Jul. 22—There are two sides to every story …

Transfer quarterbacks Darian Mensah of Duke and Fernando Mendoza of Indiana are more highly touted than Illinois’ Luke Altmyer. Mendoza is projected Top 10 among QBs in 2026 NFL mock drafts, and Mensah reportedly has a two-year name, image and likeness contract worth $8 million, as arranged by the Durham Devils Club (some Carolina media members doubt the amount).

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BUT … Altmyer, who’ll battle those two in September football showdowns, is entering his third year in the system with coordinator Barry Lunney Jr., while Mensah and Mendoza are new to their programs.

Furthermore, in a 21-17 Citrus Bowl win over South Carolina, Altmyer outdueled LaNorris Sellers, a top-five QB in projected NFL ratings.

Of 18 likely QB starters in the Big Ten this season, five began at their present school. Rated No. 1 is Drew Allar, returnee at Penn State. No. 2 is Altmyer, and he outpassed Allar, 185 yards to 135, in Illinois’ 21-7 loss at Penn State, a game that turned on a high snap at the PSU 2-yard line before halftime when the score was tied at 7.

Nothing is straightforward

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Coach Bret Bielema has frequently outrecruited an impressive lineup of elite rivals in signing the UI’s 2026 class, most impressive in decades. Morgan Park wide receiver Nasir Rankin, Belleville West cornerback Nick Hankins and Kirkwood (Mo.) safety Jacob Eberhard look like “can’t-miss” prospects.

BUT … with perennial powers making strong late moves, the Illini’s 23-man class is at No. 22 per 247Sports and No. 24, according to Rivals, and has just two of the state’s Top 10 members — Rankin and Hankins — as judged by 247Sports and Rivals. Southern California landed QB Jonas Williams of Lincoln-Way and edge rusher Braedon Jones of Mount Carmel. Two tight ends ranked Nos. 1 and 3 in the state picked Mississippi and Alabama.

Illinois’ football schedule is considered weak without Penn State, Oregon, Michigan and Iowa on the slate.

BUT … with all the wild transferring and advance payments to players, how can we be certain? Sept. 20 host Indiana could be a slight favorite at home. USC, the Sept. 27 visitor, is bound to come storming back at some point. Ohio State is defending national champion, and Washington is just 18 months removed from the national championship game. We discount Purdue and Rutgers, and both led last year’s 10-win team in the final 10 seconds. Nothing is certain.

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In the rush to beat the July 1 deadline, collectives poured out millions and millions to college athletes, many of those huge payments front-loaded by wealthy donors.

BUT … what happens to those athletes holding signed contracts to receive “salaries” monthly throughout the school year? Will those ongoing contracts be subject to judgment by Deloitte like all other third-party deals?

Imagine the sparks flying over Bryce Underwood’s $10 million deal at Michigan … unless Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s partner, Wolverine fan Jolin Zhu, arranged to have it all paid before July 1.

Trump card

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President Donald Trump has created a buzz by contemplating an executive order to clarify the status — employees maybe? — of college athletes and provide some relief from the chaotic college sports entanglements.

BUT … there will be no end to lawsuits fighting limits for athlete’s NIL compensation from third parties, and the new presence of Deloitte in enforcing those limits. Only Congress, and not the president, can provide antitrust exemptions, and there seems to be some bipartisan movement in that direction. Illini athletic director Josh Whitman has hinted that he’ll be returning to Congress for further discussion.

Whitman says student fees, a long-discussed controversy on this campus, are being phased out. Whitman is evidently confident his department can meet budget needs (the budget hit $190 million the past school year) while also resolving a $14M COVID-19 pandemic deficit. The 2024-25 budget was in the black at $190M.

BUT … just the opposite is happening around the country. Troubled programs elsewhere are requiring students to chip in. Minnesota has a new $200 athletic fee to reduce a $9 million athletic deficit. South Carolina ($300) and Clemson ($150 per semester) have newly installed auxiliary fees.

