Commanders sign a former a Dan Quinn cornerback

Is Igbinoghene a depth signing or can the former first-round pick be more for the Commanders?

It won’t bring much praise or excitement but the Commanders did sign a player at a position of need.

Sunday, the Commanders signed cornerback Noah Igbinoghene on a one-year deal.

Igbinoghene will come with not much fanfare, but he is known by the Commanders’ new head coach, Dan Quinn.

Igbinoghene played for the Cowboys on Quinn’s 2023 defense. He played in five games, did not make a start and saw action on only 25 defensive snaps and 77 special teams snaps.

In the 2023 season, Igbinoghene scored his first NFL touchdown against the NY Giants. Here it is.

The Miami Dolphins selected Igbinoghene 30th overall in the 2020 NFL Draft out of Auburn. In his three seasons with the Dolphins (2020-22), Igbinoghene didn’t perform up to expectations, making only five starts. The Dolphins then traded him to the Cowboys during the 2023 NFL preseason.

Igbinoghene (5-11, 197) will turn age 25 in November and becomes the fourth former Dallas Cowboy to follow Quinn from Dallas to Washington. He joins Tyler Biadasz (C), Dorance Armstrong (DE) and Dante Fowler Jr. (DE).

Running a 4.48 40-yard dash and displaying a 37-inch vertical jump, Igbinoghene certainly possesses the physical ability of NFL corners, but his production thus far suggests this is a depth signing unless Igbinoghene can resurrect his career.

 

New win projections for every SEC team for the 2024 college football season

SEC win projections for the 2024 College Football Season.

2024 will mark a new era of the ever-evolving landscape of college football. The Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns make the move to the SEC and face new challenges.

Though if you hear former Texas tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders talk about it, the SEC won’t be much of a challenge.

After a 2023 season that didn’t see an SEC team in the national championship game, there might be something to it. Georgia didn’t make the playoff and lost to an Alabama team that wasn’t necessarily the best of the Nick Saban era.

At the same time, the Georgia Bulldogs have earned the right to be the favorites in 2024. However, if you look at ESPN data analyst Jake Wimberly’s latest win projections for the inaugural season of the new-look 16-team conference, the Dawgs aren’t the favorite. It’s one of the newcomers.

Here’s a look at the projected win totals for the SEC in 2024.

SEC quarterback rankings ahead of 2024 spring football

Where does Jackson Arnold rank among SEC quarterbacks heading into spring ball?

As the SEC expands to 16 teams in 2024, the conference is stacked at the quarterback position. From former five-star prospects to 2024 Heisman contenders to intriguing transfer additions, there will be some fantastic quarterback play on display this fall in the SEC.

Seven of the last nine Heisman winners have come from Oklahoma and the SEC. Two of those seven were non-quarterbacks, DeVonta Smith and Derrick Henry.

Much of what will determine which teams emerge as SEC title and College Football Playoff contenders will be on the shoulders of the quarterbacks who will lead their team in 2024.

There are some quarterback competitions that need to take place, but here’s our pre-spring ball SEC quarterback rankings.

 

Oklahoma top 10: Updated look at the top 15 in 2025 team recruiting rankings

A look at the top 15 teams in the 2025 recruiting cycle according to 247Sports.

The Oklahoma Sooners are off to a blazing start in the 2025 recruiting class. Their 10 commitments put them way ahead of the pace from 2024 when they didn’t get their first commitment until late March before the signing class.

Headlined by a group of Oklahoma products, the Sooners currently rank inside the top 10. They should see significant movement if the current predictions for blue chip prospects Jonah Williams, Tory Blaylock, and Cobey Sellers come through with commitments.

The Sooners are also in great shape with a number of highly-regarded targets like offensive tackle Michael Fasusi and tight end Nate Roberts.

With more than nine months before the early signing period and Oklahoma about to transition into spring ball, recruiting is about to heat up. The Sooners are well situated to maintain their recruiting floor in the top eight but could push the 2023 recruiting class for the best of the Brent Venables era.

Here’s a look at the top 15 programs in the 247Sports team recruiting rankings, the number of blue-chip prospects for each school, and their highest-rated prospect.

