tennessee

Colin Simmons tied the program record with five sacks as top-ranked Texas held off No. 14 Tennessee 20-17 Saturday with President Donald Trump on hand in the Longhorns’ first visit to Neyland Stadium.

Raleek Brown ran for 67 yards and a pair of touchdowns, and his four-yarder with 5:41 left gave the Longhorns the winning margin in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams. Giannis Spetic had a pair of field goals.

It was a defensive day with Texas (4-0) dominating with 10 sacks. Simmons’ big day will be remembered for his vulgar celebration after one sack. He was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct with the referee saying Simmons was “simulating” using the restroom.

“We took him out, we addressed it and put him back in,” Sarkisian said of Simmons. “At that point, I’m not going to give the guy a death penalty over an unsportsmanlike conduct. We got to fix it though. That can’t continue.”

Quarterback Brandon Faizon of Tennessee (3-1) made it interesting late, capping an 80-yard drive with a 30-yard touchdown pass to Mike Matthews with 1:22 left. Linebacker Arion Carter recovered the onside kick, and Jelani McDonald batted away Brandon’s pass to Travis Smith Jr. on the final play in the end zone.

Texas’ Arch Manning threw for 201 yards while being sacked six times. He also was intercepted once with the Longhorns needing the smothering defensive performance to help on a day with too many penalties, including two illegal forward passes by Manning.

at No. 2 Georgia 41, Oklahoma 13: Chris Cole scored on a 85-yard fumble return as the Bulldogs (4-0) took advantage of three first-half turnovers by John Mateer and overwhelmed the struggling Sooners in the SEC opener for both schools.

Mateer lost two fumbles, each recovered by Cole, and and had a pass instercepted as Oklahoma, which finished with four turnovers, fell behind 28-0. K.J. Bolden picked off a pass from Mateer in the second quarter.

Gunner Stockton was almost perfect in the first half for Georgia. Stockton completed his first nine passes, including a 35-yard touchdown throw to Talyn Taylor.

No. 3 Notre Dame 49, at Purdue 10: CJ Carr threw three touchdown passes and ran for another score and linebacker Drayk Bowen scored his first career touchdown on a 15-yard fumble return for the Fighting Irish.

Carr was 14-of-22 passing for 237 yards with his first interception of the season.Aneyas Williams carried 14 times for 80 yards with one TD as Notre Dame (4-0) produced a season-high 177 yards rushing. Notre Dame has won 14 straight and will start October with a perfect record for the first time since 2021.

at No. 7 Ohio State 42, Illinois 19: Jeremiah Smith tied an Ohio State record with four touchdown catches and also had career highs with 12 receptions and 217 yards in the rout of the Illini.

According to Sportradar, it is the 23rd time since 2000 an FBS player has had double-digit catches for at least 200 yards and four scores in a game. The last to do it was Western Michigan’s Sky Moore against Northern Illinois in 2021.

It is the fifth time an Ohio State receiver has had four touchdowns. The last time it happened before Saturday was Noah Brown at Oklahoma in 2016.

at No. 11 Texas Tech 49, Sam Houston 14: Red Raiders linebacker Austin Romaine returned two interceptions for touchdowns on consecutive passes thrown by different Sam Houston quarterbacks in the first half of what became a rout.

Texas Tech led only 7-0 before fellow linebacker Brock Gowlas leaped to deflect a pass thrown by Brett Holloway. Romaine, who had also jumped, then grabbed the ball out of the air and ran 15 yards for a touchdown with 14:54 left in the first half. On the first play after the ensuing kickoff, Bearcats starting quarterback Landyn Locke was back in the game, and his pass on first down was picked off by Romaine. That 31-yard return made it 21-0.

Wake Forest 30 at No. 16 Louisville 27: Connor Calvert kicked three field goals, including a 32-yarder with 6:20 remaining, to lift the Decons (3-1, 1-1 ACC) to the upset.

Gio Lopez threw for 225 yards and a touchdown. on 12 of 19 passing for the Demon Deacons (3-1, 1-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) against Louisville (2-2, 1-1). Carlos Hernandez caught nine of those for 194 yards, just three yards off the career best he set last season against Delaware. Ty Clark III carried the ball 21 times for 91 yards and two touchdowns.

