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🚨 Headlines

🏈 Lions 34, Packers 31: Detroit won its 11th straight game and clinched a playoff spot for the second straight season thanks to a gutsy 4th-down call and a walk-off field goal.

🏀 Toronto Tempo: The WNBA’s 14th franchise has revealed its name and logo. The Toronto Tempo will begin play in 2026 as the league’s first non-U.S. expansion team.

⚾️ Sevy to the A’s: The Athletics signed RHP Luis Severino, 30, to a three-year, $67 million deal, the largest guaranteed contract in franchise history. He was ranked No. 13 on our Top 50 free agents list.

⚽️ Club World Cup draw: The 32 participants in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup learned their group stage opponents on Thursday. Notable matchups: Manchester City will play Juventus, and the Seattle Sounders will face PSG and Atlético Madrid.

🏀 Remember LaVar Ball? Lonzo Ball thinks his dad’s Big Baller Brand shoes, which he wore during his rookie season, are possibly to blame for his injury woes. “They were like kickball shoes,” he said. “I wasn’t really getting hurt like that until I started wearing them.”

🏒 Hired to get fired

We’re barely two months into the NHL season, and three head coaches have already been fired. The latest: Luke Richardson is out in Chicago* after an 8-16-2 start.

Another one bites the dust: The Blackhawks fired Richardson 11 days after the Blues fired Drew Bannister to hire Jim Montgomery, who had been fired by the Bruins five days earlier. And all of this comes on the heels of an offseason that saw eight teams make a change behind the bench.

By the numbers: Short leashes and firing sprees are, of course, a reality across all major sports. But the coaching carousel does spin fastest in hockey. The average tenure of an NHL head coach is 2.3 years, by far the shortest of the “Big Four” leagues, notes The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman ($).

Coaches like Jon Cooper, Mike Sullivan and Jared Bednar, who have been with their respective clubs for eight or more years, are the exception and not the rule. Few make it past the five-year mark in today’s environment.

Consider this:

1. André Tourigny, who has been with Arizona and Utah for 3.4 years, is now the fifth-longest tenured coach in the NHL.

2. Head coaches who have been in their current position for at least two years: 20 in the NBA, 19 in MLB, 17 in the NFL… and 11 in the NHL.

*Richardson is the third head coach of a Chicago sports team to be fired midseason in 2024, joining Pedro Grifol (White Sox) and Matt Eberflus (Bears). Teresa Weatherspoon (Sky) didn’t fare much better, losing her job in September after just one season.

🤽‍♂️ Water polo’s unlikely powerhouse

The Bronx is famous for a lot of things. Hip-hop. The Yankees. Jennifer Lopez. Now, thanks to Fordham University, the New York City borough has a new claim to fame: Water polo!

Crashing the party: California schools have won all 55 NCAA water polo national titles*, and The Golden State will be well-represented at this weekend’s championship with UCLA, USC, Stanford, Long Beach State and California Baptist in the eight-team field.

• But the story of the tournament is the Fordham Rams, who are the nation’s only undefeated program (31-0) and tied with UCLA and USC atop the rankings, making them Fordham’s first-ever No. 1 ranked team in any sport.

• Fordham’s run of success began four years ago when Brian Bacharach, a former All-American and national champion at Cal (2006), took over as head coach. After failing to make the NCAA championship for 51 years, this will be the Rams’ fourth straight trip.

Building a powerhouse: Bacharach’s secret weapon has been recruiting European teenagers to “The Big Apple,” notes WSJ’s Jason Gay ($). Fordham went from three international players in 2020 to 13 this year, over half their roster.

Alongside some Californians, Connecticuters and a Brooklynite is an international assembly of talent from water polo hives like Hungary, Italy, Malta, Greece, Spain and France. Multiple languages are spoken in the pool, and competition is fierce.

Bacharach says the Rams’ international recruiting is often word-of-mouth — a player comes to Fordham and has a good experience, then tells his friends overseas. When asked about a California school’s geographic recruiting advantages — sunshine, the beach — he smiles. “When you talk to a European kid, it’s cooler to be in New York City than it is in California,” he says.

What to watch: The championship starts today with four quarterfinals on ESPN+, followed by the semifinals tomorrow and the final on Sunday, all at Stanford’s Avery Aquatic Center.

*Championships by school: Cal (17), UCLA (12), Stanford (11), USC (10), UC Irvine (3), Pepperdine (1), UC Santa Barbara (1)

🏈 Championship weekend: Pregame reading

Dan Wetzel: ‘Stay off my lawn!’: College Football Playoff arguments are heating up

College football has never been safe for the sane of mind, but the 12-team playoff seems to have sent it over the cliff. More teams with more arguments — almost all of them flawed — have sparked a new wave of public “discourse.” That includes near-weekly official statements from commissioners, sometimes pleading like a defense attorney to the judge.

Nick Bromberg: Can Ashton Jeanty steal away Heisman votes on conference championship weekend?

Most years, Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty’s historic season (fifth-most rushing yards) would make him the clear Heisman Trophy favorite. Instead, he hardly has a chance thanks to Travis Hunter’s unprecedented achievements playing both sides of the ball.

Ross Dellenger: The making of the 12-team playoff

The behind-the-scenes story of how four college athletics executives spent nearly two years, in secret, creating college football’s new postseason. They examined nearly 100 playoff models — from four teams to 32 — before producing the 12-team format we have today.

