USC's tough recruiting week, plus reactions to conference sponsors (2024)

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Today, we’re checking in on the summer recruiting trail and looking ahead to the “College GameDay” crew for 2024 — with one host’s future still in question. But first, how worried are we about conferences possibly selling their naming rights?Let’s take a look at the poll resultsfrom Monday.

Business Conferences

Leave our inaccurately numbered names alone

InMonday’s newsletter, we discussed thesponsorships that could crashinto conference names. I asked you how attached you feel to conference names as they are now and how much a change from the Big 12 to, say, the Allstate 12 Conference would bother you, on a scale from 1 (conference names don’t really matter) to 5 (sponsorships in conference names would jeopardize tradition). Here are the results from our anonymous voters:

The large majority of voters signified they’d be pretty bothered by conferences’ corporate overlords becomingthatobvious.

“I’ve always scoffed at people who said that the playoff or NIL or whatever would ruin football, but the Allstate Conference might really be the thing that makes me start to lose interest,” one voter said.

Some respondents suggested their attachment to the name depends on the conference:“For smaller conferences, it makes total sense, they need to maximize revenue to keep up,” said another. “The Big Ten and SEC will never change their name because of the brand.”

Others suggested accepting sponsorships so long as they add to names, rather than taking away:“Keeping the name + the brand would be fine (ex: Allstate Big 12 Conference).”

I probably would have voted a 3. Conference names have tradition, but they’ve lost their connection to the conferences themselves in realignment.I’m also not so sure how much a sponsored name would stick.Do you tend to call bowl games by their entire names, after all?Even if it’s the Allstate 12 Conference, friends and I would probably stick with “the Big 12” in casual conversations.

Now for a couple responses that made me laugh. After all, this is still college football. They may take away our conference names but they can never take away our sense of humor.

• “Pop Tarts Conference for the ‘Pac-2.’ They come in a package of two, so it makes perfect sense.”
• “Get ready for the American Airlines Athletic Conference, the Mountain Dew West and Conference USA Today.”

Summer Recruiting

Tough week for USC

Summer is a busy time on the recruiting trail.Antonio Morales updates the latestfrom this week. Here are my three biggest takeaways:

• First-year coaches have been making waves.Mike Elko’sclass atTexas A&Mranks eighth nationally, per the247Sports Composite, and picked up a commitment from four-star DL Kiotti Armstrong last Friday. Meanwhile,DeShaun Fosteris continuing to re-establishUCLA’sposition in recruitingand landed his fourth blue-chip prospect this cycle in safety Jadyn Hudson.Willie Fritzjust picked up the highest-rated player inHouston’sclass (four-star tackle Demetris Dean), andJedd Fisch’sefforts atWashington — although moving slowly — led to a big win: a pledge from four-star OL Champ Taulealea.
• USC’s 2025 classsuffered a few losses on back-to-back days this week. Five-star edge rusher Isaiah Gibson and defensive lineman Justus Terry — the No. 2 player at his position in his class — both pulled their commitments to the Trojans. Terry was previously thehighest-rated player in USC’s class, which now includes 11 commits and ranks 16th overall (fifth in the Big Ten).
• Auburnis a potential threat to pullanother recruit from Lincoln Riley’s class. The Tigers hosted five-star QB Julian “JuJu” Lewis, who has been committed to the Trojans since last summer. Auburn also picked up a commitment from top-100 safety Eric Winters last week, who was heavily pursued by Georgia and Miami, among others. Hugh Freeze has the No. 6 class in the nation for now.

Overall,Ohio Statecontinues its nation-leading success in the 2025 cycle whileTCUjumped to the top of the Big 12 with another key pick-up on defense. Read the rest ofAntonio’s recruiting report here.

“GameDay” Gamesmanship

McAfee hasn’t signed to return

Pat McAfee has not yet signed his contract with ESPN’s “College GameDay,”The Athletic’s Andrew Marchandreported earlier this week. There was a stint last October when McAfee indicated he might leave the pregame show, following asurvey byThe Athleticin which nearly half of the 3,100 responses said they did not care for McAfee on Saturday mornings. However, the talk show host known for his hard-to-ignore personality later said he would return to the program.

With the college football season just over two months away, McAfee and ESPN are working toward a deal, but nothing has been agreed on yet.

Remember, the2024 “GameDay” deskwill include a new addition in Nick Saban, who joined the crew shortly after he retired from Alabama.

From Zero Stars to SEC

Ivy League wrestler becomes NFL prospect

Joey Slackman arrived on the college football scene as a no-star football recruit in the Class of 2019. Five years later, he’s headed to the Florida Gators as a proven defensive lineman who’d become a hot commodity in the transfer portal.

Bruce Feldman details the must-read storyof Slackman, a former heavyweight wrestler who in 2023 became the first Penn player to win Ivy League defender of the year since 2015. There were murmurings of Slackman’s NFL potential amid his breakout season last year, but a late injury altered his ability to participate in the full draft process.

Instead, Slackman entered the transfer portal. And when he woke up from surgery to repair his torn right biceps, everything had changed.Read the full story here.

Quick Snaps

What are the reasonable (and unreasonable) expectations forAlabama? Texas? Notre Dame?Listen to the discussion on theUntil Saturday podcast.

What could the2024 College Football Playofffield look like?Here’s an early prediction. Sneak peek: CouldMiamiget the No. 11 seed?

Kobe Bryant’snephew is an elite high school athlete — but his future is in football, not basketball.Manny Navarro’s storyonJett Washingtonis worth your time today.

How shouldcollege football’s rivalry weeklook?Scott Dochterman maps out the best rivalriesin the sport, from the ones already on the schedule this season to the ones we need to consider reinstating.USCandOle Misscanceled their home-and-homeseries scheduled for 2025 and 2026. There isn’t much drama here — USC’s move to the Big Ten and the uncertainty around the SEC schedule made this one hard to line up. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, famously fired by USC in 2013, said the cancellation happened “a while ago.”

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(Top photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)

Jayna Bardahl is a college football staff editor for The Athletic. She has worked as an editor and reporter covering Big Ten football and men's basketball, and was an intern at The Boston Globe, where she covered the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots. Follow Jayna on Twitter @Jaynabardahl