Hurry up and wait: College football needs to change its calendar

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🚨 Headlines

🏈 Tomlin steps down: Mike Tomlin is stepping down in Pittburgh after 19 years, 13 playoff appearances and one Super Bowl title with the Steelers. There are now nine NFL teams changing coaches this offseason, one shy of the record.

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🏀Best in the West: The Thunder crushed the Spurs, 119-98, to extend their lead atop the West and take revenge for San Antonio's three straight wins over them in December.

⚾️ Arenado to Arizona: The Cardinals have traded eight-time All-Star Nolan Arenado to the Diamondbacks after five years in St. Louis. The 34-year-old third baseman, whose bat has declined precipitously in the last three years, has two years and $42 million left on his contract.

⛳️ Thanks, but no thanks? LIV Golf's Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith appeared to distance themselves from the possibility of leaving to follow Brooks Koepka back to the PGA Tour. "I'm contracted through 2026," DeChambeau said, "so I'm excited about this year."

🏈 NFL streaming record: The Bears' comeback win over the Packers in the Wild Card Round averaged 31.61 million viewers on Prime Video, making it the most-streamed NFL game ever.

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🏈 Ready for Indiana vs. Miami? Well, hurry up and wait

College football loses all its momentum in the wait for a championship game. Something must change.

From Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee:

So, how about those College Football Playoff semifinals last week, huh? A thrilling Miami win, a dominant Indiana performance! Can't wait to see those two unlikely-but-deserving programs square off in … wait, another week from now?

Yes, like a defensive lineman that recovered a fumble in his own red zone, the college football season started with unstoppable momentum and now, with the end in sight, is collapsing in a chaotic heap of its own making.

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In addition to final exams and holidays, college football also must navigate around the behemoths that are Tradition and NFL Football. Tradition is why college football must rotate its entire schedule around the bowls and New Year's Day, and the NFL is why college football has to surrender the Saturdays it's stacked up throughout the entire fall.

The result of all these competing forces is the dog's breakfast of a schedule that the College Football Playoff has become. By the time this is all over, CFP games will have been played on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Indiana will have played exactly two football games between the Big Ten championship on Dec. 6 and the national championship 45 days later on Jan. 19. Two full weeks of NFL playoffs will air between the semifinals and the national championship.

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This isn't sustainable, and that doesn't even factor in the madness that is the transfer portal opening and closing in the middle of all this, along with all its attendant coach movement.

No matter what, the college football powers that be have to get the sport finished up earlier than late January. Every bit of momentum from a magical, ridiculous season will have bled away by then. The season has to end earlier, ideally before the NFL playoffs start, but absolutely no longer than wild card weekend.

Problem is, the NFL's not going to give up the Monday night playoff game it's held since 2021; college football missed the window on that one. But maybe a Tuesday night championship after the first wild card weekend would be better than waiting another six days…?

No matter which way the sport goes in the future, it's still nearly a week to go until the 2026 national championship kicks off. Might as well spend that time kicking around ideas for the future.

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Read the full story.

❤️ Why we love sports

Tom Wolf (Bellingham, Washington) writes:

My Dad LOVES baseball. In 1950 when he was 18 years old, he hitchhiked from his home in southwestern Wisconsin to Chicago to see the 1950 All-Star Game at Comiskey Park — the first one that went extra innings!

Over the years, he passed that love down to his children, including me. He took us to Cubs games in the 60's and eventually to Cubs and Brewers games in the 70's. I stuck with the Cubs as my favorite team and there were a ton of lean years and a few "almosts" for the Cubbies during that stretch, but I never gave up hope that someday they would win a World Series.

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In 2003, the Cubs made it to the NLCS against the Florida Marlins and I was at Game 6 when they blew a 3-0 lead in the eighth inning (don't blame Steve Bartman), losing 8-3 and mandating a nerve-wracking Game 7.

I was distraught after the game but woke up the next morning, excited and nervous about going that night. However, that morning my sister called me and told me that Dad had just suffered a cardiac arrest. He was in surgery and it was unclear if he was going to make it.

Dad lived three hours away in Madison, Wisconsin, so I told my sister that I was heading up immediately. But she said there was nothing I could do at the hospital. And knowing I had tickets to Game 7 she said that I should go and that, knowing Dad, he would be disappointed if I didn't.

So I went to Game 7 and watched the Cubs lose 9-6. The fans were shocked. Angry. Devastated. I was at peace. I learned before the game that my Dad had survived his quintuple bypass surgery and that it looked like he was going to make it. When I drove to Madison to see him I said "next time you want to teach me a lesson about how baseball isn't the most important thing in the world, be more subtle." He said "deal!"

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13 years later, the Cubs did make it to the World Series and I took my 85-year-old Dad to the first home World Series game at Wrigley Field in 71 years. This time he didn't have to hitchhike to get there!

The Cubs lost but we celebrated the occasion knowing that even though you can't dictate the outcome of any game, you can always cherish the opportunity to share something special with someone special. Thanks, Dad.

P.S. Dad is still alive today at 94 years old. He's no longer going to baseball games but he did stay up until 2 am to watch the end of the 2025 World Series Game 3 marathon! Go sports!

🏈 Divisional dominance: West is best

All season long we watched as the top three teams in the NFC West laid waste to the rest of the NFL.* And now here we are, with the Seahawks, Rams and 49ers making up nearly half the remaining playoff field.

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Exclusive club: The 2025 NFC West is just the fourth division in NFL history to send three teams to the Divisional Round, with Seattle earning the bye as the top seed and Los Angeles and San Francisco winning their Wild Card matchups. The other three:

• 1992 NFC East: The Cowboys, Eagles and Redskins all made the last eight, with Dallas ultimately winning Super Bowl XXVII and birthing a dynasty that would win three titles in four years.

