Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
ACC will stay with 15 teams for tournaments
CHARLOTTE, N.C. | Next year’s newly expanded Atlantic Coast Conference won’t feature every team in its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
The league announced Wednesday that the ACC will feature the top 15 teams in next year’s tournaments, which will be the first after the league has grown to 18 teams by bringing in California and Stanford from the Pac-12 as well as SMU from the American Athletic Conference. The league will stay with a 20-game conference schedule for the men and an 18-game schedule for the women.
The format of the ACC men’s and women’s tournaments had been in question because the league has long included every team, but going to 18 teams would push them beyond the current five-day event model.
The ACC also has approved a pair of technology measures for the 2024 football season, pending approval from the NCAA Football Rules Committee. That includes the use of coach-to-player helmet devices allowing for one-way communication, as well as providing access to in-game video to league teams to “enhance their ability to make in-game adjustments.”
The announcement came at the end of the three-day winter meetings, which included league athletic directors and other key administrators as well as the league’s Board of Directors made up of school presidents and chancellors.
MLB umpires will be more observant about obstruction calls
NEW YORK | Major League Baseball is telling managers that umpires will be more observant about calling obstruction on infielders this year.
MLB in concerned infielders not in possession of the ball are impeding runners in violation of rule 6.01 and said the increased emphasis will take place only on the bases and not at home plate.
MLB’s decision was first reported Wednesday by ESPN.
The enforcement adjustment comes after MLB changed a different baserunning rule this offseason, widening the runner’s lane approaching first base to include a portion of fair territory. MLB also is shortening the pitch clock with runners on base by two seconds to 18 and further reducing mound visits in an effort to speed games.
The new runner’s lane overrides a rule that has existed since the National League mandated in 1882 that runners must be within the 3-foot box on the foul side of the base line during the final 45 feet between home and first. Violators were subject to being called out for interfering with fielders taking a throw. The rule was designed to prevent collisions; foul lines intersected the middle of bases until the bags were moved entirely into fair territory in 1887.
New Orleans Saints
name Klint Kubiak offensive coordinator
NEW ORLEANS | The New Orleans Saints named Klint Kubiak as their offensive coordinator on Wednesday, marking a new direction for a unit that has been overseen by either former coach Sean Payton or his protege, Pete Carmichael Jr., since 2006.
The 36-year-old Kubiak was the passing game coordinator for the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers last season, and his hiring could not be formalized until after the Niners played in Sunday’s Super Bowl, which they lost in overtime to the Kansas City Chiefs, 25-22.
San Francisco had one of the NFL’s most productive offenses in 2023, averaging 28.9 points and 398.4 yards per game. The Niners ranked fourth in yards passing at 257.9.
Kubiak’s father, Gary Kubiak, spent more than two decades as an NFL coach or assistant after a playing career in which he served as Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway’s backup in Denver. Gary Kubiak won a Super Bowl as coach of the 2015 Broncos.
The younger Kubiak has served two previous short stints as an offensive coordinator, with Minnesota and Denver. His first such stint with the Vikings came in 2021, which ended with then-coach Mike Zimmer being fired.
Kubiak also called plays in Denver for the latter half of the 2022 season, during which the Broncos went 5-12. Nathaniel Hackett started that season as Denver’s coach but was fired after 15 games, and Kubiak was on the move again when that season ended.
In San Francisco, he worked with coach Kyle Shanahan, whose offenses have ranked seventh or better in four of the past five seasons.
In New Orleans, Kubiak will answer to coach Dennis Allen, a former defensive coordinator who continues to call the Saints’ defense. Kubiak’s quarterback will be Derek Carr, who labored through injuries during the first half of the 2023 season, but performed better down the stretch as the Saints won four of their last five games to finish 9-8 and narrowly miss the playoffs.
“Klint has done an excellent job in a variety of roles in 10 years in the NFL and has valuable play-calling experience,” Allen said in a statement. “He has played an important role in the growth of many players throughout his career, starting with the quarterback position.”
