Longhorns football attempting to flip four-star Alabama commit — and more

When it comes to adding to the 2027 class, the Texas Longhorns are using every avenue at their disposal. That was on display on Tuesday when they entered the recruiting battle for highly regarded prospect JaBarrius Garror, who is committed to Alabama. While flipping him will be no easy task, Garror has set the dates for his official visit with the Longhorns from June 12 to 14.

Currently, Garror is ranked as the 13th best EDGE in his class by 247Sports. They also rank the Vigor High star as the second-best player from Alabama and the 96th best in the nation. The high praise comes as no surprise, given the numbers he has put up starting with the 2024 campaign. 

Alabama 4-star EDGE commit JaBarrius Garror has set an official visit to Texas, @CoachWilliamsII reports🤘

Details: https://t.co/mt9MRbzdORpic.twitter.com/EL7rv2Hs3d

— Rivals (@Rivals) February 18, 2026

During his breakout season, Garror recorded 104 tackles, including 56 for a loss. He also added 37 quarterback hits and 21.5 sacks to his resume. With the Longhorns recruiting target frustrated offensive coordinators nightly, Vigor went 12-2 and reached the 5A semifinals.

As Garror has become a human highlight reel, he has drawn interest from programs nationwide. During the recruiting process, he has received offers from Auburn, Texas A&M, and Florida State. He has visits set with Texas A&M and Auburn over the next few months, according to 247Sports. 

NEWS: Alabama EDGE commit Jabarrius Garror has locked in some official visits. @GarrorJabarrius

•Texas A&M -June 5-7
•Texas -June 12-14
•Alabama -June 18-21

Garror also has a visit planned with Florida State & Auburn but not a confirmed date.

His stance with the Crimson… pic.twitter.com/CbNQi3Lq7i

— Larry Rudolph (@ScoutFball) February 17, 2026

If the Longhorns are able to flip Garror they would be adding a player with start potential. Over the last two years, he has recored 210 tackles and 42.5 sacks. The Alabama native has also forced five fumbles and thrived regardless of the opponent. That is partly why he has caught the eyes of Steve Sarkisian and his staff.

Although a few teams are still in the mix, it is a good sign for Texas that Garror is willing to make the trip to Austin. That will give Sarkisian a chance to make the elite EDGE an offer he can't turn down.

This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Texas football trying to flip 4-star Alabama commit JaBarrius Garror

Thibaut Courtois is one of the best football players in the world, known for making big moves on the pitch.

The Belgian star, a winner of two Champions League titles and multiple La Liga titles with Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, has also been ‘making moves’ away from the football pitch.

On Thursday, news of Thibaut Courtois’ latest major investment was confirmed, and he is the new part-owner of Le Mans FC.

The 33-year-old, who currently plays for Real Madrid, is joining several high-profile individuals in the Le Mans investment group.

Thibaut Courtois joins Novak Djokovic as a Le Mans FC investor

Courtois has invested in Le Mans FC [as per 433], and he is far from the first elite athlete to invest in the Ligue 2 football club.

Novak Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam tennis champion, is also an investor in Le Mans FC, as is Formula One driver Kevin Magnussen.

Felipe Massa, the 2008 Formula One World Championship runner-up, is also an investor.

Djokovic, Magnussen and Massa became part-owners of the club in August last year after acquiring stakes in the club.

As per Reuters%20%2D%20Tennis,promoted%20club%20announced%20on%20Friday.), the investment was led by Brazilian group OutField, an international consortium co-founded by Pedro Olivera, and includes Georgios Frangulis, CEO of global health-food brand OakBerry.

Le Mans FC, based in western France, was first founded in 1902, with the club playing their matches at the Stade Léon-Bollée. In 2011, the club moved to the MMArena, which has a capacity of 25,000.

How are Le Mans FC performing this season?

After 23 league games, Le Mans are in fifth place in the Ligue 2 standings.

It has been an impressive season for the French club, who were promoted to Ligue 2 after finishing second in Ligue 3 in the 2024/25 season.

However, they have hit a patch of bad form, failing to win any of their past three games. In their last match, they lost 4-2 to Montpellier, who were relegated from the French top flight last season.

