India arrive in New Zealand as world champions, having beaten the same opponents by 96 runs in the T20 World Cup final in Ahmedabad in March.
The five-match series now shifts to the Black Caps' backyard, where the T20I history between the sides is far tighter than that result suggests.
Shreyas Iyer leads a 16-man India squad that welcomes back Bhuvneshwar **** ar, who last played a T20I in November 2022. Meanwhile, Mitchell Santner captains the home side.
India last played T20Is here in November 2022, when Suryakumar Yadav's unbeaten 111 at Mount Maunganui set up a 65-run win. They took that series 1-0 after Wellington was abandoned and a rain-hit Napier game ended in a tie, so the record is worth a closer look.
Before the bilateral series kicks off in Christchurch on Thursday, The Sporting News takes a look at the record books.

#India #november

Erin Napier shared that a childhood experience on a school bus influenced her decision to homeschool her daughters
She responded to criticism of homeschooling, emphasizing her kids' diverse social interactions and family involvement
Erin recalled being exposed to inappropriate content on a school bus in fifth grade, which shaped her parenting choices
Erin Napier is sharing one of the reasons why she decided to homeschool her daughters — and revealed that she was inspired after a shocking incident in her own childhood.
The HGTV star, 41, shared a recent post on her https://www.instagram.com/... of her husband Ben Napier, 42, homeschooling their two kids, Helen, 8, and Mae, 5, and explaining a history book to them. In the pictures, Ben and one of the couple's kids could be seen looking through a history book on the Renaissance, lying down together on the ground.

#napier #history

The moment Vernell Brown III reached the end zone; a bolt of energy returned to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
It was energy that sat dormant for four years during Billy Napier's four years as Florida football coach. Jon Sumrall relit the flame with 66 points last week vs. Florida Atlantic, but that fire fizzled out in a sluggish first quarter vs. FCS foe Campbell.
Until Brown III caught a punt early in the second quarter.
64 yards later, he landed in the end zone. Three minutes later, Brown III once again reigned in a punt and scored another touchdown.
The two scores entered Brown into an elusive category, joining Jacquez Green as the only two Gators to return two punts for TDs in a single game.

#brown #zone #punt

On September 8, a caller inquired if Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN) is worth looking at after its recent pullback. Mad Money host Jim Cramer replied:
Yes, Railcar, shouldn't be down this much. I like your thinking. You waited for the big hit. Now, it's in a good place. I would pull the trigger.
Trinity Industries, Inc. (NYSE:TRN) has faced a sharp correction, pulling back significantly from its 52-week high of $38.31. Despite this downward pressure, the company's fundamental **** et base remains exceptionally stable. In its second-quarter earnings report, the company posted total revenues of $485 million and diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.25, with earnings benefiting from a $132 million non-cash pre-tax gain tied to the Napier Park railcar partnership transaction.
The leasing and services segment continues to support the business, posting a robust fleet utilization rate of 97.3% and an improved lease renewal success rate of 75%. In addition, the Future Lease Rate Differential improved to +3.5%, showing healthy pricing power on expiring contracts. Management reaffirmed its full-year EPS guidance of $2.20 to $2.40, supported by a solid railcar backlog standing at $1.6 billion.
The primary catalyst for Trinity Industries, Inc.'s (NYSE:TRN) recent sell-off stems from margin compression within the Rail Products manufacturing division. Operating margins in manufacturing faced pressure from an unplanned production interruption at the Longview manufacturing facility and temporary realignment expenses tied to the company's Mexican footprint. These localized execution issues overshadowed a strong quarterly performance in leasing, causing the stock to drift below both its 50-day and 200-day moving average.

#trinity

James Madison rolled to a bit of history on Saturday with a dominant win over Wagner: The Dukes' 87-3 victory over the Seahawks tied a record for the most points ever scored by an FBS team in a game.
The previous 87-point record was set exactly two years ago, as South Alabama dropped a 87-10 victory over Northwestern State on Sept. 12, 2024. JMU's win, though, came with an even larger margin of victory, beating Wagner by a whopping 84 points.
The Dukes, who are in their first season under former Florida head coach Billy Napier, dropped absolutely insane numbers in the beatdown: 12 touchdowns in total, off 588 total offensive yards (near-evenly split between passing and rushing). Three of JMU's touchdowns came off punt returns, starting with a blocked punt on Wagner's first drive of the game and later followed by two returns from Michael Scott.
Ouch 😳 pic.twitter.com/CojLEhzjur
In all, the Dukes scored touchdowns off all but two of their drives — one of which ended with a fumble (in the second quarter), and another that ended with a field goal (in the third quarter).

