Author: rb809rb

Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Greg Biffle and his family died in a plane crash at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina on Thursday.

All seven occupants of the plane were killed in the crash, which happened shortly after 10 a.m. ET. The plane, registered to Biffle’s GB Aviation LLC, took off from Statesville for Sarasota/Bradenton International, but turned around and attempted to land back at Statesville when it crashed.

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Biffle’s wife Cristina, his daughter Emma, 14, and Greg and Cristina’s son Ryder, 5, were on board along with Dennis and Jack Dutton and Craig Wadsworth, according to a statement from their families.

Biffle, 55, competed in over 500 Cup Series races and scored 19 wins with the team now known as Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. He won championships in both NASCAR’s third-tier Truck and second-tier Xfinity Series and had a NASCAR career that spanned over two decades. He also spent much of his time in the fall of 2024 helping victims of Hurricane Helene in rural North Carolina after the storm’s flooding rains took out infrastructure in that part of the state.

As news of the crash emerged on Thursday, many in and around the racing community took to social media to share their sadness.

Nate Tice & Charles McDonald join forces to preview the biggest games of NFL Week 16. The two hosts start by getting Lost in the Sauce on their three favorite games of the weekend, previewing both sides of the ball for Jacksonville Jaguars @ Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers @ Chicago Bears and New England Patriots @ Baltimore Ravens.

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Next, Nate & Charles reveal their key matchups to watch in Cheat Sheet as they preview a huge divisional battle with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the Carolina Panthers, plus the Pittsburgh Steelers @ Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon.

The duo wrap things up with the Hail Mary bold predictions for the weekend, as Charles discusses a sneaky hoss fight between Josh Allen and Myles Garrett while Nate predicts a turnover-heavy day between Bo Nix and Trevor Lawrence. Plus, Nate gets a grievance off his chest that you need to hear about people severely underrating the newest generation of quarterbacks.

(2:15) – Jaguars @ Broncos

(28:40) – Packers @ Bears

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(53:45) – Patriots @ Ravens

(1:16:15) – Buccaneers @ Panthers

(1:26:15) – Steelers @ Lions

(1:30:00) – Hail Mary predictions

(1:36:05) – Stop underrating modern quarterbacks

🖥️ Watch this full episode on YouTube

Check out the rest of the Yahoo Sports podcast family at https://apple.co/3zEuTQj or at Yahoo Sports Podcasts

Ohio University fired head football coach Brian Smith for cause after just one season, the school announced Wednesday. Smith, 45, was fired after an administrative review revealed “serious professional misconduct and participating in activities that reflect unfavorably on the University.”

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On Thursday, multiple reports citing public records uncovered details about that misconduct, which, reportedly included Smith’s romantic relationship with an undergraduate student and his alleged public intoxication.

In a notice of termination letter dated Dec. 12, Smith is accused of “extramarital affairs, including one with an undergraduate student,” at the Ohio University Inn that was witnessed by a player’s parent, according to The Athletic.

Smith’s lawyer, Rex Elliott, wrote in a response letter dated Dec. 16 that Smith and his wife had already separated and were in the process of getting divorced when Smith began a consensual relationship with the student, which Elliott stressed was not an “extramarital affair,” as reported by The Athletic. Elliott also wrote, according to The Post, that Smith ended that relationship when he learned she was a student.

Smith broke off the four-month relationship with the student in early November, Elliott wrote, per The Athletic. Smith was reportedly living at the Ohio University Inn while he was searching for more permanent housing. During that time, he encountered a player’s parents while he was in the company of a 41-year-old woman, Smith’s lawyer wrote, according to The Athletic.

Also in the termination letter, Smith was accused of acting intoxicated and smelling strongly of alcohol during a public appearance, although the university reportedly didn’t provide specifics on the occasion.

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Ohio athletic director Slade Larscheid and other administrators met with Smith on Nov. 24 over an allegation that he had violated a university and contractual policy related to “alcohol and other drugs,” according to his personnel file that was obtained by The Athletic. Smith reportedly acknowledged storing alcohol in his office desk drawer and that he had consumed alcohol in his office after normal business hours. He also, per The Athletic, acknowledged that “on occasion, a few assistant coaches, all over the age of 21, joined him privately in his office after games for a single drink of bourbon.”