Le Mans are also out of the French Cup after losing to Reims 3-0 in the round of 16.

Kansas Jayhawks News

ESPN has an entire article written about Darryn Peterson’s cramping last night

247 gives you Lance Leipold and Andy Kotelnicki’s thoughts on the new transfer QB they brought in

Through the Phog says KU’s trip up the Big 12 standings just got easier

Links!

The judge in Sherrone Moore’s case believes police may have made a critical error

What the K-State basketball players have to say about Jerome Tang and his firing

This AP story discusses how college basketball coaches are getting bold about criticizing their teams

Jon Scheyer is feuding with the DA who oversees Chapel Hill

ICE descended upon Lawrence this week, and arrested at least five people

The FCC Chairman is lying and claiming that Stephen Colbert is lying about the FCC

Question of the Day

Ok, this is a weird one. Blame Shabs for suggesting it. Tony Clark recently resigned from his position as MLBPA president after an internal investigation into an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law, who also worked for the same organization. The question? Which is worse, wife’s sister, or brother’s wife?

What should we expect when Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano bring MMA to Netflix in May? How is Paramount feeling about the UFC partnership after Sean Strickland’s latest rant? And is the solution for heavyweights as simple as not asking them to fight three full rounds?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA on X or @Ben_Fowlkes on Threads.

@ewillcock: In Carano vs Rousey, I expect people will tune in, not to see who wins, but to see what happens.

I think I'm one of those people, and I'm excited at the potential for an exciting under card. Is there anything else to see here?

I expect there will be a lot of people who tune in based on two main factors: 1) They already have a Netflix subscription, and 2) They have at least heard of Ronda Rousey and/or Gina Carano. That’s enough right there. The fact that we might see something weird or memorable or just big and loud and dumb? That’s icing on the cake.

I don’t expect this to be all that competitive of a fight. I don’t think it would have been competitive even if they were both still in their respective primes. Rousey is the better fighter, the better athlete, and the far superior finisher.

She’s also probably a lot closer to something resembling fighting shape. Rousey herself suggested as much when she said one of the reasons she wanted to fight Carano was because she’d seen a recent interview in which Carano appeared to have gained a lot of weight. This fight, Rousey said, might give her a goal to work toward and a reason to get herself back in shape. (Side note: If any of you ever decide to help me solely because you see me and think I look really bad, feel free to keep that part to yourself.)

As for the undercard, I think we’ll probably see some familiar names long past their expiration dates as top fighters. There are at least a few fun fights that could be made from the available pool. But other than that? The UFC has most of the relevant talent locked up, and PFL has the rest. Who else would you even get other than known old-timers or totally unknown youngsters?

@Beastin364: Sean Strickland is back at it. Do you think Paramount regrets getting into business with the UFC when they see stuff or like that or did they know this ws part of the deal

They had to know. Right? I don’t see how any major company does any deal with the UFC and there’s not at least one conversation about the UFC’s, shall we say, permissive policies on fighter speech. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that, sooner or later, your communications department is going to be asked for a comment on the latest nonsense some UFC fighter uttered into a microphone on purpose. It also doesn’t take a fortune teller to guess that the fighter most likely to be the source of this specific variety of headache is Sean Strickland.

Am I the only one who sees this as a desperate grasp for relevance by him? This is his gimmick, and it has mostly stopped working. If he wants to keep getting attention for it, he has to keep ratcheting it up. Casual racism isn’t bringing the likes and the views anymore? Toss a few slurs in there. Take some shots at women while you’re at it. Maybe demeaning half the world’s population will result in another hit of attention.

At this point, it’s like he’s a kid jumping up and down and shouting for us to please, please look at him. Meanwhile, he’s a +220 underdog at BetMGM in a fight with one of the division’s rising contenders. This is a man on the brink. He wants to stay in the headlines and, with mixed results inside the cage lately, he only knows one reliable way to do it.

@KneebarNewsMMA: We shouldn’t expect heavyweights and bantamweights to have equal cardio. Why not reduce the cage time for heavyweight fights, perhaps to three 3-minute rounds?

