Sports briefs
By NewsPress Now
Pac-12 to add Boise St., Fresno St., San Diego St., Colorado St. in 2026
After being poached almost into oblivion, the Pac-12 is fighting off extinction by plucking schools from the Mountain West.
The Pac-12 announced Thursday that it in 2026 it will add Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State alongside Oregon State and Washington State in a rebuilt Conference of Champions.
The additions rob the Mountain West of four of its more prominent schools and successful football programs, most notably Boise State. It still leaves the Pac-12 two schools short of the eight it needs to have in place in two years to be recognized as a conference by the NCAA, so more moves are expected.
The Pac-12 and the departing schools will likely be on the hook for about $110 million in exit fees and penalties to the Mountain West.
It is a remarkable bounce-back move by a conference left for dead a year ago when 10 members scattered to competitors across the country after being unable to secure a lucrative media rights deal that former Pac-12 schools such as Southern California, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Stanford believed would keep them competitive with other leagues.
“For over a century, the Pac-12 Conference has been recognized as a leading brand in intercollegiate athletics,” Commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement. “We will continue to pursue bold cutting-edge opportunities for growth and progress, to best serve our member institutions and student-athletes. An exciting new era for the Pac-12 Conference begins today.”
The Pac-12 said it evaluated potential new members using five criteria: academics and athletics performance; media and brand evaluation; commitment to athletics success; geography and logistics; culture and student-athlete welfare.
Pac-2
The Pac-12 is currently operating as a two-school conference, with Oregon State and Washington State the only remaining members, taking advantage of NCAA rules that allow for a two-year grace period. Oregon State President Jayathi Murthy and Washington State President Kirk Schulz welcomed their new conference mates in a joint statement.
“We eagerly anticipate their uniquely insightful contributions during this transformative era for the conference and collegiate athletics,” they said.
Oregon State and Washington State have a football scheduling agreement in place this season with the Mountain West, giving them six opponents each from the league. A Sept. 1 first deadline to renew the deal came and went.
Part of that deal included millions of dollars in additional fees for the Pac-12 if it poached Mountain West schools.
Oregon State and Washington State should be able to afford the fees that remain. While the schools have publicly downplayed having a war chest, they do have about $250 million at their disposal from the two remaining years of the current College Football Playoff agreement; a contract with the Rose Bowl that expires after 2025; revenue accrued by Pac-12 teams in recent years from NCAA men’s basketball tournament units; and Pac-12 Network assets.
Oregon State and Washington State also have an affiliate membership in place for this school year and next with the West Coast Conference for men’s and women’s basketball and other Olympic sports.
Best of the rest
Leaders at Oregon State and Washington State have insisted since the Pac-12 collapsed that unless an invitation came from a power conference their priority was to keep the Pac-12 alive.
Whether the Pac-12 will be considered a power conference again, on par with the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12, seems unlikely, but the league is trying to position itself as the best of the rest — especially in football.
Boise State is the most notable addition as the strongest and most consistent football program outside of the power conferences for more than two decades. The Broncos have 16 double-digit victory seasons since 2002, when they were members of the Western Athletic Conference.
“What a great day to be a Bronco!” Boise State athletic director Jeramiah Dickey said.
Boise State is finally moving up, but the Pac-12 it enters hardly resembles the Conference of Champions it was for more than 100 years.
The collapse of the Pac-12 was the culmination of three tumultuous years of conference realignment in college sports, all of which went into effect this year and ushered in the superconference era.
The Big Ten now has 18 schools, spanning from coast-to-coast. The ACC has 17 football-playing members, including former Pac-12 schools Stanford and California. The SEC and Big 12 each have 16 schools.
The Pac-12 appears to be taking a different approach, trying to build a slimmed-down conference instead of just merging with the full, 12-member Mountain West.
Left behind
The Mountain West will be left with Air Force, UNLV, Nevada, Utah State, New Mexico, Wyoming, San Jose State, Hawaii as a football-only member, and an uncertain future.
Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said late Wednesday that the MWC board of directors was meeting to discuss the next steps.
“All members will be held to conference bylaws and policies should they elect to depart,” she said. “The requirements of the scheduling agreement will apply to the Pac-12 should they admit Mountain West members.”
Hall of Famer Joe Schmidt, who helped Detroit Lions win 2 NFL titles, dies at 92
DETROIT | Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.’’
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
A linebacker at West Virginia State is fatally shot on eve of game
CHARLESTON, W.Va. | A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
Jon Rahm appeals European tour fines
Jon Rahm on Thursday appealed the European tour sanctions against him for playing the LIV Golf circuit, allowing him to play the Spanish Open and other European tour events until an independent panel decides if he must pay fines.
Rahm’s formal appeal was a pivotal move because it allows him a chance to reach the minimum four European tour starts required to be considered for the Ryder Cup next year.
Rahm, a former Masters champion and world No. 1, joined the Saudi-funded league late last year for a signing bonus reported to be in the $300 million to $400 million range.
Other players who defected to LIV, Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk, are going through the same appeal and are allowed into tournaments as the process plays out.
Hatton played the British Masters two weeks ago. Both are entered in the Spanish Open.
The European tour said in a statement, “Jon Rahm has a pending appeal against sanctions imposed on him and in accordance with the DP World Tour’s Regulations, he is eligible to participate in the (Spanish Open) later this month.”
The DP World Tour is the commercial name of the European tour.
“I don’t intend to pay the fines, and we keep trying to have a discussion with them about how we can make this happen,” Rahm said on Wednesday from LIV Golf Chicago, where he is battling Joaquin Niemann for the individual title worth $18 million to the winner.
Rahm said he has entered the Dunhill Links Championship and the Andalucia Masters. That would give him four starts because the Olympics counts toward the minimum.
The appeals process is the same as it was when several Europeans first joined LIV Golf in the summer of 2022. An independent panel, Sport Resolutions, ruled in April 2023 the players committed serious breaches and the European tour was within its rights to penalize them.
“I’m glad Jon decided to appeal and he can play his events in which he wants to play and be eligible,” European captain Luke Donald said Thursday from the Irish Open. “I know the Ryder Cup means so much to him, and I’m sure that was a massive factor in his decision.”
Rahm is primarily opposed to being fined for playing LIV events opposite tournaments he had never played or did not intend to play. Among European tour events opposite LIV this year were stops in Bahrain, South Africa, Japan, China and the Czech Republic.
“He has his thoughts and he doesn’t agree with the fines and paying fines, especially for events that he would never have played on the DP World Tour. But those rules are the rules, and they were certainly in place when he signed with LIV,” Donald said.
Donald said he hoped golf’s landscape would be different before the September 2025 matches at Bethpage Black. Executives with the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia met this week in New York to continue negotiations about PIF becoming a minority investor in PGA Tour Enterprises and what that would mean for players on both sides.
The tour and PIF first had a framework agreement announced in June 2023.
“I’ll take today as a nice little victory for me personally to know that Jon is eligible and can play his three events now,” Donald said. “What happens in the future, I can’t tell. What happens in 15 months, I think all of us thought something more would happen.”
Lawyer says Chinese doping case handled ‘reasonably’
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “unsatisfactory” way in which the agency and its Chinese counterparts disregarded key rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how anti-doping protocols were set aside more, Cottier concluded, for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
One of WADA’s fiercest critics, Travis Tygart of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, weighed in, saying “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
“You should not have to have a rule that says do the right thing for clean athletes,” Tygart said.
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
—From AP reports
