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Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Vanderbilt Commodores vs. UConn Huskies college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores running back Patrick Smith (42) runs the ball during the first half against the Georgia Bulldogs at Vanderbilt Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
The UConn Huskies (0-5) will attempt to prove oddsmakers wrong when they take on the Vanderbilt Commodores (1-3) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 as a massive 14.5-point underdog. The point total is 51 for the outing.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Nebraska Cornhuskers vs. Northwestern Wildcats college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; East Lansing, Michigan, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers running back Rahmir Johnson (14) runs with the ball during the second quarter against the Michigan State Spartans at Spartan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports
Big Ten opponents meet when the Nebraska Cornhuskers (2-3, 0-0 Big Ten) host the Northwestern Wildcats (2-2, 0-0 Big Ten) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Memorial Stadium. Nebraska is favored by 12 points. The over/under for the contest is set at 51.5.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Clemson Tigers vs. Boston College Eagles college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney (left) talks to an official during the first half against the North Carolina State Wolfpack at Carter-Finley Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Kinnan-USA TODAY Sports
The No. 25 Clemson Tigers (2-2, 0-0 ACC) are heavy, 14.5-point favorites at home at Memorial Stadium against the Boston College Eagles (4-0, 0-0 ACC) on Saturday, October 2, 2021. Both squads feature tough defenses, with the Tigers fifth in points per game allowed, and the Eagles 23rd. The contest's point total is 46.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Penn State Nittany Lions vs. Indiana Hoosiers college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; University Park, Pennsylvania, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin rings the victory bell following the completion of the game against the Villanova Wildcats at Beaver Stadium. Penn State defeated Villanova 38-17. Mandatory Credit: Matthew OHaren-USA TODAY Sports
Big Ten opponents square off when the No. 4 Penn State Nittany Lions (4-0, 0-0 Big Ten) host the Indiana Hoosiers (2-2, 0-0 Big Ten) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Beaver Stadium. Penn State is favored by 12.5 points. The point total for the game is set at 53.5.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Georgia Southern Eagles vs. Arkansas State Red Wolves college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 18, 2021; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Georgia Southern Eagles running back Gerald Green (4) signals first down after a run as offensive lineman Verneal Henshaw Jr. (94) celebrates the play against the Arkansas Razorbacks during the second quarter at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports
Oddsmakers expect a tight game between Sun Belt foes when the Georgia Southern Eagles (1-3, 0-0 Sun Belt) host the Arkansas State Red Wolves (1-3, 0-0 Sun Belt) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Allen E. Paulson Stadium. Arkansas State is a 1.5-point underdogs. The game's point total is set at 66.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the SMU Mustangs vs. South Florida Bulls college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 15, 2018; Madison, WI, USA; Silhouette view of a portion of Camp Randall Stadium during the game between the BYU Cougars and Wisconsin Badgers. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
AAC foes meet when the SMU Mustangs (4-0, 0-0 AAC) host the South Florida Bulls (1-3, 0-0 AAC) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. SMU is favored by 21 points. The total has been set at 68.5 points for this matchup.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Miami (OH) RedHawks vs. Central Michigan Chippewas college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 11, 2021; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck and Miami (OH) Redhawks head coach Chuck Martin chat at midfield prior to the game at Huntington Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports
MAC foes square off when the Miami (OH) RedHawks (1-3, 0-0 MAC) host the Central Michigan Chippewas (2-2, 0-0 MAC) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at Fred C. Yager Stadium. Miami (OH) is favored by 1 point. The game has an over/under of 56.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Ohio Bobcats vs. Akron Zips college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; Evanston, Illinois, USA; Ohio Bobcats head coach Tim Albin walks the sideline during the first half against the Northwestern Wildcats at Ryan Field. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
The Ohio Bobcats (0-4, 0-0 MAC) are 9.5-point favorites when they visit the Akron Zips (1-3, 0-0 MAC) in a MAC matchup on Saturday, October 2, 2021 at InfoCision Stadium-Summa Field. The contest has an over/under of 55.5 points.
Check out odds, insights and more in our betting preview for the Florida Atlantic Owls vs. Florida International Panthers college football matchup on October 2, 2021.
Sep 25, 2021; Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA; Florida Atlantic Owls running back Johnny Ford (5) runs through the tackle of Air Force Falcons cornerback David Eure (33) in the fourth quarter at Falcon Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
Oddsmakers heavily favor the Florida Atlantic Owls (2-2, 0-0 C-USA) when they host the Florida International Panthers (1-3, 0-0 C-USA) on Saturday, October 2, 2021 in a matchup between C-USA foes at FAU Stadium. Florida Atlantic is favored by 10.5 points. The over/under is set at 51.5.
