Sports
College Football Playoff semifinals preview: Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl take center stage
It’s been a fascinating year in college football.
Deion Sanders took over the sport for a few months before his Colorado Buffaloes lost eight of their last nine games to end the season, the “Conference of Champions” became the conference of just two teams, and Florida State became the first undefeated Power 5 conference champion to be left out of the College Football Playoff.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is shown prior to the game against UCLA at Rose Bowl Stadium, Oct. 28, 2023, in Pasadena, California. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
All of the storylines have led to the final edition of the four-team CFP, which has the potential to be the best semifinals in the 10-year history of the CFP.
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Let’s take a look at the New Year’s Day matchups with the winners playing for the national championship in Houston on Jan. 8.
Rose Bowl – No. 1 Michigan vs No. 4 Alabama, 5 p.m. ET
It’s a matchup between two traditional powers at “The Granddaddy of Them All.”
In what has the look of a classic, Michigan and Alabama will square off in the Rose Bowl with a 13-game and an 11-game winning streak on the line.
Michigan is looking to bounce back from its performance in last year’s CFP after a tumultuous season.
Rose Bowl Stadium is shown on Dec. 27, 2023, in Pasadena, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)
Head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended by the school for the first three games of the season before missing the final three games of the year after the Big Ten came down on him over allegations of sign-stealing.
With or without Harbaugh, the Wolverines have been perfect, and they’ve gotten it done on the defensive side of the football.
Michigan has allowed the fewest points per game (9.5) while holding opponents to just 239.7 yards per game.
After starting off the year with a very soft schedule, Michigan finished the year against two top-10 teams before shutting out No. 16 Iowa in the Big Ten title game.
They need quarterback J.J. McCarthy to have one of his better games to beat a red-hot Alabama team.
J.J. McCarthy of the Michigan Wolverines (Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
In Michigan’s first seven games of the season. McCarthy threw for 14 touchdowns with an average of 10.6 yards per pass attempt, according to The Athletic. In the final six games, McCarthy threw just five touchdowns and averaged 7.7 yards per pass attempt.
The Crimson Tide come into the CFP winners of 11 consecutive games, a winning streak that can mostly be attributed to quarterback Jalen Milroe’s play.
Since sitting out against South Florida in Week 3, Milroe has been spectacular, throwing for 2,269 yards, 18 passing touchdowns and just four interceptions.
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Milroe’s ability to make plays with his legs – 12 rushing touchdowns – makes the Alabama offense dangerous for Michigan as they prepare for a quarterback rarely seen in the Big Ten.
Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe (Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“I don’t think we’ve seen a quarterback like this,” Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said, according to USA Today.
The New Year’s Day matchup at the Rose Bowl will be one college football fans won’t want to miss.
Sugar Bowl – No. 2 Washington vs No. 3 Texas, 8:45 p.m. ET
Fans of the Longhorns can finally say that “Texas is back.”
It’s been 13 years since Texas last played for a national championship, and Steve Sarkisian has his team on the doorstep of reaching the pinnacle of the sport.
Texas entered the 2023 college football season as the villains of the Big 12 as they prepare to depart the conference for the SEC in 2024. After winning the program’s first conference championship since 2009, Texas has an opportunity for the ultimate exit.
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“We have a chance to be legends,” senior linebacker David Gbenda said. “So why not go be great?”
Quarterback Quinn Ewers of the Texas Longhorns (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
The Longhorns enter Monday’s game against Washington with an offense ranked in the top 10 in yards per game and a defense in the top 15 in points allowed per game.
The offense is led by quarterback Quinn Ewers, who has shown major improvements in his second season under Sarkisian.
After missing two games due to injury, Ewers enters the CFP on a tear, throwing for 1,246 yards, eight touchdowns and three interceptions in the final four games of the year.
Ewers has thrown for 3,161 yards, 21 touchdowns and six interceptions in 2023, and the sophomore QB drastically improved his completion percentage, going from completing 58.1% of his passes in 2022 to 70.7% in 2023.
The Texas defense has been elite at stopping the run, allowing just 80.3 rushing yards per game, fourth-best in the country.
They’ll be facing a Washington team led by a Heisman Trophy finalist and an offense that can get up and down the field.
The Huskies finished the year 13-0 for the first time in program history as they prepare to depart the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024.
Michael Penix Jr. led the top passing offense in the country (343.8 yards per game) while throwing for 4,218 yards, 33 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Michael Penix Jr. of the Washington Huskies (Brandon Sloter/Image Of Sport/Getty Images)
While the Washington offense slowed in the second half of the season, the Huskies found a way to win close games, winning their last four games by a combined 15 points.
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Their receiving core is elite, led by two 1,000-yard wideouts in Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk.
“It’s the touchdowns. It’s the moving of the chains in the big, big moments. There’s been so many we forget about a lot of [them] and you take it for granted the gaudy stats that he has,” Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer said of Odunze. “Just over and over again, think about how many times he’s come through when you really needed it. A lot of times you think about when you lose football games or you didn’t come through in the big moment. You remember those. I can’t remember Rome not coming through.”
And while Washington is known for its passing attack, running back Dillon Johnson has come on strong in the second half, averaging 136.6 yards per game in the last five contests, including a 256-yard performance against USC.
With a secondary allowing 263.2 passing yards per game (120th in the country), college football fans could be in for a high-scoring affair in New Orleans.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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