I say we go the other direction. Everyone knows that the best heavyweight fights are the ones that end quickly and violently, usually in the first round. So why not see what we can do to discourage any of the big guys from even thinking about a second or third round?

I say bring back the 10-minute first round, but only for heavyweights. Let them know that they can either go out there and try to get it done quick or else become completely exhausted before they even get a chance to see the stool. You know these guys don’t want to fight for 10 minutes. They’ll see that and be motivated to take some chances and get out of there early. If somehow we get a Round 2? Then I’m fully in support of giving the referee permission to end any heavyweight fight at any time and declare it a draw if he concludes that no one needs to see these guys lean on each other any longer.

@VoiceofGarcia: Would you say the pressure on Dana and Paramount is added more to make the "best" White House card, thanks to MVP's announcement of Rousey vs Carano?

If they weren’t already feeling that pressure, they should have been. This White House event has been talked about to death already, and we’re still four months away, so it really has to deliver in order to feel like anything other than a letdown. The fact that Rousey and Carano will fight a month prior might turn the screws a little bit, but I’d hope Dana White and the UFC have enough awareness to see they’ve created a monster here already, and monstrous expectations will come with it.

@SLedkaditis: An undeserved Interim title fight, a rematch no one wanted and a BMF fight.

What's the UFC's title landscape going into the White House event?

The good news about having so few titles up for grabs in the months before this June event is that it ought to leave a lot to choose from.

I think a lightweight title fight between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje is an easy choice. Heavyweight (unless it’s an interim belt) is probably off the table, just based on how Tom Aspinall’s recovery is going. At light heavyweight, Alex Pereira would be a great choice to lend some star power. At middleweight, I don’t know if it would be a great look to have a Chechen warlord’s favorite fighter defending his title at the White House right now.

The other big one I think we could reasonably hope for is Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes. It would be a tight turnaround after neck surgery for Harrison, but I think she’s motivated to get back in time to fight on this card.

@OnAirMafia: Part 1 - with the talk late last year about Eddie Hearn maybe getting into MMA with Turki and his recent collab with MVP in the Joshua/Paul fight...what are the odds about them all hooking up in this possible MVP MMA venture to try to challenge Dana & UFC?

There’s no serious chance for anyone to challenge the UFC in a real way. Not right now. It has almost all the top fighters under contract. It’s constantly funneling developing talent through the Contender Series and onto the main roster (at budget prices). The brand name is the sport in the mind of the public. There’s just no current way to create a new MMA competitor and keep it going in any way that would threaten the UFC at all.

What there might be room for is a hybrid fight promotion, something with boxing and MMA — plus maybe even kickboxing and bare-knuckle — all on the same fight card. That comes with challenges of its own, but at least it would offer some flexibility. It might also be just novel and weird enough to sustain our attention.

@ihab23: Why are we pretending UFC White House is a celebration of America when it’s really a birthday party for our dear leader? They blatantly changed the date from July 4 to Trump’s birthday.

Are we pretending that? I think we all know what this is going to be. The UFC has gone all-in for Trump and been rewarded for it. It’s definitely driven some fans away, but I also doubt the UFC would have gotten $1.1 billion from Paramount if it hadn’t positioned itself this way. There’s simply no way this broadcast doesn’t shower attention and praise on Trump at every opportunity. If he’s not awarded some kind of honorary gold belt at some point, I’ll be shocked. Some fans will probably love that and others will hold their noses through it, but we should all be prepared for it.

@LCombatsports: Am I wrong to think what could happen if the revival act passes is TKO spends money getting top or up and coming boxers, athletes & fans gravitate to Zuffa Boxing, the industry centralizes around them, & jobs are lost because companies arent interested in boxing unless it's TKO?

That’s looking way down the road. TKO is pretty far from anything resembling a boxing takeover right now. Its goal for now seems to be a weekly fight-night type of offering, populated mostly by boxers who are still far from the elite level. I can see that being profitable for TKO, but it’s nowhere close to being able to put on the big boxing events just yet. Which isn’t to say that couldn’t change. It just won’t change quickly.