⚾️ The baseball world’s annual convention

The MLB Winter Meetings kick off on Sunday in Dallas. Here’s Yahoo Sports’ Jake Mintz on what fans should expect from the annual baseball gathering:

Every year in the early winter, a swarm of dri-fit quarter-zips descends upon some mammoth, labyrinthian hotel to whisper, whine, schmooze and booze.

These are MLB’s winter meetings, an annual jamboree of hand-shaking, deal-making and general industry jibber-jabber.

If you’re a casual baseball fan, you’ve probably heard mention of the meetings as a place where offseason business gets done. That’s somewhat true. The event is both a lot more and a lot less than that. It’s best to think of it as the baseball world’s annual convention.

Besides the All-Star Game and the World Series, this event is probably the stretch on the calendar that draws the highest number of baseball people to a single place.

Those folks include the biggest of bigwigs: team owners, executives, agents, the occasional ballplayer. However, rarely, if ever, do highly sought after players attend. It’s usually lower-level free agents or established veterans with offseason homes in the area swinging by to say hello.

The winter meetings is also a place to ask about a job, interview for a job or take a job. An army of energetic, wide-eyed youngsters, eager to work in baseball, will dot the lobby handing out résumés by the dozen.

Keep reading.

📆 Dec. 6, 1961: Davis wins the Heisman

63 years ago today, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis became the 27th player — and first Black player — to win the Heisman Trophy.

Breaking the barrier: 37 of the last 62 Heisman Trophy winners (59.7%) have been Black players, and Colorado’s Travis Hunter (or possibly Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty) will soon make that 38 of the last 63.

Gone too soon… A few weeks later, Davis signed with the Cleveland Browns, where he joined his Syracuse predecessor Jim Brown, whom he greatly admired. Sadly, they never got to take the field together. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia, never played a snap, and died the following year at age 23.

🍿 Worth a watch: “The Express: The Ernie Davis Story” (Available on Max)

📺 Watchlist: Conference title games

Conference championship weekend is upon us, with all nine FBS leagues playing their title games today or tomorrow.

Elsewhere: AAC: Tulane at No. 24 Army (Fri. 8pm, ABC); C-USA: Western Kentucky at Jacksonville State (Fri. 7pm ET, CBSSN); Sun Belt: Marshall at Louisiana (Sat. 7:30pm, ESPN); MAC: Ohio vs. Miami-Ohio (Sat. 12pm, ESPN)

More to watch:

• ⚽️ MLS Cup Final: LA Galaxy vs. NY Red Bulls (Sat. 4pm, Fox)

• 🏈 NFL Sunday: Falcons at Vikings (1pm, Fox); Seahawks at Cardinals (4:05pm, CBS); Bills at Rams (4:25pm, Fox); Chargers at Chiefs (8:20pm, NBC) … Week 14.

• 🏀 NCAAM: No. 11 Wisconsin at No. 5 Marquette (Sat. 1:30pm, Fox); No. 4 Kentucky at No. 7 Gonzaga (Sat. 10pm, ESPN2)

• 🏀 NCAAW: No. 22 Louisville at No. 2 UConn (Sat. 9pm, Fox); No. 21 Illinois at No. 12 Ohio State (Sun. 4pm, BTN); No. 3 South Carolina at No. 9 TCU (Sun. 7pm, ESPN2)

• 🏀 NBA: Bucks at Celtics (Fri. 7:30pm, ESPN); Timberwolves at Warriors (Fri. 10pm, ESPN)

• 🏒 NHL: Flyers at Bruins (Sat. 1pm, NHL); Maple Leafs at Penguins (Sat. 7pm, NHL); Avalanche at Devils (Sun. 7pm, NHL)

• 🏁 F1: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Sun. 8am, ESPN2) … Season finale.

• ⚽️ Premier League: Tottenham vs. Chelsea (Sun. 11:30am, USA)

• ⛳️ PGA: Hero World Challenge (Fri-Sun, ESPN+/Golf/NBC)

Plus: UFC 310 (Sat. 10pm, ESPN+ PPV); NCAA Women’s Soccer Final Four (Fri. 5pm, ESPNU); NCAA Men’s Soccer Elite Eight (Sat. 3pm, ESPN+); NCAA Women’s Volleyball First and Second Rounds (Fri-Sat, ESPN+); NCAA Men’s Water Polo Tournament (Fri-Sun, NCAA.com/ESPNU); FCS Playoffs Sweet 16 (Sat. 2pm, ESPN+)

🏈 College football trivia

Ashton Jeanty has the fifth-most rushing yards in a single FBS season (2,288) and can add to his tally tonight in the MWC title game.

Question: Who are the only four players with more rushing yards in a season?

Hint: 1988, 2014, 2007, 1981.

Answer at the bottom.

🏀 Who will be a Valkyrie?

The Golden State Valkyries will transform from a franchise to a team during tonight’s WNBA expansion draft (6:30pm ET, ESPN), the league’s first since 2008.

How it works: The Valkyries, who unveiled their uniforms on Thursday, may select one player from each of the WNBA’s other 12 teams, but they can’t pick just anyone: Each team provided a list of six “protected players” who are off limits.

Looking ahead: Golden State will round out its 2025 roster at next April’s draft, where they have the fifth pick in all three rounds. And next fall the league will do this all over again when Toronto and Portland participate in another expansion draft before becoming the WNBA’s 14th and 15th franchises in 2026.

Trivia answer: Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State (2,628 rushing yards); Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin (2,587); Kevin Smith, UCF (2,567); Marcus Allen, USC (2,342)

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