Month: May 2024

College football fans have gone from waiting years for any sort of update on a video game to impatiently waiting for as many details as possible about EA Sports College Football 25. The successor to the wildly popular EA Sports NCAA Football series that ended in 2013, EA Sports College Football 25 is one of the most highly-anticipated sports games in quite some time, and slowly but surely, information has been coming out about the game over the last few months.

On Friday, fans got maybe the most exciting bit of news yet, as an apparent accident on the PlayStation Store revealed the Deluxe Edition cover of the game. It forced EA Sports’ hand, as it was revealed in a tweet that the company was caught off guard, but as a result, both covers of the game will officially drop on May 16.

While we’ll have to wait and see how EA Sports handles the regular cover (or covers), the Deluxe Edition features a number of players in uniforms. Six of them, however, have their nameplate on the back, and today, we’re identifying who they are in the aftermath of the cover leaking.

Carson Beck, QB, Georgia

A 4-star quarterback recruit in the class of 2020, Beck patiently waited behind Stetson Bennett to take over under center for the Bulldogs. His opportunity finally came in 2023, and the Florida native was one of the top signal callers in America, throwing for 3,941 yards with 24 touchdowns to six interceptions while completing 302 of his 417 (72.4 percent) of his passes. Beck also ran for four scores on the ground. He’ll be a high pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, but for now, he’ll look to build on a second-team All-SEC campaign in which he led the Bulldogs to an undefeated regular season, a berth in the SEC Championship Game, and a blowout win over Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

Donovan Edwards, RB, Michigan

Edwards has spent his time in Ann Arbor behind Blake Corum on the depth chart. That hasn’t meant all that much, though, as he’s been a productive running back over three years, toting the rock 294 times for 1,662 yards and 15 touchdowns with another three scores coming through the air. The former 4/5-star recruit has put up big numbers in some big games, too — he ran for 216 yards and two scores against Ohio State in 2022, won the MVP of the Big Ten Championship Game against Purdue a week later, and carried the ball six times for 104 yards and a pair of touchdowns in Michigan’s national championship game win over Washington last year. Now, Corum’s off to the NFL, and Edwards should be the centerpiece of the Wolverine offense in the first year of the post-Jim Harbaugh era.

Quinn Ewers, QB, Texas

One of the most highly-regarded recruits in college football history, Ewers famously spent a year as a backup at Ohio State before transferring to Texas, where he originally committed in high school before flipping to the Buckeyes. His first year in Austin was up-and-down, but in 2023, he started to tap into the promise that made evaluators view him as a future NFL signal caller from the time he was in high school. Ewers was one of the driving forces behind the Longhorns winning the Big 12 for the first time since 2009 (he was named the MVP of the conference title game) and making it to the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history, going 272-for-394 (69 percent) with 3,479 yards, 22 touchdowns, six interceptions, and five rushing touchdowns.

Travis Hunter, CB/WR, Colorado

There is not a more talented player in the sport than Hunter, the former 5-star recruit who made waves when he committed to Deion Sanders when he was the head coach at Jackson State before jumping ship when Sanders went to Colorado. He’s an outstanding wide receiver (the best on the Buffaloes’ offense) and an outstanding cornerback (the best on the Buffaloes’ defense), as he was a consensus All-American last year as an all-purpose player. Hunter is, alongside QB Shedeur Sanders, the most important building block for what Coach Prime is trying to do in Boulder this year, and of all the players on this list, he is going to be the one fans have the most fun using, in large part because he never comes off the field.

Quinshon Judkins, RB, Ohio State

There’s one player on this list who has never taken a snap for his current team. That would be Judkins, the former Ole Miss standout who transferred to Ohio State this offseason. Judkins has a strong claim to being the best running back in America, and he should be able to put up big numbers alongside TreVeyon Henderson in the Buckeye backfield under new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly. There are incredibly high expectations in Columbus this year about the team’s ability to win a national championship, and Judkins — who’s coming to town with 545 career carries for 2,725 yards and 31 touchdowns — is a major reason why. This should be a 1-year stint before he goes to the NFL, but at least he got a video game cover out of it.

