These are college football's eight biggest QB competitions. Who has edge?

Quarterback competitions aren’t what they used to be.

The amount of player movement at quarterback every winter has removed much of the guesswork from these offseason battles, given that many quarterbacks simply hop into the transfer portal rather than roll the dice on losing a competition and a year of eligibility.

But there are a few high-profile contests underway this spring in the Power Four, including at potential College Football Playoff contenders inAlabama,ClemsonandTennessee.

Heading into a crucial season, Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer is evaluating two highly talented but unproven contenders in redshirt sophomore Austin Mack and true freshman Keelon Russell. The latter made a late move with 240 yards and four touchdowns in the Tide’s spring game.

These eight competitions are worth monitoring as the Bowl Subdivision gets ready for the summer:

Alabama

Contenders:Austin Mack, Keelon Russell.

Mack looked the part of Alabama’s next starter after coming in for Ty Simpson during the tail end of a Rose Bowl loss to Indiana in last year’s playoff quarterfinals. He completed 11 of 16 attempts against the Hoosiers and went 24 of 32 for 228 years on the season. Russell was a top-level recruit who played in just two games in 2025 and preserved his redshirt. Mack has the edge in overall experience and in his experience in the scheme after following DeBoer from Washington. But Russell winning the battle would come as no surprise.

Austin Mack or Keelon Russell?The latest intel on Alabama's QB competition

Clemson

Contenders:Brock Bradley, Chris Denson, Trent Pearman, Tait Reynolds, Christopher Vizzina.

Vizzina is the heavy favorite coming out of the spring after spending the past two seasons as Cade Klubnik’s backup and going for 317 yards and three touchdowns as the starter in last year’s loss to SMU. Reynolds, a freshman, has ascended into the backup role. That could result in Denson moving away from quarterback this season. Reynolds has a shot at unseating Vizzina heading into the opener but is more likely to earn an in-season promotion if the passing game sputters.

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Tennessee

Contenders:Faizon Brandon, George MacIntyre.

The talent may be obvious, but neither option inspires huge confidence at this point: MacIntyre is a redshirt freshman who attempted nine passes in 2025 and Brandon is a true freshman, though of the five-star variety. While Josh Heupel’s biggest successes at Tennessee have come with a veteran under center, the Volunteers did make the playoff with then-freshman Nico Iamaleava as the starter.

Florida

Contenders:Tramell Jones Jr., Aaron Philo.

New coach Jon Sumrallhas said this competition will extend into fall camp even if Philo seems to be the favorite. He has the edge in experience after making more than 100 attempts across two years at Georgia Tech and has a deeper familiarity with the Gators’ offense under coordinator Buster Faulkner, who held the same position with the Yellow Jackets. Yet Jones outplayed Philo in the final scrimmage and did a better job during the spring of protecting the football.

Duke

Contenders:Walker Eget, Dan Mahan, Ari Patu, Terry Walker III.

Duke lost rising junior and projected starterDarian Mensah to Miami just as the portal closed this winter. In response, the Blue Devils signed San Jose State transfer Walker Eget, who went for 5,555 yards and 30 touchdowns the past two seasons and was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA. Eget has been slowed by knee surgery, however. That could give Mahan a small window to make a move in this competition; the Blue Devils’ coaches are high on the redshirt freshman.

North Carolina

Contenders:Travis Burgess, Taron Dickens, Billy Edwards Jr., Au’Tori Newkirk, Miles O’Neill.

Well, the Tar Heels definitely have options. Bill Belichick andnew offensive coordinator Bobby Petrinocould go with Edwards, who has Power Four starting experience but missed all but two games of last season at Wisconsin because of a knee injury. They could roll with Dickens,who put up jaw-dropping numbers at Western Carolinabefore transferring to Chapel Hill in February. O’Neill looks the part at 6-5 and 220 pounds but needs more seasoning after getting into seven games at Texas A&M as a redshirt freshman in 2025. Newkirk is the only UNC quarterback returning from last season, which probably means nothing. Burgess arrives on campus as a true freshman and is buried on the depth chart, though that could quickly change if the Tar Heels’ season runs off the rails. Anyone who saw Belichick’s debut knows that’s a possibility.

Virginia Tech

Contenders:Ethan Grunkemeyer, Troy Huhn.

The Hokies went into spring workouts with Grunkemeyer as the heavy favorite for the starting job. The sophomore was the primary starter at Penn State last season after Drew Allar's injury andfollowed former coach James Franklin, joining a quarterback room that lost starter Kyron Drones to graduation and needed an overhaul. But even as Grunkemeyer remains the odds-on pick to start the opener, Tech will enter Saturday’s scrimmage with a tighter competition thanks to Huhn’s strong performance in the spring. A true freshman, Huhn was verbally committed to Penn State but switched to Tech after Franklin was hired.

