mat Page 54 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Week 14 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser and Prop Bets
Writing these primers while sick isn’t fun. An instant cure all, though, would be securing another winning week. The streak is at five straight entering this slate....

Heisman? Ho-hum, man
Bryce Young is certainly a deserving Heisman Trophy winner. Alabama’s sophomore quarterback has thrown for 4,322 yards with 43 touchdowns and four interceptions this season, completed 68 percent of his passes, and despite not being a big-time runner, carried three scores in himself....

Give Justin Jefferson his flowers (and a QB) you cowards!
Lost in Minnesota trying to kick their fans in the junk again Thursday night like they have so many times this season — or last — was the performance of Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson....

Rutgers’ Ron Harper Jr. beats No. 1 Purdue on heave at the buzzer, sets New Jersey ablaze
The best buzzer beaters are the ones when the play-by-play guy’s reaction is all our reactions, when he just screams because, like the rest of us, yelling is the only reaction....

Jeff Hardy was everyone’s favorite wrestler
If I told you I spent most of my freshman year of college doing The Hardy Boyz finger-guns entrance pose in the dorm hall with a couple buddies, A. you would hardly be shocked and B. I would only be one of several hundred thousand college freshmen in that year doing so. The main point of being a wre...

New NIL program gives Texas O-linemen big paydays
The saying goes “Everything is bigger in Texas.” Well, with a new NIL program set up by Texas nonprofit organization, Horns with Heart, some of the biggest people in Texas will be doing much better financially....

It’s almost time for college football’s most vacuous tradition: Bowl season! We tell you which bowl games are worth watching and why
Christmas approaches quickly, but college football fans are acutely aware that the real late December holiday is bowl season. Just when visions of the CFB content stream finally slowing to a crawl is dancing in your head, the NCAA presents the most meaningless postseason tradition in American sports...

Here’s what Cooper Kupp was talking about
The Los Angeles Rams demolished the Jacksonville Jaguars last Sunday. I guess the Rams were tired of losing after going winless through November. The Rams took their frustrations out on rookie head coach Urban Meyer and rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Matt Stafford threw for three touchdowns in ...

Major League Soccer has a better ‘Rooney Rule’ than the NFL
Eighteen years ago, the most prejudiced sports league in American professional sports (Major League Baseball is a close second) created their version of “affirmative action” when they came up with the Rooney Rule — named after the legendary Steelers owner Dan Rooney — in hopes of helping diverse can...

A cover letter template for the college coach trying to leave a program near you
Coaches pushing their services like politicians trying to nab a presidential bid is my favorite part of any busy offseason. The season isn’t even over, and schools and coaching are already rushing to ship each other for that rose to keep them on The Bachelor: Sex Island....

Oregon picking over suspect Thanksgiving coaching leftovers after flurry of hires
Mario Cristobal is taking his talents to South Beach and is out the door at Oregon after Utah hit him in the ass with it. (Looking at the judges to see I get credit for two cliches in a lede. And… yes, “taking his talents to South Beach” qualifies.) The hire for Miami is seemingly a home run because...

Divock Origi, the club legend who never plays
Every fandom has their cult heroes who seemingly drop in out of the sky and provide a lifelong memory. Phillies fans have Matt Stairs. Bulls fans have Steve Kerr, to an extent (Kerr was a fine player but he does seem an odd choice from the gods to hit a title-clinching shot, no? Then again, he did i...

The Flyers needed to fire Alain Vigneault last year
The Philadelphia Flyers fired coach Alain Vigneault on Monday, and the truth is it should have come sooner, and it’s probably not enough....

Week 13 NFL Powerless Ranking: Detroit finally wakes from nightmare
Welcome to this week’s NFL Powerless Rankings. We’re closing in on the home stretch of the NFL season, and we know the contenders from the pretenders at this point. We’ll talk about the contenders later because this list is about the less fortunate teams in the league. Let’s check out the worst of t...

Management in Europe remains an unclaimed frontier for Yanks
While more and more American players populate the playing squads of clubs across Europe, that hasn’t spurred more esteem for American managers in the game’s bedrock. After today, only Pelligrino Matarazzo of Stuttgart remains in the Big 5 leagues, or really anywhere significant. That’s because, afte...

Week 13 NFL Betting Primer: Best Over/Under, Spread, Teaser and Prop Bets
The weekly player prop is starting to become a curse of sorts, after another player succumbed to injury and cost us. Fortunately, it didn’t cost a winning week....

Clock ticking on Big Ben
The news that Ben Roethlisberger “expects this to be his final season playing quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers,” as Adam Schefter reported, is some big-time “duh” stuff....

Who needs D? Not the NHL
“The best defense is a good offense.” — George Washington — Michael Jordan...

MLB teams want a 2021 Platinum Glove winner to change positions?
Stop the free agent talk! The lockout has commenced and with it there will be no more free agent signings until MLB and the MLB Players’ Association agree on a new CBA for the next five years. That being said, there are still several big-name free agents who remained unsigned through the Wednesday C...

Here’s a workaround for enjoying Alabama’s talent without enduring ‘Roll Tide!’ chants
As a life ethos, I don’t watch Alabama unless it’s the title game. Not the SEC title game, THE title game. I take that back, I watch the title game and as much of the Tennessee-Alabama game as my girlfriend can stand. They’re too good even for their loaded conference, so save for a title game or ups...