NORTH CAROLINA, BILL BELICHICK FLIP 4-STAR OHIO STATE COMMIT
Four-star safety Jakob Weatherspoon flipped his commitment from Ohio State to coach Bill Belichick and the North Carolina Tar Heels.
The 5-foot-10, 175-pound Buckeye State prospect from Avon High School is ranked No. 14 at his position and No. 9 in Ohio by the 247Sports composite in the 2026 recruiting class.
Weatherspoon, who committed to Ohio State on Jan. 2 during its run to the national championship, took a visit to Chapel Hill in early June and changed his pledge on Wednesday.
He is the fifth four-star commitment in Belichick’s first recruiting class at UNC. The class ranks 17th nationally, per the 247Sports composite.
Belichick, 73, won six Super Bowls as head coach of the New England Patriots from 2000-23. His first game with the Tar Heels is at home against TCU on Sept. 1.
KENTUCKY LB ALEX AFARI JR. CHASING NEIGHBOR IN MULTI-CONTINENT FOOTBALL PURSUIT
Kentucky can thank former Iowa running back Kaleb Johnson for helping unearth versatile gem Alex Afari Jr., a self-made success as a high school cornerback now starring in the middle of the Wildcats defense.
Johnson is headed to training camp with the Pittsburgh Steelers this month, a path Afari would like to follow after the childhood neighbors learned to compete against each other as 8-year-olds in their Ohio backyards.
Entering his senior season with 21 starts in 38 games in Lexington, Afari’s path to this point was anything but predictable. He was born in Italy, moved to Ghana for four years and it was in that African nation he first learned what he was told was football, the game with a round ball going by a different name in the United States.
When he moved to Ohio with his family at the age of 8, Johnson and his grandfather offered to introduce Afari to American football. Johnson’s grandfather signed him up to play and shuttled him to the first practice, Afari recalled Thursday at SEC Media Days.
“First day of practice, they put a helmet on me and some shoulder pads. I said, ‘this is not what I signed up for,’” Afari said. “But he didn’t let me quit. He let me stay with it. Just blessed to be here now.”
Afari, a 227-pounder who played cornerback in high school and his first two seasons in Lexington, was an inside linebacker last season. He finished third on the team in tackles and wowed with a 10-tackle game against Tennessee and during a career night against Florida with 2.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.
“He’s had a great career. We actually recruited him as a cornerback,” Kentucky’s Mark Stoops said Thursday. “Grew into a safety, then became a hybrid. Last year moved to inside linebacker. Just picked it up in a big way. Is a great leader and person for us.”
Afari said he picked up the new game over time, improving by bringing down Johnson in their backyard football games. Johnson, drafted 83rd overall in April, forced a total of 78 missed tackles and gained more than 1,000 rushing yards after initial contact at Iowa.
Completing a tackle of Johnson wasn’t exactly remedial football, especially for someone brand new to the game.
“I wouldn’t say natural. I started really becoming good at football in seventh grade. It took me some time,” Afari recalled Thursday, adding he wasn’t clear on the rules when he began picking up the game. “I just learned off the fly. Kaleb Johnson’s grandpa brought me to the football field every day with him. We were just practicing out in the backyard.”
Afari said he can’t find jollof rice — a traditional dish with tomatoes and chiles common in West Africa, where his parents were born — in Lexington but the summer humidity and high seasonal temperatures are well shy of the oven he experienced in Ghana for nearly four years.
While he now understands the tabulation for placement kicks worth either one or three points in American football, Afari continues pushing for the next step in his journey. He wants to continue growing as a prospect and have a chance to prove he can still bring down his old backyard buddy in the NFL.
“I got stronger in the weight room. I got way stronger, way more explosive. I feel it’s going to translate on the field,” he said. “I feel like the strength coach has done a great job with all our players, changing our bodies, making us stronger and more explosive and faster.”
DODGERS DRAFT PICK, MIZZOU QB SAM HORN PICKS LACES OVER ACES
Dodgers draft pick Sam Horn is putting pitching on the backburner, choosing laces over aces to compete for the starting quarterback job at Missouri in 2025.
Horn, who also plays baseball for the Tigers, was selected in the 17th round of the 2025 MLB Draft on Monday. He celebrated with his family, took a call from a few friends and coaches, and then got a ring from Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz.
Other than offering congratulations to Horn and his parents, Drinkwitz said he was compelled to remind his QB that workouts would start before 7 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I called him the day of the draft to make sure he was having a draft party. I called him after he got drafted,” Drinkwitz, who commonly deals in equal parts sarcasm, bluntness and dry humor, said Thursday at SEC Media Days. “I told him the day he got drafted I was proud of him, and I would see him at 6:30 workouts in the morning.”
Penn State transfer Beau Pribula is Horn’s primary competition to replace Brady Cook at quarterback. Pribula left the Nittany Lions after starting quarterback Drew Allar decided to play another season and pass on the NFL draft.
