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Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
What is Texas A&M football's overall raking in EA Sports College Football 26?
With mixed reviews from college football fans across the country, EA Sports College Football 26 officially dropped the top 25 overall teams in the video game that drops on July 10. Among those top-rated teams in this year's edition was the Texas A&M Aggies, who are the No. 8 program in the game with a team ranking of 88 overall. The school ranks as the fourth-best overall team in the Southeastern Conference, with Alabama ranked No. 1, Texas at No. 2, and Georgia at No. 6 in the official ratings before the 2025-2026 campaign begins. Advertisement While Aggie fans are tired of seeing the team ranked high each preseason, resulting in disappointing results, the 2025 preseason just feels different. While EA Sports provided overalls for each program in the top 25, the company released the best offensive and defensive units in this year's edition. Texas A&M ranks at No. 12 in both categories with a 90 overall defense and an 89 overall offense. Here is the full list of team overalls in the 2026 edition: Team Overalls Much to the chagrin of Aggie fans, the rankings also faced much backlash from fans in the replies of the official drop, specifically regarding the game's top 10 teams. The Crimson Tide ranked as the best overall team is extremely generous considering the program did not reach the College Football Playoff last year and head coach Kalen DeBoer is in just his second season at the helm, with many questions about who will step up at the quarterback position. Advertisement As you can imagine, those same feelings toward Alabama were made against the Aggies being at No. 8 on this list, after finishing the season with a loss in the Las Vegas Bowl to the USC Trojans. The ratings in the game will be adjusted accordingly to how the season progresses, however. With potentially one of the best running back rooms in the country featuring a healthy Le'Veon Moss, Rueben Owens and Amari Daniels, sophomore quarterback Marcel Reed and wideouts like NC State transfer KC Concepcion, the Aggies' offense could lead this team to become one of the best in the SEC this season. The 89 overall ranking is justifiable, but the concerns on defense leave me with questions on how EA Sports formulated the rankings. Regardless, the EA Sports College Football 26 video game will release in 13 days on Xbox and PlayStation. The standard edition is $69.99, with the deluxe and MVP editions costing $99.99 and $149.99, respectively. Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Dylan on X: @dylanmflippo. This article originally appeared on Aggies Wire: What is Texas A&M's overall ranking in EA Sports College Football 26?
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Where did Texas A&M finish in this year's Learfield Directors' Cup final standings?
As the final points were tallied up, Texas A&M athletics finished as one of the most highly-rated schools in the country in the 2024-2025 Learfield Directors' Cup standings. The Aggies finished the most recent athletics year in the top 25 for the 19th consecutive year, as Texas A&M earned a No. 15 finish. That mark places the programs in College Station as the No. 7 team in the Southeastern Conference and the sixth time in the last decade that the Aggies finished in the top 15 of the Learfield Directors' Cup. The competition originated in 1993 and was created to rank programs based on the athletic department's overall success competing during the athletic calendar year in national competition. Texas A&M's highest ranking in program history was in 2012-2013, in which the program ranked as No. 5 in the country and recorded 1131.50 points for its performances against other programs across the country. During the 2024-2025 athletics year, the Aggies secured an NCAA Championship in men's outdoor track and field, while also finishing top 20 in men's golf, men's swimming and diving, men's basketball and softball. Texas A&M's equestrian team also advanced to the semifinals of the NCEA Championship. Here are the full standings and results from this year's Learfield Directors' Cup: Following the announcement of Texas A&M's finish in this year's cup, athletic director Trev Alberts expressed his thoughts on where the Aggies' accomplishments and where its programs are headed in the future. "I firmly believe that the future is incredibly bright for Texas A&M as collegiate athletics continues to evolve," Alberts said. "We are dedicated to a culture that is focused on giving our programs all of the resources they need to compete for championships, and I am grateful that here at Texas A&M we are well-positioned moving forward to achieve that goal." The Learfield Directors' Cup was developed by USA TODAY and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). As a new calendar year is due up, starting with soccer and then football, the Aggies will look to secure its 20th season with a top 25 finish in the cup. Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Dylan on X: @dylanmflippo.