#victory

Florida scored 66 points in Jon Sumrall's first game as head coach on Saturday night and gave up 396 yards and 25 first downs in the same game. Florida Atlantic ran 90 plays inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, converted half of its third downs and four of seven on fourth down, and still lost by 45.
Jul 22, 2026; Tampa, FL, USA; Florida Gators head coach Jon Sumrall speaks to the press during SEC Football Kickoff Media Day at the Tampa Marriott. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
"Our defense was atrocious at times, quite honestly," Sumrall said afterward. "So we had a hard time keeping pace with them. It was that way, in my opinion. Like, I watch that play, I'm a little bit frustrated about how we played defensively at times. I don't think we're as good as we think we are. I think we got some guys who feel like, you know, we've arrived in some spots and that will be addressed. We have got a lot of room to grow on defense. If it doesn't happen real fast we're going to get embarrassed and exposed handily in some spots, because that wasn't a great performance by us."
Aaron Philo completed 16 of 21 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns with an interception in his first start since transferring from Georgia Tech, and added a rushing score. Jadan Baugh carried 14 times for 160 yards and three touchdowns and was out of the game early in the third quarter with Florida up 45-14. The Gators scored on their first six possessions, went six of six in the red zone and piled up 624 yards. The 66 points were their most in a season opener since 1994.
The team that heard the "arrived" line went 4-8 last season, watched Billy Napier get fired in Oct and has three preseason All-SEC selections on the roster. Sumrall came from Tulane on a defensive resume, having played linebacker at Kentucky and coached the position there and at Ole Miss, so the side of the ball he singled out is the side he is measured on.

#gators

In front of a packed house at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, the Florida Gators routed the FAU Owls 66-21 in the teams' season opener.
The Gators have struggled the past four seasons, all of them ending with losing records. In 2025, the team finished 4-8, and coach Billy Napier was fired in October.
Changes had to be made in the offseason, and they were. Florida brought in new head coach Jon Sumrall, who's credited for quick turnarounds at Troy and Tulane, turning them into winning teams.
Out goes quarterback DJ Lagway to Baylor and in comes Aaron Philo, a transfer from Georgia Tech who threw for 373 yards in his only start against Gardner-Webb in 2025.
FAU came into this game being ranked No. 1 in the nation in passing offense last season, averaging 340.2 yards per game. Their defense, however, was ranked near the bottom, giving up 36.3 points per game. History wasn't on the Owls' side either as they've never won a game against the Gators, 0-4 all-time.

#Florida #coach #hill

James Madison made history in 2025, becoming the first-ever Sun Belt team to qualify for the College Football Playoff. But success came with a cost in the offseason. Head coach Bob Chesney left for UCLA, as did some of the Dukes' top players including running back Wayne Knight and defensive end Sahir West. Starting quarterback Alonza Barnett III wound up at UCF.
James Madison lost a bulk of the coaching staff and all but three primary starters from its CFP team. But the program is accustomed to handling adversity of this nature, not missing a beat when Curt Cignetti handed the reins to Bob Chesney two years ago.
Signs of a similar baton pass were evident Saturday when JMU defeated Liberty, 20-13, in head coach Billy Napier's debut.
James Madison fielded the nation's fifth-ranked total defense in 2025, and that was the team's calling card in the 2026 opener. Liberty was held completely out of the end zone until 10 minutes remained in the contest, thanks to the Dukes' ability to stonewall the run game.
Liberty's spread option attack ranked top-4 nationally in rushing in two of three seasons under head coach Jamey Chadwell. But through 38 attempts against JMU, the Dukes produced just 91 rushing yards, calculating to 2.4 per carry. They never broke off a big one, with the longest run of the day measuring to 10 yards.

#chesney

SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego State Aztecs defeated Portland State 53-20 and The Sporting Tribune's Ardie Crenshaw was there to capture the following TST Images.
SDSU wide receiver Will Cianfrini (16 ) during warmups for an NCAA football game against Portland State Saturday September 5, 2026 in San Diego, Calif.
Ardie Crenshaw - The Sporting Tribune
SDSU wide receiver Will Cianfrini (16 ) during warmups for an NCAA football game against Portland State Saturday September 5, 2026 in San Diego, Calif.
SDSU wide receiver Jordan Napier during warmups for an NCAA football game against Portland State Saturday September 5, 2026 in San Diego, Calif.

#wide #receiver

Florida football opens its 2026 campaign in under two weeks as the Jon Sumrall era kicks off in Gainesville. Ahead of the season's start, USA TODAY Sports writer Paul Myerberg published his full re-rank of all 138 FBS schools.
Myerberg's previous rerank for this fall came out in April, with the Gators placed at No. 38. In his final salvo of the preseason, the Orange and Blue find themselves up two spots at No. 36 and 10th among Southeastern Conference schools.
Sumrall and Co. enter the campaign outside the top 25 of both the US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Poll, with a de facto No. 27 ranking in both. Last year in Billy Napier's final season at the helm, Florida opened the schedule ranked No. 17 in the Coaches and No. 15 in the AP polls, while Myerberg had the Gators at No. 25 in his preseason re-rank.
The SEC has eight programs among the top 25 in the re-rank, headlined by third-ranked Texas, along with Georgia (No. 6), Oklahoma (No. 7) and Alabama (No. 9) in the top 10. Ole Miss (No. 11), Texas A&M (No. 13), LSU (No. 18) and Tennessee (No. 19) round out the top 25.
Florida begins its season against FAU in the Swamp on Saturday, Sept. 5.