Iowa

Contenders:Hank Brown, Jeremy Hecklinski.

Former starter Mark Gronowski’s performance last season proved the right kind of quarterback can shine in Iowa coordinator Tim Lester’s scheme. True freshman Tradon Bessinger will arrive this summer and possibly impact the race during preseason camp. But the competition is really centered on two former transfers in Hecklinski (Wake Forest) and Brown (Auburn), who joined the program before last season. Hecklinski took over the backup role from Brown at the midseason point, though both continued to share practice snaps through bowl play.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:College football biggest QB battles this spring in Power Four conferences

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April 18, 2026

These are college football's eight biggest QB competitions. Who has edge?

Quarterback competitions aren’t what they used to be. The amount of player movement at quarterback every winter has removed much o...

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New German search engine lets people check whether their relatives were Nazis

A new search engine that allows users to searchNaziparty records in order to find out whether their ancestors were card-carrying members has been accessed millions of times since it was launched earlier this month.

The huge database has been made available by the German newspaperDie Zeitin a bid to “end the silence born of misplaced shame,” according to an editorial from thepublication. It is run in conjunction with archives in Germany and the United States.

Founded after World War I, Hitler’s party did not really gain in popularity until the economic collapse of the Great Depression. There was a sharp rise in support for it during the 1930 elections, and when Hitler was elected three years later he abolished all other parties, creating a mass movement that controlled all aspects of German life.

By the late 1930s, the “vast majority of Germans supported Hitler and the Nazi state,” according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

According to Die Zeit, 10.2 million Germans joined the party in the 20 years from 1925 and at its height at the end of World War II it had about 9 million members.

In the final days of the war, the Nazis sought to destroy the party’s vast collection of membership cards but they were saved at the last minute and later handed to the Americans. They were then stored in the Berlin Document Center but were later transferred to the German Federal Archives, with copies also at the US National Archives, the newspaper reported.

A spokeswoman for Die Zeit told CNN the new site had been accessed millions and shared thousands of times.

Christian Staas, head of Die Zeit’s history department, told CNN that there had been an overwhelming response to the search engine. He explained that an average of 75,000 people approach the German Federal Archives for this information each year, and when the US National Archives made the records available online, the demand was so heavy that the website went down temporarily.

Die Zeit gained access to those records and, with the help of AI, developed a “convenient search option,” said Staas. “This level of interest does seem relatively new, and I’m sure the fact that most former NSDAP (Nazi party) members, or people involved in Nazi crimes or war crimes, are no longer alive makes it easier for many people to ask questions about their own family history.”

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“In opinion polls, only very few Germans say their ancestors supported the Nazi regime, and quite a lot believe their families opposed Hitler. That obviously can’t be true. Perhaps our search engine helps people arrive at a more realistic view of the past,” he added.

Some of those who searched the records shared their reactions with Die Zeit after finding out that their suspicions were confirmed.

“My feelings are all over the place right now,” wrote one, identified only as Katha1927, who had suspected both their grandfathers had joined the party. “I’m wondering which entry date I find worse: 1931 –- so early, already so convinced? Or 1941 –- even though they already knew so much?”

Another, listed as “dudettes,” said: “For over 40 years I wondered if my great-grandfather was a member. He was a railroad engineer during the Nazi era and always flew into a rage whenever the topic of the war came up. Question answered. Thank you, ZEIT. Even though it hurts terribly.”

One person identified as “Aunt Horst” said their family research had always previously focused on a Jewish branch, which they said was “wiped out by the Shoah.”

The respondent said they discovered “the ‘Aryan’ husband of a Jewish great-aunt,” who joined the Nazi party in 1933. “His wife, whom he likely divorced, was murdered in May 1942 by truck exhaust fumes in Kulmhof (extermination camp),” they wrote.

Christine Schmidt, co-director of the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, described the search engine as a “boon for scholarship on the Nazi period.”

“At its peak the Nazi party had some 8 million members,” she said, “with people joining for a variety of reasons: a sense of economic desperation, the appeal of nationalism and charismatic leadership, or because of their own antisemitism.”

She said the accessibility of the archive’s data “represents a significant step forward in terms of national and international reckoning with this period and the horror that resulted from it,” adding that “in an age of increased misinformation about the history of the Holocaust, this is also a reminder of the power of original documentation and their evidentiary capacity in the face of denial or distortion of the facts of the period.”

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April 18, 2026

New German search engine lets people check whether their relatives were Nazis

A new search engine that allows users to searchNaziparty records in order to find out whether their ancestors were card-carrying member...

