Ohio State is back at football practice this week. The first of 15 spring practices are to be held on Tuesday at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. As the Buckeyes prepare for next season, here is a closer look previewing both sides of the ball, starting on offense with the top storylines, most intriguing players, position battle to watch, freshman …

Welcome to March, the time when spring practice begins and focus is officially turned toward the upcoming season. This edition of looking ahead includes trying to understand what the sport will look like. The Big Ten now includes 18 teams, the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams and Wisconsin’s place among both is unknown. Related: Wisconsin football’s biggest questions …

Players are increasingly recognizing that if they don’t think the workouts at the Scouting Combine are going to raise their draft stock, they’re free to skip them. This year, the NFL invited 321 players to the Scouting Combine. Barring some type of emergency, players who are invited always show up to meet with teams, and they almost always do the …

Thomasville High School in Thomasville, Georgia, has hired former Georgia Bulldogs wide receiver Israel Troupe as their wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator. Troupe played college football at Georgia from 2008-2011. Troupe hauled in 12 receptions for 177 receiving yards in his career with Georgia football. Thomasville went 6-5 during the 2023 high school football season under head coach Jonathan …

INDIANAPOLIS — Michigan football won the national championship less than two months ago and now has a record number of NFL combine participants. Not exactly a coincidence. The 2023 Wolverines were littered with talent — they’re represented by six offensive linemen, three defensive linemen, two linebackers, two defensive backs, two wide receivers, a tight end a quarterback and a running …

North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye throws against Virginia in October. Maye is among the players projected to be selected in the top 10 of the 2024 NFL draft. (Chris Seward / Associated Press) Many NFL teams are looking for quarterbacks, and there are plenty of enticing prospects out there this season. This inaugural mock draft contemplates quarterbacks going with the …

Alabama football is about to begin its first set of spring practices with Kalen DeBoer as head coach. It’s the first big step in DeBoer putting his team together and working toward getting ready for the 2024 season. There are a few returners, but the staff is largely different and the roster will have plenty of new faces, too. Practices …

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, seen here working an NFL game in 2006, died on Sunday. He was 72. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images) (Al Messerschmidt via Getty Images) Longtime NFL reporter and ESPN journalist Chris Mortensen died on Sunday morning, the network announced. He was 72. Specifics of his death are not yet known, though Mortensen had been battling cancer for years. ESPN …

LAWRENCE — Lance Leipold downplayed the topic of the College Football Playoff recently, during a press conference that largely touched on his new contract. Leipold, Kansas football’s head coach, alluded to it being way too early to think about something like that. He mentioned the Jayhawks, like every other Division I program, haven’t played their 12 regular season games this year. …

Saturday’s open practice offered a 6-foot-2, 231-pound reminder of just what Mizzou football needs to replace. Walking along the perimeter at Faurot Field, an arm’s length from the white lines he commanded for two years in Columbia, was former linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper, visiting after appearing at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. He’s far from the only Tiger in Indy. …

Timing of players at the Scouting Combine isn’t just done with stopwatches. It’s also done with chips worn by every player, that tracking their speed during every drill. And last year, that player tracking data showed off the talents of Puka Nacua, a relatively unknown receiver out of BYU who went from fifth-round pick of the Rams to the most …

Jaelyne Matthews, one of the top offensive linemen in the nation, announced his top six on Sunday. In it, he included Rutgers football. Rutgers was the first program to offer Matthews when he was a freshman. He visited the Scarlet Knights in the fall for the win over Wagner. A four-star offensive tackle. Matthews is coming off a solid year …

INDIANAPOLIS — And then there were four. Well, at least four. That seems to be the general consensus among personnel men regarding the quarterback class coming out of this past week’s NFL scouting combine. More precisely: As we roll toward the pro day circuit and personal workouts, a swath of talent evaluators believe that Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy has joined USC’s …

MIAMI — Chris Ewald Jr. has been a star on state title teams at Chaminade-Madonna, but he earned an individual honor on Sunday afternoon. The four-star prospect was one of more than 200 high school prospects to suit up for Under Armour’s Next Football Camp series at Miami’s Ives Estates Park, but he was one of two who earned invitations …

Report: 49ers expected to address Aiyuk extension after free agency originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area Another 49ers offseason, another contract extension saga — this time, for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. But San Francisco has an excellent track record of paying its proven stars what they deserve, and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport doesn’t believe that will change with Aiyuk. …