• 1997 NFC Central: The NFC North predecessor sent the Vikings, Packers and Buccaneers to the Divisional Round. Green Bay fell just shy of winning back-to-back titles, losing to John Elway's Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII.

• 2022 NFC East: The most recent instance featured the Cowboys, Eagles and Giants in the final eight. This time, it was Philly that reached the Big Game, where they lost a heartbreaker to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.

*Three-headed monster: The 49ers, Rams and Seahawks went 6-6 against each other during the regular season… and 32-7 against everybody else, good for an .821 winning percentage.

📸 In photos: Winter Games warm-up

Athletes around the globe are deep in preparation for the Winter Olympics with the Milan-Cortina Games just 23 days away.

🇺🇸 Lake Placid, New York —Germany's Emma Weiss competes in the aerial qualifiers during last weekend's Freestyle World Cup event.

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Olympic spirit: Lake Placid, which hosted the Winter Games in 1932 and 1980, will hold a month-long festival of Olympic-inspired events in February.

🇮🇹 Milan, Italy — Here we have a composite image depicting numerous moments during Saturday's Coppa Italia at Milano Santagiulia Arena, which will host the Olympics hockey tournament.

Rink concerns? Construction is well behind schedule at the Olympic hockey venues, leading to concerns from the NHL, whose players are participating for the first time since 2014. The playing surface now appears to be heading in the right direction, but "listing everything that still needs to be finished would be impossible," writes The Athletic's Chris Johnston ($).

🇦🇹 Bischofshofen, Austria — Norway's Isak Andreas Langmo competes in last week's Ski Jumping World Cup event.

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Ski jumping vs. aerials: We shared two photos here of skiers jumping high in the air, so what's the difference? Aerials (top photo) is a discipline in which athletes are judged on specific maneuvers, akin to the halfpipe. Ski jumping, meanwhile, is all about distance and form.

🇩🇪 Oberhof, Germany — Athletes compete during the men's relay at last weekend's Biathlon World Cup event.

Did you know? The biathlon is the only winter sport in which Americans have never won an Olympic medal. Campbell Wright, a New Zealander with American parents, will look to end that drought next month after recently becoming the first American ever to win two medals at a world championships.

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📺 Watchlist: Wednesday, Jan. 14

🏀 NBA on ESPN

The 76ers host the Cavaliers (7pm ET) in the first leg of tonight's doubleheader, then the Mavericks host the Nuggets in the nightcap (9:30pm).

ROY watch: Two of our top three rookies, courtesy of Yahoo Sports' Steve Jones, are in action tonight. No. 1 Cooper Flagg leads the Mavericks in total points, rebounds, assists and steals, while No. 3 VJ Edgecombe is averaging 16-5-4 for the surprisingly frisky 76ers.

⚽️ AFCON Semifinals

The final four teams in the 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations take the field today in Morocco, with Senegal vs. Egypt in the first semifinal (12pm, beIN Sports) followed by Nigeria vs. Morocco in the second (3pm, beIN Sports).

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Names to know: Former Liverpool teammates and global superstars Mo Salah (Egypt) and Sadio Mané (Senegal) square off in the first game, while 2024 African Player of the Year Ademola Lookman (Nigeria) and AFCON leading scorer Brahim Díaz (Morocco) meet in the second.

More to watch:

• 🏒 NHL: Flyers at Sabres (7:30pm, TNT); Golden Knights at Kings (10pm, TNT) … Philadelphia, Buffalo and LA all fell out of playoff position on Tuesday, and can all jump right back in with a win tonight.

• 🏀 NCAAM: Iowa at No. 5 Purdue(6:30pm, BTN); No. 10 Vanderbilt at Texas(9pm, ESPN2); Arizona State at No. 1 Arizona(10:30pm, FS1); No. 4 Michigan at Washington(10:30pm, BTN); No. 6 Duke at Cal(11pm, ACC)

• ⚽️ EFL Cup: Arsenal vs. Chelsea(3pm, Paramount+)… The winner will face Manchester City in the final.

Today's full slate.

🏈 Heisman trivia

Indiana's Fernando Mendoza is one win away from becoming the fourth player in the CFP era (2014-present) to win the Heisman Trophy and the national championship in the same season.

Question: Which three players would he join?

Hint: They all play different positions.

Answer at the bottom.

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🏈 Let’s travel back to 2007…

On Jan. 27, 2007, the Steelers promoted 34-year-old Mike Tomlin from defensive coordinator to head coach after the retirement of Bill Cowher. To get a sense of how long ago that is, here's what else was transpiring around that date…

• Peyton Manning had yet to win a Super Bowl.

• Lane Kiffin was announced as the new head coach of the Oakland Raiders four days earlier. He is now on his sixth different job since then.

• The Patriots had recently wrapped up a 16-0 regular season. You probably know what happened the next month.

• The top picks of that year's NFL Draft: JaMarcus Russell, Calvin Johnson, Joe Thomas. Two of them worked out.

• Barry Bonds had yet to become MLB's all-time home run leader.

• Stephen Curry was a freshman at Davidson, and Tim Tebow was a freshman at Florida.

• Novak Djokovic was more than a year away from his first Grand Slam title.

• Usain Bolt was months from his first world championship medals.

• Apple announced the first iPhone the same month.

• Netflix, long known for DVD rentals through the mail, launched a video streaming service that month.

• The No. 1 song on the billboard charts that month? Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable."

• Barack Obama announced his first presidential campaign a month later.

• Martin Scorsese was on the verge of his first Academy Award for "The Departed."

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Trivia answer: DeVonta Smith, WR, Alabama (2020); Joe Burrow, QB, LSU (2019); Derrick Henry, RB, Alabama (2015)

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