Sanders era. This matchup is another critical one for the Big 12 race; similar to Utah, the Wildcats need to avoid picking up a second conference loss, while a win would assert Colorado as a legit contender for the league crown. And if recent history is any indication, expect Travis Hunter to do something to burnish his Heisman resume.
Line: Kansas State -3.5
5. No. 11 Iowa State (5-0) at West Virginia (3-2), 8 p.m., Fubo, Fox
Iowa State is quietly on the verge of a top-10 ranking, taking care of business in workmanlike fashion as chaos reigns supreme elsewhere. The Cyclones tend to lean on defense under Matt Campbell, and this year’s unit is again one of the best in the country. But a balanced offense is elevating this team to Playoff contention, led by steady redshirt sophomore Rocco Becht at quarterback and a pair of game-breaking receivers in Jaylin Noel and Jayden Higgins. West Virginia will look to play disruptor a week after rushing for almost 400 yards against Oklahoma State — and while wearing new black alternate uniforms for the program’s first-ever Coal Rush game.
Line: Iowa State -3
4. No. 4 Penn State (5-0) at USC (3-2), 3:30 p.m., Fubo, CBS
This feels like a massive prove-it game for both teams. USC fell out of the Top 25 after the loss to Minnesota, but if Penn State manages to fly across the country and get a victory against a big-name opponent, it will be a boost to that top-five ranking and the team’s Big Ten chances, with Ohio State at home the only currently ranked opponent left on the schedule. For the Trojans, a third loss would essentially be curtains for their season and put Lincoln Riley under the microscope. Yet a top-five win keeps Playoff hopes alive, with Notre Dame looming to end the regular season but no Ohio State or Oregon (or Indiana!) in league play.
Line: Penn State -4
3. No. 9 Ole Miss (5-1) at No. 13 LSU (4-1), 7:30 p.m., Fubo, ABC
Could be a barnburner: Both offenses rank in the top 20 nationally in yards per play. However, Ole Miss hasn’t been nearly as efficient the past two games, going a combined 4-for-23 on third down in the loss to Kentucky and win over South Carolina, and running the ball for only 3.3 yards a pop over those two games. The Rebels need to rediscover that top gear at what will be a rowdy Tiger Stadium. Save for a narrow escape at South Carolina, LSU hasn’t been tested too much beyond the season-opening loss to USC and could use a quality win. The victors here get to stay in the upper echelon of SEC and Playoff Contenders for another week, while the losers get kicked to the Pretenders bin.
Line: Ole Miss -3
2. No. 1 Texas (5-0) vs. No. 18 Oklahoma (4-1), 3:30 p.m., Fubo, ABC
It took a top-five showdown to keep the Red River rivalry from the top spot, but this matchup has rarely disappointed in recent years. Nine of the last 11 meetings, including the 2018 Big 12 Championship, have been decided by one score, though Oklahoma has won eight of those 11, including a quadruple-overtime victory in 2020 and last year’s last-minute upset. The two face off in Dallas for the 120th rendition of the rivalry and first as SEC foes. Quinn Ewers is back at quarterback for Texas after missing two-plus games, and his experience could be vital against an aggressive Sooners defense and its league-leading plus-eight turnover margin.
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Line: Texas -14.5
1. No. 2 Ohio State (5-0) at No. 3 Oregon (5-0), 7:30 p.m., Fubo, NBC
Our last top-five matchup was the Georgia-at-Alabama instant classic a couple of weeks ago, so this game has a lot to live up to. Oregon and Ohio State battle for the first time as conference opponents after the Ducks won the most recent tilt in Columbus in 2021, the program’s only win over the Buckeyes in 10 tries. There are major Big Ten and CFP implications in what should be a much-needed litmus test for both. Ohio State has glided to a 5-0 start in which Marshall tallied the most points against the Buckeyes all season with 14. Oregon’s trail hasn’t been as smooth, including a last-second win over Boise State. The offense has played better of late but is still below the lofty standard the Ducks established last season. Saturday should provide answers to whether Ohio State is a cut above in the Big Ten, or if Oregon is a legit national title candidate.
Line: Ohio State -3.5
(Photo of Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson: Ian Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Sports
Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam is a ‘generational matchup,’ WWE legend JBL says
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Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.
Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.
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Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)
At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.
WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”
“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.
Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)
“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.
“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”
Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Sports
Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout
Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.
Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.
Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.
That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.
Not even at home?
“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”
Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.
Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.
“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”
His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.
In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.
“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”
For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.
Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.
“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”
Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.
“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.
“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”
Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.
“It’s like win or die.”
It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.
No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)
Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.
“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”
Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.
He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.
Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.
“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.
“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”
At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.
“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.
“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”
So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.
Sports
London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France
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Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.
France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.
As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May.
Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.
A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)
Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.
KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO
It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.
Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.
Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)
Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.
Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.
One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.
France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.
It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.
Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
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Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.
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