UH begins 25th in coaches poll

For the first time in six years, the University of Houston will begin the season ranked.

UH was No. 25 in the preseason USA Today AFCA Coaches Poll released Monday, marking the first time the Cougars have been ranked in the preseason since 2016.

The Cougars received 257 points from a panel of 66 coaches, which includes Dana Holgorsen, that vote in the weekly poll. UH is coming off a 12-2 season and was recently picked to win the American Athletic Conference.

Alabama was No. 1, followed by Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson and Notre Dame.

Among Texas schools, Texas A&M was picked seventh, Baylor was 10th and Texas was 18th. The Longhorns, who finished 5-7 last year, received one first-place vote.

Joseph Duarte

Gundy used slur multiple times

A day after Oklahoma assistant head football coach Cale Gundy announced his resignation, the school said Monday that Gundy uttered a racially charged word multiple times during a film session last week.

Gundy, who had been with the program as an assistant since 1999, announced his resignation in a social media post late Sunday, and the school confirmed it with a statement shortly thereafter. Oklahoma sent out another statement on Monday giving more details about the incident.

“Coach Gundy resigned from the program because he knows what he did was wrong,” firstyear Sooners coach Brent Venables said in the statement. “He chose to read aloud to his players, not once but multiple times, a racially charged word that is objectionable to everyone, and does not reflect the attitude and values of our university or our football program. This is not acceptable. Period.”

Gundy apologized in his post and explained his resignation. He said he noticed a player was distracted while he was supposed to be taking notes, so he picked up the athlete’s iPad and read aloud the words on the screen. He acknowledged that he said a word that he “should never — under any circumstance — have uttered,” and said he was “horrified” when he realized what he had done.

SMU athletes to get $36,000

Boulevard Collective, a NIL collective with alumni and donors but not associated directly SMU, launched over the weekend and expects to pay football and men’s basketball players $3,000 per month and $36,000 per year — amounting to a total commitment of roughly $3.5 million per year — three school representatives with knowledge of the deal told the Dallas Morning News.

SMU isn’t the first athletics program to have a NIL deal with consistent pay for its student-athletes. Last month, the Matador Program — a collective at Texas Tech — set a new standard with NIL deals by offering over 100 football players $25,000 per year.