USC’s Lincoln Riley offense will face Alex Grinch and the Wisconsin defense on September 28, 2024

USC will get to play against Wisconsin and Alex Grinch this September in the Coliseum. Advantage, Miller Moss.

Alex Grinch has been hired by Wisconsin football head coach Luke Fickell. Badgers Wire has more on the story. Grinch will be the safeties coach for the Badgers this season. This means a lot of things. One is that Grinch will actually return to the Los Angeles Coliseum to coach a game. Wisconsin visits USC on September 28, 2024. It is a wild and improbable turn of events, one that Trojan fans will welcome. Lincoln Riley and Miller Moss will expect to feast on a secondary coached by Grinch. Trojan fans will hope to capitalize on this unique opportunity.

When the news hit that Alex Grinch would coach against USC in 2024, social media popped and lit up like a Christmas tree. Here’s a sampling:

Alabama football expected to hire Wisconsin’s safeties coach Colin Hitschler

Alabama football hires Wisconsin’s safety and co-defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler

For recently hired Alabama head football coach [autotag]Kalen DeBoer[/autotag], the hardest part in replacing the legendary [autotag]Nick Saban[/autotag] has been putting a staff back together. Yes losing commitments and players to the portal is a harsh reality, but the coaching staff is the foundation of your program.

Despite all of the challenges he has faced, DeBoer has filled out an outstanding coaching staff that all Alabama fans have to be thrilled with. The staff will include two FBS coaches, one Big Ten coordinator, one Pac-12 coordinator and the position coach for the 2023 Joe Moore award-winning offensive line. There are a lot of really bright young minds in the room, but also guys who are hungry to get after it on the recruiting trail.

Thursday evening, DeBoer made another addition to the staff as he stole Wisconsin’s safeties coach and Co-defensive coordinator [autotag]Colin Hitschler[/autotag]. He only spent one season in Madison, but it is a massive blow to the Badgers staff as he is widely respected and was probably going to be their next DC. Hitschler was a massive piece in the Badgers recruiting success this past season and was a key piece of Cincinnati’s coaching staff in the 2021 College Football Playoffs.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.

Men’s basketball falls to No. 21 Wisconsin 88-72

The Huskers faced one of their biggest tests of the year on the road Saturday afternoon, taking on No. 21 Wisconsin.

The Huskers faced one of their biggest tests of the year on the road Saturday afternoon, taking on No. 21 Wisconsin. Though Nebraska put up a fight, it fell behind early and never managed to close the deficit, resulting in an 88-72 loss.

The Huskers went 26-of-53 in total shooting for the game, but their defense had no answers for the Badgers’ offense. Wisconsin went 33-of-60 in total shooting, giving it the edge over Nebraska on the afternoon.

Keisei Tominaga once again finished as the Huskers’ leading scorer. Tominaga went seven-of-ten in field goal shooting and three-of-six from beyond the arc in the loss. This translated to 17 points for the guard.

Rienk Mast finished directly behind Tominaga in points, producing 16 on the afternoon. The transfer went six-of-14 in total shooting and finished as the team’s co-leader in rebounds, hauling in six. Sam Hoiberg accompanied Mast in total rebounds, securing six as well.

Brice Williams also cracked double-digits in points scored for Nebraska, finishing with 10 points. Williams also surpassed 1,000 career points in the outing, becoming the 31st Husker in school history to reach the milestone.

With the loss, the Huskers fall to 12-3 and will return home Tuesday night for another big challenge, hosting No. 1 Purdue. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. and can be viewed on Peacock.

Women’s basketball pull away in the fourth to take down Wisconsin

The Huskers commenced the 2024 portion of the season with a road game against Wisconsin.

The Huskers commenced the 2024 portion of the season with a road game against Wisconsin. Nebraska pulled away from the Badgers in the first half, building a 38-27 lead heading into the locker rooms. Even with Wisconsin pulling within one point by the fourth quarter, the Huskers managed to snuff out the spark and secured a 69-57 win.