That is a direct violation of Ohio University employee policy. Smith also received a formal reprimand in a letter from Larscheid on Nov. 25.

“You further acknowledged that you were initially unfamiliar with the policy but now understand its requirements. You affirmed your commitment to comply with university policy moving forward and recognized that consuming or storing alcohol on university property is strictly prohibited,” it said in the Nov. 25 letter, via The Athletic. “Future violations of University Policy 41.133 or other University policies, may result in further disciplinary action, up to and including termination of your employment. You are expected to fully comply with all university policies and maintain professional conduct at all times.”

In the response letter, Smith’s lawyer claims that the coach was never drunk at an Ohio University event.

The day after Elliott’s response to the termination letter, Smith was fired for cause.

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Elliott released a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying “we vigorously dispute” the university’s grounds for termination and “plan to fight … to protect [Smith’s] good name.”

After taking over as interim head coach last season following the departure of Tim Albin — and leading the Bobcats to a win in the Cure Bowl — Smith was named the team’s full-time head coach for the 2025 season.

Ohio performed well under Smith, going 8-4 during the 2025 campaign. That earned the team a bowl game against UNLV, which is set to be played Dec. 23.

But Smith will not coach the team in that contest. On Dec. 1, he was placed on indefinite leave by the university. Defensive coordinator John Hauser was elevated to interim head coach following that decision.

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The school said Wednesday its search for a new head coach “will begin immediately.”

Prior to coaching at Ohio University, Smith held a number of assistant and coordinator jobs across college football. He had three separate stints at Hawaii and has served as either an offensive coordinator or offensive positions coach at every stop before being elevated into his first head-coaching position with Ohio last season.

Trade speculation has surrounded Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks for weeks now, ever since a report came out that the former MVP was talking to the team about his future with the franchise.

The situation hasn’t been helped by a lack of communication from the man himself. Not long after the report emerged, Antetokounmpo went down with a calf strain and didn’t speak to reporters again until Thursday.

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There was plenty to talk about with the Bucks sitting at 11-16, but the trade rumors were unavoidable. In response to one question about the reported conversations, Antetokounmpo denied any role in the talks and indicated his agent, Alex Saratsis, was handling them without his input:

“If my agent is talking to the Bucks about it, he is his own person. He can have any conversation he wants about it. At the end of the day, I don’t work for my agent, my agent works for me. There’s going to be conversations that are going to be made between him and the Bucks and him and his other players and him and other teams and other GMs, executives around the league.

“It’s something that you can’t control. But at the end of the day, I personally have not had the conversation with the Bucks.”

That’s an interesting way to describe a player-agent relationship, as an agent unilaterally approaching a team about his client’s future is not something you see every day. It is the basic definition of an agent to act on a player’s wishes, so Saratsis has to know at least something about what Antetokounmpo is seeking if he’s talking with the Bucks.

When pressed on the claim, Antetokounmpo further denied any control in the matters and complained about his wife’s obsession with Target in the process:

“I tell my wife all the time, I say, ‘Stop shopping at Target.’ Every day she wakes up, she’s like. ‘I’m going to Target.’ I’m like, ‘Babe, stop. You’re addicted to Target.’ Every day. Today, she went to Target. I can’t control — she’s a grown-ass woman. I can’t control what she does.

“So the same thing with my agent. I can’t control the conversations they’re going to have. I can’t control the people that approach them. At the same time, I can’t control teams that approach the Bucks.”

Antetokounmpo also summarized his communications with his agent as basically non-existent during the season, which, again, would make him a rarity among NBA players:

“A lot of people have great relationships with their agents. With me, I do have a good relationship with my agent, but they know once the season starts, you don’t call my phone. You don’t talk to me about endorsement deals. You don’t talk to me about basketball. You never played the game. Let me take care of my job, you take care of your job.”

