UNDATED (AP) — Longtime Texas A&M women’s basketball coach Gary Blair says this season will be his last with the Aggies. The 76-year-old is retiring at the end of the season. Blair has been at Texas A&M since 2003 and led the Aggies to a national championship in 2011. The Aggies have won five conference titles, including the Southeastern Conference regular-season title last season, during his tenure. Blair was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. He has led Texas A&M to a school-record 430 wins and helped the Aggies make 16 consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament. Before coming to College Station, he was head coach at Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida guard Lavender Briggs says there are “a bunch of false allegations and narratives going around” regarding what happened during former women’s basketball coach Cam Newbauer’s tumultuous tenure. Briggs says former teammate Cydnee Kinslow “doesn’t speak for me; she doesn’t speak for the team.” Kinslow was one of several Florida players who detailed Newbauer’s abuse, which allegedly included verbal and physical harassment against players, assistants and staff members. The current Gators offered few details about what happened during Newbauer’s time in Gainesville. They insist they are moving on with each other and interim coach Kelly Rae Finley.

UNDATED (AP) — With much of the Southeastern Conference enjoying an open date, there are still a couple of marquee matchups. No. 10 Mississippi visits 18th-ranked Auburn in the only Top-25 game. Led by Heisman Trophy candidate Matt Corral, the Rebels are ranked in the Top 10 for the first time since the final poll of 2015.  No. 1 Georgia and Florida face off in Jacksonville. It’s the first time this East Division rivalry hasn’t matched up Top 10 games since 2017. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The “Cocktail Party” has provided little drama in recent years. Seven of the last eight football games between Southeastern Conference rivals Florida and Georgia have been decided by at least two touchdowns. Even the one relatively close matchup, in 2019, was a 14-point contest before the Gators scored with a little more than 3 minutes remaining. No one would be shocked to see another lopsided affair Saturday. Top-ranked Georgia enters “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” as a 14½-point favorite. It’s just the third time in the last 30 years that the Bulldogs were favored by double digits against Florida.

UNDATED (AP) — Mississippi’s ambitions have quietly grown along with each passing win and notch in the football rankings. Now, the 10th-ranked Rebels will try to maintain their momentum and remain in Western Division contention Saturday night when they visit to No. 18 Auburn. The winner remains the biggest division challenger to No. 3 Alabama. The Rebels have already topped their win total of coach Lane Kiffin’s 5-5 debut season after three straight wins to earn their first top 10 ranking since 2015. Auburn is fresh from an open date after a road win over Arkansas.

UNDATED (AP) — Kentucky coach Mark Stoops wanted the No. 12 Wildcats to keep their edge during the week off and they’ll need against high-flying Mississippi State. The team had a bye week after sustaining its first loss at top-ranked Georgia nearly two weeks ago. Now the Wildcats challenge Saturday is slowing down the Bulldogs’ Air Raid offense. Mississippi State is led by SEC passing leader Will Rogers. He threw for 384 yards and four touchdowns in a 45-6 pasting of Vanderbilt. The game matches two of the SEC’s top defenses with the No. 3 Wildcats allowing 320.8 yards per game, six fewer than the Bulldogs.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The last Southeastern Conference team Vanderbilt beat is coming to Nashville and the Commodores will look to end a 17-game skid against league opponents. Not that Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea is looking at the Missouri Tigers just as an opportunity to end the slide. He’s much more focused on his own Commodores. He says this year is about setting a foundation. Vanderbilt upset Missouri in October 2019. Missouri hasn’t beaten an SEC opponent yet in coach Eli Drinkwitz’s second season. His Tigers had an open date after losing to Texas A&M. Missouri has lost three of its four games. 

UNDATED (AP) — Is Dan Mullen really on the hot seat at Florida? How did things flip so fast for the coach who took the Gators to three straight New Year’s Six games and pushed Alabama in the SEC championship last year? On the latest AP Top 25 College Football Podcast presented by Regions Bank, college football reporter Steven Godfrey, co-host of the “Split Zone Duo” podcast, joins the AP’s Ralph Russo to talk about Mullen’s status at Florida. Then Stewart Mandel of The Athletic joins the show to preview Week 9 of the season, highlighted by a top-10 Michigan-Michigan State game and the aforementioned Mullen and the Gators facing No. 1 Georgia in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

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