A duo led Nebraska in scoring. Freshman Natalie Potts and Alexis Markowski combined for 29 points and 16 rebounds in the outing. Potts led the way with 16 points, going seven-of-ten in total shooting and earning a season-high three steals.

Markowski scored 13 points in the win and secured 11 rebounds to earn her ninth double-double of the season. The win also saw a Husker reach a big milestone. Maddie Krull surpassed 700 career points right at the start of the game, becoming the 60th Husker to earn the achievement.

Nebraska is now 11-3 and will face its next big test, No. 14 Indiana, at home on Sunday afternoon. Tipoff is set for 1:00 p.m. and can be viewed on the Big Ten Network.

Badgers offer James Madison transfer wideout

Badgers offer another WR in transfer portal

The Badgers football team is gearing up to face LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Monday (Jan 1.), but the team offered transfer wide receiver Elijah Sarratt (James Madison) on Friday.

Sarratt reeled in 82 catches for 1,191 yards and eight touchdowns over 13 games with the Dukes this past season and he still has multiple years of eligibility remaining.

Wisconsin has already secured the commitment of former Michigan State wide receiver Tyrell Henry via the transfer portal earlier in December, but they continue to look to acquire as many offensive assets as possible ahead of the 2024 campaign.

The Badgers will first square off with LSU on Monday at 11 AM on ESPN.

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Dolphins LB Andrew Van Ginkel entering elite territory in breakout season

The LB has been incredible this season.

When Andrew Van Ginkel was re-signed for a one-year deal with the Miami Dolphins this offseason, he chose not to explore greener pastures with nearly a half-dozen potential suitors. With teams offering more playing time and better pay, there were options put on the table for the fifth-year outside linebacker.

While several AFC teams, including one East rival, put opportunities for Van Ginkel to sleep on, a call from Vic Fangio and the value that the new Dolphins defensive coordinator saw in him was essentially an endorsement to bet on himself. Through 16 weeks, Van Ginkel has had a breakout season full of sacks, turnover creation, touchdowns and even pop-culture ascension, thanks to HBO’s “Hard Knocks.”

The road from just a few seasons ago to now wasn’t as smooth as you’d think, as his playing time was hit drastically last year in comparison to 2021. Last season, much to many fans’ wonder, Van Ginkel played only 29% of the team’s defensive snaps – a far cry from his 71% from 2021.

Heading into this season, an interesting correlation was developing, as Van Ginkel’s on-field importance and times in which he has been on the field more than 80% of the snaps directly relate to Dolphin wins. Prior to this season, when he hit over 80%, the Dolphins were 6-1.

This year, he’s hit this mark five times, and now Miami is 11-1 when he plays over 80% of the snaps. So, math majors don’t need to tell you that, in 2023, Miami will be unbeaten when Van Ginkel plays at this rate.

He played 82% of the snaps against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday and had 10 tackles, 1.5 sacks, four quarterback hits (tied a career-high), a tackle for loss and a pass defensed.

Van Ginkel’s lone other occurrence with four quarterback hits was back in 2021 in a win against the Carolina Panthers.

To add a more direct correlation to the Dolphins truly winning when he plays often, when he has multiple quarterback hits in a game over his career, Miami is 8-3.

Lastly, in direct comparison to some of the league’s elite pass-rushers, Van Ginkel is among the best. Van Ginkel, along with Detroit’s Aidan Hutchinson and Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt, are the only players with at least four sacks, five passes defensed, one interception, seven tackles for loss and 10 quarterback hits this season.

What’s mind-boggling is the 2023 seasonal snap counts:

Hutchinson: 91%

Watt: 84%

Van Ginkel: 67%.

And, if you want to talk about 2023 salary, the numbers are as you would expect. Hutchinson’s 2023 cap hit on the Lions is $8.1 million, and Watt costs the Steelers $29 million against their 2023 cap.

Van Ginkel costs the Dolphins $2.6 million in 2023. That’ll certainly change one way or another, but Van Ginkel’s stock is rising each week, and it’d behoove the Dolphins to re-invest in their 2019 fifth-round draft pick IPO of an OLB.