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On the subject of budgetary cuts, here’s the strangest. Washington State is dropping all field events and some sprints and hurdles while emphasizing distance running for its track program. If you go 340 miles southwest, you’ll find the dead center of USA track and field at the University of Oregon … where nothing gets cut as long as Nike’s Phil Knight remains connected.

Here are AP’s 2025 song of the summer predictions across categories, with past victors for reference.

NEW YORK — What makes a great song of the summer? Is it an up-tempo pop banger? Something with an earworm chorus? Does it need to feature the words “summer,” “sunshine,” or another synonym — “California” — in the title? How could anyone attempt a song of the summer after the late, great Beach Boy Brian Wilson composed them so expertly, anyway?

It very well may be subject to the eye (well, ear) of the beholder, but The Associated Press views the song of the summer as the one that takes over those warm months between June and August, the kind that blasts out of car speakers and at beach barbecues in equal measure. And that means many different things for many kinds of listeners.

So here are AP’s 2025 song of the summer predictions across categories, with past victors for reference.

Find your song of the summer and then listen to our Spotify playlist, here.

Song of the summer that inexplicably came out in January: “NUEVAYoL,” Bad Bunny

A song of the summer doesn’t actually have to arrive in summer, or even in spring. History has proved this time and time again, lest anyone forget Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” hit at the top of the year in 2021. But this summer, like every summer, is about Bad Bunny. On his latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio pulls from Puerto Rico’s rich musical history and hybridizes it. He does so from the very opener, “NUEVAYoL,” which samples the fittingly named 1975 salsa hit from El Gran Combo, “Un Verano en Nueva York” (“A Summer in New York”).

Past champion: “Boy’s a Liar PT. 2,” PinkPantheress, Ice Spice (2023)

Song of the summer for the chronically online: “Tonight,” PinkPantheress

An internet hero releases another super hit: PinkPantheress’ “Tonight” is an undeniable good time; all bassline house meets hyperpop vocals with a naughty chorus. The 24-year-old British singer-songwriter has proved she’s got so much more to offer than a few viral hits — but her huge songs that blow up online? They tend to stay. That’s more than can be said about past winners in this category.

Past champion: “Million Dollar Baby,” Tommy Richman (2024)

Breakup song of the summer: “What Was That,” Lorde

Lorde’s first new single in four years recalls the clever synth-pop of her 2017 album “Melodrama,” casting aside the folk detour of 2012’s “Solar Power.” “What Was That” is reserved revelation, introspective electropop that takes a measured look at a relationship’s dissolution. It feels good, and bad, which is the point.

Past champion: “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” Bee Gees (1971)

Song of the summer for the girls and all those who love them: “Gnarly,” KATSEYE

KATSEYE, the global girl group born out of K-pop development techniques, are “Gnarly,” and they’d like you to be, too. The song is asymmetrical pop with a cheerleading cadence and extensive, expensive product placement. You’re here for the girls, or you’re not. Gnarly!

Past champion: “Bills, Bills, Bills,” Destiny’s Child (1999)

Song for singles ready to mingle this summer: “WASSUP,” Young Miko

Flirting is central to these hot months; no other season has a fling named after it. Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko knows this better than most, and her track “WASSUP” is all about charisma — and it doesn’t hurt that it interpolates “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne featuring Static Major and “Chulin Culin Chunfly” by Voltio featuring Residente.

Past champion: “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” T-Pain featuring Yung Joc (2007)

Song of the summer for those who love British boy ballads performed by an American: “Ordinary,” Alex Warren

Last year brought Benson Boone’s glossy soft pop-rock; this year, Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” is inescapable. A big, inoffensive ballad with loosely religious themes, it is meticulously designed to the pull at heartstrings. And it does — the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Past champion: “Beautiful Things,” Benson Boone (2024)

Song of the summer for when you lose the beef but still have fight left in ya: “Nokia,” Drake

For the last year, Drake has mostly made headlines for his rivalry with Kendrick Lamar, one of the biggest beefs in modern rap music history. He was no victor, but on “Nokia,” he’s certainly a winner. The song is a return to what Drizzy knows best: a massive rap-R&B-pop song for the ages, one that will live inside the minds of listeners for the whole year. Just, you know, replete with the nostalgic sounds of a Nokia ringtone.

