Sporting News: Roof hired as Auburn defensive coordinator

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=504300

Ted Roof, a successful defensive coach at Georgia Tech who struggled as a head coach at Duke, was hired as defensive coordinator at Auburn by new coach Gene Chizik.

New York Times: Boston College fires coach for interviewing with Jets

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/sports/football/08jets.html

Saying he wanted to find someone who really wanted to be the football coach at Boston College, the university’s athletic director, Gene DeFilippo, followed through Wednesday on his threat to fire Jeff Jagodzinski if he interviewed with the Jets for their open position.

Jagodzinski, the Eagles’ coach for the past two seasons, talked to the Jets on Tuesday night, and DeFilippo called him into his office Wednesday morning and fired him. Jagodzinski had three years remaining in a five-year contract.

ESPN: Saints fire defensive coordinator

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3817145&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines

The Saints fired defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs on Wednesday, 10 days after a disappointing season ended with New Orleans missing the playoffs.

SI.com: Cowboys release Pacman Jones

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/nfl/01/07/cowboys.pacman.ap/index.html?eref=si_topstories

Troubled cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones must look elsewhere in the NFL for another chance. The Dallas Cowboys are done with him.

Jones was released Wednesday by the Cowboys following a turbulent season in which he was suspended six games for an off-field scuffle and made little impact on the field.

ESPN: Seahawks hire Knapp as offensive coordinator

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3817272&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines

Greg Knapp will be the new offensive coordinator for the Seahawks, the first of many moves to be made by Seattle under new coach Jim Mora.

A person familiar with the hire confirmed Wednesday that the 45-year-old Knapp has agreed to leave the Oakland Raiders to reunite with Mora, Knapp's former boss in Atlanta.

The person requested anonymity because Knapp has yet to sign a contract with the Seahawks. His contract with Oakland was to run through Jan. 13, according to Raiders coach Tom Cable.

Sporting News: Jason Giambi signs with Oakland A's

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=504541

Jason Giambi and the A's finalized a $5.25 million, one-year contract with a club option Wednesday, bringing the free-agent designated hitter and first baseman back to the place where he began his big league career. The sides had reached a preliminary agreement earlier this week but Giambi still needed to complete the obligatory physical for the deal to get done.

ESPN: Moreno and Stafford head to NFL

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft09/news/story?id=3815504&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno, who led the SEC in passing and rushing this season, respectively, announced Wednesday afternoon that they will enter April's NFL draft.

New York Times: Mangini to be Browns head coach

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/sports/football/AP-FBN-Browns-Mangini.html

The Cleveland Browns have agreed to hire Eric Mangini as their head coach, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.

Mangini, fired last week by the New York Jets, reached an agreement with the club Wednesday, said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mangini's contract has not been finalized.

ESPN: Indians agree to one-year deal with Pavano

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3813706&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

The Cleveland Indians and free-agent pitcher Carl Pavano agreed to a one-year contract on Tuesday.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Sources told ESPN.com that the deal was worth $1.5 million plus incentives. Pavano can earn an additional $5.3 million based on starts and innings pitched.

SI.com: Texas beat Ohio State in Fiesta Bowl thriller

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/arash_markazi/01/06/Texas.Fiesta/index.html?eref=si_topstories

It's become a storyline as cliché as boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in the end.

Only for Ohio State, its romantic comedy has devolved into a horror film where the Buckeyes get the lead, lose the lead and continually fall short in the end. It's a script they've followed the past three years in BCS bowls, although this year's episode provided the most heart-wrenching finale.

The happy ending was dashed when Texas wide receiver Quan Cosby shook off Ohio State safety Anderson Russell in the middle of the field and ran into the end zone for a 26-yard touchdown with 16 seconds to go to give Texas a dramatic 24-21 win at the Fiesta Bowl.

Through three quarters, Ohio State followed the script perfectly. After taking a 6-3 halftime lead, it began to fade in the second half as it had during its last two BCS blowouts, watching Texas take a 17-6 lead that looked as if it would only grow. That's when the Buckeyes were supposed to exit stage left and allow Texas to run away with the win just like Florida and LSU had the past two years. Only this time, they reversed the script. They didn't go away. They planned to leave with the girl this time.