Jalen Milroe, QB, Alabama

Kalen DeBoer is taking over for Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa, which will not be an easy task. Fortunately for him, the Crimson Tide have a signal caller in place, as Milroe was one of the best players in the country at his position last year. A second-team All-SEC selection and the sixth-place finisher in Heisman voting, Milroe throws one of the best deep balls in the country, as he averaged 10 yards per attempts while completing 65.8 percent of his passes. He had 23 touchdowns through the air and another 12 on the ground for the SEC champions last season. This season, he’s expected to be one of the best QBs in the country, and because of his ability to beat teams with deep balls and his ability to run it, you can bet he’ll be one of the most popular players to use in EA’s new college football game.

Vampire Weekend made a return to Saturday Night Live this weekend. Still riding the high of their fifth studio album Only God Was Above Us, the band performed for the fourth time on the show.

Kicking off a pair of performance, Vampire Weekend started with their song “Gen-X Cops”

While on stage, lead vocalist Ezra Koening sat cozy on a cushioned seat, next to a Yamaha piano. Koenig’s vocals were flawless, syncing well with the rocking sounds by his bandmates. He delivered a quick piano solo near the bridge of the song, not missing a beat.

In their second performance of the night, Vampire Weekend delivered a soft, light performance of “Capricorn.”

Once again taking center stage, Koenig shined with sweet, smooth vocals. Playing his acoustic guitar, Koenig gifts the audience with somewhat of a smooth lullaby as the show begins wrapping up. Toward the bridge, fellow Vampire Weekend members Chris Baio and Chris Thompson perform some electrifying bass and guitar solos.

Over the years, Vampire Weekend’s sound has evolved, especially as one of the founding members, Rostam Batmanglij, left the band awhile back. But the group has continued to maintain their rockstar momentum.

You can watch clips of the performances above.

This Mother’s Day, we’ve gotta thank our moms for always being there for us — even in the most uncomfortable sitautions. In a painfully relatable sketch on tonight’s (May 11) episode of Saturday Night Live, Maya Rudolph receives a call from her daughter, who is at a slumber party of which she no longer wishes to be in attendance.

Though it is late, Rudolph comes to the party to pick her up.

“Kaylie needs to come home,” says Rudolph to the host dad, played by Mikey Day.

“How come?,” he asks.

“Her grandma’s having a funeral,” she replies.

Confused, the host dad asks “at 2 a.m.?”

“Her wish was for a night funeral,” says Rudolph.

In another scenario, Rudolph pulls the classic move, of pretending the kid is in trouble. The daughter goes along with it, telling Rudolph “Mom, you always do this. You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

“I don’t care,” says Rudolph. “You’re coming home, young lady.”

“Why?,” asks the daughter.

“Because, I’m your mother, and I’m a b*tch,” Rudolph says.

Once the host mother is out of earshot, the daughter tells Rudolph “thanks Mom.”

The clips then ends with a special thankful message to the moms that have helped us out of awkward situations.

You can watch the sketch above.

Beyoncé can do it all — singing, dancing, acting, and recently, launching a haircare brand. And even though she carries hot sauce in her bag — as she noted on her 2016 hit single “Formation” — it’s possible that even she can’t handle the spice level of the wings on Hot Ones. In a Saturday Night Live sketch tonight (May 10), Mikey Day played Hot Ones host Sean Evans in a parody of the iconic YouTube show. Joining Day was tonight’s (May 11) host, Rudolph, as the one-and-only Beyoncé.

Hot off the release of her latest album, Cowboy Carter, Rudolph’s Beyoncé reminds us that she’s a southern country queen. But the flavor and heat of the wings proves to be too much — even for the Queen Bey.

Rudolph’s Beyoncé takes to the first few wings pretty well. But by the time she tries the “Sergeant Sphincter’s Volcanpeño sauce, with a Scoville rating of 530,000,” she appears to meet her match.

“This wing is stompin’ my ass,” she said. “Damn, my bones are hot. That wing was a real one.”

But thanks to the help of Bey’s loyal assistant, De’Raphael (Kenan Thompson), the world, perhaps, might never see Beyoncé in this rather humbling scenario.