Alabama football announces date for Georgia game

Alabama football announces kick off date and time for Georgia Bulldogs

Since taking over as the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide at the start of the 2007 season, Nick Saban has been dominant against the Georgia Bulldogs posting an 8-2 record. However, that task is getting harder every year as the Bulldogs have reached new heights under head coach Kirby Smart.

Smart was a huge part in the rise of the Crimson Tide’s dynasty as he served as the defensive coordinator from 2008 to 2015. He then left Alabama to take over the Bulldogs program in 2016 and has since taken them to three national championships where he has won two. Alabama and Georgia have played a total of six times since Smart took over with Alabama winning five of them. Three of the contests have been SEC Championships, where Alabama has been undefeated and two have come for national titles where the series has been split.

Alabama football just announced on X that the Bulldogs will be in town on Sep. 28 to take on the Tide in Week 4. It will be Georgia’s first visit to Tuscaloosa since Oct. 17, 2020 when the Tide thumped them 41-24. It will more than likely be a top five match up and coming the week after Alabama travels to Madison, WI to take on the Badgers. The game will be at 6:30 p.m. on ABC in one of the most highly anticipated games of 2024.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.

From Rock Valley to ‘Hard Knocks,’ Dolphins LB Andrew Van Ginkel has arrived

No. 43 was the star of “Hard Knocks” episode No. 3.

In 2019, the Miami Dolphins drafted a linebacker in the fifth round of the NFL draft. It was a draft in which the Dolphins were without second and fourth-round selections.

General manager Chris Grier started the process in the first round with a hit by the name of Christian Wilkins. Later in the draft, on the third day, Andrew Van Ginkel’s name was called.

The outside linebacker from Wisconsin was first a quarterback in high school in the small town of Rock Valley, Iowa before switching to defensive end at South Dakota, a Football Championship Subdivision school.

In what’s become a heart-warming and full-circle story, Van Ginkel has had a rollercoaster year, and that has nothing to do with an offensive touchdown celebration.

A touchdown scorer in his own right, with three in his 4.5 seasons as a pro, with one as recent as last Sunday against the Washington Commanders, Van Ginkel and his family were featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” show on Tuesday night.

Van Ginkel had a fine season in 2022 and has always made the most of his snaps on both defense as well as special teams. However, when pass-rusher Jaelan Phillips injured his Achilles against the Jets in Week 12, the door opened for Van Ginkel to be the guy to help Miami not lose ground or take a step back with the loss of a player as important as Phillips.

In the three games that Phillips missed with an injury earlier in the year, and before the Commanders game, the four sacks made by Van Ginkel this season all came in contests he was in for his fellow outside linebacker.

On Sunday, he played the game of his life, scoring a touchdown on an interception return, recording a pass defensed and hitting Commanders quarterback Sam Howell early in the game, which led to teammates Zach Sieler and Bradley Chubb getting credit for the joint sack.

It’s when Van Ginkel plays heavy snaps that the Dolphins have remarkably correlated success.  Miami is 9-1 during Van Ginkel’s career when he plays more than 80% of the defensive snaps in a game and 3-0 this season in these occurrences. Even further, when playing over 70%  of the snaps on defense in his career, they’re 16-6.

So far this season, Van Ginkel has 47 tackles, four sacks, 12 quarterback hits, seven tackles for loss and six passes defensed. He’s been tasked with inside linebacker duties throughout this season as well and has proven to be an overall defensive weapon for Miami, being all over the field in every capacity you can ask out of a linebacker.

As a pass-rusher, Van Ginkel has graded among the elite this year, and his pass-rushing prowess has been timed as one of if not the fastest to the quarterback on pressures in the entire league.

He’s done all of this while in another contract year, as he was last offseason.

Van Ginkel had the opportunity from several other teams over the winter to get a significant pay increase as well as a locked-down starting role. However, he chose to bet on himself and took a one-year deal from Miami. The Dolphins did what they needed to do to retain him and keep him around for this year, with hopes to talk again after a successful campaign.