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar will all be at centerstage at SoFi Stadium on Feb. 13, 2022, marking the first time the five icons will grace the stage together. This year's group of artists have a combined 43 Grammy awards, 19 No. 1 Billboard albums and five epic hitmakers.
“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dre said in a statement, per Billboard. “I’m grateful to JAY-Z, Roc Nation, the NFL and Pepsi as well as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar for joining me in what will be an unforgettable cultural moment.”
NFL's announcement floored fans across the country, some saying that they have been calling for this for years. And as ESPN's Kimberly Martin tweeted, "Say no more, NFL."
Here's what some of your favorite Twitter personalities and sports icons are saying about the upcoming legendary performance.
Former New England star Julian Edelman seemed to think so when he posted a well-crafted meme on Twitter of an awkward dinner party on the hit TV show, adding, "I. Declare. #GOATBOWL!"
Fans will immediately recognize the clip of when Michael Scott and his girlfriend Jan hosted a tension-filled dinner party. In Edelman's clip, Brady is Michael and hangs his Bucs' Super Bowl banner on the wall, and it's the Lombardi Trophy being hurled by Belichick.
Sunday will mark Brady's first time facing his former team since leaving in March 2020 for Tampa Bay. He led the Patriots to six Super Bowl titles over his 20 seasons, but the Patriots head coach still sings Brady's praises.
"Nothing Tom does surprises me," Belichick told reporters, per ESPN. "He's a great player, works hard, takes care of himself. He's talked about playing until 50. If anybody can do it, he probably can."
Brady is 68 yards away from becoming the league's all-time leader in passing yards, and will most likely pass Drew Brees's mark of 80,358 in the same stadium he played in for 20 seasons.
"He's done more than any other player at that position in whatever measurement you want to take—whether it's yards, completions, touchdowns, championships, you name it," Belichick said. "Put anything out there that you want; it doesn't get any tougher than that."
Meanwhile, Belichick has been in the center of multiple news reports throughout the week, the most recent being an excerpt from ESPN's Seth Wickersham's upcoming book where he reports owner Robert Kraft called the team's longtime coach the "biggest f------ ass---- in my life."
Dr. Dre, Eminem and Mary J. Blige are among a star-studded group of artists who will headline the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show, the NFL announced Thursday. The game will be played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., home to the Rams and Chargers.
"I'm extremely excited to share the stage with my friends for the #PepsiHalftime Show," Dr. Dre shared in a tweet. "This will introduce the next saga of my career. Bigger and Better than Ever!!!"
The halftime show also features two Los Angeles legends: Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar. This year's group of artists have a combined 43 Grammy awards, 19 No. 1 Billboard albums and five epic hitmakers.
This marks the third halftime performance collaboration between Roc Nation, Pepsi and the NFL. Last year, the Weeknd headlined the Super Bowl halftime show at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.
In addition to the halftime show, the league has collaborated to support the launch of the Region School No. 1, a magnet high school in south Los Angeles. The school, which is set to open for students in fall 2022, is based on the nationally-acclaimed USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre "Dr. Dre" Young Academy, a program that offers an education based on integrated design, technology and entrepreneurship.
We're less than a week from the conclusion of the 2021 regular season, and postseason field still isn't set as the chase for the World Series looms.
The National League field is almost complete, with the NL East race standing as the only unfinished battle. The Dodgers, Brewers, Giants and Cardinals have snagged four playoff spots, while Atlanta's magic number to clinch the NL East is now at one. As for the American League, the Rays and White Sox have clinched their respective divisions in the American League, and the Astros enter Thursday night with a magic number of one. The wild card race provides the real intrigue.
The Yankees enter Thursday at 90–68, one game ahead of Boston for the top wild-card spot. And a log jam sits below the two AL East powers. Seattle and Toronto enter Thursday night at 89–70 and 87–70, respectively, well within striking distance of both the Yankees and Red Sox. Such jumbled standing could lead to some serious chaos after Game 162.
So how would the various potential tiebreakers work? Let's dive into the options below:
Two teams tied for second wild card:
If two teams tie for the second wild-card spot, they will play a Game 163 on Monday, Oct. 4 before the wild card game.
Three-way tie for two wild-card spots.
