College football schedule and live updates: Latest news and Top-25 rankings

Georgia injury updates after Tuesday’s bye week practice from Kirby Smart:

– ILB Smael Mondon (ankle) is looking “very promising.” Did more drills today than he had before.

– WR AD Mitchell (ankle) did conditioning but not drill work.

– DL Jalen Carter (MCL sprain) isn’t practicing, is conditioning in the training room.

– RB Kendall Milton (groin) did some straight-line running on the side.

Cal, which has really struggled on offense this season, has brought on longtime O-line coach Steve Greatwood as an analyst.

Was at Oregon from 2000-16 and was Justin Wilcox’s original O-line coach at Cal before retiring a few years ago.

Iowa has hopes sophomore defensive tackle Yahya Black returns this week after breaking his foot against South Dakota State in the opener. Despite his 6-foot-5, 306-pound frame, Black is a gifted athlete against the run and pass. The Hawkeyes are unlikely to have senior cornerback Terry Roberts, who was injured against Illinois. Roberts plays corner when the Hawkeyes are in their cash subpackage.

On offense, sophomore receiver Diante Vines could make his season debut after breaking his wrist in training camp. Vines was the unit’s breakout player for the first two weeks in August. However it appears sophomore Keagan Johnson will remain out with a lingering hamstring issue. Johnson has played only 15 snaps this season.

Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa re-aggravated a knee injury during Saturday’s win over Indiana, coach Mike Locksley said on Tuesday. Tagovailoa is a “game-time decision” for Maryland’s upcoming game against Northwestern on Saturday, Locksley said.

Tagovailoa was carted off the field with an apparent leg injury on Saturday. Locksley told reporters after the game that Tagovailoa suffered a lower leg injury and would undergo an MRI.

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USF quarterback Gerry Bohanon will miss the rest of the season after undergoing shoulder surgery. The Baylor transfer suffered the injury in Saturday’s loss to Tulane.

Tennessee is 6-0 for the first time since 1998. After an upset win over Alabama, the Volunteers sit behind Georgia and Ohio State in the AP Top 25.

But, is Tennessee the best team in the country right now?

Last Saturday’s Alabama-Tennessee 52-49 thriller was watched by 11.56 million viewers, making it the most-viewed college football game this season and the most-watched Alabama-Tennessee game on record, according to CBS. The game peaked at 16.2 million.

The previous most-watched game this season was Alabama’s last-second win over Texas in Week 2 (10.6 million), which aired on Fox. The Tide have played in four of the eight most-viewed games of the 2022 season.

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Is Sean Clifford available this week? James Franklin punts on the question.

Franklin: “As you guys know unless it’s a season-ending injury I typically don’t announce that.”

Franklin said, “Nothing has changed with the plan or the model at this stage.”

Also: What is PSU’s offensive identity this season? “Run and play-action pass, be efficient in the passing game,” Franklin said. “Really haven’t been explosive in the passing game like we have been last year and in previous years.”

Many people want to see Drew Allar. What would you say to those people?

Franklin: “1) That’s the wrong message, wrong signal. Sean (Clifford) has earned the right to be on the field.” Franklin said they’d love to get Drew on the field to keep developing him (when warranted).

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Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Luke Fickell confirmed Tuesday morning that quarterback Ben Bryant suffered a concussion against South Florida.

“Ben has been able to get back (to practice) through some of the concussion protocol stuff,” Fickell said.

Fickell is hopeful Bryant and wide receiver Tyler Scott will play Saturday against SMU, but Fickell didn’t have a definitive update.

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(Photo: Katie Stratman-USA Today)

Alabama-Tennessee (CBS): 11.6M

Penn St-Michigan (FOX): 6.4M

Clemson-FSU (ABC): 3.2M

USC-Utah (FOX): 2.7M

LSU-Fla. (ESPN): 2.5M

Wisconsin-MSU (FOX): 2.5M

Iowa St-Texas (ABC): 2.4M

Stanford-ND (NBC): 2.2M

OK St-TCU (ABC): 2.1M

Aub-Ole MIss (ESPN): 2M

CBS says Tennessee’s 52-49 victory over Alabama on Saturday is the most-watched Alabama-Tennessee game on record (since 1987) and the most-watched game of the season on any network,

The game drew 11.557 million viewers.

Carol White walked into Bill Curry’s office for an interview in August 1985, ready to explain her many theories on kicking, punting and snapping instruction to the Georgia Tech head coach.

But Curry surprised her, cutting her off.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said.