Ohio State scored 15 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to take a 21-17 lead with less than two minutes to go that seemed about as improbable as senior quarterback Todd BoeckmanTerrelle Pryor, for a touchdown. It was playing out to be a storybook ending for the Buckeyes before quarterback Colt McCoy and Texas won the game on a last-minute drive -- just as Texas Tech had done earlier this season in knocking the Longhorns of the national-championship picture. connecting with his freshman replacement,

"It was a dream come true," Texas defensive end Brian Orakpo said. "When you are a kid, you dream of making plays towards the fourth quarter. Quan made a great catch. Colt made a great throw. Man, it's a story you can write a book about with this 2008 University of Texas team."

While Ohio State did its best to reverse its current trend of three straight losses in the BCS and the Big Ten's now six-game losing streak in BCS bowls, Texas did its best to prove that the best one-loss team in the country may not be in Miami Beach right now.

"I think this is the best team in the country, that's why I'm going to vote us No. 1," said Texas coach Mack Brown, echoing the sentiments USC coach Pete Carroll and Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said about their teams after their recent bowl wins. "I don't think anybody can beat Texas right now."

That's right, move over USC. Step aside Utah. The "What If" club just got a little bigger heading into Thursday's BCS National Championship Game between Oklahoma and Florida.

If all publicity is good publicity, then the BCS has been great for college football, but in a Britney Spears/Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton kind of way. Yes, we talk about it ad nauseam, but never in a positive light. Any conversation about the topic is usually pointless and leaves you with an empty feeling.

In what system does an undefeated team that beat six bowl teams, including the No. 1 team for the last half of the season, have no shot at the title? In what system does a former No. 1 team that only played one bad half in September and would be favored to win the national championship by every sports book have no chance to win the championship? And in what system does another former No. 1 team that loses one game on one freaky play get passed over for a title shot in favor of a team it beat on a neutral field by 10 points? It's a system so absurd and illogical that only Paris Hilton might be able to understand it.

Now Texas will not (I repeat: WILL NOT) win a share of the national championship. Yes, it has a strong argument if Oklahoma beats Florida to finish with the same record as the Longhorns, with Texas still holding that 45-35 trump card from October.

Texas will find out that the card has expired. Had it beaten USC, Utah, Alabama or even Penn State, there might be an argument. But beating Ohio State in January, as great as the Fiesta Bowl played out to be, is sort of like beating Kimbo Slice. Sure, it's a "name" opponent, but does it really mean anything at this point?

The loss was yet another stinging blow for an Ohio State program that desperately needed to redeem itself after two straight BCS embarrassments. Perhaps never before had a team entered a game with more at stake for its program and its conference. The Fiesta Bowl wasn't just a statement game for the Buckeyes, who had been blown out of the last two BCS National Championship Games by nearly three touchdowns each time. It was a statement game for the Big Ten, too.

To say that the Big Ten has struggled lately in bowl games would be as obvious as saying the economy has hit a rough patch. There has never been less confidence in the Big Ten, historically one of the strongest conferences in college football. Utah was given a better shot of beating Alabama than Ohio State was of beating Texas, or Penn State was of beating USC. That the conference finished the bowl season at 1-6 isn't surprising, as it is now commonplace for a league that hasn't had a winning record in bowl games since 2002 -- going 15-23 since Ohio State beat Miami for the national championship in a game that seems like a lifetime ago.

Despite its struggles, no conference has benefited more financially from the current BCS set-up than the Big Ten, which has sent the maximum allotted two teams to the BCS in each of the last four years and five of the last six. Although many pundits bemoaned another Ohio State BCS appearance, the truth is the only other viable options were Boise State and TCU.

That most college football fans outside of Ohio would have rather seen a mid-major from the Mountain West or the WAC play in the BCS rather than Ohio State should tell you all you need to know about the backlash against the Buckeyes. It was the same feeling most had at the prospect Penn State playing for the national championship, and we saw how that likely would have played out.

While Ohio State came into the Fiesta Bowl as a 10-point underdog and was given little chance to win, it outplayed Texas for most of the game, being done in largely by third quarter that saw the Longhorns not only score two touchdowns, but gain 14 first downs to Ohio State's zero.

But in the fourth quarter, the combination of Boeckman, who passed for 110 yards and one touchdown, and the Vince Young-like elusiveness of Pryor nearly won the game. Then McCoy took over and put together an 11-play, 78-yard drive in 1:42 that would culminate in the most dramatic game-winner Texas had seen since Young scrambled into the end zone at the Rose Bowl three years ago to win the national championship.