The Saints ranked ninth in scoring at 23.6 points per game, 14th in yards per game at 337.2 and tied for the sixth-fewest offensive turnovers with 18. However, the offense stagnated repeatedly in critical situations during the first 12 games — a troubling trend after the offseason acquisition of Carr.
New Orleans converted 53.3% of red zone opportunities into touchdowns, which ranked 18th. For much of the season, however, the Saints were in the bottom third of the NFL in that category. They lost seven games by fewer than 10 points.
The Saints have not made the playoffs since Drew Brees retired as the franchise’s all-time passing leader after the 2020 season. Now the hope in New Orleans is that the new offensive system scheme Kubiak will install better complements Allen’s defense, which has ranked 13th or better in each of past five seasons.
Kubiak began his coaching career as a graduate assistant in 2010 at Texas A&M, where his father and Dennis Allen both played.
He took his first NFL job with Minnesota in 2013 as an offensive quality control coach. He returned to the college ranks as Kansas’ receivers coach in 2015 before returning to the NFL on his father’s staff with Denver in 2016. He remained in Denver until joining Zimmer in Minnesota in 2019.
Daytona unveils the first of 28 unique statues of Richard Petty’s hat
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. | Richard Petty’s signature cowboy hat has been an iconic symbol of NASCAR for decades.
Now it’s a work of art.
Legacy Motor Club and Daytona International Speedway on Wednesday unveiled the first of 28 unique statues featuring Petty’s famed hat, the feathered Charlie 1 Horse. Titled “The King’s Hat,” the fiberglass and concrete statues are 6 feet tall and weigh 1,000 pounds.
They will be displayed at all NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports-owned tracks as well as Indianapolis Motor Speedway, World Wide Technology Raceway, Pocono Raceway, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the Legacy Motor Club and the Petty Museum.
Each version will deliver a personalized tribute to the Petty family.
“We were here when it all started, when NASCAR started,” Petty said. “It’s been a long road, and it’s been very successful for the family.”
The seven-time Cup Series champion and Hall of Famer is at the forefront of the Petty family celebrating 75 years in NASCAR. Lee Petty, Richard’s father, won three championships and the first Daytona 500 in 1959. Kyle Petty, Richard’s son, made 829 starts in the Cup Series races and remains a racing analyst for TV partner NBC.
The 86-year-old Petty is now the ambassador at Legacy Motor Club, which bought the remnants of Petty Enterprises and quickly rebranded and rebuilt it.
Fellow seven-time champ Jimmie Johnson co-owns Legacy and is driving the team’s No. 84 Toyota in the upcoming Daytona 500. Johnson chose to run the familiar “Petty Blue” paint scheme similar to one Richard Petty drove to victory lane in the 1964 Daytona 500.
The Pettys say it helped smooth hard feelings after Petty made it clear at Daytona last year that he felt stripped of power inside his former eponymous team.
“I’m a little bit better, especially once they painted the car blue,” Petty said.
Added Kyle Petty: “That blue color hides a lot, bud.”
“Basically everything was so new when we had the conversation here last year,” Richard Petty continued. “There’s been a lot of questions answered since then, so I think I’ve gotten a little bit more comfortable with it. It’s not where I’d like to see it, But from my standpoint, it’s a lot better, on my end of it anyway.”
That’s as close as Petty will get to offering a tip of his feathered cap to the other living seven-time champ.
But he welcomed NASCAR’s gesture. The hat statues were hand-crafted by the same company that designed and built the Peanuts character tribute in Minnesota. The company worked with each track to create versions of Petty’s hat they hope will become landmarks for fans to visit and pay tribute to the Petty family for years to come.
“It made me get a big head because the hat’s kind of big,” Petty said. “It’s really a neat deal because it’ll be at all the tracks. Petty fans, other fans, all NASCAR fans will get their picture took with it. From my standpoint, it just continues to hook me up that much more with NASCAR.”
—From AP reports