In a three-way tie, the team with the best regular-season head-to-head record against each of the others will get to host the first tiebreaker game, with the winner advancing automatically to the wild card. The loser would then face the third team the next day, with the winner of that matchup earning the second wild-card spot.
Four-way tie for two wild-card spots:
This is actually a fairly simple scenario, in which a four-team bracket is created to find the final two playoff teams. Home field would be determined by the combined winning percentage against the other three teams.
The North Carolina Courage have fired coach Paul Riley in the wake of a report from The Athletic which detailed former players accusing Riley of sexual coercion.
The Courage said in a statement that following the "very serious allegations of misconduct" leveled against Riley, the club terminated his contract. The team said it "support[s] the players who have come forward and we commend them for bravely sharing their stories."
NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement that she was "shocked and disgusted" to read the new allegations reported by The Athletic on Thursday, and that in addition to the team firing Riley, the league is reporting the allegations to the United States Center for SafeSport for investigation.
One of the former players, Sinead Farrelly, detailed to The Athletic a 2011 incident in which she alleges Riley coerced her into having sex with him and spending the night in his room. The sexual coercion toward Farrelly, who is now retired, continued during the offseason as well while she played for a semi-pro team Riley coached on Long Island in ’12, she said.
Both Farrelly and another player, Mana Shim, detailed another incident in 2015 when Riley led both of the Portland Thorns teammates to his hotel room after a night of drinking and pressured them to kiss each other as he watched. He also sent an unsolicited lurid picture of himself to both, they players said. Other unnamed Thorns players from the 2014–15 season said Riley also made inappropriate remarks about their weight and sexual orientation.
Following The Athletic's publication of the story, the National Women's Soccer League Players Association called for an investigation into the allegations against Riley, and an investigation as to how Riley was rehired in the NWSL by the Western New York Flash in 2016, just months after allegations of misconduct were first brought against him in ’15.
Players from around the soccer world have voiced their support for Farrelly, Shim, Kaiya McCullough (who was part of a Washington Post investigation into former Spirit coach Richie Burke) and others who spoke on the record or otherwise to detail issues of harassment within the sport.
The players’ union additionally called for the suspension of anyone working within the league who violated its anti-harassment policy for a safe work environment—whether the conduct occurred before or after the policy's implementation in 2021—and said it was creating an anonymous hotline for players to report abuse.
The league said in its statement that it was also "implementing a new anonymous reporting process" as a means to try to make the league a "safe, positive and respectful environment for our players, clubs, staff and fans."
Riley, 58, had been with North Carolina's organization since 2016 (the club, previously known as the Western New York Flash, relocated in ’17) and has been a soccer coach at various levels for more than two decades.
He responded to a list of nearly two-dozen questions from The Athletic by saying that the majority of the allegations are “completely untrue.”
The Courage are next set to play on Friday against the Spirit. Assistant Sean Nahas has been named interim head coach for the remainder of the season, the club said.
Inside how the Raptors big man is preparing for his first season in Toronto.
Precious Achiuwa has witnessed college basketball, sunny skies along the shoreline of South Beach in Miami and an unexpected transition to Toronto all in the last 19 months.
The 22-year-old experienced an incomplete college basketball season at the University of Memphis due to the coronavirus pandemic coupled with the NBA pushing back the 2020 NBA draft—initially scheduled for June 25 to Nov. 18—and playing in his first regular season game with the Heat more than a month later. Achiuwa didn’t know what to expect.
“Everything happened so fast,” says Achiuwa. “One day I was getting ready for the draft, then training camp and the next thing I know, I'm playing on Christmas Day. I grew up watching basketball on Christmas Day with my family. …I remember talking to the vets on the team and them saying ‘this isn’t how the NBA usually is for a season, but this was all that I knew.’”
Achiuwa joined a Heat squad led by five-time NBA All-Star Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and a host of role players that included Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder, Goran Dragić, Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson. Miami was looking to make another run toward a NBA title after the Heat made an unexpected surge in the Bubble—defeating Indiana, Milwaukee and Boston—to face LeBron James and the Lakers in the NBA Finals.
“When you’re a rookie coming into all of this, everything is new to you,” Achiuwa says. “The way those guys approached the game… they came in and worked in practice, workouts, games… they helped me appreciate the little things about the game.”
Achiuwa, who averaged 5.4 points while shooting 54.4% from the floor and grabbing 3.4 rebounds through 61 games, spent countless hours doing basketball workouts followed by movement drills as well as sprints to help him stay in shape during the long NBA season.