He told White he wouldn’t have brought her in for the interview if he didn’t already know she knew kicking and the physics behind it. He did not need to hear about her special teams background or the way her brain worked, though he would soon find out she was something of a human computer for the game’s third phase, calculating the speed and trajectory not just of a kicked football but of the players on the field providing coverage, too. After a decade and a half coaching high school football, White could watch tape, analyze tendencies, and identify strengths and weaknesses in any phase of the game, armed only with pencil, paper and 16mm film.

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Beating Alabama comes with its perks.

Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker doesn’t own the best quarterback rating in college football. Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud does.

But Hooker, who is No. 2 in the QB metrics, now owns the top spot in The Athletic’s Heisman straw poll after leading the Volunteers to a thrilling 52-49 overtime victory over Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide.

Stroud, whose Buckeyes were idle this week, had a sizable lead through the first three weeks of the poll before Hooker began to cut into it last week following an impressive win at LSU.

Now, the 2021 Virginia Tech transfer with 46 touchdown passes and four interceptions in 19 career starts with the Volunteers has not only taken the lead but also earned 33 of a possible 37 first-place votes.

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If you graded Miami’s first half of the season simply by what matters, being 3-3 and looking up at North Carolina in the division standings feels like a failure.

But in the big picture, programs aren’t simply judged by their on-field records. Coaches get fired for roster management, player development and who they hire to call the plays.

Mario Cristobal, in the first year of his 10-year, $80 million deal, isn’t going to get fired anytime soon. But it’s obvious few are happy with how things have started in Coral Gables.

Losing a tough road game at Texas A&M is one thing, but it was inexcusable to lose in ugly fashion to a now 3-4 Middle Tennessee State team, which ranks 96th in the team talent composite standings. Losing four in a row to North Carolina — especially with how poorly the Hurricanes have played defensively — is hard to stomach, too.

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(Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA Today)

Ohio State has been one of the most dominating teams in college football through the first half of the 2022 season. The Buckeyes, the second-ranked team in the country, have outscored their opponents 293-94. They sport the top scoring offense in the country, led by Heisman Trophy candidate C.J. Stroud, and their revamped defense ranks fifth nationally, allowing only 253.5 yards per game.

More difficult tests are ahead. Ohio State will start the second half of its season at home against Iowa on Saturday and still has dates with No. 16 Penn State and No. 5 Michigan.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s recap the first half of the season with some superlatives and a storyline to watch.

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As we arrive at the halfway point of this season, it’s time once again to shine a spotlight on some of college football’s most exciting young talent. This is The Athletic’s midseason freshman All-America team, an early look at which true freshmen and redshirt freshmen are making a big impact on the 2022 season.

We try to prioritize production when we put this team together, judging players on what they’ve achieved so far and not what they might do in the future. But there’s always a long list of candidates for each position and tough choices to make throughout. Many more freshman players deserve recognition and can still earn spots on our end-of-season All-America teams in December.

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Greetings, fellow bowl enthusiasts. We waited until the midseason point to author our first bowl projections of the regular season (the preseason one was fun too). We realize conference standings will change considerably over the next seven weeks, but it’s still fun to take a stab today.

Currently, two SEC teams, No. 1 Georgia and No. 3 Tennessee, and two Big Ten teams, No. 2 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan, are atop the AP poll. We consider it highly unlikely that’s how things end up, and project Clemson as the fourth College Football Playoff team.

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The 2022 college football season has reached its halfway point, and though defending champion Georgia is not a surprise as the No. 1 team in the polls, there have been plenty of unexpected developments. Familiar programs are represented on The Athletic’s midseason All-America teams — Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Michigan all have multiple selections — but Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker has risen to the top of the quarterback crop while Illinois joins those four teams with three players.

To make its 50 midseason selections, The Athletic gathered nominations from across its college football staff, and a panel of editors made the final selections. Here’s who made the cut, based solely on 2022 performance thus far.

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Let’s do some inside baseball. This is the earliest in the week I can ever remember doing a mailbag, and the reason is one of timing and opportunity: Many of you are already asking about the Georgia-Tennessee game, still almost three weeks from now. Meanwhile, Kirby Smart is holding only one news conference during this bye week, on Tuesday night, which he might use to try to turn the narrative back toward other things. Such as Georgia’s next game.

Well, we can’t risk that, so let’s capitalize on all the sudden interest in the Volunteers. But we’ll also address Florida, a few things about Georgia and what songs I’ll be listening to as I run the AthHalf this week.

As always, some questions were edited for length and clarity. And this first one is just one of many asking about the potential magnitude of the Tennessee visit.

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(Photo: Dale Zanine-USA Today)