The former Badger has held up his end of the bargain, and now it’s time for this 2019 draft pick to vest and for this linebacker to get what he financially deserves – a lucrative and multi-year deal with the Dolphins.

Van Ginkel’s success has even attracted the attention of super-agent Drew Rosenhaus. Earlier this year, the Miami-based agent signed Van Ginkel and is now the man to work his contract negotiations.

Following Tuesday’s “Hard Knocks” episode, which also featured Andrew’s wife, Samantha, and their two young children at their home, the stock has gone up for the versatile linebacker and his team at home. As shown in the episode, the Van Ginkels were high-school sweethearts, and their journey to the NFL has been in constant lock-step.

Following the momentum of this outstanding year he’s putting together, as well as the HBO crowd-pleaser, the Dolphins fan base is already clamoring to keep “Gink,” as he’s affectionately called by teammates and head coach Mike McDaniel, home.

As seen in the episode, McDaniel handed Van Ginkel a game ball, while using typical vocabulary that captured how much this linebacker means to his team, teammates and fans. The latter, of course, took to social media, as Dolphins fans were glowing with pride, as shown through posts across several platforms.

What resonated the most was the expression on Van Ginkel’s face when receiving that game ball. It was a look of joy, relief, belonging and, perhaps, a fight with happy tears building up.

Following the accolades, “Hard Knocks” captured and closed the episode with Andrew calling Samantha, as the Dolphins fan base watched with pride and happiness, almost as much as the Van Ginkels themselves.

From Rock Valley, Iowa to Hard Rock Stadium and now “Hard Knocks,” it’s official – Andrew Van Ginkel is a hit.

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Quotes: Tom Izzo breaks down Michigan State basketball loss vs. Wisconsin

Tom Izzo breaks down Michigan State basketball loss vs. Wisconsin

After yet another slow start, Michigan State basketball dropped their fourth game of the year against Wisconsin. In the post game press conference, Tom Izzo played some of his greatest hits, much of which we have heard this year, mainly, blaming himself for the loss.

Below, you can find the best quotes from that press conference.

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan state news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Andrew Brewster on Twitter @IAmBrewster.

Michigan State basketball suffers another frustrating defeat, this time to Wisconsin, 70-57

Michigan State basketball suffers another frustrating defeat, this time to Wisconsin, 70-57

The nightmare continues for Michigan State basketball. The Spartans, who started the season ranked at No. 4, dropped their first game of conference play on Tuesday to Wisconsin, 70 to 57. MSU now falls to 4-4 on the season.

Once again, Tyson Walker was the only Spartan who was able to do much. Walker scored 22 points on the night. A.J. Hoggard did have a nice statistical night, scoring 14 points and adding seven assists and four rebounds, but made some questionable decision late in the game, the most glaring being a missed long-two point shot when MSU was within reach of Wisconsin with Tyson Walker on the bench getting a quick rest.

While this has been a calling card for Wisconsin this year, it was also shocking to see Wisconsin out-rebound the Spartans this year 36 to 22. That is also supposed to be a hallmark of an MSU team and they let Wisconsin pull down 11 offensive rebounds.

Another anomaly this year, outside of the bad rebounding and awful shooting, is the play of Jaden Akins. Akins only scored two points tonight in 21 minutes and actually got pulled for Tre Holloman at the end of the game. This was supposed to be Akins’ crowning season before likely making a run at the NBA. Instead, he is struggling to earn minutes in crunch time. It’s bizarre.

While things feel bleak, Michigan State will be at Nebraska on Sunday, against Baylor on Dec. 16 in Detroit, and then will play an Oakland team on Dec. 18 that isn’t consistent but also isn’t a pushover, having already beaten Xavier on the road this year and testing Ohio State on the road as well. Win two of three of those and MSU fans should feel better about the season.

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan state news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Andrew Brewster on Twitter @IAmBrewster.