Past champion: The difference here, of course, is that Drake won his beef with Meek Mill. But nonetheless: “Back to Back,” Drake (2015)

The TikTok-approved, blast-of-dopamine song of the summer: “Boots on the Ground,” 803Fresh

Social media is the wild west and inevitably sources its own song of the summer. Usually, there’s an element of humor in the track — like 2023’s “The Margarita Song” by That Chick Angel, Casa Di & Steve Terrell. This year is a bit different: 803Fresh’s “Boots on the Ground” is an organic hit that centers a kind of soulful line dance — it’s country-pop with trap hi-hats and fun for the whole family.

Past champion: “The Spark,” Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew (2024)

Song of the summer for it girls: “Fame Is A Gun,” Addison Rae

Charli xcx fans, fear not. Addison Rae’s debut album is stuffed with bejeweled, hypnotic pop songs for the post-“BRAT” crowd. Best of all is the Grimes-esque “Fame Is a Gun,” a sunglasses-in-the-club banger with synthetic vocal textures and an unignorable chorus. For fashionable listeners, and those who aim to become more fabulous.

Past champion: “Bad Girls,” Donna Summer (1979)

Song of the summer of revenge: “Manchild,” Sabrina Carpenter

Does it sound strikingly similar to “Please, Please, Please” at times? Sure. But has Sabrina Carpenter cornered the market on country-tinged, satirical pop songs about heterofatalism, an internet neologism for those who find heterosexuality embarrassing and hopeless? Also, yes. But you know, with a wink, vengeance and a danceable quality. Amen, hey men!

Past champion: “Before He Cheats,” Carrie Underwood (from her 2005 debut album, but released as a single in 2006)

Biggest song of the year, and therefore the default song of the summer: “Luther,” Kendrick Lamar and SZA

Is a song released in November too dated to qualify for song of the summer? Perhaps. But here’s the rub: Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 13 weeks in 2025 — over half the year so far. Popularity makes the contender. It doesn’t hurt that “Luther” is also one of the best songs of both this year and last, a tender R&B ballad that samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of “If This World Were Mine.” “Luther” has since been dethroned on the charts, but no other song has come close to its run this year.

Past champion: “Last Night,” Morgan Wallen (2023)

Country crossover song of the summer: “What I Want,” Morgan Wallen and Tate McRae

If terrestrial country radio is your leading metric for selecting the song of the summer, then Morgan Wallen’s “I’m The Problem” is likely your pick. But a catchier track with true country crossover appeal is “What I Want” with Wallen and pop singer Tate McRae. It is the first time Wallen has featured a female vocalist on one of his songs. It’s a rare embrace for the chart topper, who historically prefers to buck country duet tradition and double down on his vocal style — warm, muscular, masculine.

Past champion: “You’re Still the One,” Shania Twain (from her 1997 album, but released as a single in 1998)

Song of the summer released half a decade ago: “party 4 you,” Charli xcx

The data doesn’t lie and what is old is new is old is new again. In the year after “BRAT” summer, desire for more Charli xcx is still strong. As a result, fans have dug up a cut from her 2020 album, “How I’m Feeling Now,” and turned it into their own summer anthem … five years later. So much so, in fact, that Charli released a music video for it in May.

Past champion: “Cruel Summer,” Taylor Swift (released in 2019, crowned song of the summer in 2023)

Song of the summer with a canine-themed title: “Mutt,” Leon Thomas

Look, “Mutt” also arrived in 2024, but in 2025 — bolstered by a deluxe release and a recent Chris Brown remix — makes “Mutt” an easy song of the summer pick for some listeners. It’s difficult to hear that chorus and not sing along: “She said, ‘Take your time, what’s the rush?’ / I said, ‘Baby, I’m a dog, I’m a mutt.’”