Antetokounmpo hasn’t played since Dec. 3 and confirmed his injury was a soleus strain, which he also suffered in the 2023-24 season. He said the timeline for return remains 4-to-6 weeks, which would land his return sometime in January. However, he also added that he would play Thursday if it were a Game 7.

The Bucks have gone 1-3 without Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee has seven more games remaining in December alone. The team is already sitting at 11th in the Eastern Conference and needs him as much as ever in its post-Damian Lillard era.

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There has been confusion throughout all this. The Bucks have firmly denied any such conversations taking place, but Antetokounmpo just indicated his agent was talking to them about something. Antetokounmpo was reported last week to have spoken with his teammates about focusing on winning now, but two of his teammates said they heard no such talk.

The Bucks have become conspicuously scarce on Antetokounmpo’s social media, which he explained as an attempt to become more private:

“The other day, I was approached about, ‘Hey, man, you deleted all the Bucks stuff from your socials.’ I’m like, ‘Bro.’ The younger generation, they just pay attention so much to — what does that mean? What is me deleting the Bucks stuff from my social media platforms? What does that mean? I’m not going to show up to work? I don’t understand. I feel like people give so much attention to that.

“First of all, I did not delete the Bucks stuff. My Jimmy Paschke shirt, championship trophy is there. The NBA Cup trophy is there. All the moments that mean something to me is there, but I want to be more private moving forward, as much as I can. I want to be a little more private, that’s how I protect my family.”

If Antetokounmpo is indeed open to a trade, there will be no shortage of suitors. If not, the easiest way to end any such talk is for the Bucks to start performing like contenders.

It’s a jam-packed weekend of football at the professional and, well, also professional ranks! The NFL spreads its tentacles to Saturday and the College Football Playoff kicks off Friday night in Norman, Oklahoma.

As the NFL and college football seasons enter the home stretch, and we get ever closer to the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, let’s take a look at the top prospects to watch during the first round of the playoff.

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(9) Alabama vs. (8) Oklahoma

My eyes are first going to go to one matchup in particular between an Oklahoma pass rusher and an Alabama tackle.

Oklahoma edge R Mason Thomas

Thomas is an undersized but powerful defender who can explode off the snap. He is like a sawed-off shotgun with the way he can use his surprising length and pop to get underneath and push back offensive tackles and tight ends. And he’ll see plenty of snaps against …

Alabama LT Kadyn Proctor

Proctor is massive, and his evaluation is all over the place, matching his up-and-down play this season. I have Proctor graded more as a back-half-of-the-first-round type player, and that is more because I am weighing his rare size (listed 6-foot-7, 366 pounds) and movement ability. Thomas’ size (or lack thereof) and quick-hitting style is a perfect type of opponent for talent evaluators to watch when grading Proctor. And same for Proctor’s massive size and strength for Thomas to battle against.

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Alabama QB Ty Simpson

Simpson was a big riser in this year’s underwhelming quarterback class, but his play tapered off in the second half of the season. His willingness to push the ball and create explosive plays made him a fun watch, but his average size (6-2, 208) and inaccuracies started to crop up too frequently as SEC play wore on. I think he ends up going back to school, but still worth watching because he is a true gunslinger working from the pocket.

Oklahoma QB John Mateer

Mateer is tough and will flash some cool trick shots as a passer, but he, like Simpson, got banged up this season and started to have too many inconsistencies.

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(10) Miami vs. (7) Texas A&M

Miami OL Francis Mauigoa

More focus on the trenches as we look to College Station. Mauigoa has perhaps been the most consistent offensive line prospect in this class, and he plays with a good base and hand usage. I see him more as a guard at the next level, perhaps the first one who gets drafted, but he is still a very good tackle in college and he will have a fun matchup going against the Aggies and …

Texas A&M edge Cashius Howell

Howell is undersized but is a fireball at the snap of the football. He can quickly give offensive tackles issues with his speed, and he’s been productive throughout his college career. Howell’s quickness against Mauigoa’s sturdiness will be an enjoyable “styles makes fights” battle.

