Mar 17, 2026
NFLThe NotebookNashvilleAtlantaPittsburghAthens
Eleven of fourteen additions have prior ties to Saleh, Daboll, or Carthon. The organizational philosophy is on the record. And Atlanta's story was always about a Penix ACL, not a competition.
The most interesting organization in the AFC this week is not Pittsburgh, which still has its quarterback question open. It is Tennessee. Here is what Robert Saleh and general manager Ran Carthon did in the first day of free agency. They spent somewhere between $270 and $275 million. They signed pass rusher John Franklin-Myers to three years and $63 million. They acquired edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II from the Jets in a trade, sending nose tackle T'Vondre Sweat to New York. They signed wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson to four years and $78 million. They added Mitchell Trubisky as the backup quarterback behind Cam Ward. And by the end of the day, eleven of the fourteen additions they had made had prior connections to Saleh, to Carthon, or to offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.
Continue reading →Mar 17, 2026
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That is a man who knows where he is and who he is coaching for. Meanwhile in Athens, Gunner Stockton walked to the huddle and nobody had to say whose huddle it was.
Lane Kiffin rode in the Baton Rouge St. Patrick's Day parade today. I want you to understand that sentence completely. Lane Kiffin — the head football coach of the LSU Tigers, one of the most scrutinized jobs in college football, in his first spring in Baton Rouge with 51 new players on his roster and a quarterback recovering from a Lisfranc injury — got on a float in a parade and rode through a city that has been waiting for him to arrive for four months.
Continue reading →Mar 17, 2026
NCAAAthens
Seventh in Heisman voting last year. Eight defensive starters back to test him. G-Day is April 18. The evaluation question the spring is designed to answer is whether Stockton can generate offense on his own.
The University of Georgia opened its 2026 spring practice schedule Monday with Gunner Stockton taking first-team snaps as the undisputed starter under Kirby Smart — the first time Stockton has entered a spring camp without a competition above him on the depth chart. Stockton finished seventh in Heisman voting in 2025, completing what the program characterized as a strong first full starting season. The evaluation community has not yet reached consensus on his ceiling, but entering the spring, Smart's program is the consensus preseason favorite in the SEC, backed by the depth of a returning roster that includes eight defensive starters and multiple returning contributors on the offensive side.
Continue reading →Mar 16, 2026
NCAAAthens
The Bulldogs are the preseason SEC favorite. The offense has a quarterback question the evaluation community hasn't fully answered. The competition this spring is about as real as spring practice gets.
The University of Georgia opens spring practice Monday with the kind of roster returning most programs spend years trying to build, and with the one evaluation question the program has been carrying since November still in need of an answer. Kirby Smart's Bulldogs return eight starters from a defense that ranked in the top twenty nationally last season. The offensive line, which generated favorable conversation throughout 2025 for its reliability in power running situations, returns its three interior starters. The program is the preseason consensus favorite in the SEC and has finished in the top five of the national rankings in each of the last four seasons.
Continue reading →Mar 11, 2026
NCAAAthens
Carson Beck returns at quarterback. The defense lost four starters to the draft. The portal additions are experienced. Whether they're Georgia-caliber is spring's central question.
Georgia opened spring practice this week under Kirby Smart, entering his eleventh season with a program that has established itself as the SEC's standard of success and is now navigating the particular challenge of sustaining dominance after losing significant NFL talent to the draft. The Bulldogs sent nine players to the NFL Draft following the 2025 season, including four defensive starters who were central to the unit that made Georgia the conference's best defense for the second consecutive year. Replacing that production — not the same players, but the same output — is the task that Smart and defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann are working through this spring.
Continue reading →Mar 1, 2026
NCAAAthens
Smart chose continuity over portal volume this offseason. The result is a roster with unusual cohesion. Whether Beck is fully healthy is the spring's central question.
Georgia opened spring practice Monday with the largest returning starter group Kirby Smart has coached since arriving in Athens. The Bulldogs have 16 players back who started at least eight games in 2025, which is an unusual volume of continuity at a program that routinely sends players to the NFL Draft after their junior seasons. That continuity is deliberate. Smart made a decision in the offseason to prioritize retention through the portal and NIL rather than use the spring to integrate a heavy transfer class. The result is a roster that looks like a roster — not a collection of pieces still figuring out how to coexist — and a spring practice schedule that can focus on refinement rather than installation.
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