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Trump ballroom construction allowed for now, US appeals court says

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court allowed President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday night to continue construction of a $400 ‌million ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished ‌East Wing, setting a June hearing to review a Washington judge’s order halting the ​project.

FILE PHOTO: A view of the White House following the longest shutdown of the government, in Washington

An order by a three‑judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put the lower court’s preliminary injunction on hold for now, giving the panel time to consider the U.S. Justice ‌Department’s request for a ⁠longer pause while the appeal is pending.

The appeals court said it will hear arguments on June 5 on whether ⁠construction should be stopped during the appeal. The order did not address the merits of the underlying lawsuit, which challenges the Trump administration’s authority to ​build the ​ballroom.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, ​which filed the lawsuit last ‌year, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment after business hours.

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Friday’s ruling temporarily blocks a decision issued a day earlier by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, who said the ballroom project was unlawful without approval from the U.S. Congress.

The National ‌Trust sued Trump and several federal agencies ​in December after the administration demolished the ​East Wing to make way ​for the ballroom, arguing the president and the National ‌Park Service lacked authority to tear ​down the historic ​structure.

Trump has championed the ballroom as a defining addition to the White House and part of his broader push to reshape Washington. ​The administration has said ‌the project will modernize infrastructure and bolster security. Trump has ​emphasized the project is funded entirely by private donors.

(Reporting by ​Mike Scarcella; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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April 18, 2026

Trump ballroom construction allowed for now, US appeals court says

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court allowed President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday night to continue const...

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Alycia Baumgardner is fighting for gender equality for women in the ring

When Alycia “The Bomb” Baumgardner steps into the ring at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, she won’t be fighting only South Korean boxer Bo Mi Re Shin for the women’s super featherweight belt.

It will also be another round in Baumgardner’s bout for gender equality as she pushes boxing to adopt the same rules for women’s fighters that it does for men.

“As you grow as an individual and a face and a game changer in the sport like boxing, you want to see how you’re able to implement new changes, right?” Baumgardner told NBC News ahead of Friday’s showdown in New York City. “This is my chance to really showcase who I am.”

A typical men’s prizefight lasts 12 rounds, with each round lasting three minutes. For women, most fights are 10 rounds, with each round lasting two minutes. Baumgardner is pushing for women to fight the same amount of time for a few reasons.

For one, she said, it benefits her as a boxer.

“You would think one minute doesn’t change much, but it changes drastically when you are a fighter who has a set of skills that allows you to take your time and to set up a trap,” she said. “Boxing is about a sweet science, how you can set up a play. It’s like chess. Me being able to fight three minutes has allowed me to slow everything down, set up what I want to set up and take my time.”

Then there’s the business. Self-promotion and boxing have always gone hand in hand. The boxers who are able to attract more eyeballs usually participate in bigger fights. Bigger fights can lead to bigger paydays, and Baumgardner doesn’t want a perception of women’s fights to limit her potential in the sport.

One of the allies in Baumgardner’s push is the promoter she’s signed to: Most Valuable Promotions, the company founded by YouTuber-turned-manosphere influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul, who has been vocal about earning better pay for fighters in both boxing and MMA.

Paul has also taken a keen interest in women’s combat sports. MVP promoted the first women’s fight to headline Madison Square Garden, when Katie Taylor squared off with Amanda Serrano in April 2022. Next month, MVP will put on its first MMA showcase, when Ronda Rousey returns to the sport in a superfight against Gina Carano.

Baumgardner’s bout with Shin is the first U.S. boxing match for MVP under a new deal it signed with ESPN. Baumgardner said part of the reason she signed with Paul is that MVP ist focused not only on her equality as a fighter, but also on her equality as a businesswoman.

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“Boxing is a dog-eat-dog sport at the end of the day. They don’t care about you,” she said. “You have to know that you have to take care of yourself first. And there’s a way of doing it, and that’s teaming with people who see you for you.”

In a recentinterview with Sports Illustrated, Paul compared his goal of building up women’s boxing with the WNBA, which he said needed stars like Caitlin Clark to begin competing with the popularity of the NBA. Paul wants to speed up the process by putting on fights such as Friday’s.

“I believe in the long run that all of these women will want to work with MVP,” Paul told SI. “We have the best distribution for women’s fighting and the biggest platforms and the biggest paydays and the most amount of followers to promote these women, too.”

One of the ways Baumgardner can advance her business interests is to book bigger and bigger fights, which she is keenly aware of. Paul told SI he is pushing behind the scenes for Baumgardner to fight Serrano, who is the unified champion at featherweight, one weight class above Baumgardner.

