College Football Playoff board set to meet
The university presidents who oversee the College Football Playoff are scheduled to meet Friday to discuss expanding the four-team format, re-opening the possibility that a new model for crowning a champion could be implemented as soon as the 2024 season.
The CFP’s Board of Managers, led by Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, reportedly is set to convene by video conference.
There is no guarantee the presidents will take any official action or vote to approve an expansion model, but another person familiar with the situation told AP they would like to accelerate a process that had ground to a halt six months ago.
The CFP management committee, comprised of 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, is scheduled to meet next week in Dallas.
The management committee is responsible for hashing out a format for the CFP, but the presidents have the final say on what happens with the playoff.
In February, CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock announced expansion talks among the commissioners had failed to produce the needed unanimous consensus in time for the format to change before the end of the current contract with ESPN. That deal runs through the 2025.
More college
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved the implementation of set time periods when athletes can enter the transfer portal and immediately be eligible to compete at their new schools, along with reforms to the enforcement process. The proposed changes came from the Transformation Committee as part of the first phase of that group’s work.
The changes to transfer rules will go into effect immediately. Sport-specific windows will be set during an academic year when athletes would be required to enter their names in the transfer portal to be eligible immediately to compete the following school year.
Athletes in winter sports would be required to provide written notification of transfer within 60 days following the NCAA championship selections in their sport. For spring sports, the transfer windows will be Dec. 1-15 plus a 45-day period beginning the day after championship selections are made. In fall sports, including football, the first window will begin the day following championship selection and last 45 days. The second would be from May 1-15.
On the enforcement side, the Independent Accountability Resolution Process will be eliminated.
Hockey
The Anaheim Ducks acquired defenseman Dmitry Kulikov from the Minnesota Wild in a trade for future considerations.
• Members of the U.S. women’s team agreed to extend their existing contract for one month to focus on completing the world championship tournament in
Denmark.
Auto racing
Denny Hamlin is still sore from last week’s late wreck at Daytona and won’t race, as planned, in the Xfinity Series event Saturday at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. Hamlin will be full go for the Southern 500 Sunday, the start of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
Pro basketball
Stephen Curry knocked down another huge 3 — one that was 13 years in the making. The Golden State Warriors point guard was inducted into the Davidson College Hall of Fame, had his No. 30 jersey retired and received his bachelor’s degree in sociology following an elaborate solo graduation ceremony Wednesday at the school.
• Montrezl Harrell of the Charlotte Hornets pleaded guilty to an amended misdemeanor charge of possession of marijuana stemming from a traffic stop in May in Kentucky.
Swimming
Olympic gold-medal winner Joseph Schooling apologized for using cannabis in Vietnam while competing there on leave from military service in his native Singapore. Schooling achieved superstar status in Singapore when he won his country’s first and only Olympic title at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. He won the 100 meters butterfly beating Michael Phelps in the American great’s last Olympic race.
Baseball
Anthony Brocato’s tworun homer in the fifth inning lifted the Washington Wild Things to a 3-2 victory over the visiting Evansville Otters in the Frontier League.