You can watch the sketch above.

There is never a shortage of scorecard controversies in the world of boxing, as the subjective nature of judges scoring a fight can lead to some wild and shocking results. The sport doesn’t need the help of others to create moments of confusion when reading off the scores, but that’s exactly what it got on Saturday night in Australia courtesy of ring announcer Daniel Hennessey, aka Lt. Dan.

Nina Hughes and Cherneka Johnson battled for 10 rounds in the bout before George Kambosos and Vasiliy Lomachenko’s title fight in Perth, and went to the cards in what looked to be a win for Johnson. However, Hennessey announced Hughes as the winner, to the confusion of everyone — including the referee who first tried to raise Johnson’s hand. That turned out to be a La La Land moment, as he quickly had to bring the two fighters back to the center of the ring to redo the announcement, reading the cards again and correctly noting it was in favor of Johnson.

The fight was broadcast stateside by ESPN, and the commentary team of Joe Tessitore and Timothy Bradley had seen enough of Hennessey’s shenanigans by this point, leading to Tess absolutely tearing him a new one.

The cards did indeed say that Johnson won, so there was no real controversy here aside from a bad reading.

If you thought that might embarrass Lt. Dan out of any more antics, you’d be wrong, as he kicked off the main event by littering the ring with index cards.

It’s safe to say Hennessey won’t be getting any strong references from Tessitore or Bradley for future fights.

Maya Rudolph made a grand return to Saturday Night Live tonight. Having had a long run from from 2001 to 2007, Rudolph has long been a fan favorite SNL alum. Though it’s been nearly two decades since she left the cast, she continues to make scene-stealing guest appearances. Tonight (May 11) marks her third time hosting SNL.

During her opening monologue, Rudolph acknowledged Mother’s Day, and noted that she’s a four-time mother. But not only is she a mother, she is also mother — per Bowen Yang. Afterward, she received a formal introduction by a drag persona played by Kenan Thompson. When the camera panned back to Rudolph, she was surrounded by a group of fabulous dancers, as she began to command the room in pure ballroom fashion.

During her song, Rudolph sent a shoutout to all the moms out there.

“Today we celebrate all kinds of mothers,” said Rudolph. “Stepmothers, godmothers, mothers from another brother. Dance moms, octomoms.”

Chloe Fineman chimed in, asking “What about dog moms?”

To which Rudolph replied “Honey, that’s not a dog, that’s a b*tch.”

Elsewhere in the clip, she lists off famous mom characters, while grooving to a dancefloor track, guaranteed to slay the house down boots.

Rudolph currently plays multibillionaire Molly Wells on the Apple TV+ series Loot. She also has a voice role in John Krasinki’s upcoming animated feature film, IF.

But tonight, we are excited to see her back on our screens on the SNL stage.

You can see a clip of the opening monologue above.

For the second straight series, the top-seeded Celtics entered Game 3 tied 1-1 after a rather stunning Game 2 loss. This time, though, it was against a Cavs team that has more firepower than the Heat and poses a bit more of a threat to make things really interesting in this second round series.

That meant it was important for the Celtics to squash any feeling of positive momentum in Cleveland with a Game 3 win. However, to do so, they’d have to figure out how to slow down Donovan Mitchell, who has been on an unbelievable heater over his last four games and continued that in the first half of Game 3, putting up 23 points in the first 24 minutes.

The Celtics had an answer on the offensive end in the form of Jayson Tatum’s best game of the series, as he was hot early, scoring 18 points in the first half.

The difference in the half was Tatum getting more support than Mitchell, led by Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday combining for 28 first half points as Boston took a 57-48 advantage into the break.

That lead went from 9 to 23 with haste, as it looked like Boston would run away and hide after they came out on a 14-0 run to open the third quarter.

The Cavs would stabilize some from there and keep it to a more manageable deficit, but every time they threatened a third quarter run, the Celtics would hit a shot to keep them at arm’s length.

Cleveland did get things back to single digits in the early fourth quarter, but the Celtics continued finding timely answers to every Cavs run.