How do the Oklahoma Sooners compare to SEC teams in ESPN’s SP+ rating?

The Oklahoma Sooners are heading into a new era in the SEC and come in at No. 8 in the preseason SP+ rankings.

The Oklahoma Sooners had a really good season in 2023 as they bounced back from their 6-7 season in 2022 to win 10 games last year. Now, they prepare for a new era of Oklahoma football with the move to the [autotag]SEC[/autotag].

But they aren’t the only change coming to college football in 2024. The landscape as a whole has changed. The [autotag]Pac 12[/autotag] is essentially no more as everyone but Washington State and Oregon State left for the [autotag]Big 10[/autotag] or the [autotag]Big 12[/autotag].

With the new changes and the 2024 recruiting cycle coming to a close, it’s time to look at where Oklahoma ranks in ESPN data analyst Bill Connelly’s SP+ preseason rankings (subscription required).

For those that don’t know, Connelly releases a preseason SP+ ranking every February where he bases his projections on three primary factors weighted by their predictiveness. Those would be returning production, recent recruiting, and recent history.

So, let’s take a look at how Oklahoma stacks up against the rest of the SEC.

How could the SEC align its permanent rivals with the additions of Oklahoma and Texas?

If it went to a nine-game conference schedule, how could the permanent rivals line up for an expanded SEC.

The SEC is dealing with one of those good problems. As the conference prepares to expand to 16 schools with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas, SEC leadership is debating how to construct its schedule. In 2024 and most likely in 2025, the SEC will play eight conference games as they work out the details for what could come down the road.

Despite settling on eight games in the short term, the format that has received the most buzz has each team facing three permanent rivals each season as part of the nine-game conference schedule. The other six games would come from a rotation featuring the remaining 12 teams in the conference.

While there are some obvious permanent rivals for some teams, others aren’t so clear. It’s not an easy proposition, but it’s the one that would have each SEC team playing each other every two years.

This scheduling model is attractive because it sets up a school to play every other SEC program over a two-year cycle, with both home and away games against every other school over a four-year cycle. Year 1 will have a team’s three annual rivals plus six other SEC opponents. Those six are then rotated out for the rest of the conference in Year 2, allowing for games against all 15 conference foes. – Chip Patterson, CBS Sports

So, over a two-year span, Oklahoma will face every team in the conference. Over a four-year span, they will have hosted every team in the conference.

One of the complaints with the current format is the reality that an SEC may not play host to another for more than a decade. For example, Texas A&M hasn’t hosted Georgia despite being in the same conference for 10 seasons and only played the Bulldogs once in that time frame. The format getting the most consideration would fix that.

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte spoke at a Longhorns town hall about the future of the SEC schedule. Del Conte mentioned that it’s a work in progress, but by 2026, the SEC could be at a nine-game conference schedule.

No format will leave everyone happy, but here’s a take on how the permanent rivals could align in the expanded SEC.

Oklahoma among teams with the most players in 247Sports Top247

Oklahoma put together a great recruiting class in 2024, finishing among the teams with the most Top247 signees in the country.

The Oklahoma Sooners put together arguably their best class of the [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] era in 2024. It wasn’t ranked higher than the 2023 class, but because of the defensive talent it is bringing in, it makes a strong argument for the top spot.

A great way to show the strength of a class is to look at how many blue-chip prospects a team signed. Blue-chip prospects are defined as four- and five-star prospects. To show how important that is, according to the blue-chip ratio, programs need to sign more four- and five-star recruits than two- and three-star players over the previous four recruiting classes (better than a 1:1 ratio) to have a shot at a title.

To go further, three of the four College Football Playoff teams this past season met the blue-chip ratio criteria heading into the season, including the eventual national champion. Every national champion has met the blue-chip ratio criteria dating to the tool’s inception in 2013. So, how did Oklahoma fare compared to other teams in the 2024 class? Turns out, quite well.

The Sooners were among the top 10 teams that signed the most prospects from the 247Sports Top247 player rankings.