Past champion: “Bird Dog,” The Everly Brothers (1958)

I had this experience at a trade show a few years back… and though I knew it was a gimmick… it still planted fears in my head. And now on this zoom screen? It goes beyond scare tactics and overpriced face cream… this tool recommends needles and knives…

Hassan: So, we’re on the website And so far so good, we scroll down. So this is your, um, image. We can upload it. I’m not a robot… Here. Here. Right Uh, and these are the flaws that the computer detects.

Hassan: Deepened nasolabial folds. These are these lines here, and that’s because you’re smiling…Under eye contour depression, which is definitely here…the region just instantly sinks. And then it goes back up as it comes towards the cheekbones. So generally for attractive faces, the contour is inline. It’s flush with the eyes, So slight, slight dark circles. puffy lower eyelid, which I do agree This eyelid is definitely really puffy for whatever reason, but this one is not. So that’s what it’s picked up instead of 0.5 or 0.58, which, which is decently strong. a nasal Jugal fat pad, uh, that’s this pad here, it’s very minor. And so at this 0.3, which is, I think accurate, it’s not something I worry in highly about the computer thinks that you have an Epicanthic fold which is an Asian monolid as they call it… and that’s probably because your upper eyelid fat covers up a lot of your upper eyelid. So it basically sees it as the whole thing, being one eyelid.

Strong: Let’s hit the pause button here for some context… however weird it is for me to describe my friend and colleague this way…. you can’t see Tate. So, with her permission… here we go: she’s tall, blond, has these big blue eyes, strong cheekbones, and a giant smile… she’s young too, as in double digits younger than I am… and as far as those genetics go? She’s the daughter of a pro athlete.

But we’re hearing recommendations on what she can do to fix her supposed flaws… including different types of plastic surgery… and I can’t help but think how harshly this tool might judge the rest of us… especially someone who isn’t young and white.

Strong: We’re going to take a short break, but first… Our friends over at the Financial Times have relaunched their podcast, Tech Tonic. Find out how a device like your fitbit might be the first to know you’ve got covid… or what antitrust laws mean for a smoked fish specialist… innovation editor John Thornhill takes us into emergency rooms, cruise ships and classrooms to explore how tech has reshaped our world… and what that means for us.

All five episodes are available now wherever you get your podcasts… just search tech tonic.

We’ll be back … right after this.

On Wednesday evening the new Quentin Tarantino movie ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ went on general release in the UK and as usual on such occasions I toddled off to the local picture house to see it. I’m quite a fan, of the director to say the least. The film? I’ll leave you to make up your own mind about that.

But if you like cars, there’ll certainly be plenty on which to feed your eyes. Over 2,000 pre-1969 classics were used if you believe one apparently quite authoritative website I saw. And it’s not all Americana either: there’s a Porsche 911 in there and a Karmann Ghia too. Though for some reason, I only had eyes for the MG TD in which Tarantino placed the actors playing Roman Polanski and his fated bride Sharon Tate. So much so that I briefly lost track of what was going on in the film itself. Which, most of the time, wasn’t much. It’s not as if I’m I particularly big fan of the TD, but it did get me thinking about those T-type MGs and the P-types that preceded them. To me they conjure an image of an idealised England, of leafy lanes, pints in pubs, village green cricket and RAF officers with pretty girls by their side. But which was the best?

To me the TD and TF lost something in the visual department and while I know beauty to be in the eye of the beholder and it shouldn’t matter very much when you’re driving, when it comes to these MGs, it does. There’s a certain, upright and traditional look that says MG to me every bit as much as that of an MGA or MGB, and that look was there from the PA through to the TC. But thereafter it was somewhat lost. I’ve only driven one TC but I loved it. Clearly as the quickest of T-types up until that time but retaining the original appearance, I’d understand anyone who argued that it was the one to have from them all. And while I’ve not driven a TB, I’d certainly not argue in favour of the TA. My father used to have one and to me it was a car that lacked the performance of the later T-types and the charm of the P-types it ostensibly replaced. But the earlier PB was a different matter. That car was a joy. I can remember thinking there probably wasn’t a car in the world with a less enviable noise to progress ratio, and thinking too that it didn’t matter a damn. Howling along at 40mph, flicking around the ratios in that exquisite backwards gearbox, feeling how precisely it followed the road and eagerly it chose to be chucked into corners… to me it was and remains the epitome of what a not completely unaffordable pre-war sports car should be.