“I wanted to be mentally tough,” Achiuwa says. “You’re not going to make every shot in the workout but being mentally tough, pushing through when you’re fatigued and getting more reps of the same things over and over until it becomes second nature, that’s how you build habits.”
And those habits, the 6' 9" forward and center says, stemmed from watching and interacting with Adebayo and the other veterans.
“Bam [Adebayo] was one of the first guys to reach out to me about workouts and telling me what coaches were looking for being that played the same position,” Achiuwa says. “Jimmy [Butler] and the other vets helped me understand how to be a pro and I will forever cherish that."
Last season, the Heat dealt with tons of injuries and tied for third in the league among teams dealing with health and safety protocols related to COVID-19, leading to an eventual early exit in the playoffs as the Bucks swept them in the first round.
Following the early postseason exit, in conjunction with Miami looking to win another championship sooner rather than later, the Raptors acquired Achiuwa and Dragić from the Heat in a sign-and-trade deal in exchange for Kyle Lowry on Aug. 6.
Achiuwa—who became more familiar with Raptors coach Nick Nurse, the coaching staff, and players on the team in summer league play—says the transition has been different.
But after all, Achiuwa is no stranger to transition as he moved to the United States in the eighth grade after living in his birthplace of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. In Toronto, Achiuwa joins a Raptors squad that will return Pascal Siakam (torn labrum in left shoulder) by Thanksgiving, OG Anunoby, Chris Boucher, Khem Birch, Dragić (his Miami teammate), Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr., and the young promising rookie Scottie Barnes.
Although Toronto has faced some hurdles and struggles since its championship season in 2019, Raptors general manager Bobby Webster has winning expectations.
“We’re not going to label anything, but our expectations are always to win, to be competitive,” Webster said during the team’s media day. “There is a core that has won and so we’ll just be fitting pieces around those players. We expect to compete every night and I think we will surprise some people.”
Achiuwa, who brings his work ethic in training and attention to detail to ‘The North’, becomes part of a Raptors’ team with 12 players between 6' 7" and 6' 9" and a unit that could showcase more zone defense this season. For Achiuwa, it means the opportunity to help his team by crashing the boards, playing solid defense and blocking shots.
“He is big and strong and athletic and kind of plays tough. …He’s got a competitive sense about him when he’s on the floor,” Nurse told reporters during the team’s Media Day on Monday. “He doesn’t just go grab boards; he takes rebounds.”
As the Raptors prepare to open the regular season on Oct. 20 against the Wizards, the forward flashed the idea of showcasing more on the hardwood during summer league action, something he has not done since his days in a Memphis uniform.
“He can take the ball coast-to-coast… he can beat his man from the perimeter off the dribble to the rim, his shooting is coming as well,” Nurse said. “There’s going to be mistakes obviously with somebody learning a new system…but he’s got the tools, the size, the speed to be a really good defender and capable on offense.”
While Achiuwa’s days in a Heat uniform are done, the training and workouts prepared him the moment he has now.
“It was hard coming into the league in a COVID-19 environment,” Achiuwa says. “I was learning on the fly. But the things I learned from Miami; I have applied them to my game now.”
What happens when your DC leaves for another job … at a school on your schedule that fall? The Bearcats find out this week.
The weekly ritual of football game planning is hard enough—and then, sometimes, circumstances add a fourth layer to the three-dimensional chess match of scheming for an opponent.
What happens when you don’t just know the opposing coordinator, but you know him? You know how he coaches and how he thinks. You know his situational proclivities and the rhythms of his play-calling. And you know that he knows the same things about you. That is the challenge for Cincinnati’s coaching staff as it prepares to face Notre Dame on Saturday, because Irish defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman spent four years as an architect of the Bearcats’ Blackcat defense.
“You can know too much,” Cincy coach Luke Fickell says. “Then, when you know too much you try to stop everything, and it makes it difficult because there’s only so much that you can do and only so much that you can expect kids to understand. Sometimes knowing too much is not a good thing.”
If you need to get all the way to a sixth degree of separation to connect any two major college football coaches, you probably aren’t looking in the right place. Consider Fickell and Freeman’s overlaps. Fickell, a standout defensive lineman at Ohio State in the mid-1990s, was a graduate assistant with the Buckeyes in ’99 before leaving to coach at Akron for two years. In 2001, when the Zips played the Buckeyes, he knew OSU’s personnel but not the coaching staff, as it was Jim Tressel’s first year at the helm. Fickell would soon become acquainted when he went to work for Tressel and Ohio State in various roles from ’02 to ’16 (Tressel’s nephew Mike is the current Cincinnati defensive coordinator, replacing Freeman).