Horn has a chance to turn pro now or later as a power pitcher.
“What an awesome accomplishment, awesome opportunity for that young man to be that good of an athlete, to be able to play, I think he threw 15 innings this year and had an outstanding season. We’re so proud of him to be able to compete in two sports,” Drinkwitz said. “Sam has been adamant this whole time to compete and win the job in the SEC, play quarterback at the highest level. Had conversations with his representatives. He was going through his Tommy John surgery, or the rehab process going through spring. That really hasn’t changed.”
He touches the high 90s with his heater on the mound. He recovered from Tommy John surgery and returns to Columbia for fall camp in two weeks with two years of eligibility remaining. Drinkwitz said Horn is going year-to-year with his decision.
“We had discussed it, Sam had relayed the message, his agent had relayed the message to all the baseball organizations that he was going to play football this fall. So nothing’s changed,” he said.
The 565th pick in the draft informed teams through his agent he planned to stay in college. He has several options.
Players drafted have a deadline of 4 p.m. on July 28 to sign with an MLB organization. He can sign and still play baseball, or opt to pass on the deal with the Dodgers and re-enter the draft next season after playing another season of football and baseball with the Tigers.
SEC COACHES AND PLAYERS DEFEND THEIR DOMINANCE AMID BIG TEN’S RECENT SUCCESS
ATLANTA (AP) — There was not a Big Ten player, coach or fan in sight this week as the College Football Hall of Fame hosted SEC Media Days. Still, the SEC’s No. 1 rival found its way into conversations all week long.
It’s no secret the rivalry has intensified in recent years. Over the last decade, the SEC has won six of the 10 national championships. Two were won by Clemson in that stretch but the last two were won by Big Ten rivals, Michigan last year and Ohio State in January.
The recent success has put a dent in the SEC’s reputation as the nation’s dominant conference. SEC coaches, players and Commissioner Greg Sankey have no question they’re still No. 1.
“For all those of you who like to speculate about super-conferences, welcome to one,” Sankey said to open this week’s event. “We have common-sense geography, restored rivalries, record-breaking viewership. If you take the consumed viewership hours on linear TV, almost 40% of that viewership was focused on games involving Southeastern Conference universities and teams. Big Ten was next, right around 30%.”
The SEC also boasted 79 NFL draft picks in 2025, more than any other conference and beating the Big Ten by eight.
No one put it more plainly this week than Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz when asked if he thought the SEC was the top conference in college football.
“The top? The top, as in number of draft picks in the NFL? Top as in most viewership? Overall top, deepest conference in college football? Look, the more teams you add to the tournament, there’s greater variance to it,” Drinkwitz said. “You’ve got 16 of the toughest competitors in the world who are head coaches in this league. We’re all driven to achieve the best, whether that’s internally or externally.”
The Big Ten and SEC draw outsized attention in college football for other reasons. The two will soon have a bigger say over the format of the College Football Playoff — they currently differ on that — and their teams are in the mix for the top recruits every year.
Early bragging rights this season between the two behemoths include Texas at Ohio State in a CFP rematch from last season, Michigan at Oklahoma and Wisconsin at Alabama, all before mid-September. The real measuring stick in this league rivalry is always going to be the postseason.
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer knows excellence is the expectation when it comes to SEC football.
“That’s our responsibility, to be at the top, right? That’s the expectation. I know at Alabama, but also the expectation for the SEC as a whole. I still feel that the SEC top to bottom is as strong as you’ll find,” DeBoer said.
DeBoer isn’t wrong when he says it’s the expectation. In fact, it’s the standard and fan bases from Austin to Gainesville go beyond team cheers on game day. “S-E-C, S-E-C” chants on a fall Saturday are not a rare occurrence.
The excitement is part of what drew Cam Ball to Arkansas.
“Growing up, my father would wake me up on Saturdays. If we didn’t go to the barber shop, we was at home, just sitting on the couch watching the game, mainly watching SEC games,” he said.
Playing in the conference he grew up watching still feels surreal.
“Sometimes in a game, it’s the first play, and I’ll just look up and see an SEC opponent’s helmet, and I’ll be like, ‘Wow, I’m really here. God is good.’ This conference in general, it’s just a blessing to be here,” Ball said.
Alex Afari Jr.’s recruiting journey ended promptly after receiving the call from Kentucky. It was his first and only SEC offer. The decision was easy: Who wouldn’t want to play SEC ball?
“Playing in the SEC means a lot,” Afari said. “I always want to play against the best players. When I got the SEC offer and that’s my only one — I had like Big Ten offers or whatever, but this is my only SEC offer, and I took that chance.”
To Afari, no other conference compares.
“It’s not even close, really. I feel like we just got the o-linemen, the d-linemen are just different, the skill players as well. We put the most players in the NFL,” he said. “Every SEC team can beat each other, every SEC team is not weak, so I feel like that’s the difference. We don’t have any bad teams in the SEC.”