But it’s not the best, at least of those that I’ve driven. At least not quite. The most fun I’ve ever had in any MG was in something called a Cream Cracker. The Crackers were a series of P and T-type based trials cars, created by the works in tiny numbers. The 1935 PB-based Cracker I’ve had the pleasure to drive and race is one of just three such machines. And with a Roots-type blower, it gives the PB the performance to go with the noise, and the power to slide it about all over the place. You simply wouldn’t believe this much fun could be had with less than a litre of engine under your bonnet. No, it’s not particularly rapid even by pre-war standards – you’d not see which way a well driven Aston Martin Ulster of the same era went – but that hardly matters, nor does the fact that 6ft 3in of me looks entirely ridiculous in the diminutive Cracker. There’s nothing with an octagon on its nose I’ve enjoyed driving more.

Nothing? It is possible some of you may recall I’ve also been lucky enough to race the very first K3 Magnette, the car used by Earl Howe to help MG win the team prize on the Mille Miglia. Surely the Cracker can’t compare to that? In theory the answer is no. The K3 with its six-cylinder motor and getting on for double the power is in a different league in terms of performance, quick enough to duff up six-cylinder Alfas and blown Bentleys. But in place of that gorgeous gearbox, K3s have a pre-selector transmission which not only removes all the fun of changing gear, but which is also completely counter-intuitive to me. Give me a car with a backwards gearbox with no synchro and pedals around the wrong way and I’ll be absolutely fine. Give me one that requires you to change gear when you don’t need to change gear, including selecting from third from fourth while travelling at top speed, well my brain just doesn’t want to do it. In short the K3 and I have unfinished business and I look forward to renewing our acquaintance next season. Until then and at least so far as Abingdon output is concerned, the Cracker’s the car for me.

Someone asks you to imagine an apple and hold the thought for a full 30 seconds. What do you picture? A Braeburn, a Granny Smith, Snow White’s poisoned apple, the gravity-defining sphere that dropped on Isaac Newton’s head? Or perhaps the platonic ideal, with flawless red and green skin and a crisp white interior that very rarely crops up in reality.

Just to keep the thought in mind for so long is a feat. The brain is so fast it cannot help riffling through thousands of images and ideas in that half-minute, remembering colours, flavours and sensations, picturing roundness and weight, thinking about myths and symbols. And it is this ever-changing magic that the French philosopher-artist Pierre Huyghe brings before the public in his enthralling new show at the Serpentine gallery. Not by alluding to it or analysing it, but by depicting it on a sequence of screens that throw up images so novel as to beggar description.

The opening screen, as it seemed to me, was showing some kind of organism with a gleaming carapace and iridescent green orbs, though this changed so rapidly to something more skeletal, or structural, that I couldn’t guess what it was. There were hints of a far horizon, with white skies and muddy fields, and some kind of volatile light source. But the idea of a landscape vanished as quickly as it came, to be replaced with a flapping of wings and strange presentiment of bustling new growth.

This is what I saw. It is not necessarily what you will see if you go. This is apparent from the conversations that go on before each work. Some people see biological specimens, others see supernatural beings; in front of one screen, visitors variously thought they saw toy cars, Christmas decorations and whirring crankshafts. And even when the stream stops, momentarily, as it does when the ambient conditions change, the still picture is just as fantastical.

