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🚨 Headlines
🏈 Arch to return: Arch Manning will return to Texas for his junior year rather than declare for the NFL draft. After a rough start to the season, he ended up leading the Longhorns to a 9-3 record that nearly got them into the College Football Playoff.
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🏀 Flagg makes history: Cooper Flagg scored a career-high 42 points in the Mavericks’ overtime loss to the Jazz, breaking LeBron James’ record for the most points ever scored in a game by an 18-year-old. He turns 19 this Sunday.
⛳️ Scottie named POY again: Scottie Scheffler was named the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year again, joining Tiger Woods as the only golfers to win the award in four consecutive seasons.
⛳️ AP polls: Arizona (men) and UConn (women) remain atop their respective AP Top 25 polls, which featured little change after a week devoid of notable upsets.
⚽️ Red Bulls hire Bradley: Former USMNT captain Michael Bradley has been named head coach of the New York Red Bulls, taking over a job his father, Bob, held two decades ago. Bradley led the club’s MLS Next Pro squad to a title last month.
⚽️ Huskies complete epic run to title
(Ryan Hunt/Getty Images)
Washington was unseeded entering the NCAA men’s soccer tournament. Four weeks later, they’re national champs.
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Cinderella run: The Huskies beat NC State, 3-2, in Monday’s title game to win their first national championship and become the first team to win six matches away from home in the tournament — taking down five seeded teams along the way.
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First Round: Washington 3, Oregon State 2 (OT)
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Second Round: Washington 1, SMU 0
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Sweet Sixteen: Washington 1, Stanford 0
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Elite Eight: Washington 3, Maryland 1
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Semifinal: Washington 3, Furman 1
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Final: Washington 3, NC State 2 (OT)
Golden goal: Washington blew a two-goal lead in the second half, but Harrison Bertos scored 1:54 into overtime for the walk-off championship victory.
What they’re saying: “That was a heck of a game and all 10,000 people in attendance got to witness a spectacle,” said Huskies head coach Jamie Clark. “And it was a spectacle because NC State didn’t hang their head down 2-0 and they pushed us right to the limit.”
💯 Big numbers
(Michael Owens/Getty Images)
🏈 23rd straight win
The Steelers beat the Dolphins, 28-15, last night to win their 23rd consecutive home game on Monday Night Football, the longest such streak since MNF began in 1970.
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Speaking of streaks: This was Miami’s 14th straight loss (including playoffs) in games colder than 40 degrees.
🏀 7 undefeated teams
No. 1 Arizona (9-0) is one of seven undefeated teams remaining in men’s DI hoops, along with No. 2 Michigan (10-0), No. 3 Duke (10-0), No. 4 Iowa State (10-0), No. 13 Vanderbilt (10-0), No. 15 Nebraska (11-0) and Miami-Ohio (10-0).
Historic start: The top-ranked Wildcats are the first team in the history of the AP poll (since 1948) with five wins over ranked opponents in their first nine games. They’ve earned their undefeated start.
(Carl Recine/Getty Images)
⚽️ 277 goal involvements
Mohamed Salah was involved in his 277th goal for Liverpool on Saturday, breaking the record for most goal involvements (goals and assists) for a single club in Premier League history.
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Whose record did he break? The Egyptian has 188 goals and 89 assists for Liverpool in England’s top flight, overtaking Wayne Rooney’s tally of 276 goal involvements (183 goals, 93 assists) for Manchester United.
🏈 27 years
With the Chiefs eliminated from playoff contention, the upcoming NFL postseason will be the first in 27 years (since 1998) without either Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes.
Who were the QBs in 1998? John Elway (Broncos), Brett Favre (Packers), Steve Young (49ers), Dan Marino (Dolphins), Drew Bledsoe (Patriots), Randall Cunningham (Vikings), Elvis Grbac (Chiefs), Kordell Stewart (Steelers), Mark Brunell (Jaguars), Trent Dilfer (Buccaneers), Danny Kanell (Giants), Scott Mitchell (Lions).
🏈 2025 AP All-Americans
(Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports)
Indiana’s Heisman-winning QB Fernando Mendoza headlined the AP All-America first team, which was released on Monday alongside the second and third teams.
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Notes:
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By conference: The Big Ten (10) had by far the most players on the 27-man first team, followed by the SEC (6), Big 12 (3), C-USA (2), ACC (1), American (1) and MWC (1), plus three independents.
