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I hope you’ve all been enjoying that time of year when everything you wear will be wrong for the weather six hours later.

Dynasty Mode: 14 dominant programs right now

In honor of UConn women’s basketball completing its 11th (!!) undefeated regular season, let’s look into how many current dynasties in other college sports are up there with Geno Auriemma’s 12-time national champs.

(Sure, calling UConn a dynasty right now means carving out a custom definition of the term, since the Huskies have won just one of their titles since 2016. But they’re favored to repeat this year — and have missed only one Final Four since 2007. They remain a dynasty even during their title droughts.)

Let’s stay within Division I for today, and let’s only count NCAA championships, since some of these sports were overseen by other organizations in previous years.

Thirteen of the top current dynasties outside of UConn (where the men’s hoops team is also assembling a case), in an order that was strictly alphabetical until I moved things around for since-forgotten reasons:

North Dakota State football: 10 of the last 15 FCS national titles, plus one runner-up. Yes, FCS is DI. However, the FBS-bound Bison’s title-winning days are done, so this is a late-period empire becoming a province in a small nation, so to speak.
Oklahoma women’s gymnastics: 6 1/2 of the last 11 titles, plus two runners-up. The Sooners split 2014’s championship with Florida. Not the only Florida split on this list!
Stanford men’s gymnastics: five of the last six, plus a squeaker loss to Michigan. Also, five previous titles that were nearly 10.
Stanford women’s water polo: nine of the last 14, plus three runners-up. (And five more of the latter since 2001.) Of course Stanford is on this list twice.
Florida men’s outdoor track: 6 1/2 of the last 13, plus four runners-up. The Gators split with Texas A&M in 2013.
Wisconsin women’s hockey: four of the last six, plus a runner-up. And eight of the last 19, with another four runners-up. Coached throughout by a “Miracle on Ice” hero, the Badgers are again No. 1 this season.
NC State women’s cross country: four of the last five.  Secret ingredient: having fun out there. Way out there.
Oklahoma softball: seven of the last 12, including a recent four-peat that pushed the sport toward its spotlight era. No. 5 in our early Power Rankings this season.
Virginia women’s swimming and diving: five in a row. The cleanest sweep in all of DI right now.
Notre Dame fencing: four of the last five, plus a runner-up. Also two of the last three. And four others. (These are co-ed titles, though USA Fencing is pushing for a standalone women’s championship.) The internet is secretive about which teams are good at fencing this season, though. That fits fencing. Striking silently. *Ninja sounds.*
Penn State wrestling: 12 of the last 14, plus a runner-up. This season, the Nittany Lions are again the undefeated No. 1, and the answer to the question in this email’s subject is right here. Thanks to 2020s eligibility mayhem, they’ve even had a five-time individual champion. If you want, add in coach Cael Sanderson’s status as the greatest college wrestler ever.
USC beach volleyball: six of the last nine. This has only been an NCAA sport for nine seasons, so the Trojans have won it twice as much as everyone else combined. Not even Penn State wrestling can say that. (In a few weeks, a school will claim 100 percent of the all-time women’s wrestling championships, you know. Probably Iowa.)
Utah skiing: six of the last eight, plus a runner-up. Also, in previous decades: 10 champs and 13 runners-up. Imagine if USC was great at this and Utah was great at beach volleyball. The skiing selection show is tomorrow. Now you know that.

Elsewhere, Maryland women’s lacrosse, Northern Arizona men’s cross country, Stanford women’s tennis and Virginia men’s tennis have won a lot in recent years, but have multiyear droughts. Sure, that’s similar to the exception I proposed for UConn.

Lots of others could make the cut, too. Texas men’s swimming? Arkansas women’s indoor track? Someone’s gonna yell at me!! (I chose not to parse the overlapping Northwestern/North Carolina field hockey dynasties, and while Cal rugby is hilariously great, rugby isn’t an NCAA sport yet.)

Another time, I’d like to look at others outside of DI. Let me know at untilsaturday@theathletic.com if you have any of those I should be sure to inspect along the way.

More: Last summer, this newsletter reviewed the greatest championship streaks in college sports history. Also, here’s something you’ll all click: Scott Dochterman ranked the 50 best rivalries in men’s hoops. Might come back to that one another time.

