North Carolina Tar Heels

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 11: Will shaky contenders feel an SEC squeeze?

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 11: Will shaky contenders feel an SEC squeeze?

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams. The ACC and Big 12’s hopes of sending multiple teams to the first 12-team College Football Playoff took a big hit over the weekend. Miami (Fla.) and Iowa State both lost, greatly damaging their at-large hopes. Meanwhile, Ole Miss’ win […]

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Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Alabama got its act together and looks Playoff bound … again

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Alabama got its act together and looks Playoff bound … again

And now, 20 Final Thoughts from Week 11, in which Louisiana’s governor imported a rogue tiger from Florida to show off on the field before the Alabama game. (Yes, this really happened.) 1. Nick Saban won so many trophies in his 17 seasons at Alabama, it’s easy to forget all the times we thought no

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Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 10: The Boise State scenario you shouldn’t sleep on

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 10: The Boise State scenario you shouldn’t sleep on

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams. Ahead of the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 12-team era, there is no shortage of questions about how the selection committee’s first projected bracket will look. But one piece of conventional wisdom involving the Group of 5 could

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Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Amid great change, Penn State losing to Ohio State stays the same

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Amid great change, Penn State losing to Ohio State stays the same

And now, 20 Final Thoughts from Week 10, when eight ranked teams had the week off. They got to sit at home and watch nearly half of the other ranked teams go down. 1. Amid a season of unprecedented change in college football, one tradition remains alive and well: Penn State losing to Ohio State.

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Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 9: Top-10 Indiana’s dream season is getting real

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 9: Top-10 Indiana’s dream season is getting real

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams.  Indiana is no longer just a fun college football story. That is to say, Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers aren’t some plucky upstart. They’re the real deal. They’re a machine. And it’s time to realize they’re a real threat to make the

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Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 8: BYU can no longer be ignored

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 8: BYU can no longer be ignored

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams. It’s time to take notice of BYU. The Cougars are undefeated and have delivered Kansas State and SMU their only losses of the season. Yet BYU remains outside the top 10 in both the AP and Coaches polls. But not

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Which college football coaches have the hottest seats at the midseason mark?

Which college football coaches have the hottest seats at the midseason mark?

It’s the midpoint of the college football season and usually, the coaching carousel is spinning much faster. It’s spinning slower this year for a few reasons. First, the past two seasons had much more turnover than initially expected; second, this is the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff, which is extending the potential

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Kansas, Alabama, UConn top AP Top 25 preseason men’s basketball poll: Key takeaways

Kansas, Alabama, UConn top AP Top 25 preseason men’s basketball poll: Key takeaways

By Brendan Marks, Justin Williams and Mark Cooper For the second consecutive season, Kansas will begin the year as the No. 1 team in men’s college basketball. This time, the Jayhawks hope to stay there. Kansas received 30 of 60 first-place votes to top the preseason AP Top 25 on Monday, putting it narrowly ahead

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Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 7: Why Oregon’s on top at midseason

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 7: Why Oregon’s on top at midseason

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams. If there’s one lesson to be learned from the first half of this college football season, it’s that the gap between the top teams and the middle-tier teams looks as small as it’s been in a very long time. It’s

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Vince Carter reaches the Hall of Fame, with grace alongside his jaw-dropping verticality

Vince Carter reaches the Hall of Fame, with grace alongside his jaw-dropping verticality

“‘Zo? Yeah, I got him. (Dikembe) Mutombo? Got him twice. Got the big dude in Indiana, (Rik) Smits. Got Dale Davis, too. Haven’t gotten (Patrick) Ewing yet.” Then, he paused and smiled. “We play them on Tuesday.”— Vince Carter, “Fresh Vince,” Sports Illustrated, Feb. 28, 2000 Even watching it live, with his own eyes, in

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