USC has hired Kliff Kingsbury as its new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the school announced Wednesday morning. Kingsbury was most recently the head coach at Texas Tech and is known as a quarterback whisperer (he has developed Patrick Mahomes, Case Keenum and Johnny Manziel).

Dani Jones was awarded the 2018 Honda Sport Award for cross country, it was announced Tuesday. Jones becomes the first finalist of the year for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year.

The Pac-12 year-end awards were announced Tuesday, and Washington State’s Mike Leach was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year and quarterback Gardner Minshew II was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year to highlight things for the Cougs. This is Leach’s second Pac-12 COTY honor, while Minshew II is the first Cougar to be named a conference POTY since quarterback Jason Gesser was named Offensive POTY in 2002. Shouts out to the other winners – Washington’s Ben Burr-Kirven for Defensive Player of the Year, Arizona State’s Merlin Robertson for Freshman Defensive Player of the Year and Oregon State’s Jermar Jefferson for Freshman Offensive Player of the Year.

Steve Mims provides a preview of Oregon volleyball's trip to Minnesota for a Sweet 16 battle in the NCAA Tournament. The Ducks packed for the long haul, hoping to stay in Minneapolis to prepare for the Final Four beginning Dec. 13.

The Pac-12 released the 2019 football schedules for each team, so take a look at Arizona State’s 2019 football schedule courtesy of this link from The Arizona Republic. The non-conference slate features games against Kent State, Sacramento State and Michigan State.

Meanwhile, Stanford football has one of the toughest 2019 schedules in the country, notes Tom FitzGerald. The Cardinal’s non-conference games are against Northwestern, at UCF and Notre Dame at home. Northwestern played in the Big Ten title game, UCF has been undefeated the last two years and Notre Dame is a College Football Playoff participant… and then there’s that nine-game Pac-12 schedule to deal with. If the Cardinal goes 11-2 against that schedule (with a Pac-12 title in tow), it should DEFINITELY be in the College Football Playoff.

Speaking of football schedules, Nick Daschel notes that Oregon State will not play a 13^th game despite playing at Hawai’i. The NCAA allows teams to play 13 regular season games if they play at Hawai’i in a season but many don’t “take advantage” of that rule.

Thuc Nhi Nguyen takes a first look at UCLA football’s 2019 schedule. The Bruins avoid Washington and Oregon in the North and play their non-conference games against Cincinnati, San Diego State and Oklahoma.

Former Washington men’s basketball star and Philadelphia 76ers guard Markelle Fultz has been diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome and will require physical therapy. Hopefully this brings some closure to the situation for Fultz, who is out indefinitely.

Bruce Pascoe writes that Arizona men’s basketball players Emmanuel Akot and Ryan Luther are getting more minutes as a result of their improved confidence. The Wildcats play Utah Valley and Alabama this week.

Rusty Simmons proposes the idea that Cal and USF men’s basketball should play every year to honor the legendary Pete Newell, who had highly successful tenures as the head coach of both schools (ok, so the idea came from USF head coach Kyle Smith). Cal and USF meet on the hardwood Wednesday night.

Kurt Kragthorpe gives us an early-season review of Utah men’s basketball heading into the Runnin’ Utes’ Saturday game against BYU.