No. 17 Iowa 20, at No. 18 Michigan 19: Hank Brown threw a game-ending, 16-yard touchdown pass to Reece Vander Zee to lift the Hawkeyes to the win in the Big Ten opener for both teams.

Iowa (4-0) went 91 yards on the final drive — boosted by an unnecessary roughness penalty against Michigan on a third down at midfield. Brown’s 29-yard pass to Addison Ostrenga set up the final play with two seconds on the clock.

Bryce Underwood threw a 49-yard touchdown pass to JJ Buchanan early in the fourth quarter — their second scoring connection of the game — but the Wolverines (3-1) could not make enough plays on both sides of the ball to hold on for the win.

Etc.

Wayshawn Parker broke a 54-yard run on the game’s opening play from scrimmage for the first of his three touchdowns and No. 15 Utah (4-0) held off host Iowa State (2-2) in the second half for a 31-17 win on Saturday in a Big 12 opener for both teams. … Conner Weigman threw four touchdown passes and ran for two scores, leading No. 25 Houston (3-1) to a 42-28 win over visiting Georgia Southern.

Lee Beebe Jr. rushed for 203 yards, including a 70-yard burst that set up Josh Hoover’s game-sealing one-yard touchdown run with 1:56 to play, and No. 5 Indiana (4-0) held on for a 29-23 over surprising Northwestern (2-1) in the Big Ten opener for both schools on Friday night. …

Mason Heintschel passed for 403 yards and six touchdowns, and host Pittsburgh (4-0) remained perfect by rolling past Bucknell 59-0 on Saturday. … Jeffrey Overton Jr. ran for a 76-yard, go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter as Virginia Tech (4-0) rallied for a 21-14 victory at Boston College (2-2) in an ACC opener for both teams that was played in a nor’easter. …

Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison faces a pivotal decision: Should he uproot his Hollywood studio — the birthplace of such film classics as “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Godfather” and “Beverly Hills Cop”?

Paramount floated shifting its home base to Tennessee or Texas in July, hoping to deter California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta from waging a legal battle to block Paramount’s $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Bonta rejected the tactic, calling it “blackmail.” His antitrust lawsuit, filed in collaboration with 11 other Democratic state attorneys general, has since stalled the largest Hollywood merger in decades and put Ellison in a jam.

The 43-year-old tech scion — a film aficionado who has spent two decades building his career in Hollywood — has told associates he doesn’t want to leave L.A. But he has signaled that he’s prepared to sell the historic studio lots and move Paramount’s and Warner Bros.’ operations from California if the merger isn’t finalized by next month, according to people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to comment.

The prospect has rattled a region already reeling from steep declines in film production, heavy job losses, empty soundstages and shuttered small businesses.

“It would be devastating,” Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, who represents a district that includes the Melrose Avenue movie lot and neighborhoods near Warner Bros. in Burbank, said of a Paramount move. “We need to do everything we can to protect these important jobs in California’s iconic industry.”

Paramount declined to comment.

Ellison is frustrated after securing approvals from more than 65 regulators worldwide for the mammoth merger that would bring HBO, CNN, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV and TBS under the same roof.

Bonta’s lawsuit stands in the way.

“California is the fourth-largest economy in the world and the best place to do business,” a spokesman from Bonta’s office said. “Strong antitrust enforcement is essential so everyone can benefit from a vibrant economy.”

A federal judge in Oakland temporarily blocked the deal, prompting Paramount to agree not to finalize the acquisition until after a trial or June 1, whichever comes first. Settlement talks collapsed in late August after Bonta accused Paramount of leaking and misrepresenting their discussions.

Paramount has plenty at stake. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín set the trial for March, but the company urgently needs the valuable Warner assets to better compete against tech behemoths. And beginning Oct. 1, Paramount must increase its payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders by $7 million a day, so-called ticking fees that will heap more debt onto the highly leveraged transaction.

Paramount asked the judge to require California and other plaintiff states, including Nevada, Oregon and New York, along with the Writers Guild of America (which also sued) to post a $1.88-billion bond that could compensate Paramount for ticking fee costs. A hearing is set for Sept. 24.

For weeks, Paramount’s most potent weapon has been its in-the-works plan to leave L.A.

