South Carolina, Arch Manning, Georgia, Coach Rankings, and More!

CFB Roundup – July 12, 2024

Good morning, and welcome back to CFB Roundup from CFB Home – the first daily newsletter that’s all college football, all the time with no bias, no slant, and no fluff.

Current Subscriber Count: 402 (Goal: 1,000 by Week 0 on 8/24/24)

4-Star WR Lex Cyrus Commits to South Carolina

4-Star WR Lex Cyrus committed yesterday to South Carolina over Penn State, among other offers.

Cyrus is one of the top rated players in Pennsylvania, ranked as the 7th rated PA recruit per On3’s composite rankings, making this a huge out-of-state win for the Gamecocks and yet another tough in-state loss for the Nittany Lions.

Cyrus ranks as high as the 16th best WR and 109th national prospect according to On3’s individual rankings, and the 26th best WR and 219th best prospect according to On3’s composite rankings.

This marks South Carolina’s 18th commitment in the 2025 class, which currently ranks 26th nationally and 11th in the SEC.

Arch Manning Rated 87 Overall in EA CFB 25

Despite being only a redshirt freshman, having only thrown 5 passes, and only 8 QBs being revealed to be in the 90-93 overall range with no one at 94 overall or higher, Texas backup QB Arch Manning was recently given an 87 overall by EA Sports for the upcoming release of EA CFB 25.

EA Sports is allegedly paying Manning somewhere between $50-60,000 to be in the game, undoubtedly the most for a backup. But this should be seen as nothing other than great news for Texas fans, as Manning should surely develop in dynasty mode to be one of the top rated QBs by the time he becomes an upper classman and takes over for Ewers (in the game).

3 Georgia Players Charged with Driving Violations for Recklessly Driving, Racing

3 Georgia players were charged with racing, 2 of whom were arrested and went to jail.

LB Smael Mondon and OL Bo Hughley were arrested and charged with a list of misdemeanors including some combination of reckless driving (both), failure to maintain lane/improper driving on road (Hughley), and racing on highways/streets (Mondon). Hughley apparently suffered a single-car accident while racing.

DB Demello Jones was also charged with racing on streets/highways but was not arrested for immediately slowing and cooperating with police.

All of this news comes on the backdrop of three former college football players getting hit and passing a couple days ago, two other Georgia players getting arrested this offseason, and at least one of these three players having shared a locker room with the Georgia player (and staffer) who passed in a car crash caused by racing.

CBS Sports’ Rankings for SEC Coaches

CBS Sports’ Will Backus released a Top 16 coaches ranking for the SEC coaches.

Leading the way, unsurprisingly is Georgia’s Kirby Smart, followed by LSU’s Brian Kelly, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin.

The largest riser compared to last year’s SEC rankings is Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, going from 12th before last season to 7th before this season. Hot seat coaches Billy Napier and Sam Pittman come into the season ranked 13th and 14th in the conference, respectively.

CBS Sports’ Rankings for Big Ten Coaches

CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli released a Top 18 coaches ranking for the Big Ten coaches.

Leading the way is Ohio State’s Ryan Day. Following him are newcomers to the Big Ten in Oregon’s Dan Lanning and USC’s Lincoln Riley. Rounding out the Top 5 are Penn State’s James Franklin and Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell.

Additional newcomers in Washington’s Jedd Fisch and UCLA’s DeShaun Foster rank 9th and 18th, respectively.

Before next season, there could be some major shakeup in this list, however, as 8 of the coaches are new to coaching in the Big Ten.

Colorado State HC: Stars Offered $600k to Transfer

Tampering is more or less the way of the world now in college football, for better or worse. But Colorado State’s head coach, Jay Norvell, went on the record to detail that his stars, WR Tory Horton and QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, received massive NIL offers to transfer.

Norvell detailed that Kansas State offered Fowler-Nicolosi $600,000 because the Wildcats lost their QB in the portal.

Norvell also said that it’s hard to prove tampering, but at the end of the day, it comes down to having good relationships with the players.

ACC Lawsuit Updates

Thee are some updates in the ACC’s cases against two of its biggest members, Florida State and Clemson.

In Clemson’s instance, the Tigers are appealing the story we included yesterday regarding the North Carolina judge who dismissed Clemson’s motion to stay and dismiss a suit filed by the ACC in NC. The ACC has also filed for motions to dismiss in Clemson’s South Carolina suit and will having a hearing later today for it.

For Florida State, a protective order from a judge in Florida has ordered the ACC to give Florida State copies of the ACC’s contracts with ESPN within the next 7 days. This also comes shortly after the Florida judge, John C. Cooper, denied the ACC’s motion to dismiss Florida State’s case on jurisdictional grounds (consider Clemson’s and the ACC’s motions to dismiss mentioned above).

The order prohibits Florida State from sharing or disclosing details of the information in the contracts until the court can fully determine whether the information deserves the protection as a trade secret.

ESPN’s Most Impactful Transfer QBs

During ESPN’s most recent edition of the morning TV show Get Up, three ESPN college football insiders highlighted their top picks for most impactful transfer QB.

Heather Dinich selected Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard, acknowledging the rest of the pieces the Fighting Irish have in place to help Leonard contribute both in the passing and the running game.

Harry Douglas selected Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, pointing out the receiving options for the Ducks, like Evan Stewart, Tez Johnson, and Traeshon Holden.

Finally, Matt Barrie selected Miami’s Cam Ward, calling him “electric” and describing Miami’s roster as “loaded.”

On3’s Top 10 ACC Conference Games

On3’s Jesse Simonton listed his Top 10 conference matchups in the ACC for this upcoming season.

Each of the Top 5 games on Simonton’s list include some combination of Florida State and Clemson and 9 of the 10 matchups include some combination of Florida State, Clemson, or Miami.

Florida State at Miami on Oct. 26 leads the way, followed by Clemson at Florida State on Oct. 5 and NC State at Clemson on Sep. 21.

Newcomer SMU finds itself on the list for its first ACC game, where it plays host to Florida State on Sep. 28.

Oklahoma Working on Salary Cap, Revenue Sharing with Former Eagles Executive

Former Eagles executive Jake Rosenberg is reported to be working with Oklahoma to transition to whatever is to become of the revenue sharing / salary cap era of college football.

Rosenberg, specifically, is bringing in his consulting firm, The Athlete Group, to advise on revenue sharing as that develops in college football and the Sooners try to be proactive compared to some of its competitors.

Once the House settlement has gone through and been approved by Judge Claudia Wilken in the next week or so, the world will know more about what is to become of college sports, but athletic departments are still waiting to know more.

As for collectives, they do not seem to be going anywhere, but fans will hopefully be doing less of the heavy lifting of funding the recruiting efforts for college athletes.