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Miami QB Carson Beck

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko’s defensive gameplanning will be a fun test for Beck and the Hurricanes’ offense. I see Beck as a Day 3 prospect, but when kept clean he can get on a roll as a thrower, and this will be a great matchup to watch and see how far Beck has come along as a processor and operator.

Miami edge Rueben Bain Jr.

The Hurricanes have a pair of talented edge prospects, too. Bain was the most dominant defender in the country over the first half of the season, but has tapered off slightly since then. He’s a powerful defender who can kick inside as a defensive tackle on snaps (some teams even view him as a defensive tackle first, which I don’t totally disagree with). Bain’s ability to push the pocket and hold down the point of attack in the run game make him a very useful player, but his lack of high-end twitch and length might have some teams questioning his overall upside.

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Miami edge Akheem Mesidor

Mesidor is an older prospect (he will turn 25 just before the draft), but he is a violent pass rusher whose twitch and bend pop off the screen. I see some similarities to Rams edge Byron Young in terms of background and ability with Mesidor.

Texas A&M WR KC Concepcion

Concepcion is dynamic with the ball in his hands. He could make an instant impact as a big-play receiver and returner at the next level. Concepcion is undersized (5-10, 190), but he has real ball skills as a receiver that helps him maximize his frame. He can be a nice secondary weapon in a passing attack that can help add an explosive element right away.

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(11) Tulane vs. (6) Ole Miss

Tulane has been such a well-coached team under Jon Sumrall (who took the job at Florida), but it plays to the max of its abilities and it isn’t a roster filled with high-end prospects. It’s kind of the same for Ole Miss, funnily enough.

Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss

Chambliss is a hoot to watch, but will likely be staying in college football somewhere in 2026. Chambliss is worth tuning in for just from a sheer enjoyment of watching a fun college football player perspective.

(12) James Madison vs. (5) Oregon

Lots of ballplayers to watch on the home team in Eugene! On both units, too.

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Oregon TE Kenyon Sadiq

Sadiq is an explosive offensive weapon that’s willing to scrap as a blocker, too. He’s athletic enough to win from split out positions and is a valid weapon down the field and after the catch. Sadiq still needs to add more consistency and polish to his game, but his star moments shine as brightly as anyone in this class. His name will be called on the first night in April.

Oregon DT A’Mauri Washington

Washington is a mauler in the middle and has been a riser this season. Washington can blow up double-teams with his size (listed 330 pounds) and strength. Washington can be used as a run-down plugger, but can also fit on more attacking defenses that ask him to slant and twist after the snap.

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Oregon edge Matayo Uiagalelei

Uiagalelei could fit as a defensive end in three- or four-down fronts. He hasn’t had a big year, but still has length and his role in the run game translates to the next level.

Oregon G Emmanuel Pregnon

Oregon has several talented offensive linemen on the other side of the trenches, too. In a class full of more good than great, Pregnon has risen to first-round consideration. He’s light on his feet and has improved his technique and ability to recover and anchor this season.

Oregon LT Isaiah World

World has high-end tools with real length and power in his game, but has still been an inconsistent performer this year after transferring from Nevada. He fell out of my midseason top 30 big board, but his flashes and athleticism will keep him as a prospect to watch this cycle. Somebody will take a chance.

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Oregon S Dillon Thienenman

Thienenman, another transfer (this time from Purdue), is a player who can do a little bit of everything role-wise. He’s quick to trigger downhill and just ends up around the football. I like him best in teams that base out of two-high or like to funk up their looks after the snap. I have him graded as an early Day 2 selection right now but could easily see him having some fans on the playoff teams that make up the back end of the first round.

Oregon QB Dante Moore

That’s it, right? Onto the Dukes prospects … oh wait, Dante Moore! Moore is the NFL Draft’s biggest mystery man. Not in terms of if he will go in the first round, because he will, but on whether he declares. I maintain that he should, regardless of how Oregon fares in this game or the next few weeks. I have had Fernando Mendoza (we’ll see the Heisman winner in the quarterfinals) graded so far as my QB1 this process, but it’s far from a consensus opinion on how the league and other evaluators judge these two, and really this entire class.