Lobbying has been intense, prompting a parade of politicians led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and gubernatorial nominee Xavier Becerra to urge the two sides to settle the lawsuit.

“It’s a game of chicken,” Kevin Klowden, an economist and managing director at the Melcene Advisory firm, said in an interview. “But I’m not dismissing the threat because it is very real.”

Relocating from Los Angeles would allow Ellison’s cash-hungry media company to qualify for lucrative tax incentives offered by another state. Ellison’s short list includes Tennessee, Texas and Georgia. But leaving its longtime home would be costly for Paramount too, given how much of the talent and deal-making remains concentrated around L.A.

Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development declined to discuss its negotiations with Paramount, but in a statement a spokesperson said the state “remains committed to working with companies across a wide range of industries that are exploring opportunities to invest and grow in Tennessee.”

Early this month, a pro-merger group was set to hold a news conference outside Paramount, but it moved its gathering to a warehouse a few blocks away after anti-merger activists planned a counterprotest.

The pro-merger organization, Neighbors for Strong Communities, was incorporated in Washington, D.C., in June and has lobbed text messages to Californians urging them to press Bonta to drop the case.

Speakers were concerned with just one issue: What would happen should Paramount pull out?

“What are we going to do with all these people who have invested their lives and many generations into building something here?” asked Keyla Wood, who moved from Mexico to L.A. about a decade ago after getting her start in Spanish-language soap operas.

“It’s been one thing after the other: The pandemic, the strikes and then it was the fires,” said Wood, who has worked as a stand-in for Eva Longoria and Salma Hayek. “So many people never work again.”

David Ellison is deciding whether to leave Hollywood.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)

L.A.’s very identity is at stake, added Daniela Kelly, an actor and dancer who arrived from Brazil two decades ago.

“Everyone in the world sees Los Angeles and Hollywood as the platform for their dreams,” Kelly said. “Imagine if a huge studio with 100 years of history here just leaves? What will we be?”

Businesses like Kelly’s small Kreashen Studios USA, which provides video and podcasting space in Marina del Rey, depends on the region’s entertainment economy.

“It’s difficult financially right now to keep open,” she said. “So I’m pro having Paramount stay because this is the center, the heart of Hollywood.”

But deal opponents and some experts say the merger would actually worsen L.A.’s already bleak production picture.

Paramount has promised to cut $6 billion in expenses — a figure that doesn’t factor in the cost of ticking fees, which would add $650 million each quarter to the $81 billion that Paramount had anticipated paying Warner shareholders.

“We’ve seen from previous mergers that jobs have been lost,” L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian said at a City Hall event recently.

Combining Paramount and Warner could result in the elimination of nearly 4,500 positions over three years and put at risk an additional 5,865 jobs within businesses that serve the studios, according to an August report by the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity.

“When you look at the economic impact, it’s pretty staggering,” Kelly LoBianco, the department director, said in a recent interview. “An estimated $4 billion in economic output lost, and another $550 million lost in tax revenue at the local, state and federal level.”

The merger also could erase $79 million in tax revenue to Los Angeles County even if Paramount stays in L.A., she said.

But state and county tax revenue would plummet further should Paramount dispatch hundreds of its workers to Tennessee or some other state, Klowden said.

“If Ellison moves all the management out and all of the productions out, you’re talking about potentially tens of thousands of jobs,” Klowden said. “That, bluntly, isn’t just devastating to L.A. That becomes devastating to everybody.”

A report commissioned by Paramount from Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. predicted even steeper losses of at least 28,000 jobs should the studio move its entire operation out of state, according to a draft report given to Politico.

Under a less dire scenario, Paramount could shift its corporate headquarters to another state to qualify for incentives but still maintain large staffs in the creative hubs of Los Angeles and New York, where the company has its legal headquarters.

When the Ellison family acquired Paramount from the Sumner Redstone family last year, Ellison shifted operations to L.A., where he and other key executives work on the Melrose Avenue lot.

The threat to pull up stakes has created a disconnect after Ellison has spent more than a year touting how his family’s growing collection of media properties would strengthen traditional Hollywood.

The relocation campaign echoes a tactic used by software giant Oracle Corp., co-founded by Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison. For three decades, Oracle thrived in Redwood City, Calif., but in 2020, the company moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, joining other California tech firms leaving in protest of the state’s high taxes.