As linebackers coach in Columbus, Fickell coached Freeman directly as the Buckeyes made it to back-to-back national title games in the 2006 and ’07 seasons. Freeman went on to the NFL, where he had to medically retire, and then surprised his old coach in ’10 by calling to ask to join the Buckeyes’ coaching staff as a graduate assistant.
Freeman, now the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, previously held the same position at Cincinnati for four seasons.
Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports; Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer/USA TODAY Network
“I don’t think this is what you really want to do,” Fickell recalls telling Freeman. He said Freeman was so smart and not the typical “meathead that only wants to play football and coach football.”
Fickell tried to send him under Ohio State AD Gene Smith’s wing and down the administrative route. But when a different football GA was unable to join the staff, as Fickell tells it, Freeman came on in the end and was a graduate assistant for a year before beginning his assistant career in full with stints at Kent State and Purdue under Darrell Hazell (a former Ohio State assistant coach).
In 2016 the Purdue coaches were fired and Fickell was hired at Cincinnati. Freeman and another assistant were among the first calls Fickell made to put a staff together. Freeman temporarily moved into Fickell’s Columbus home to help put plans in place for the full move to the Queen City. Fickell was working two jobs at the time, getting his Buckeyes defense ready to play a College Football Playoff game by day and building a plan for the Bearcats with roommates Freeman and running backs coach Doug Phillips by night.
Any familiarity with Ohio State didn’t help much when it faced the playoff-bound Buckeyes early in the 2019 season, but a few weeks later, the chief innovation of Freeman’s time in Cincinnati got a full debut against UCF: a new base defense to take space away from increasingly spread-out offenses in the AAC.
Freeman and the defensive staff came into that season expecting to stick with the base four-down linemen D that powered them to 11 wins in 2018, but days before the ’19 season started, one of the team’s starting safeties was lost for the year with a knee injury. His replacement’s strong suit wasn’t playing down in the box manned up against a slot receiver. So the Bearcats tinkered with substituting a defensive lineman off the field and adding a fifth defensive back, dubbed the “dollar” safety. The move took some getting used to for Fickell, a four-down guy at heart, but it paid dividends and the Knights scored only 24 points (their second-lowest in any game from ’17 to ’20) against Cincy’s Dollar. The Bearcats went on to the AAC title game.
Notre Dame declined to make Freeman available for this story, but Freeman did speak to Chris Vasseur of the Make Defense Great Again podcast in March about that Cincinnati defense.
“The whole premise of it was that we wanted to put people in space,” he said on the podcast. “When you play the UCFs, you play the Tulsas, you play the Houstons now, some of those spread teams that make you defend 53 ⅓ blades of grass [the width of a football field] … a lot of these RPO teams, a lot of these Air Raid teams are looking for space.”
The defense has some similarities to the tite front popularized by Iowa State, albeit with different principles built in regarding use of man coverage and how players fit the run. That ISU defense is coordinated by Jon Heacock, who was Freeman’s defensive coordinator at Kent State. Heacock’s brother, Jim, also coached at Ohio State from 1996 to 2011, overlapping heavily with both Fickell and Freeman.
At Notre Dame, Freeman took over a defense that had made its bones for years under Clark Lea with a 4-2-5 base (replacing a linebacker with a hybrid defensive end while still using five defensive backs). He’s not running the exact system he ran at Cincinnati so far, but there are many similarities.
“There are some nuances to what [the Irish] do now that are different than when they were here, so it’ll be interesting to game-plan those and see what things we feel like we can do,” Cincinnati offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock says. “So, as much as it is the same structure defensively to a certain extent, there’s also some new things that they’ve added to it and some changes they’ve made to the base way that they played defense when Marcus was here that’ll make it a little more of a challenge for sure.”
Those changes are garnering results. Against both Purdue and Wisconsin, the Irish were very stout after shaky opening performances against Florida State and Toledo.
So with all of the Bearcats’ knowledge of Freeman and how he approaches the game, what’s usable? That’s the question for them to sift through during this week of game-planning.
Denbrock and Cincinnati passing game coordinator Gino Guidugli immediately used the same word when describing what kind of play-caller Freeman is: “aggressive.” That comes through in how the DC described his approach to defense to Vasseur.
“I’m not trying to beat you in a chess match; that’s not my philosophy,” Freeman said. “I believe that hey, we’re going to be multiple, but we’re going to do what we do in terms of our kids are not gonna get confused. They’re gonna get good at the things we ask them to do.”