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Moore gets asked to do a lot in Oregon’s offense, not in terms of running but more in terms of operation and as a passer from the pocket. He is a clean thrower who can really pepper throws around when in rhythm and is comfortable with the plays, but he can be a bit safe and inconsistent on certain concepts that he doesn’t have as much time on (which makes sense, given that this is his first full year starting). His development this year has been a lot of fun to watch, and teams with a need for quarterback should be watching every Oregon game from here on out.

Joe Buck will be part of ESPN’s first game lineup to call Los Angeles Dodgers vs. New York Mets on April 15, he announced on SI Media with Jimmy Traina. This marks Buck’s second consecutive year being part of ESPN’s first broadcast of the MLB season.

Despite ESPN and Major League Baseball reaching a deal to air 30 regular-season games, Buck is scheduled to call only the Dodgers-Mets game. Last season marked the first time since 2021 that Buck called a nationally broadcasted baseball game after leaving Fox for ESPN.

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In 2022, Buck and Troy Aikman signed a multiyear deal with ESPN to become the voices of Monday Night Football. Despite shifting his focus to the NFL, Buck returned for an MLB game alongside Chip Caray in the St. Louis Cardinals’ booth in 2024.

Buck and Caray both have fathers who were sports broadcasters. Joe Buck worked alongside his father, Jack, as a Cardinals radio and television broadcaster from 1991 to 2007. He also called the PGA Tournament and hosted an alternate broadcast in 2022. The 56-year-old broadcaster said he prefers calling baseball games earlier in the season because he feels more prepared.

“For someone who hasn’t been involved in the game for four years, and I did Opening Day last year, I think it’s easier to launch off the beginning of the season because it’s not looking back,” Buck told Traina.

Buck also believes that calling a game featuring the back-to-back World Series champions will make his job easier.

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“It’s a Dodger game, I think it’s Dodger-Mets, so there’s a lot to talk about,” he said. “I mean, I could probably do it right now. The Dodgers, half their lineup’s going to end up in the Hall of Fame. They’re easy names.”

While Buck didn’t rule out calling a game later in the season or during the playoffs, he acknowledged that it would be much more challenging.

“I’m not prepared to do that without putting myself in solitary confinement for a month and trying to catch up with everything that’s gone on,” Buck said.

Before Buck’s four-year absence from baseball, he was one of the most recognizable voices in the sport. He served as Fox’s lead play-by-play announcer from 1996 to 2021. During that time, Buck called 23 World Series and 21 All-Star Games, the most by any play-by-play announcer on network television.

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Buck will receive the 2026 Ford C. Frick Award, which is presented annually to a broadcaster for major contributions to baseball. Buck and his father will become the first father-son duo to both receive the award.

Heather McPhee, associate general counsel for the NFL Players Association since 2009, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday, alleging that former executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. and two current top union executives conspired to prevent her from cooperating with a criminal investigation into union finances, ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. reported.

McPhee was placed on paid administrative leave on Aug. 14 after she was the subject of multiple employee complaints, per Van Natta and ESPN’s Jeff Passan, that reportedly included accusations of failing to follow supervisors’ directions, bullying colleagues and disrupting the union’s work environment.

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In the lawsuit, McPhee says she was placed on leave to stop her from testifying before a federal grand jury investigating the NFLPA and the Major League Baseball Players Association, according to ESPN’s report.

Months before she was placed on leave, McPhee made allegations that sparked an FBI investigation into the NFLPA, MLBPA and OneTeam Partners, their $2 billion licensing company.

McPhee is reportedly seeking at least $10 million in damages, according to the lawsuit, in which she accuses Howell of illegal misconduct, sex discrimination, breach of fiduciary duty and retaliation, per ESPN.

Howell, who became the NFLPA’s executive director in 2022, resigned July 17. He stepped down after a tumultuous month of criticism that stemmed from Pablo Torre and Mike Florio reporting that the NFL and NFLPA covered up a ruling on a collusion grievance. An arbitrator, Christopher Droney, found that in the wake of quarterback Deshaun Watson signing a fully guaranteed $230 million contract with the Cleveland Browns ahead of the 2022 season, league executives encouraged team owners to reduce the amount of guaranteed money players received in subsequent contracts.