Quick Snaps

🌀 “I hate to say it, but Texas Tech is doing what they should with their money.” Loads of portal gossip from anonymous coaches.

🖤 Colorado quarterback Dominiq Ponder died in a single-car crash Sunday morning, police said. He was 23. Our report.

💰 “The actual money changing hands is less than that $270 million, and the total amount paid out from school to coach will likely be much, much less.” Last year’s buyouts bonanza wasn’t quite as ludicrous as it seemed.

✍️ Stewart Mandel has scripted how Donald Trump’s celebrity assembly to fix college sports will go.

🎧 “The Audible” discusses predictions on who’ll be coaching each P4 team in 2030.

📰 News:

A former Michigan staffer was fired by the Atlanta Falcons after accusations of a 2024 incident in Ann Arbor.
“Student athletes inking multimillion dollar name, image and likeness deals in Mississippi could see their income become tax-exempt as early as next year.” Be serious.
Texas is reportedly hiring former Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops as a special assistant. Now imagine the Longhorns hiring his brother and former longtime Oklahoma coach, Bob.
Grad School: Up in arms over Bain

When a Tyrannosaurus rex first showed up at the NFL combine in roughly the year 67 million BCE, did professional dinosaur evaluators say its arms were too short to compete in the pros? How silly those guys look now.

At this past weekend’s edition of the event, Miami edge Rueben Bain Jr.’s arms measured 30 7/8 inches, the third-shortest at his position since 1999. Of those other two, one went undrafted (Ohio State’s Nathan Williams), and the other became a sixth-round practice squadder (NIU’s Sutton Smith). Not ideal!

Yesterday, Jacob Robinson wrote in our NFL newsletter, “I couldn’t find any (NFL) pass rushers who recorded a sack in the past five years with arms under 31 inches, though Micah Parsons’ aren’t much longer.” He also rudely assembled this chart that made me even more defensive about my favorite 2025 player:

Every year in the NFL Draft, a handful of players embody the disconnects between college football fans and pro GMs. Hey, we were right about Russell Wilson! Overconfident from acing that one, we were then wrong about Johnny Manziel.

It’s clear Bain is gonna be this year’s “HOW IS HE STILL AVAILABLE” name. Last week in The Athletic’s college writers mock draft, he went No. 2 to the Jets … but our NFL Draft analysts report he could slip out of the first round entirely.

I dunno, man. The consensus All-American looked like the best player on the field in Week 1 against Notre Dame, then again in the bookend game, recording 2 1/2 tackles for loss against Indiana. In between, he took over stretches against Florida and Ohio State, plus turned Texas A&M’s whole field into a sinkhole. We saw what we saw.

Still, the arm thing matters, especially in the trenches, where wing span can determine which side has the advantage at point of contact. But it’s not like the 6-2, 263-pounder will be without a place in the NFL. As our Nick Baumgardner wrote:

“Bain’s best assets are his power and burst, as he is able to consistently punish tackles — generally, by going right through their chests — via a great first step and elite power. He rushes on the outside a lot like an athletic interior tackle would in the NFL.”

Congrats, guards! You get to block the guy whose only flaw is being shaped like Godzilla. Besides, we all know how this is gonna go. He’ll drop to either the Ravens or Eagles, everyone will shout, “THEY CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS,” and then they’ll keep getting away with this.

Other combine stuff:

Bruce Feldman wraps up the speediest class in combine history, including a huge day by his No. 1 athlete to watch, Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq.
“Arguably — and there might not even be much of a counterargument — the most electric on-field combine showing by a linebacker in the past three decades.” Ohio State’s Sonny Styles leads our winners list.
The most viral moment: Arkansas’ Mike Washington Jr. crying tears of joy after posting the fastest 40 among the fastest running back group ever.
“He better win a national championship. He’s got all the resources. It ain’t Ames, Iowa.” The combine means lots of players speaking pretty candidly about college football for the first times in their careers.
Six-month Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar found out on Friday that his college career is essentially done, then arrived at the combine four days later. Modernity!
Comparing Fernando Mendoza’s “job interview” media session to Diego Pavia’s jump-scare revelation that he’s being mentored by Manziel, it’s clear both of these guys remain in character.

Last week’s most-clicked: Mandel’s grades for all 33 FBS head-coaching hires so far.

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