Freeman believes playing hard and playing physical is a fundamental skill that can be improved upon, and instead of spending a lot of time trying to have an answer for every route combo an offense can give you, one should work on fundamentals and be great at those.
“Are you playing defenses or are you playing defense?” Freeman said on Make Defense Great Again.
Cincinnati’s coaches know to expect a boatload of man coverage, but Guidugli says they’re noticing more zone coverage out of Notre Dame than they came to expect from Freeman at Cincinnati. It’s not just the staff’s familiarity with some of the defensive looks it may go against; it’s the players’ as well. While the Bearcats have not yet faced whatever changes Freeman is employing in South Bend, they play against the defense all the time in spring practice and fall camp.
Yes, Freeman and Denbrock know each other as opposing play-callers, but that is not rare in this profession—although it adds some juice to Saturday’s top-10 clash. Nobody has more familiarity with Notre Dame in general than Denbrock. He coached with Brian Kelly at Grand Valley State in the 1990s and at ND with Kelly from 2010 to ’16.
Denbrock knows Freeman better than most defensive coordinators, and vice versa. What advantage it affords either side will play out on the field. There are X’s and O’s micro advantages to consider, but there is also the Jimmys and Joes element of coaching against a friend.
It would be easier if there was some animosity, but Denbrock assures that there isn’t. The motivation of going up against a friend is what makes this week truly special.
“It’s like you and your brother out in the driveway playing basketball,” he says. “No way did you ever want your brother to ever beat you because you’d have to sit at the dinner table and listen to it. It’s kinda the same type of mentality.
“Lifelong friendships aren’t at stake over the outcome of the game on Saturday, but quite frankly, catching the crap you’re gonna have to deal with for losing the game is not gonna be easy.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr is the favorite to replace Gregg Popovich as the men's head coach of USA Basketball, Marc Stein reports.
Kerr, 56, served as an assistant coach on Popovich's staff as Team USA won gold in Tokyo. He is a three-time champion as a head coach in addition to winning five titles as a player. As Golden State's coach, he hoisted the Larry O'Brien Trophy in 2015, '17 and '18.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is also a candidate to replace Popovich at the 2024 Paris Olympics, though his candidacy may be hurt by having no previous Olympic experience, per Stein.
Former Duke star and seven-time NBA All-Star Grant Hill will spearhead the search for Popovich’s replacement. Hill replaces Jerry Colangelo, whose tenure as USA Basketball’s managing director ended after the Tokyo Games.
Kansas City's wide receivers have struggled to earn consistent production early in the season. In the Chiefs' 30-24 loss to the Chargers on Sunday, tight end Travis Kelce led the team in receiving yards (104) while all other receivers combining for a total of 156 yards.
"Everywhere he's been, he's kind of dominated,'' Mahomes told reporters on Wednesday about Gordon."He can make plays in one-on-one coverage.
"He's a big receiver. Even if he's covered, he's not covered. You can kind of throw it up there and he can make plays.''
Gordon practiced with the team on Wednesday. However, Gordon will start off as a member of the practice squad. He was reinstated by the league after being suspended indefinitely in December 2019 for violating the league's substance-abuse policy.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said it would take a while before Gordon would be elevated to the team's active roster.
"He's probably not going to play this week," Reid said. "We'll just see how it goes over the next week or two."
Mahomes told reporters that he expects Gordon to be used in multiple roles in the Chiefs' offense.
"I'm sure they'll incorporate him with a couple roles in the offense as the season goes on, as we get him up to speed, and we'll see where that takes us."
Currently, Kansas City (1-2) sits last in the AFC West for the first time since 2015. The Chiefs will go on the road to face the Eagles on Sunday.
Klete Keller, a five-time Olympic swimming medalist, agreed to a plea bargain after facing seven federal charges for participating in the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Former U.S. Olympic medalist Klete Keller has pled guilty to charges stemming from his participation in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times reports. Keller was facing seven federal charges, and on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding. He is cooperating with authorities.
“At the time, I acted to affect the government by stopping or delaying the Congressional proceeding, and, in fact, did so,” Keller wrote in a statement of offense. “I accomplished this by intimidating or coercing government personnel who were participating in or supporting the Congressional proceeding.”
The maximum sentence for this count is 20 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines for an offense of this level call for 21 to 27 months. Keller's sentencing date has not yet been set. Other consequences include losing the rights to vote or own firearms.