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Droney concluded that he couldn’t prove by a “clear preponderance” that NFL teams followed suit. Still, the details revealed from that 2022 annual owners’ meeting were indelible, and so was the fact that the NFLPA reportedly agreed with the NFL to keep the collusion grievance findings under wraps. That left a stain on Howell’s reputation, as did other matters, chief among them his reported spending of union funds for visits to strip clubs.

After McPhee initially flagged concerns within the NFLPA in November 2024, regarding senior executives potentially violating labor laws governing conflicts of interest and the fulfillment of fiduciary duties, as reported by ESPN, she alleges that union leaders targeted her “in order to conceal and deflect their own misconduct and failures.”

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McPhee questioned the legality of a senior executive incentive plan proposed by OneTeam Partners that would have paid millions of dollars in bonuses to Howell, MLBPA executive director Tony Clark and others, per ESPN, which also reported that McPhee states in the suit that she opposed Howell’s decision to keep the collusion grievance findings secret.

The suit says, according to ESPN, that the union leaders signing a confidentiality agreement with the NFL “raised concerns about a potential violation of the NFLPA’s duty of fair representation to players.”

When union leaders discovered McPhee was in line to testify as a grand jury witness about what she deemed to be criminal misconduct by Howell and others, she alleges she was removed from meetings and cut off from the board and players.

McPhee was then placed on leave due to her “workplace behavior,” according to the ESPN report. McPhee believes that was a tactic to prevent her from cooperating with the DOJ.

Jakobi Meyers was initially a trade-deadline rental for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Now it looks like he’s going to be staying around for a while.

Meyers and the Jaguars agreed to a three-year, $60 million contract extension on Thursday, according to NFL Network. The deal reportedly contains $40 million in guaranteed money.

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The Jaguars announced the deal soon after.

The 29-year-old was originally slated to hit free agency after this season, which he began as a member of the Las Vegas Raiders. He had asked for a trade from the team during the offseason and finally got one to Jacksonville at the trade deadline.

The Jaguars gave up fourth- and sixth-round picks for Meyers and got a reliable receiver. Meyers posted his first career 1,000-receiving yard season last year in Vegas and has followed it up with 707 yards this season, 355 of them in six games with the Jaguars. His tenure in Jacksonville has also coincided with a 5-1 run for the team, which leads the AFC South with a 10-4 record.

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A $20 million average annual value places Meyers 25th among current wide receiver contracts via OverTheCap, right behind Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Mike Evans.

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States, a statesman and a scholar renowned for his role in the creation of the U.S. Constitution. James Madison is currently a 20.5-point underdog to Oregon in the College Football Playoff, which seems surprisingly close given that Madison has been dead for nearly 200 years.

Ah, wait … I see, we should be discussing James Madison University, not James Madison the president. OK, that makes a lot more sense. JMU, located in the lovely Shenandoah Valley college town of Harrisonburg, Virginia, makes its first appearance in the College Football Playoff this weekend. Its presence in the bracket is a reminder of what makes college football great, even if the Dukes snuck in through a door that’s likely to be boarded shut after this season.

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Since this is likely the first time much of the country has seen, or even heard of, the JMU Dukes, let’s answer two questions: 1. How in the world did James Madison get into a tournament alongside behemoths like Ohio State and Georgia, and 2. Do the Dukes have any hope against the Ducks?

The first question is easy, though there’s a bit of backstory. James Madison has spent most of the century as a member of the FCS, and generally kicking the hell out of most of its opposition. The Dukes won FCS national titles in both 2004 and 2016, and later decided to make the leap to the FBS level.

JMU joined the FBS’s Sun Belt Conference in 2022 and immediately continued whomping on nearly everyone in sight, even earning a brief-but-still-impressive top-25 ranking at one point that debut season. Those Dukes were coached by a gentleman named Curt Cignetti. (These two sentences are very much connected.)