#sumrall #texas

Florida football's new head coach Jon Sumrall has seen a great deal of success in his first two jobs, posting a 43-12 record evenly split over four years between Troy and Tulane. His latest gig in Gainesville will easily be the most challenging as he takes over a storied program that has experienced significant turmoil since Dan Mullen departed.
According to Sports Illustrated, the new Gators skipper is among the top 10 first-year coaches facing the most pressure entering the 2026 campaign. Sumrall checks in at No. 7 in the rankings, and author Patrick Andres explains why.
"If you want to single out a first-year coach with a schedule specifically set up to help them succeed, you could do much worse than Sumrall," he states. "After two years of breakneck slates under coach Billy Napier, Sumrall's Gators have navigable opening (Florida Atlantic, Campbell, Auburn) and closing (Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida State) stretches to dilute midseason tussles with Ole Miss, Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma. Florida still needs to find a quarterback, but if either Aaron Philo or Tramell Jones Jr. prove competent, fans could raise the bar for Year 1 immediately."
Over the past four years under Napier, the Orange and Blue accumulated a 22-23 record (and then 1-4 under interim HC Billy Gonzales), representing a brutal nadir for a program that went 33-15 under Mullen (plus a 1-1 record under interim HC Greg Knox) before him. The Gator Nation has suffered profusely this decade so far and is in dire need of some optimism after missing out on the postseason twice during that span.
There is no doubt that the pressure is all on Sumrall heading into fall.

#sumrall #record #gators

A College Football Playoff appearance has led to a significant pay raise for Oklahoma coach Brent Venables.
Per ESPN, Venables and Oklahoma have agreed to a two-year contract extension through the 2031 season. As part of the contract, Venables will have an average salary of $10.5 million over the remaining six years of his deal.
Oklahoma went 10-3 in 2025 and made the playoff for the first time since the 2019 season. The Sooners beat Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri and LSU in November to earn a layoff spot before losing 34-24 to the Tide in the first round of the postseason.
It was a four-win jump for Oklahoma from a 6-7 season in its first season in the SEC.
According to USA Today's coaching salary database, Venables made just over $7.5 million in 2025 and was the 23rd-highest paid coach in the country just behind Washington's Jedd Fisch and ahead of former Florida coach Billy Napier.

#season #coach #salary

How will the Jon Sumrall era live on in Florida football history? With about a month to go before the Gators kick off the 2026 season, the biggest hope for now is that it's at least an improvement over the Billy Napier one.
The plug got pulled on Napier seven games into his fourth season, a barrier that no UF coach has crossed since Urban Meyer. The Gators haven't been in the College Football Playoff rankings since Dan Mullen coached them to the 2020 SEC championship game.
To turn that around, maybe a coach freshly removed from leading Tulane to the CFP will help. He knows he's got a stud at running back in Jadan Baugh, he of 1,170 yards and eight touchdowns in what was otherwise a dismal 4-8 campaign. Who starts at quarterback is a whole different manner: Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo is one of six transfers projected as starters at Ourlads, but redshirt freshman Tramell Jones Jr. could just as easily win the job.
There's still time to decide who best fits in new offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner's Air Raid scheme. The first two games of the season will (barring disaster the likes of the South Florida loss last season) serve as mere tune-ups for the SEC opener at Auburn and former USF two-way QB Byrum Brown. Then it's the big early test: a showdown with Trinidad Chambliss, Kewan Lacy and an Ole Miss team fresh off a CFP semifinal appearance.
If the Gators can tread water through the gauntlet of Texas, Georgia (in Atlanta as Jacksonville updates its stadium) and Oklahoma, there's hope they could lock down a solid bowl résumé against Florida State on Black Friday. And hey, maybe UF can end the year back in the CFP rankings.