Keller, 39, was one of the most recognizable people involved in the Capitol riots, given his athletic achievements and tall stature. He was formally charged on Jan. 13 and turned himself into authorities shortly after.
Keller won gold in the 4x200 meter freestyle relay at the 2004 Games in Athens, and again in 2008 in Beijing. He also won a silver medal for the same event at the 2000 Games in Sydney, and won bronze for the 400-meter freestyle in 2000 and 2004.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio made a public statement on Wednesday urging Nets star Kyrie Irving to receive the COVID-19 vaccinated.
"I’m a fan of Kyrie," the mayor said on CNN. "I would just appeal to him—get vaccinated.
“Your fans want to see you. We all want you back. Your teammates want you back. Look, there are teams now that are 100% vaccinated. That’s a great example to everybody else.”
While de Blasio wants to see Irving on the court, the seven-time NBA All-Star declined to comment on his vaccination status on Monday during the Nets Media Day via Zoom saying that he wants to "keep that stuff private."
Irving did not attend Brooklyn's media day in person due to New York City's health and safety protocols. In addition, Irving's status to play in home games is uncertain as the city is requiring players to have proof of vaccination to enter large indoor events, including basketball games unless a player obtains an exemption of some kind.
"Living in this public sphere, there's a lot of questions about what's going on in the world of Kyrie, and I would love to just keep that private and handle that the right way with my team and go forward with a plan," Irving said, via Zoom on Monday.
A story from Rolling Stone over the weekend noted Irving's distrust of the coronavirus vaccine. The article noted that the Nets guard began to like Instagram posts and follow an account that claims "secret societies" are implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for “a plan of Satan."
While Irving has stood on the decision to not be vaccinated, de Blasio has faith that Irving may change his decision and has not let his fans down.
"We have weeks and weeks before the season begins,” the mayor said. “I think his fans are going to say to him, ‘C’mon, join us, help us, let’s keep everyone safe—keep your own family safe, keep your teammates safe, keep your community safe.”
The Nets open preseason play on Oct. 3 against the Lakers.
"Nothing Tom does surprises me," Belichick told reporters, per ESPN. "He's a great player, works hard, takes care of himself. He's talked about playing until 50. If anybody can do it, he probably can."
The two won six Super Bowls together with the Patriots. In Brady's first year in Tampa Bay, he won his seventh Lombardi Trophy.
"Tom's had an unbelievable career," Belichick said. "There's not enough superlatives and adjectives to compliment him on everything that he's achieved and continues to achieve. It's unbelievably impressive."
Brady, 44, is just 68 yards away from becoming the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards. He will most likely pass Drew Brees's mark of 80,358 this Sunday in the same stadium he played in for 20 seasons. Kickoff is set for 8:20 p.m. ET.
"He's done more than any other player at that position in whatever measurement you want to take—whether it's yards, completions, touchdowns, championships, you name it," Belichick said. "Put anything out there that you want; it doesn't get any tougher than that."
Time and time again, Cristiano Ronaldo has proved to be the difference maker for Manchester United—and he's only played five games so far this season.
On Wednesday against Villarreal, Ronaldo played the hero once again with a 95th-minute match-winner that sent Old Trafford into a frenzy. Tied at 1-1 in stoppage time, Ronaldo headed a cross into the box only to see the ball played back to him at a tight angle.
But the Portuguese star made no mistake to clinch the winner, finishing past Villarreal goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli before ripping his shirt off in celebration as his teammates chased him to the corner flag.
It was already a historic night for Ronaldo, who passed former Real Madrid teammate Iker Casillas as the all-time Champions League appearances leader with 178. The forward also made his 900th career club appearance while scoring his 679th club goal.
Ronaldo has scored five goals in five games for United this season, failing to score in only one game (United's weekend loss to Aston Villa). But the goal against Villarreal, his 14th in 20 games against the Spanish side, earned United a crucial three points after it lost in stoppage time to Young Boys in its first Champions League group stage match.
In what was a rematch of last year's Europa League final, in which Villarreal won in an extraordinary penalty-kick shootout that finished 11-10, the Yellow Submarine took the lead behind Paco Alcácer's 53rd-minute goal. But Alex Telles evened the score seven minutes later with a spectacular volley from 20 yards.
Next up for United and Ronaldo is a weekend home match against Everton before the October international break. The Red Devils current sit tied on points with Young Boys in its Champions League group, one point behind group leader Atalanta.
The reigning NL Rookie of the Year said he had too much to drink, got upset about something and punched a wall. He'll now need surgery on his pitching hand.