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Since joining the Sun Belt, JMU has posted seasons of 8, 11, 9 and 12-and-counting victories. That’s not bad! This year’s team is in the playoffs through a combination of talent and timing, winning the Sun Belt in the exact year that the ACC tied itself in knots and somehow let a five-loss Duke team win the conference title. That allowed JMU, through a quirk of rules that surely will never be permitted again, to be the second Group of Five team in the field, after Tulane.

So they started from the FCS, now they’re here. Does JMU have anything approaching a chance against the mighty Oregon Ducks? Only if that chance runs through the defense.

James Madison ranked second to Ohio State nationally in team defense, allowing 247.6 yards per game. The Dukes also rank fifth in third-down defense, allowing conversions at just a 28.7 percent rate. That’s good! What’s not so good: James Madison stacked those numbers against Sun Belt competition, and Oregon is most assuredly not Sun Belt-level competition.

As our Nick Bromberg notes, the Dukes will be playing in Autzen Stadium, which boasts a capacity approaching three times the size of JMU’s home field. The Dukes will also face a preseason Heisman favorite and potential NFL early first-rounder in quarterback Dante Moore, who’s thrown for 2,733 yards and 24 touchdowns against six interceptions this season. His JMU counterpart, Alonza Barrett III, has totaled 2,533 yards, 21 touchdowns and eight interceptions so far this year.

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The Dukes initially prepared for Oregon while the rest of the campus was taking finals, which necessitated a bit of moderation at the stadium. “We had a couple of speakers out there and that was it, but now we’ll be able to go live in the stadium and make sure it’s loud as it can be,” head coach Bob Chesney said earlier this week. “We want to try and make it to where we can’t even hear each other on both sides of the ball, knowing that it will affect the offense and the special teams more than it will the defense, but that is definitively what we’re jumping into. We have all their songs, all the things they do, their band, everything we could gather is what we’re putting on display out there for our guys, so that’s something that they’ve heard before.”

What’s fascinating about James Madison is there are, in a way, two Dukes teams in this playoff. When Cignetti left JMU for Indiana in 2023, he took with him a huge chunk of the JMU roster, including wide receiver Elijah Cooper, who leads Indiana with 12 touchdowns, and Kaelon Black, Indiana’s second-leading rusher on the year. It’s a testament to the work of Chesney that the Dukes didn’t miss a beat.

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And soon they’ll have to do it all again; Chesney has accepted a job with UCLA and, unlike some people we could name, he will coach the Dukes for the entirety of their playoff run. James Madison will replace him with former Florida coach Billy Napier.

The Dukes have a long way to go to be competing week-in, week-out with titans like Oregon. But they’ve remained competitive despite losing both players and coaches to larger programs. And that still counts for something in the eyes of college football fans, if not the myopically playoff-obsessed.

“The style in which we play is something that is probably hard to tell from film,” Chesney said. “Our guys play a confident, inspired, attacking style of football, period, in all phases. That is a thing that has to be at a premium as you walk into this arena. That’s really it. I want the world to know how tough these guys are, how competitive these guys are, how much they play for and with each other.”

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Can Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers stake their claim over the NFC North this weekend? Yahoo Sports’ Andrew Siciliano and Charles Robinson break down that matchup along with other key battles across the league, including the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the formidable Denver Broncos defense. Later in the show, Andrew sits down with The Athletic’s NFL insider Dianna Russini to discuss the latest news in the league and what to expect ahead of Christmas Day games. Who could clinch a playoff spot and who could be eliminated? Find out on our Week 16 preview show!

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(5:08) – Packers @ Bears

(13:58) – Jaguars @ Broncos

(20:21) – Buccaneers @ Panthers

(28:14) – Patriots @ Ravens

(37:43) – Steelers @ Lions

(44:21) – Dianna Russini joins the show!

(1:07:03) – One More Thing

🖥️ Watch this full episode on YouTube

Check out the rest of the Yahoo Sports podcast family at https://apple.co/3zEuTQj or at Yahoo Sports Podcasts