These are not films, in fact, but prodigious collages – one image after the next at split-second speed. They are co-productions between human and machine. A Japanese man’s brain activity was captured on MRI as he imagined the elements he was asked to think of. The data was then fed through artificial intelligence into a deep neural network, which drew on its computer database of millions of images to try to find corresponding patterns and visions. Is it this, or this, or this: the machine keeps trying to guess; and so, in turn, does the viewer. This is nothing less than an attempted portrait of our mental picturing: the workings of the mind’s eye.

It is also completely absorbing, not some hysterical assault but a gentle flow of evolving dreams. Huyghe, generally held to be a formidable intellectual among contemporary artists – always probing the mysteries of the mind, is as likely to work with video, puppetry and sculpture as monkeys and virtual butterflies. Buzzing through the Serpentine are sporadic flies, born and bred and fed on sugar to die in the gallery. They, too, are attracted to the glowing screens and one wonders what they see with their curious compound eyes; perhaps the Japanese man was at some point thinking of them?

Which is where the title of the show comes in. It refers to the German word umwelt – a way of seeing the world that is all our own; particular to flies, particular to human beings, and to each of us individually. That we may all see these collages as representing something quite different indicates the intensely personal nature of perception. We are also going through our own lifelong archives to find some kind of match for the images on screen; the search is involuntary and beautifully distinctive. I saw a Chinese silk jacket covered with embroidered medallions (possibly because my mother had one?) whereas my companion saw a 1920s flapper performing a twirl. I see what I recognise or what relates to what has passed through my mind and eyes; you will see something else.

Huyghe has included one very comic work, a super-sophisticated version of the old duck-rabbit puzzle, included in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations as an example of different ways of seeing. We might say we see a rabbit, or that we see a picture of a rabbit; and whether we see a rabbit or a duck, moreover, would depend on what we have seen and known before. In this case, what I saw swithered between a white owl and a white dog in the bewitching swirl, and I am not sure whether they were the same owls and dogs during the five or so minutes on screen.

There are strange sounds and scents in the gallery that might be just as differently perceived. Huyghe seems to be creating a gallery ecosystem to prompt thoughts about the nature of thinking and being. This is rigorous; the gallery guide is full of useful prompts, and neuroscientists will be discussing the ideas throughout the show’s duration. And I daresay Huyghe could have given a lecture or written a thesis himself. What makes this exhibition so compelling is that it treats the mind’s movements as beautiful visions in themselves, simulacra of the way we make pictures – and the way pictures make thoughts, dreams and memories.

View image in fullscreen Tania Bruguera’s ‘surprisingly dismal’ Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Communicating with others will obviously enrich this experience but it is not required. The opposite is true with Tania Bruguera’s Turbine Hall commission, which is – alas, given its consciousness-raising ambitions – surprisingly dismal. The Cuban artist deploys the floor at Tate Modern in the manner of several past installations, from Doris Salcedo’s faultline to Superflex’s dumb striped carpet. She paints it a smart shiny black, although by now it will already be properly marked. For the ramp and the far courtyard are both coated in heat-sensitive ink, supposedly responsive to our touch, though it wouldn’t even take my handprint.

If enough people lie down together their impressions would reveal the face of a young Syrian migrant. It is obvious this will only come from communal action. Three hundred sufficiently hot people would have to lie down at once, and for long enough, then all get up at the same moment for this to occur. And even then the commemoration wouldn’t be visible as each body leaves very partial traces.

So that idea is completely hobbled. Nor is it helped by the number of refugees stamped in red on our hands, which has bathetic nightclub overtones. Or the low thrum booming out across the hall, which lends a false sense of expectation. A small side gallery into which a few people are crammed together at a time is heavily infused with some sort of extra-strength olbas oil. This is supposed to draw forth our tears but mainly seems to clear the sinuses very thoroughly, deflecting attention once more from the unending humanitarian crisis Bruguera so much hopes to bring into our minds as a community. It may be that the subtlety of the work lies precisely in these missed connections – some people cry, or make their mark, caring where others don’t – but it feels more like an unfortunate miscalculation, all the elements falling apart instead of coming together.

Star ratings (out of 5):

Pierre Huyghe ★★★★

Tania Bruguera ★★