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Sport
- Associated Press
Johni Broome was a college force at Auburn. He'll start his NBA journey as a 2nd-round draft pick
Johni Broome was a college basketball headliner at Auburn, the Associated Press first-team All-American an undeniable force powering the Tigers to the Final Four. His NBA journey is coming with less fanfare. The fifth-year big man went to the Philadelphia 76ers with the No. 35 pick in Thursday's second round of the draft. If offered an example of how elite college production doesn't always equate to high-end NBA potential or draft status, particularly when it comes to an older player deemed more of a finished product compared to the youngster with rising upside. Still, the player ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas described simply as a winner is tough, tested and eager to start his pro pursuit all the same. 'I think what he said was right,' Broome said of Bilas during Thursday's ESPN broadcast. 'I'm a winner. I get things done, offensively and defensively, so the Sixers got a good one.' The 6-foot-9, 249-pound Broome — who started his career as an unheralded recruit for two years at Morehead State — averaged 18.6 points, 10.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocks last year for Auburn, which started the year at No. 11 in the AP Top 25 poll but immediately climbed to a top-5 status it wouldn't yield for the rest of the year behind Broome's brilliance. That included eight straight weeks ranked at No. 1 from mid-January to early March. Broome stuffed box scores so thoroughly that he was the player of the year in a rugged Southeastern Conference, which was hands down the nation's top conference and produced a record 14 bids to the NCAA Tournament. And he finished as runner-up for AP national player of the year to Duke freshman and eventual No. 1 overall draft pick Cooper Flagg in what was a true two-man spotlight this season, with Broome collecting a third of the vote as the only other player named on a ballot. He pushed the Tigers program to only its second trip to college basketball's biggest stage, grinding through an elbow injury suffered during the Elite Eight win against Michigan State and then being hampered by it during the loss to eventual champion Florida in the national semifinals a week later. That all seemingly had him positioned to be a first-round prospect who led Auburn to 59 wins in the past two years alone. NBA evaluations, however, are different. Broome lacks elite athleticism. His testing and measurements at the combine didn't help his first-round chances; he had a 28-inch max vertical leap, tied for second worst at the combine, while only six players posted a lower standing vertical leap (24.0). He also finished tied for fourth-worst in the shuttle run (3.23 seconds) designed to test agility. Numbers aren't everything, of course. Maryland big man Derik Queen tied Broome for the second-worst max vertical and still went on to go late in the lottery (No. 13). But Queen is the still-developing prospect growing into his upside at 20 years old and with just 36 games of college experience, compared to Broome being the as-is prospect who turns 23 on July 19 after playing 168 college games. When it comes to his game, he plays more below the rim and lacks the defense-stretching range essential in today's game built around floor-spacing. His jumper is rated as 'below average' in Synergy's analytics rankings, with him making 27.1% to rank in the 25th percentile — with most of those attempts coming in catch-and-shoot situations. That underlying data aligns with his outside-shooting statistics, where Broome made just 31.4% of his 3-point attempts (53 of 169) over the last two seasons and had at least two made 3s in just 15 of 71 games. He was at his best in post-ups, as a cutter, working as the roll man in pick-and-rolls and attacking the offensive glass, ranking 'good' to 'very good' in all of those categories in Synergy. He also ranked as 'very good' in finishing layups and dunks at the rim, converting 65.9% of those attempts to rank in the 81st percentile. Metrics aside, there's a place in the NBA for guys who can rebound and defend with toughness. He's already proven he can, along with putting in the work going back to being a three-star signee with Morehead State. 'He may not be an above-the-rim big guy, but he carves out space and he gets things done,' Bilas said during the broadcast. 'A really productive player that has been overlooked before and has come through.' ___ AP Sports Writer Steve Reed contributed to this report. ___ AP NBA:
Toronto Star
5 days ago
- Sport
- Toronto Star
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's timeline of his rise to the NBA's mountaintop
Kentucky guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander cuts down the net after the Wildcats defeated Tennessee 77-72 in an NCAA college basketball championship game at the Southeastern Conference tournament on March 11, 2018, in St. Louis. Jeff Roberson / AP file photo
Buzz Feed
5 days ago
- Politics
- Buzz Feed
MAGA Influencer Slammed For Sexist College Advice