The elder Ellison announced in 2024 that Oracle would be moving again, this time to Nashville, although that relocation hasn’t been finalized.

Paramount would risk leaving behind a skilled talent pool filled with experienced production workers and entertainment executives, Klowden said.

Fleeing L.A. could prompt “a talent bleed-out,” Klowden said. “Creative types are like: ‘Would I feel comfortable moving there?’ And, ‘What if I move there and something goes wrong? There would be nowhere else for me to go.’”

He pointed to Nissan’s 2006 U.S. headquarters move to the Nashville area from Gardena in L.A.’s South Bay, which dramatically reset the automaker’s workforce as fewer than half of its Southern California employees made the trek to Tennessee.

On Friday, a magistrate judge told both sides to identify dates in late October to meet for court-ordered settlement talks.

Each has motivations to settle — including avoiding a years-long court fight. Bonta has said Paramount must be willing to part with assets to alleviate market concentration, which could lead to a sale of Warner’s New Line Cinema, which has rights to “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Conjuring” franchises, and potentially cable channels such as CNN, Food Network or Cartoon Network.

Paramount, as part of a settlement, could abandon plans to leave L.A.

“All of the parties need to understand what this [issue] means to workers and small businesses,” Zbur, the local Assembly member, said. “I’m hopeful for a settlement that assures that Paramount and Warner Bros. will maintain their operations and remain a significant economic and employment force in Los Angeles.”

Times staff writer Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

Dolly Parton may have been a worldwide musical icon, but she shared a special connection with her home state.

Parton died last week at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer. And now the University of Tennessee will honor that special relationship with the singing superstar with a helmet decal to be worn by Volunteers players all season.

Coach Josh Heupel announced the tribute Monday while talking to reporters ahead of his No. 20-ranked team’s opener against Furman this weekend.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t also talk about the passing of Dolly Parton — all that she’s meant across the world, this country, and certainly, the queen of East Tennessee and a lady that was extremely proud of her roots,” Heupel said.

“You look at her impact, you know, just her ability to give back, make an impact to people, certainly here in East Tennessee — she means a lot to people across this country but certainly here inside the state of Tennessee, too, so we’ll be wearing a sticker patch on the back of our helmet to recognize her, her accomplishments and everything that she’s meant.”

The sticker will feature a butterfly — an image that Parton had long used in her logos — with the singer’s first name in her handwriting in the middle, all in Tennessee orange and white.

Parton grew up in Sevierville, Tenn., roughly 30 miles east of the university’s Knoxville campus.

While she did not attend college, Parton was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane and musical letters from Tennessee in 2009 following her commencement address to the graduating class of that year. She also received an honorary doctorate degree of letters from Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn., in 1990.

In 2023, Parton was escorted onto the field by legendary Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning to lead the crowd in singing “Rocky Top” following the first quarter of the Volunteers’ game against the Georgia Bulldogs. The Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback paid tribute to Parton following her Aug. 25 death.

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“There was only one Dolly and I feel lucky to have known her,” Manning wrote in an Instagram post that also included a photo of the two of them at the 2023 event. “We’ll miss you, Dolly. Tennessee won’t be the same without her!”

Last week, Middle Tennessee State University announced its football team would wear a patch honoring Parton during its home opener against Murray State on Saturday. In addition, the Blue Raiders will display QR codes on the scoreboard screen for donations to Parton’s book-gifting program, the Imagination Library.

Aug. 29 (UPI) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Friday said he wants to rename Nashville International Airport in honor of Dolly Parton.

Lee said he wants to create a lasting tribute to the “indelible legacy” of the country music legend, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80.

“Dolly Parton’s extraordinary life is forever woven into the fabric of our state,” Lee said in a statement. “From her rural mountain home in East Tennessee to global stages, Dolly carried the Volunteer Spirit with her.

“At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.”

Lee said Parton’s team was “touched by the idea.” The 11-time Grammy winner had lived in Nashville since the 60s.

The proposal will be discussed by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority at its next meeting on Sept. 17.

Parton died after “bravely facing a brief battle with cancer,” her publicist said. Her career spanned more than six decades.

Alongside her Grammy Awards, she earned three Emmy Awards, an honorary Academy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Her many hits included “Jolene,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You,” which was famously covered by Whitney Houston.