Baumgardner was also recently called out by Caroline Dubois, the unified lightweight champ, who asked for a fight with Baumgardner after she defeated Terri Harper this month.

“People say she hits hard,” Duboissaid after the Harper fight. “I know I hit harder.”

Baumgardner said of Dubois’ challenge: “I’m well aware of being called out, but I also am aware that I’m in my division and you’re in your division. The fact that you’re calling me out as a 135 pounder and you’re calling out a 130 just tells me that you’re worried about the recognition and the attention and the clout off of my name.”

She added: “I’m not a charity fighter. I am a prizefighter. Put some skin in the game, build a résumé, have some more stock in your name so that the fight can be built and be bigger.”

What much of Baumgardner’s motivation comes down to is time and how much she values it and how much value can be added when she proves she can fight just as long as men. She’ll get another chance to show how valuable she is at “the world’s most famous arena” on national television Friday night.

“Women are told to be a certain way. They’re put into a box,” she said. “When you tell a woman she can’t do anything, she proves why she can. And I think it’s just a moment of self-belief and also, honestly, to prove a point. I can do this, too.”

byNeo

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April 17, 2026

Alycia Baumgardner is fighting for gender equality for women in the ring

When Alycia “The Bomb” Baumgardner steps into the ring at Madison Square Garden on Friday night, she won’t be fighting only South Korea...

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School shootings a new trauma for Turkey as nation mourns

Outside a morgue in south-eastern Turkey about a dozen men rushed to carry a coffin, but it was light - just the weight of a 10-year boy.

His father followed behind, propped up by relatives on both sides but weighed down by grief. "Oh, my martyred child," he wailed, "oh my darling."

His son was one of eight children shot dead on Wednesday in the city of Kahramanmaras by a fellow student,14, who also killed a teacher. This city, traditionally famous for its ice cream, now has a new and terrible distinction – it is the location of Turkey's first deadly mass school shooting.

Relatives, neighbours and emergency services gathered around as coffins emerged one by one each draped in the Turkish flag. There was an angry yell from one woman towards a line of waiting police. "Too late, too late," she chided. "You didn't save the children." Another woman shouted that the attacker should be hung in the main square, but he is already dead. He was killed at the scene.

Outside the main mosque, a mother wept, leaning forward to stroke the coffin of her daughter, Zeynep. From the family home, beside the Ayser Calik Secondary School, she heard the shots that killed her 10-year-old – shots that have reverberated around Turkey.

Relatives told us Zeynep was clever and respectful.

"She became an angel, and she flew away," said Mahmut, her uncle, his voice breaking. "My only wish is to have more security at the schools, so this does not happen again. This pain landed on us. I do not want it to fall on anyone else."

The attack came just one day after a former student roamed the corridors of another school in the same region, shooting at will. He wounded 16 but killed only himself.

"There have been two attacks, in a very short period, both in cities with lower incomes," says Prof Asli Carkoglu, an expert in teen psychology. "These things do have a way of spreading."

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She is worried the deadly shooting here could become "an example for young minds that are frustrated enough".

The attack was a tragedy but "not a surprise" to people like her who work with young adults and adolescents, she said.

"There have been stabbings, beatings and attempted suicides in the school system," she told the BBC. "The guns weren't there before, but the violence was."

As the victims of the attack were being lowered into their graves, more details were emerging about the killer. The authorities here say he referred on social media to anAmerican gunman, Elliot Rodgers, who killed six students in California in 2014. They also say an entry on his computer, dated 11 April, indicated there would be a major attack "in the near future".

He did not have to go far to get weapons – just to the bedroom of his father, a former police officer who is himself now under arrest. He has made a statement to the authorities, according to reports in the local media, painting a picture of a bright but troubled teenager who spent a lot of time playing war games on his computer and was attending a psychologist.

While mass school shootings are a familiar horror for the US, this is a new trauma for Turkey. The authorities want to calm the public and control the narrative.

Around 150 people have been detained for social media posts about the killings, accused of spreading misinformation, or "glorifying crime and criminals". More than 1,000 social media accounts and Telegram groups have been blocked.

There is no evidence of any link between the two attacks this week. And police say "initial findings indicate" that the killer in Kahramanmaras acted alone and was not linked to any terrorist organisation.

At the school gates, now locked, and guarded by police, teachers laid flowers in memory of the children who were killed where they should have been safe.

• Turkish police detain 162 people over online posts about school shootings

• Nine killed in second Turkish school shooting in two days

• Sixteen injured after ex-student opens fire at high school in Turkey

byNeo

in

April 17, 2026

School shootings a new trauma for Turkey as nation mourns

Outside a morgue in south-eastern Turkey about a dozen men rushed to carry a coffin, but it was light - just the weight of a 10-year bo...

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