div Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Finally, Ole Miss gets its 1960 title back… and last year’s national title… and every national title in between
Ole Miss has never won an outright national championship, splitting the honors with Minnesota in 1960, when the Rebels were ranked No. 1 by the Football Writers Association of America and the Golden Gophers were tabbed as the top squad by The Associated Press....

College football teams, embrace your championship history, but don’t be like Nebraska with Scott Frost
It’s not 1971, it’s not 1983, it’s not 1995, it’s not even 2001, but Nebraska it can’t be like this. They haven’t finished a season at or above .500 since 2016. Since Scott Frost became coach in 2018, they’ve finished with a winning percentage better than .400 once. Nebraska is making some changes, ...

ESPN should replace Michigan State with Villanova in the Champions Classic
Villanova is a better basketball program than Michigan State. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The Wildcats have more program wins and national titles than the Spartans....

Northwestern students’ ‘defund police’ protest probably isn’t what you think it is
Finally, something interesting about Northwestern football. ...

James Madison gets its moment in the Sun (Belt)
Conference realignment trickle-down has officially reached the Football Championship Series, as the Sun Belt Conference officially announced the addition of James Madison University Saturday by a unanimous vote of its members’ CEOs....

Are the Golden Knights too hurt to trade for Jack Eichel?
The NHL’s biggest on-ice soap opera, the Jack Eichel trade derby, appears to have rounded the final turn. Last night, ESPN’s Emily Kaplan said that the Calgary Flames and Vegas Golden Knights are the finalists. Both teams are fine with the neck procedure Eichel wants but that the Sabres wouldn’t all...

It’s not time to push the panic button on the Dallas Stars
It’s been three weeks since the start of the NHL season. In those three weeks, the Dallas Stars have played nine games, but have only scored nine goals 5-on-5. That’s the fewest of any team in the league, and these struggles at even strength have led many fans wondering what’s going on. Jason Robert...

CFP Rankings: Could Michigan State come in as the 2-seed?
Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, the first official rankings for the College Football Playoff will be announced. We can all safely assume that Georgia will hold the top spot, but the second spot is where things start to get interesting. There are several teams who could make an argument for the two-seed. ...

So much for that NCAA Election Day off for student athletes
In September 2020, the NCAA announced that it would make Election Day a mandatory day off for student athletes, with no competitions or practices allowed to take place on the first Tuesday of November. This ruling came out just a few weeks prior to a presidential election that saw widespread attempt...

The Blackhawks are forced to face their reckoning, 11 years too late
The details are always worse than you can imagine, even if the overall arc of the story is exactly what we all expected. And so it proved as the Chicago Blackhawks released the findings of their internal investigation into how the organization handled accusations of sexual assault and harrassment by...

This Bulls team is legit
No more bullshit in Chicago — these Bulls are good....

We’re not even getting the best teams in this year’s World Series
The fourth and 12th-best teams in baseball will meet in the World Series, as Atlanta wrapped up its first pennant in 22 years with a 4-2 triumph over the Dodgers in Game 6 of the NLCS on Saturday night. ...

Someone please explain San Jose’s hot start for me
I know it’s early, but how in the world are the San Jose Sharks 4-0? There is nothing about this team that jumps off the page when you look at their roster. In fact, their roster looks filled to the brim with huge, unfulfilling contracts attached to players way past their prime, unproven youngsters,...

He may still be Mad Max, but he’s also a weary warrior right now
The Braves are facing down the possibility of blowing a 3-1 lead to the Dodgers in the NLCS for the second year in a row after an 11-2 rout in Los Angeles last night. As they head back home to Atlanta, the Braves’ offense prepares to face Max Scherzer in Game 6 — a sentence that’s not as daunting as...

Nick Rolovich would like everyone to know he feels very persecuted
Much to Washington State’s chagrin, their Nick Rolovich troubles aren’t over yet (and that doesn’t even count his 5-6 record with the Cougars). After Rolovich received several warnings from the Washington State University administration and athletic department that he would be removed as head coach ...

Can we make a ‘Habs-not’ joke real quick?
It was no secret that this season was going to be tougher for the Montreal Canadiens. They had to sneak into the playoffs last year when all they had to do was beat out the rest of the trash Canadian teams, and then went on a run because Carey Price was able to channel 2014 for a few weeks. ...

If anybody in the Pacific is going to disappoint, it’s Golden State
We here at Deadspin sometimes have differing opinions. That might be hard to believe, but it’s true, and as we get closer to the start of the NBA season, many of us have conflicting ideas on how the season will play out. For example, my co-worker Criss Partee believes that with a healthy Klay Thomps...

2021 NBA Central Division Preview: Woe is the Cleveland Cavaliers
This is a hard division to diagnose. But I believe of all the possible letdowns in the Central, the Cavaliers are most likely to disappoint....

2021 NBA Atlantic Division Preview: Why the Knicks will let you down this season
When spring rolls around, the New York Knicks will be in the playoffs. It will be the first time the franchise has made consecutive trips to the postseason since the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons. But, that doesn’t mean that they’re going to win a series — something they haven’t done in almost a d...

2021 NBA Southeast Division Preview: The Hawks are going to break your heart
The Atlanta Hawks appeared in the franchise’s second Eastern Conference Finals last season, and their fans are preparing for what they think could be another long playoff run this year. In 2015-16, the Hawks ran into LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East Finals, resulting in a 4-0 Cav...