Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APThe dazzling freshman from St. Paul had a career-high 10 catches and two touchdown receptions in the loss. He will likely need only three seasons to break the Irish career receiving records (receptions, yardage, touchdowns) that the Shark set earlier this decade. Then again, Samardzija really did all his work in just two seasons.
But then the Irish began to unravel. Samardzija surely recognized that as well. Afterward, head coach Charlie Weis said, “I could give you 50 plays that would have been the difference between winning and losing.”
That may be hyperbole, but we can give you five. The first, and what may not be remembered as the most important though it should be, is the 15-yard personal foul penalty accrued by linebacker Harrison Smith early in the second half. At the time, Notre Dame held a comfortable 17-3 lead and all of the game’s momentum. Pitt took the second half kickoff and meekly gained six yards on three plays.
However, after the third down play was whistled dead, Smith, an aggressive defender, took it upon himself to push a Pitt tight end to the ground from behind.
“Well, that was the one I was talking about,” Weis said afterward, referring to plays that altered the course of this game. “I never saw it, but the ref came over and said, ‘Coach, it was blatant.’”
Which it was.
More than 27 minutes remained in the game when that play occurred — the Irish would allow three fourth-down conversions on three separate touchdown drives in the aftermath — but it resuscitated an until-then moribund Panther offense. Pitt happily accepted the second chance Smith’s moment of immaturity afforded them and five plays later scored.
Suddenly, it was just a one-touchdown game. And that creeping feeling, the one that suggests that a Notre Dame home game will not be decided until the final minute … if not one, two, three…four overtimes later, had returned.
These paroxysms of self-defeating defeatism were prevalent before Weis arrived in 2005. Still, the Irish are now 0-3 under him in overtime (and today it was hard to blame the kicker, Brandon Walker, who nailed three of four, including a 48-yarder, in overtime). And, while Pitt currently resides just on the wrong side of the border of the A.P. poll, it is worth noting that the Irish are 1-6 in their last seven games versus ranked opponents.
The Irish, now 5-3, are certainly improved from a year ago. But, in two of their last three games they’ve had double-digit leads late in the second quarter only to lose. What could easily be a 7-1 Irish team headed to a sunny bowl game is now just a 5-3 squad, slightly above average.
Somewhere, Mark May is gloating. And that somewhere is within three feet of Lou Holtz.
Dave Wannstedt made his debut as Pittsburgh’s head coach on the same evening, in the same game, as Charlie Weis did at Notre Dame. The Irish won that game handily, and Weis has had more success in terms of number of wins than Wannstedt has.
However Pitt, under Wannstedt, has beaten top-15 opponents. Last December, the Panthers won at West Virginia, denying the Mountaineers a spot in the BCS championship game. Earlier this season they upended unbeaten, then-No. 13 South Florida in Tampa.
More than three and a half seasons into Weis’s tenure in South Bend, the Irish still lack a signature win. They beat the sub-.500 schools whom they are supposed to wallop, lie supine versus elite programs, and suffer gut-punch defeats to teams who will find themselves playing bowl games in December.
They are so maddeningly predictable. A loss at Chestnut Hill next week should follow, then a pair of wins versus Navy and Syracuse, culminating in a 31-point loss at USC on Thanksgiving weekend.
You think back to three Octobers earlier, to a student section that rushed the playing field when it initially appeared that time had expired, the scoreboard reading “Notre Dame 31, USC 28.”
That exuberant mob was ushered off the field. They watched in despair as Matt Leinart fell into the end zone and snuffed out their joy. They’ve been waiting for a moment such as that ever since. The difference is that now, in the waning moments (or overtime) of nip-and-tuck battles, as you stare toward the sea of standing students in the stadium’s northwest corner, it isn’t excitement that you read on Domers’ faces.
It’s dread.
It took a while for the light bulb to go on, but when it did, Jonas Gray finally showed the talent many had expected from the blue-chip prospect from Detroit. In a recent interview, Gray, who is rehabbing an ACL injury to get ready for the NFL Scouting Combine, expressed the confidence and support he has for head coach Brian Kelly.
 | Video |
 |
Heartbreaker in South Bend Nov. 1: Look back at the highlights from Pitt's 36-33 4OT win over Notre Dame. |
| Video |
 | Fragile mindset Nov. 1: Charlie Weis says he's more worried about his team's psyche than anything else after the 4OT loss to Pitt. |
 | Slideshow |
 | NBCSports.com |
 | Timeline |
 | Notre Dame 2011 schedule See when all the big matchups will take place with Notre Dame's 2011 schedule. NBCSports.com |
 | Slideshow |
 |
| Slideshow |
 |
| Slideshow |
 | NBCSports.com |
| Special feature |
 |
| Special feature |
 |
| Slideshow |
 |
The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos |
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
After leading by 18 points in the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers were staring at a four-point deficit with less than two minutes to play.