Cincinnati, meanwhile, was trying to justify that it belonged on the same field. The Bearcats (13-1) were also carrying the banner for schools outside the so-called Power 5 conferences — the Southeastern, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast and Pacific-12 — and the independent Notre Dame. No school outside of that privileged class, where most […]
“He wants to be helpful, but if you screwed up, you were going to be accountable for that,” said Greg McGarity, who was then a top official at Florida and later spent a decade as Georgia’s athletic director. “He was not a get-out-of-jail-free-type person. If you violated rules, especially intentionally, he had no patience for […]
In this malleable, ebb-and-flow pandemic world, there may be one certainty gleaned from the last nearly two years of living with the coronavirus: that here and there may not look very much alike. When New York City was all sirens, silence and grim isolation during the first wave of the pandemic, it was easy for […]
The Vikings (7-8) expect to return the star running back Dalvin Cook from the Covid-19 list. Completing the season sweep of Green Bay (at Lambeau Field) is probably too tall a task, but Minnesota could cover — and edge its way into a playoff berth — if it feeds Cook during a night game in […]
Trip Hawkins first met John Madden in the dining car of an Amtrak train traveling from Denver to Oakland, Calif., in 1984, after Madden had agreed to lend his name and football prowess to a football simulation video game. Madden, the legendary coach and broadcaster, quickly made it clear who would be calling the shots. […]
It was at San Diego, in November 1966, that Madden first encountered Davis, a meeting that would change the course of football history. For an hour they talked strategy and schemes. Only much later — long after Davis had hired him in 1967 to oversee the Raiders’ linebackers and then promoted him to head coach […]
PORRETTA TERME, Italy — In the chapel of a small hillside sanctuary in Porretta Terme — a handsome town in central Italy known for the healing powers of its thermal waters — a single basketball-shaped window, its panes curved like seams, poured light on walls filled with basketball jerseys. On a table, a notebook contained […]
Rams 30, Vikings 23: A 61-yard punt return for a touchdown by the Rams in the third quarter was essentially the difference in a competitive afternoon. Los Angeles struggled early to separate itself from the Vikings, who were without the star running back Dalvin Cook because of the coronavirus. The Rams clinched a playoff berth […]
Our N.F.L. playoffs calculator has an up-to-date look at the latest playoff picture. We’ve enlisted experts to answer an essential question as a weekly service to readers: Are the Jets and Giants good yet? This week, Diante Lee, an N.F.L. analyst at Pro Football Focus, offered his observations. Giants The Philadelphia Eagles (8-7) beat the […]
That first meeting told Alex Muzio all he needed to know. Not long after he and his business partner, the gambling tycoon Tony Bloom, bought Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, a Belgian soccer team, Muzio sat down with the club’s coach. He wanted to discuss potential recruits. Muzio had never been a soccer player. He had never […]
