Bill Connelly is a sportswriter and analyst at ESPN who covers college football. He attended college at the University of Missouri and still lives in Columbia, Missouri, today. Early in his career, Connelly started out as a sports blogger writing for Football Outsiders. In 2011, he began writing fulltime with SB Nation. Finally, Connelly was brought on by ESPN in ...

Valdosta State has only had a football team since 1982, but the fact that the program isn’t that old does not mean that it isn’t ready for tougher competition. Since 1982, the Blazers have won four national championships (2004, 2007, 2012, 2018) and eight Gulf South Conference championships (1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2018, 2019). That is a lot ...

Kevin Kelley, head coach of the Presbyterian College football team, is a man who goes for it—literally. For eighteen years, Kelley was the head coach at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark. During that time, Pulaski won nine state championships. His team made it to the quarterfinals every year of his 18-year career, the semifinals 15 times and they appeared ...

What do sports teams who are—or used to be—named after Apaches, Braves, Indians, Mohawks, Redmen, Warriors, etc. have in common? People who love to manufacture stories and narratives that accuse others of being hateful find them very offensive. I’ll tell you what: I could not care any less about what a football team chooses to call itself, barring that they ...

Well, a lot of people aren’t going to like this, but those people aren’t paying close enough attention to what this new ruling is saying. In July 2021, the International Olympic Committee voted to recognize competitive cheerleading as an official sport in the Olympics. They also voted to recognize rock climbing, skateboarding and break dancing as official Olympic sports. Before ...

*Spoiler Alert* Thanks to “Titletown High,” Netflix reality TV has made its way to Valdosta to document the Valdosta High School football program, a couple of key players and a couple of not-so-key players. It was filled with all story, drama, faux “off-camera” moments and cringe that we have come to expect from reality TV. There were a couple of ...

Last fall was a dark one in the halls of VSU. The thrills and excitement of a Saturday down south, or rather a Saturday down in Valdosta, were nowhere to be found as the football team was forced to forgo their 2020 season. We all know how pervasive COVID-19 has been throughout the world, and we have all felt its ...

The most dangerous intersection in Valdosta is located at North Valdosta Road and Country Club Drive. Between 2016 and 2020, there were a total of 207 crashes at this location. That was one of many findings in a report released by the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization recently. The report analyzes crashes recorded from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2020. ...

On July 22, the Valdosta City Council voted in favor of renaming Forrest Street to Barack Obama Blvd. after DJ Davis, the vice president of A.C.T.I.O.N. at VSU, delivered a speech in support of this decision. The vote was almost unanimous. Councilmember Andrew Gibbs was the only one to oppose the vote. According to Gibbs, there is reason to believe ...

In an effort to promote social justice, the NFL has announced that the Black National Anthem, or “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” will be played before every game during the 2021-2022 season. Why? How will equality be achieved by implementing something that is specific to a certain race? The National Anthem is an anthem that represents every man, woman and ...