#Florida #gators #season #Football

ORLANDO, Fla. — Steve Spurrier always called this time of year “the talkin’ season.”
It was one of those classic Spurrier expressions that perfectly captured the annual ritual of SEC Media Days and preseason news conferences. Every coach is undefeated. Every quarterback has taken the next step. Every transfer is exactly what the program needed. Every new strength and conditioning coach has made the players bigger, stronger, faster. Every new offensive coordinator is going to play fast and be explosive. Every new defensive coordinator promises his guys will pin their ears back and be more physical and aggressive. Meanwhile, every fan base convinces itself that this is finally the year.
Translation: There are no losses in July, only optimism.
And if somebody handed out championship rings for the talkin’ season, Florida coach Jon Sumrall would already have one.
Since the day he walked into Gainesville, Sumrall has been exactly what a weary Gator fan base desperately needed after four years of Billy Napier. He’s been candid, charismatic and refreshingly quotable. He has challenged his players publicly, energized donors privately and reconnected with a fan base that had grown emotionally exhausted. His candidness, energy and intensity even won over the room Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Tampa.

#days

Steve Spurrier always called this time of year "the talkin' season."
It was one of those classic Spurrier expressions that perfectly captured the annual ritual of SEC Media Days and preseason news conferences. Every coach is undefeated. Every quarterback has taken the next step. Every transfer is exactly what the program needed. Every new strength and conditioning coach has made the players bigger, stronger, faster. Every new offensive coordinator is going to play fast and be explosive. Every new defensive coordinator promises his guys will pin their ears back and be more physical and aggressive. Meanwhile, every fan base convinces itself that this is finally the year
Translation: There are no losses in July, only optimism.
And if somebody handed out championship rings for the talkin' season, Florida coach Jon Sumrall would already have one.
Since the day he walked into Gainesville, Sumrall has been exactly what a weary Gator fan base desperately needed after four years of Billy Napier. He's been candid, charismatic and refreshingly quotable. He has challenged his players publicly, energized donors privately and reconnected with a fan base that had grown emotionally exhausted. His candidness, energy and intensity even won over the room Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Tampa.

#year

Florida football saw a great deal of change since the end of last season, including the departure of Billy Napier and the hiring of Jon Sumrall, as well as a new play caller taking over the quarterback position.
While the final decision is not yet set in stone, it is presumed that Aaron Philo — who arrived in Gainesville through the transfer portal to join his previous offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, Buster Faulkner — will be lining up under center to start the season. The redshirt sophomore has the upper hand on redshirt freshman Tramell Jones Jr., who served as the primary backup last year, and true freshman Will Griffin heading to the opener of the 2026 campaign.
With that in mind, The Athletic's college football writers Antonio Morales and Sam Khan Jr. recently ranked every projected starter at the position from 1 to 138, organizing them all into seven distinct tiers. Philo finds himself ranked No. 55, which puts him in Tier 4 — right in the middle of the pack.
"Philo saw limited snaps (63 in 2025) while backing up Haynes King at Georgia Tech, so there's still much to learn. He has been effective in his limited duty, accounting for 29 explosive plays in his 180 career snaps (a 3.4% explosive play rate would be top 30 nationally if sustained over starter snaps)," they said.
"I think he's a really good player," one SEC **** istant said. "The thing about him is he needs a lot of help. He's not a runner. He's not going to go out there and win the game himself, but he'll make the easy throws if guys are open."

#Tech #redshirt

Each of the 16 SEC football programs was ranked by USA TODAY Sports entering the 2026 season. The scores were based on historical success, overall program strength, and future trajectory, among other criteria.
The Florida Gators are positioned in the middle tier of the conference, a designation that reflects the lure created by Steve Spurrier and the iconic teams of the 1990s. Fast-forward to this season, optimism around first-year head coach Jon Sumrall has claimed many of this offseason's headlines, yet the reality of UF's uphill climb in the nation's most competitive league remains steep.
"Few individuals mean more to a program than what Steve Spurrier means to Florida. He revolutionized the Gators from an also-ran into one of the premier programs of the 1990s. The Head Ball Coach branded The Swamp and gave the Gators an identity. They became SEC championship game regulars. Urban Meyer injected more glory with two ******* les. Florida lacks the consistency and history of some higher-ranked programs, but its peaks are just as lofty," argues senior national college football columnist Blake Toppmeyer.
Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and Georgia lead the pack, with LSU rounding out the top five. Elite recruiting, a celebrated NFL talent pipeline, and sustained winning have become a benchmark for each of these teams. The second tier features Tennessee at No. 6 and Florida at No. 7, followed by Auburn, Texas A&M and Ole Miss.
The Gators enter 2026 in flux, with a totally revamped roster, two new lead coordinators, and an undecided quarterback competition. Combine those challenges with a 4-8 record from last season, and the reasons for pessimism are apparent. Under Billy Napier, the program was talented but wildly inconsistent — Gator Nation hopes that a renewed identity under Sumrall will help propel this once-proud program forward.

January
16 1st DDI, Napier (22:00 GMT, 15 Jan)
19 2nd DDI, Wellington (Basin Reserve) (22:00 GMT, 18 Jan)
22 3rd DDI, Dunedin (22:00 GMT, 21 Jan)
26 1st Twenty20 international, Christchurch (d/n) (05:00 GMT)