Super Bowl XLVI
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 three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Buried on the bench a little more than a week ago, the Knicks' Jeremy Lin is now the toast of New York.
Arc: After heartbreaking loss, Tyler Zeller and No. 5 North Carolina made an impressive statement with a 70-52 win over No. 19 Virginia.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Tiger Woods moved within four shots of the lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Saturday with a 5-under 67.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
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.
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Irish LIVE!: Nov. 26 Nov. 26: John Walters and Tiffany Simons are joined by Pat Haden and USC coach Pete Carroll to preview the ND-USC matchup. |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Jimmy Clausen laughed when he was read a quote from his best friend, Southern California tailback Mark Tyler, that he was worried about the Notre Dame quarterback making it out of the Los Angeles Coliseum alive on Saturday.
“He doesn’t play defense, so he’s not going to knock me out or anything like that,” Clausen responded.
Maybe not, but Clausen figures he knows about a dozen or so USC players well and about half the team overall.
Many of those would probably love to get a shot at the player who passed up on a scholarship offer from his hometown school to travel halfway across the country to play for rival Notre Dame.
“I just wanted to get away from California, just grow up in a different place,” said Clausen, who famously announced his choice of schools by holding a news conference at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend and saying he planned to try to win four national championships with the Irish.
That seems like a long time ago now, 51 sacks and 11 losses in 20 starts ago, to be exact.
Clausen was injured and didn’t play last year when the Trojans beat the Irish 38-0, the worst Irish home loss in 51 years. It also was the largest margin of victory for the Trojans in the 79-game history of the rivalry.
Some are expecting even worse Saturday with the Irish 32½-point underdogs, believed to be the most an opponent has ever been favored over the Irish. The previous high was when USC was favored by 23 points in 2004 and won 41-10.
Clausen doesn’t believe the Trojans have much respect for Notre Dame.
“No one knows where it is. Where is South Bend, Indiana?” he said. “To be honest, they really don’t like Notre Dame and don’t really respect Notre Dame.”
USC coach Pete Carroll dismissed Clausen’s assessment.
“I don’t know how he would know that. He hasn’t been here,” Carroll said.
USC has the best defense Clausen has faced — and the best defense in the country. The Trojans are No. 1 against the pass, giving up 132 yards a game. That’s 42 yards less than Boston College, the next best pass defense Clausen has faced.
The Eagles forced Clausen into a career-high four interceptions and beat the Irish 17-0 three weeks ago.
The Trojans are not the type of defense a quarterback wants to face when he’s not at his best, and Clausen hasn’t been at his best for a while.
Clausen threw for career-high yards in three straight games midway through the season — passing for 275 yards against Purdue, 347 yards against Stanford and 383 yards against North Carolina. Since then, Clausen went into a bit of a slump, throwing seven interceptions and six touchdown passes with a pass efficiency rating of 114.52 during the stretch.
Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis called it a “rut” that Clausen began to work his way out of against Syracuse.
“He started to manage the game much more efficiently than he had in the last couple of games,” Weis said.
Weis conceded he’s a bit worried about Clausen, who is from Westlake Village, Calif., just west of Los Angeles, trying to do too much Saturday, especially because the Trojans are so good at baiting quarterbacks into making bad passes.
“They’ll go press up on you, say, ’Go ahead, try to beat us,”’ he said.
Weis planned to spend some time this week talking to Clausen about not trying to force things, saying the shortened school week would give him more time to work with Clausen.
“It gives us an opportunity to make sure mentally we can guard against things like that happening,” Weis said.
Weis said earlier in the season that by end of this year he expected Clausen to be further along than Brady Quinn was when Weis arrived following Quinn’s sophomore season. But 11 games into their sophomore seasons, Clausen and Quinn have remarkably similar statistics.
Quinn had completed 54.1 percent of his passes for 2,372 yards with 15 touchdowns, nine interceptions and a rating of 124.97. Clausen has completed 59.9 percent of his passes for 2,730 yards with 20 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and a rating of 127.63.
Their teams’ seasons also have been remarkably similar during their sophomore years. In 2004, the Irish started the season 5-2 before losing three of the next four to finish the regular season 6-5 and coach Tyrone Willingham was fired three days after the Irish lost 41-10 to USC.
This year the Irish started the season 5-2, lost three of four, and head into the regular-season finale 6-5 with Weis under fire.
Like Quinn, who was a vocal supporter of Willingham after he was fired, Clausen is firmly behind Weis as the media speculates on Weis’ future.
“They’re firing away at coach Weis. But when it comes down to it, it’s not the coaches that are out there throwing the ball, running the ball, blocking, making tackles,” Clausen said. “It’s the players that are out there, and I think we’ve got to take as much responsibility for this as what everyone’s putting on the coaching staff and coach Weis.”
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.
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The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos |
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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.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.