As the Brewers celebrated their second National League Central title in four years, Devin Williams's season likely came to an end as he fractured his right hand.
The relief pitcher told reporters on Wednesday that he had too much to drink, got upset about something and punched a wall. Williams will now need surgery on his pitching hand and is likely out for the remainder of the season.
General managerDavid Stearns told reporters that if Milwaukee made it to the World Series, there is a chance Williams could be back for it. But for now, he's being placed on the 10-day IL.
Unless he returns, Williams ends the season with a 2.50 ERA and 2.81 FIP over 54 innings.
A 1–0 win over Chelsea in the UCL group stage does not cure everything, but it could serve as a foundational moment for a side that is a shell of its previous dominant self.
One result shouldn’t change a season, but Juventus’s victory over reigning European champion Chelsea on Wednesday mattered far more than just three points in their Champions League group. The 1–0 win was about Juventus reasserting itself, regaining some equilibrium and offering, at last, some hope that its second stint under Max Allegri might be somewhere near as successful as his first.
Juve has not been anywhere near its best recently. It took just two points from its opening four games of the Serie A campaign and has since limped to a pair of unconvincing 3–2 victories. The simplistic explanation is to point out that Cristiano Ronaldo has left for Manchester United, and it is of course true that his goals–81 of them over three seasons in the league–helped paper over a lot of cracks. But then, he was in part responsible for many of those cracks; or, to put it more generously, his signing for €100 million in 2018 was part of a more general policy that has undermined the supremacy Juve had previously enjoyed.
When Allegri left the club in 2019, Juve had won eight league titles in a row, five of them under him. He had also won the Coppa Italia four times and taken Juve to two Champions League finals. Juve was, very clearly, one of the best sides in the world at the time. The addition of Ronaldo and his goals at great expense in 2018—after he had helped Real Madrid eliminate Juve from the Champions League in the quarterfinals earlier that year with a stunning overhead kick—was supposed to secure success in Europe. Instead, Juve promptly went out of the next Champions League in the quarterfinals to Ajax, at which point the club lost the plot.
Removing Allegri was essentially an acknowledgement that Juve was bored with domestic success. This is the superclub dilemma, to be so big that domestic success means nothing. Juve, bafflingly, appointed Maurizio Sarri as coach. He had been highly critical of Juve when he was Napoli coach, and his style of football demanded complete buy-in from the players. There was no obvious place in his system for an individualistic forward like Ronaldo. Juve remained all-powerful domestically and won Serie A, but this time the Champions League exit came in the last 16, against Lyon.
So Allegri left and was replaced by Andrea Pirlo, a club legend and a very fine player, but somebody with no experience as a manager. Juve again went out of the Champions League in the last 16, this time to Porto, but the more shocking evidence of decline came in Serie A, as it finished fourth, upon which the club came to its senses, restored Allegri and moved on from Ronaldo.
The difficult start to this season is a hangover from those past three years. What was it Juve wanted? Bringing in Ronaldo—which directors still insist was a glorious triumph in terms of raising the profile of the club, a claim that, if true, essentially means that transfers and celebrity are now more important in football than actually winning trophies—was a move that suggested an intention of replicating Real Madrid’s model of success, of having big players who won the moments (although how possible that is without a midfield that offered the control Casemiro, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos did is debatable). But appointing Sarri suggested a desire for a modern, integrated team-oriented approach. It could not work. Ronaldo’s signing stifled the tactical development of the team.
The season after Ronaldo arrived, Juve’s net spend was €20.5 million. Last summer it was €30.7 million. This summer it was €500,000. By the standards of the superclubs, even taking COVID-19 into account, these are tiny sums—and a lot of what has been spent is on loan fees, not even signings themselves. Ronaldo’s signing stifled the economic development of the team.
There are a number of very fine players at Juventus. But the problem is they have not been bought to a plan, and the past two seasons have been characterized by tactical confusion. Whether Allegri is the man to put it right can be debated—there was a sense before he left that he was a little reactive in approach, that he did not follow the proactivity that dominates the modern game—but whoever is in charge will need time to sort out the mess.
In the second half on Wednesday, there were signs of what he is aiming to achieve. With playing Chelsea tentatively, as it has been for a few weeks, Juve looked explosively quick, and won the game 10 seconds into the half with a goal from one of its brightest young talents, Federico Chiesa.
That does not mean everything is suddenly fixed, that Juventus is back to being truly among the best, but at least Allegri knows what a functional Juve now looks like.