I tend to tune out whatever nonsense comes out of conservative MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk's mouth, but then I remember we live in a country where thousands of people follow him for their political opinions, and I am suddenly curious why someone would do such a thing. My curiosity piqued into action this past week after seeing that hundreds of women, whose values are centered on "faith, family, country," came together for the 2025 Young Women's Leadership Summit (YWLS), reportedly the "largest conservative gathering for women in the country." The summit was held by Kirk's conservative nonprofit organization, Turning Point USA, which focuses on spreading conservative values to young adults, particularly on college campuses and in the media. And to my horror, but (unfortunately) not to my surprise, a clip circulating on social media shows Charlie Kirk delivering a profoundly regressive response to a 14-year-old girl interested in political journalism asking for his advice on college. First, Kirk asked the audience of teen girls if their top priority is to "get married and have kids." After some hands went up, he said, "Interestingly, I think there is an argument to bring back the M-R-S degree." For those unfamiliar, a "Mrs. degree" is a sexist term that gained popularity in the mid-20th century to mock women who supposedly went to college just to find a husband. But here's the thing: in a time when women couldn't open bank accounts, buy homes, or build credit without a man, marriage was often the only path to security and social acceptance. Women were shamed for seeking the very stability that society limited them to. Higher education was, in itself, a radical act — a way for women to claim independence, knowledge, and in a way, cheekily calling it a "Mrs. degree" was just a coded effort to try and remind women what they were "really" there for. Not to get their own education and career, and essentially a pathway to some patriarchal freedom, but to find a man who gets to do that instead, so they support his ambitions while being confined to domesticity, reproducing the very system designed to keep them dependent. And yet, here is Kirk, reviving the same tired logic in 2025. After the audience lightly laughed at the term, he doubled down, "NO, seriously. Just be clear that's why you're going to college, right?" He then mocked women who thought they were going to school school. "Don't lie to yourself, like, 'Agh, I'm going, I'm studying sociology,'" Kirk said. "No, you're not, we know why you're here. And that's OK, actually! That's a really good reason to go to college, actually." Then came dating advice. He suggested young women should consider looking for husbands at Southeastern Conference (SECC) schools, in particular. "Like, you will find a husband, if you have the intent to find a husband at Ole Miss. Like, it's just going to happen, OK. Or wherever. Or at the University of Alabama," he said. Keep in mind: this is the same guy who wrote The College Scam, a book arguing that universities are "bankrupting and brainwashing America's youth" with "far-left professors." Yet, here he is, suddenly pro-college, if it means becoming a modern young tradwife. "I say college is a scam, but if you're going to find your life partner, that's actually a really good reason to go to college," he said. He then romanticized college being a great time to partner up because, ya know, "they're at the prime of their attractiveness." He said, "You don't get much better than that. It doesn't get better after college there." Then he delivered this intelligent line: "And, so yeah, you could go learn some stuff, that's fine, I guess, or whatever, just don't listen to your professors." He insisted, again, that the "Mrs. degree" was the real reason women went to college in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, and that this is why marriage rates have "plummeted" since. Yeah, sure, Jan, or maybe marriage rates dropped because generations of women got the memo not to spend their lives with men who think Anyway, I'm clearly not the only one screaming into the void. Here's what people have said online: "these creepy weirdos dream of having trad wives because women can't stand them. Instead of self improvement they choose to indoctrinate young girls into thinking they aren't huge losers," one person wrote. "THIS is what grooming actually looks like," another added. "hope the majority of these girls do go to college and gain insight, knowledge, and life experience that allows them to break from this conservative brainwashing <3 i also hope they all actually graduate with a degree, unlike charlie! :)," this user said. (Charlie Kirk does not have a college degree. He attended a community college briefly but dropped out.) Another wrote, "I'm grateful that I grew up with strong men and women who encouraged me to explore the world, seek knowledge, and grow with God. The saints we studied, especially the women, were educated and adventurous. I can't imagine being 14 and told to chase an MRS degree." "This is so weird," one simply put. Some pointed out a broader issue, which is that women are outperforming men in education and the workforce, so "suddenly there's a 'crisis'": "It's obvious that they are afraid of women," one wrote. And then, there was this dad, who kinda made me want to cry to see a man so beautifully see us and future generations of women as human: Well, all I can say is exactly what he said. Our daughters, and all women, are worth far more than the only option being finding a husband to have babies with. We didn't claw our way into classrooms, workplaces, leadership roles, and positions where we make our own choices in life just to be told to sit back down, shut up, and be a good wife. If this is your grand vision for the future of American women, then the real scam here isn't college, it's you.