Oklahoma Sooners in the top 5 of Josh Pate’s SEC Power Ratings

The Oklahoma Sooners are considered a top five program in the SEC according to Josh Pate.

The Oklahoma Sooners are heading into a new era of college football. Now, there are two mega conferences in college football with the additions the [autotag]SEC[/autotag] and Big 10 are making in 2024.

The Sooners elected to join the SEC, which sort of started this new wave of conference realignment. Much has been made about whether Oklahoma is “SEC ready”? Even after a 10-3 season, that question still looms over the program.

The program is heading in the right direction. They may not be ready to compete for an SEC championship in 2024, but you can tell with how they are recruiting, especially on the defensive side of the ball, they have a vision of what it’ll take to make this team ready for the week in, week out grind of the SEC.

While Oklahoma will be competitive in their inaugural season in 2024, 2025 is the year they’ll be serious title contenders. They’re still a young team and by 2025 a lot of this young talent will be seasoned.

But what about next season? How well can the Sooners do in Year 1? CBSSports’ and the Late Kick Show’s Josh Pate shared his SEC Power Ratings heading into the 2024 season Sunday night. In it, he values a rolling three-year snapshot of on-field performance, talent acquisition, and stability resource pool. Given all of that, he feels the Sooners are the fifth-best SEC program heading into 2024.

That means Oklahoma is probably around an 8-4 or 9-3 team in 2024, which is what I would have them at. And with the 12-team playoff incoming, there’s a possibility that puts them in the College Football Playoff in 2024.

I do think the LSU Tigers are a little overvalued because last year they were so bad defensively and were carried by their offense. Well, gone is Heisman winner Jayden Daniels and their star receiver Malik Nabors. Both are first round picks in 2024.

Here’s a look at how the SEC stacks up, according to Josh Pate.

Former Texas A&M defensive coordinator DJ Durkin has found a new home

Former Texas A&M defensive coordinator DJ Durkin with still in the SEC and join Hugh Freeze at Auburn to run his defense

With a few of the higher profile names from the Jimbo Fisher era finding jobs relatively quickly, one name that lingered out there for a while was the former Texas A&M defensive coordinator DJ Durkin. Bobby Petrino landed in a familiar place to him, returning to Arkansas as their offensive coordinator, and Elijah Robinson left for Syracuse University to join his longtime friend, Head Coach Fran Brown.

The veteran coordinator has officially found his next job and didn’t go far staying in the SEC. Per Chris Low, Durkin will be the next DC for the Auburn Tigers once the 2024 season starts. After a rough start in College Station, Durkin turned the Aggies into one of the better defenses in the conference over the last two seasons. If he had better talent in the secondary, they might have been one of the better defenses in the country overall.

This closes the door on the bigger-named assistant coaches from Jimbo’s staff and we can turn the page to fully concentrate on the stellar job new Head Coach Mike Elko is doing so far. That is until Jimbo decides to get back into the coaching game.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes, and opinions. Follow Jarrett Johnson on Twitter: @whosnextsports1

Report: Former Texas A&M defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin emerges as target for Auburn DC job

According to 247Sports college football reporter Matt Zenitz, D.J. Durkin has emerged as a target for the Tigers defensive coordinator job.

Former Texas A&M defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin may be coaching in the same role at another SEC university coming up in the 2024 season.

According to 247Sports national college football reporter Matt Zenitz, Durkin has emerged as a target for the Auburn defensive coordinator vacancy. Durkin spent the last two seasons in College Station on former head coach Jimbo Fisher‘s staff as DC and linebackers coach.

Before coming to Aggieland, Durkin was co-defensive coordinator and LBs coach at Ole Miss from 2020 to 2021. He served as head coach at the University of Maryland from 2016 to 2018, compiling an 11-15 overall record. Durkin was a consultant for the Atlanta Falcons in 2019.

The former Bowling Green defensive end and outside linebacker has had previous coaching stops at his alma mater, Notre Dame, Stanford, Florida and Michigan.

Wesley McGriff nearly left the Tigers this offseason to become co-defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator for head coach Mike Elko and the Aggies. He ultimately decided to return to Auburn and now may be joined by Durkin.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Shaun_Holkko.