After a close loss to Ohio State in 2018, Penn State Coach James Franklin described Penn State as a “great team” and Ohio State as an “elite team.” After witnessing, in person, Alabama’s 52-28 annihilation of Ohio State on Monday night, I am certain the gap between “great” and ...

Big Ben’s career may end on sad note The game was over, players milling around, and the TV camera moved in on a figure dressed in the familiar black and gold and sitting alone on the bench and showing that lost look in his eyes. It was Big Ben Roethlisberger, and his eyes told the whole ...

By Paul Newberry The Associated Press Before the good folks in Jacksonville get too fired up about the arrival of Urban Meyer, let’s review a few cautionary tales. Like Nick Saban. And Steve Spurrier. And perhaps the biggest flop of all when it comes to college coaches going pro, Bobby ...

It’s Groundhog Day in the wIorld of college football. For the eighth time in 12 years, Alabama will play in the national championship game. That feeling of deja vu is not the product of an overactive imagination. Obviously, all things are not equal when one program can dominate to this ...

For PSU, 2021 surely will be better About this time most years, Penn State fans are returning from a good bowl game in a warm area of the country. In 2019, the Nittany Lions were in the midst of being a top-5 team, stumbled twice and went on to the Cotton Bowl to post a win over ...

For some, the sky’s the limit, which also just happens to be the title of the book written by 12-year-old British skateboarder Sky Brown. For others, it’s no stretch that big things appear ahead. Exhibit A: 7-foot-2 Denver Nuggets center Bol Bol and his roughly 7-8 wingspan. So many ...

ATLANTA — Carver College has become college basketball’s equivalent of the Washington Generals, barnstorming from city to city, playing games almost every night, enduring one enormous beating after another. Appalachian State 105, Carver 23. Wofford 111, Carver 37. Georgia Southern 92, ...

SAN DIEGO — The biggest piece of San Diego’s sports history is slowly being knocked down and ground to bits. They’re tearing down the stadium once affectionately known as “The Murph.” Every day, heavy equipment obliterates more and more of 70,000-seat SDCCU Stadium in Mission ...

I enjoyed Neil Rudel’s fine story on Shane Conlan. Being from Frewsburg, N.Y., I graduated a couple of years ahead of Conlan. He was part of original start-up football program in the school and played running back/linebacker. He came from a solid family unit and his dad was a state ...

It was unrealistic to expect the college football bowl season to completely escape the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. But one can hope. As the sport’s postseason commences this weekend, 11 of the 43 bowl games that were originally scheduled have been canceled. The Montgomery Bowl will ...

Has there ever been a time in history when sports figures moved their mouths so much but said so little? And when they slip and actually do say anything, rest assured, their PR coaches are summoned quickly to remind them what they meant to say, and the next day we either get a nicely ...

I have been a faithful proponent of year-round school for over 30 years. As in Europe, year-round school has several months of school, and then there are three weeks of break. So breaks, vacations, etc, happen several times a year. The school day is also longer than what we have here. ...

There just a few times in history when, in any sport, the GOAT of a sport competes against the universally regarded “best player in the sport” in a meaningful game. Last Sunday afternoon in Tampa, I was able to witness one of those special moments when Tom Brady’s Buccaneers played ...

By Joe Reedy The Associated Press ESPN announced Thursday that Dan Le Batard will be leaving the network next month. Le Batard hosts a late-morning show on ESPN Radio as well as the “Highly Questionable” afternoon program on ESPN. Le Batard will make his final appearance on both ...

There has been much gnashing of teeth throughout Nittany Nation this fall regarding the worst start in the history of the football program. The fan base has certainly been spoiled throughout the years. Bowl games have become something akin to birthrights. Each decade since the 1960s has ...

Ominous clouds hovering over PSU The damp dark gray Sunday morning mirrors my mood. Do the Nittany Lions simply write off another embarrassing loss and the possibility of a no-win season to COVID-19 and associated travails? Or is that giving management a free pass? For example, I ...

Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, recently unveiled two new measures to try to temper yet another startlingly fast coronaviral spread, something that may end up being the most unwelcome encore performance in the Keystone state since incumbent Tom Corbett fell short in his ...

By Joe Reedy The Associated Press A look at Tiger Woods through the prisms of race and identity will be the subject of an of an ESPN documentary debuting later this month. “Tiger Woods: America’s Son” will premiere on Nov. 29. The one-hour documentary explores the significance of ...

Young captures fish controversy I wanted to express a comment about “There’s no real need to cry over spilled carp” written in the Nov. 7-Nov. 8 edition by Walt Young. Thank you, Mr. Young. While I am not a fisherman — I, too, was very interested in the situation happening near ...

If sports in this unfortunate year of COVID-19 have taught us anything, it’s to embrace the non-traditional. While Toronto and Edmonton were playing host to the NHL playoffs, NBA teams were competing in a bubble at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. The entire World Series ...