Jim Harbaugh spent Sunday afternoon scheming his way to victory against the playoff-bound Arizona Cardinals. He stood at a podium in Ann Arbor less than 48 hours later, providing a resounding message for fans of Michigan and college football at large. The Wolverines' new leader, fresh off three conference championship appearances and a Super Bowl berth in four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, is ready to bring top-tier talent to a program that's near and dear to ...

You can argue as much as you want about the College Football Playoff, but it is impossible to deny the committee gave fans two great games with elite talent on all four squads. Between All-Conference players, All-Americans and Heisman winners, there are a number of big-time stars who could impact each game in the national semifinals. The question is, which competitors will have the biggest roles in deciding the outcome? A mistake or great performance by anyone ...

Notre Dame 31, LSU 28—Final Kyle Brindza buried a 31-yard field goal as time expired to give the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a 31-28 victory over the LSU Tigers in the 2014 Music City Bowl. Malik Zaire tallied 96 yards and one touchdown both through the air and on the ground, while Tarean Folston and C.J. Prosise added rushing scores for Notre Dame (8-5). Leonard Fournette racked up 264 all-purpose yards and three total touchdowns, but LSU (8-5) ...

How much star power does a matchup between Ohio State's Urban Meyer and Alabama's Nick Saban possess? So much that Alabama's big-name offensive coordinator once publicly accused Meyer of cheating—and nobody seems to be talking about it. But that's exactly what happened five years ago when Lane Kiffin took over as the head coach at Tennessee. Celebrating his first signing day with the Volunteers, Kiffin looked to make a splash, taking aim at Meyer, then the head ...

College basketball conference play is about to pick up in earnest around the country, but not before we were able to put together one more power ranking of all 32 conferences. The ranking logic was broken into several tiers. For the bottom 18 conferences with virtually no hope of multiple tournament bids, ranking was based on who would win if the top three teams from each conference played a round-robin tournament against the top three teams from ...

It is certainly no secret that the big-time leagues get the biggest stars and the most attention. That's just how it works. Teams such as Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina are able to attract the best talent year in and year out because of the opportunities they provide. However, that doesn't mean that the mid majors don't have some future superstars too. The so-called smaller conferences have produced plenty of great NBA players throughout the years—just ...

The No. 8 Arizona Wildcats open conference play Sunday at the McKale Center against their biggest rival, Arizona State.  Sunday night's game comes after an extended holiday break for the Wildcats, who lost to UNLV in their last contest on December 23.  The Sun Devils enter the rivalry clash with an 8-5 record and a two-game winning streak. Thanks to wins over Detroit and Harvard in its final nonconference games, Arizona State carries a bit of momentum ...

With the impressive win at Louisville still fresh in our memories, Kentucky is in the middle of a 10-day break before jumping into the SEC slate. It's a chance for the Wildcats to recharge their batteries, and it also serves as a great opportunity to assess how things are going. The 13-0 record is a pretty strong indicator of Kentucky's performance as a team, especially when that includes wins over four ranked teams, three of whom were ...

A few weeks ago, Bleacher Report took a look at North Carolina's most important remaining games. It was during the sweet spot of nonconference play wrapping up, but at least one more big game remained against a non-ACC foe. Now, heading into 2015, North Carolina has just one final, winnable game to play before there is nothing but ACC opponents left on its slate. This is the perfect time to address the biggest conference games UNC ...

The new year is finally (almost) here, and for college basketball fans, it's an exciting time. Especially for ACC fans. For the No. 3 Virginia Cavaliers, it means a step up in competition. The defending ACC champs breezed through the conference schedule with relative ease last season. This year, it won't be so easy. Duke is a different team this season. Sure, Jabari Parker is gone, but Jahlil Okafor is Duke's newest freshman sensation.   And then there's ...