ACC commissioner is not for expansion
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips took the strongest public stance yet against expanding the College Football Playoff by the 2024 season, saying a new postseason format should not be a priority with so much uncertainty throughout college sports.
“To the ACC, we don’t have a College Football Playoff problem,” Phillips said Friday at a conference call with reporters. “We have a college football and collegiate athletics-slash-NCAA problem.”
The NCAA is expected to ratify a new constitution at its convention next week, paving the way for decentralized governance of college sports and a transformation of Division I.
Phillips cited changes to D-I along with the continuing need for federal legislation regarding name, image and likeness compensation for athletes, the lingering ramifications of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down the NCAA’s limits on athletes’ educational benefits, and the possibility of athletes organizing.
More college football
The nation’s longest-tenured Football Bowl Subdivision head coach plans to stick around a lot longer as the University of Iowa announced it was extending Kirk Ferentz’s contract through the 2029 season. Iowa athletic officials announced the four-year extension that followed a 10-4 record in 2021. It was Ferentz’s 23rd season at Iowa.
Golf
Russell Henley set a strong target in the Sony Open in Honolulu when he was 6 under over his final six holes and closed with a 30-foot eagle putt for a 7-under 63 and a threeshot lead among the early starters at Waialae. So much of the morning was up for grabs after 18-hole leader Kevin Na began to fade, with as many as five players having at least a share of the lead. Henley made the turn by holing a greenside bunker shot for eagle on the par-5 18th hole, only to miss the green long and into a back bunker for bogey on the toughest first hole. He’s at 15-under 125
Figure skating
Mark Kondratiuk survived some shaky landings to win the men’s gold medal as his two fellow Russians faded at the European figure skating championships in Tallinn, Estonia. Kondratiuk, 18, was battling teammates Andrei Mozalev and Evgeni Semenenko after Wednesday’s short program and was twice in danger of falling in the free skate. But he managed to hold on to his landings on a triple axel and on one of his three quadruple jumps to score a total of 286.56 points.
Baseball
Eddie Basinski, an infielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pirates of the 1940s who, in an unusual combination of abilities, was also a concert violinist, died Jan. 8 at a care facility in Gladstone, Ore., near Portland. He was 99.
High school
Ellwood City hired Dan Bradley late Thursday night as football coach. Bradley resigned only last week as coach at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Bradley was OLSH’s coach for six seasons and won a WPIAL Class 1A championship in 2018. He guided OLSH to the WPIAL title game this year. Bradley also coached at Ambridge for two seasons before coming to OLSH and StoRox for two seasons.