Despite all the effort to hang around, the Cavs just did not have give Mitchell enough offensive support to make things close late, as Boston pulled away for a 106-93 win.

Mitchell finished with 33 points, cooling off some in the second half as the Celtics sent some extra attention his way to force others to beat them. Unfortunately for the Cavs, none of their others were really capable of stepping up in those moments. Evan Mobley had another nice game with 17 points (7-of-11 shooting) and eight rebounds, while Caris LeVert pitched in 15 off the bench, but that was about it in terms of positive support. Darius Garland’s cold shooting playoffs continued with a 6-of-15 night (1-of-6 from three), while Max Strus (2-of-8) and Isaac Okoro (1-of-7) were non-factors. As a team, the non-Mitchell Cavs were 5-of-24 from three on the night, and that’s simply not a formula for success.

For Boston, seeing Tatum get going with a 33-point, 13-rebound night was a welcome sight, as he’s gotten off to a bit of a sluggish start to this postseason as a scorer. Jaylen Brown was sensational alongside him, scoring 28 on 13-of-17 shooting to go along with nine boards. Jrue Holiday, whose postseason shooting struggles continued to start his Celtics tenure, also had a big night with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting (most of which came in the first half) to provide a lift to their star duo. It wasn’t a dominant night from Boston aside from their run to open the third quarter, but that was enough to take care of business and restore some order in the series with a 2-1 lead.

Game 4 of the series will be Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. ET on TNT, with Cleveland hoping to figure out how to get more from their supporting cast to try and send things back to Boston knotted up at 2-2.

UFC heavyweight Derrick Lewis is a fan favorite for many reasons, chief among them that his fights almost always end in a finish. Since joining UFC back in 2014, the Black Beast has seen 22 of his 29 fights end in someone getting knocked out (and twice he has lost by submission).

Saturday night’s main event at UFC St. Louis was no different, as he laid out Rodrigo Nascimento in the third round with a big right hand and teed off on him until the ref finally stopped things (seemingly a half dozen punches later than was needed).

After the fight, Lewis showed off the other reason he’s a beloved figure among fight fans as he once again took off his shorts in celebration of his knockout win, waving them over Nascimento as he was getting some medical attention.

Lewis first showed off that move in 2018, explaining to Joe Rogan that his “balls was hot,” and it’s become a signature. However, on Saturday night he decided to go one step further and mooned the St. Louis crowd, who erupted in cheers as he flashed his backside in the Octagon.

He then thanked the crowd for “letting me show my naked ass tonight” in his postfight interview with Michael Bisping, capping off quite the night.

Every one under the sun have inserted themselves in Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s ongoing feud, including the White House. Now, regular folk have begun to overstep.

Today (May 11) in an Instagram Story, Drake seemingly blasted local breaking news outlet CP24 for the consistent coverage of the string of intruders, which have encouraged others to try their luck.

“CP24, can we discuss the chopper flight times over the house,” he wrote. “Cause I won’t lie, I’m trying to sleep. Anytime after 3 pm works great for me.”

The derailed break in marks the third time over the past week that the “First Person Shooter” rapper’s Bridle Path estate. According to TMZ, the ordeal took place around 4 pm eastern time.

In footage obtained by the outlet, Drake’s private security team is seen physically restraining the alleged intruder. The clip shows an individual pinned to the ground just outside the property’s gate. Not much information has been released about any of the past two incidents (on May 8 and May 10).

The only details shared about today’s encounter was that the male suspect allegedly approached the home on a bike. This series of attempted break ins follow a shooting near the home on May 7 where one man was reportedly injured then transported for emergency surgery.

When a cocky young man started showing off his muscles for the “Flex Cam” at a Philadelphia Soul arena football game, he got more than he bargained for after showing off his physique to a couple of women sitting behind him.

When the camera made its way back around, he was instantly upstaged by the superior muscles of one of the ladies he had tried to impress.

He had no choice but to sink sadly into his seat while the stronger woman flexed over his head.

PHILADELPHIA SOUL FLEX CAM SURPISE

This article originally appeared on 05.30.19