"On that last play when they brought everybody, [Quan] kind of said over and over, 'If I catch the same look, give me a slant, give me a slant behind the linebacker,'" said McCoy, who completed a Fiesta Bowl record 41 of 59 passes for 414 yards and two touchdowns. "If he comes, you just make that (guy) miss, we will score. I gave him a good ball and he made the play."

Of course he did. In the end, as intriguing as Ohio State made it, you knew how it was going to end. The same way it always does for Ohio State and the Big Ten -- with Buckeyes leaving empty handed, no matter how much hope they gave you that it would finish any other way.

ESPN: Brees AP Offensive Player of the Year

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3813555&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Drew Brees understood what breaking a record set by Dan Marino would mean to the New Orleans Saints.

So coming up 15 yards short was disappointing to the Saints quarterback, who on Tuesday was named The Associated Press 2008 NFL Offensive Player of the Year.

Brees threw for 5,069 yards, 15 fewer than Marino's 1984 mark and only the second time someone has eclipsed 5,000 yards passing in a season.

SI.com: Twins owner Carl Pohlad dies at 93

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/01/05/twins.pohlad.ap/index.html?eref=si_topstories

Carl Pohlad, a billionaire banker whose Minnesota Twins won two World Series titles during nearly his nearly quarter-century as owner, died Monday, a baseball official said. He was 93.

MLB.com: Rays sign Pat Burrell to two-year deal

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090105&content_id=3733114&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp

The Tampa Bay Rays have signed veteran right-handed hitting outfielder Pat Burrell to a two-year deal. He will donate a portion of his contract to the Rays Baseball Foundation, the official charity of the Rays.

Sporting News: Cubs agree to deal with Bradley

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=503752

The Chicago Cubs have reached an agreement in principle with free agent Milton Bradley, FoxSports.com reports.

The deal is believed to be in the three-year, $30 million range, sources told the website, and will be completed when Bradley passes a physical and some language in the contract is ironed out.

The Cubs plan to play the 30-year-old Bradley in right field. A switch-hitter, he fills the team's need for a lefthanded bat in the middle of the order.

ESPN: Pittsburgh new No.1

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3811369

For the first time in 101 seasons of Pitt basketball, the Panthers are No. 1, making the jump from third in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' rankings on Monday after previously unbeatens North Carolina (to heavy underdog Boston College) and Connecticut (to Georgetown) lost in the last week.

Pitt received 30 of 31 first-place votes. The third-ranked, 13-1 Tar Heels still hold onto one first-place vote in the wake of a top-to-bottom shakeup among the poll's top 10.

Pitt improved to 14-0 after winning its first two Big East games, against Rutgers and Georgetown on the road. Its win over the Hoyas was a smackdown -- a 70-54 victory for Pitt after Georgetown had just taken out host UConn earlier in the week.

"I don't think it will change anything for us," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN.com's Andy Katz on Sunday night, alluding to the Panthers likely reaching the top of the heap. "We've become rivals of schools over the years, rivals of schools that weren't rivals before."

Besides Pitt, the other undefeated Division I men's teams are Wake Forest (13-0), Clemson (14-0) and Illinois State (14-0). Wake, off to its best start since the 1996-97 season, plays host to North Carolina on Sunday.

The Panthers collected 774 total points in the voting, 60 more than No. 2 Duke (12-1), which made a three-spot leap from last week. Wake Forest was fourth, followed by UConn, Oklahoma (13-1), Texas (11-2) and UCLA (12-2) in a tie for seventh, Syracuse (14-1) and Georgetown (10-2).

Eleventh-ranked Clemson kicked off the second 10 after a five-spot jump, followed by Michigan State (11-2), Notre Dame (10-3), Purdue (11-3), Marquette (13-2), Arizona State (12-2), Villanova (12-2), Xavier (11-2), Minnesota (13-1) and Top 25 newcomer Butler (12-1) at No. 20.

No. 21 Louisville (9-3), West Virginia (11-2), Baylor (12-2), Boston College (13-2) and Tennessee (9-3) rounded out the Top 25. Gonzaga, Ohio State and Michigan dropped out of the poll.