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By school: Ohio State led the way with four first-team players, including three from their FBS-best defensive unit. Notre Dame, USC, Iowa, Texas A&M and Texas Tech were the only other schools with multiple first-team players.
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By class: Seniors (14) and juniors (10) comprised almost the entire first team, with just three underclassmen making the cut: sophomores Jeremiah Smith, Ahmad Hardy and Leonard Moore.
Sign of the times: Nearly half of the first-team players (12 of 27) didn’t begin their careers at their current schools, which has become the norm in the transfer portal era.
100 years later… This year marked the 100th anniversary of the inaugural AP All-America team selected back in 1925. To celebrate, the AP named its all-time All-Americans back in August, with guys like Tim Tebow, Barry Sanders and Dick Butkus leading the 25-player first team and Archie Griffin, Lawrence Taylor and Champ Bailey leading the second.
🏈 The perils of an 18-game NFL season
(Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire)
From Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee:
If football is good, more football is better, right? If NFL Sundays are the finest of Sundays, why not create another one?
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More football means more revenue for the league and broadcast partners, more opportunity for fantasy and gambling for fans, more of everything that makes football great. Who wouldn’t want the NFL season to add an 18th game?
“I’m not a big fan of it,” one NFL player said back in July when asked about the possibility of the NFL season moving to 18 games. “You’ve seen the amount of injuries that have kind of piled up there at the end of seasons, and you want to have the best players playing in the biggest games.”
That player was Patrick Mahomes, who is now lost for the season thanks to a Week 15 ACL tear. Also gone for 2025: Green Bay’s Micah Parsons, who tore his ACL around the same time Mahomes did.
Every play in the NFL is a roulette-wheel spin that carries with it the possibility of a catastrophic injury. And every extra game means another 40 or 50 spins of that wheel.
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For Mahomes and Parsons, the wheel came up double-zeroes on Sunday. Asking who’s next — wondering whose season is about to be derailed by injury — is a grim endeavor, but a necessary one if we’re talking about adding yet another game.
Keep reading.
📺 Watchlist: Tuesday, Dec. 16
Wanna know just how tall Wemby is? His teammate here, Dylan Harper, is 6-foot-5. (Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images)
🏀 NBA Cup Final
The Spurs and Knicks face off tonight in Las Vegas (8:30pm ET, Prime), where a champion will be crowned in the third annual in-season tournament.
Prize money: Each player on the winning team will earn $530,933, while each player on the runner-up will take home $212,373. That may be a drop in the bucket for the NBA’s biggest stars, but it’s a substantial prize for those on league-minimum deals.
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🏒 NHL on TNT
Sidney Crosby and the Penguins host Connor McDavid and the Oilers in the first leg of the doubleheader (7:30pm), while the Kraken host the league-leading Avalanche in the nightcap (10pm).
Alone at the top: Colorado (23-2-7) doesn’t just have the best record in the NHL, their +54 goal differential is more than twice as high as the next best mark (Stars, +25).
More to watch:
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🏀 NCAAM: No. 11 Louisville at No. 20 Tennessee (7pm, ESPN); DePaul at No. 22 St. John’s (7pm, Peacock); Butler at No. 5 UConn (8:30pm, Peacock)
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🏈 NCAAF: Troy vs. Jacksonville State (9pm, ESPN) … The Salute to Veterans Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama.
Today’s full slate.
🏈 NFL trivia
Simpson in action on Dec. 16, 1973, against the Jets at Shea Stadium. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
52 years ago today, O.J. Simpson became the first of nine players in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season.
Question: How many of the other eight can you name?
Answer at the bottom.
📸 Photo finish
(Federico Modica/NordicFocus/Getty Images)
🇨🇭 Davos, Switzerland — Italy’s Davide Graz competes in a cross-country World Cup event. What a shot.
Trivia answer: Eric Dickerson (2,105 yards in 1984); Adrian Peterson (2,097 yards in 2012); Jamal Lewis (2,066 yards in 2003); Barry Sanders (2,053 yards in 1997); Derrick Henry (2,027 yards in 2020); Terrell Davis (2,008 yards in 1998); Chris Johnson (2,006 yards in 2009); Saquon Barkley (2,005 yards in 2024)
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