Sports

8:14 AM ET Mark Schlabach Close ESPN Senior Writer Senior college football writer Author of seven books on college football Graduate of the University of Georgia Tom VanHaaren Close ESPN Staff Writer ESPN staff writer Joined ESPN in 2011 Graduated from Central Michigan What started out as a typical Thursday morning for PGA Tour players,

5:11 PM ET Art Briles is back in college football, and no matter how hard anyone at Grambling State tries, this is a decision that cannot be explained away. Especially not the way Grambling State’s athletic director is attempting to do so. In puzzling comments to ESPN, Trayvean Scott said he is “rooted in fact”

8:45 AM ET JUPITER, Fla. — The two sides arrive daily at Roger Dean Stadium and break into camps — the players huddle in the parking lot for a few minutes, some fielding requests for autographs from fans nearby, as the league sets up inside. After more than two months of looking past each other,

9:00 AM ET The old adage in the NHL is that “you can’t fire the players.” I mean, there are so many of them. It’s much easier to fire just one person, which is why the head coach usually pays for the team’s on-ice sins. Theoretically, firing the head coach is a surefire way to

6:27 PM ET MADRID — Anthony Elanga is quickly becoming indispensable to Manchester United, and at just 19 years old, he may have kept his club’s Champions League ambitions alive with a crucial equaliser to earn a 1-1 round-of-16 first-leg draw against Atletico Madrid at the Estadio Metropolitano. Prior to Elanga’s goal, United had been

11:30 AM GMT Former England lock George Kruis will retire from rugby at the end of the season to focus on business commitments, the 32-year-old announced on Tuesday. Kruis played 45 times for England and was part of their squads for the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups, as well as two Six Nations triumphs,

8:10 AM ET Nick Parkinson Close •Reports on boxing for ESPN.co.uk, as well as several national newspapers•Has been reporting on British boxing for over 15 years•Appears on BoxNation’s Boxing Matters show Josh Taylor owns all the world titles at junior welterweight, but he insists he is hungry for more as he targets the welterweight division

7:38 AM ET Jeff Wagenheim When Gegard Mousasi and Austin Vanderford step inside the cage for the main event of Bellator 275 on Friday in Dublin, Ireland, the Bellator middleweight championship matchup will represent far different career mileposts for each fighter. For Vanderford, the title challenge is unquestionably the biggest fight of his life. He

2:04 PM ET ESPN News Services Medina Spirit has been disqualified as Kentucky Derby champion and trainer Bob Baffert was suspended for 90 days after the horse tested positive for a banned medication, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission announced Monday. In addition, Baffert was fined $7,500 and all purse money from Medina Spirit’s win was

7:00 AM ET DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR President Steve Phelps is sitting in his office overlooking Daytona International Speedway. You can see and hear race cars turning laps around the 2.5-mile World Center of Racing. On the shelves behind him are artifacts that represent the perfect mix of where NASCAR has been and where

9:56 PM ET DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Who in the world is Austin Cindric? As the 2022 Daytona 500 ground its way to the checkered flag, finally ending a 3½-hour enduro race that put a dozen cars behind the wall and saw 25 of the 40 cars in the field caught up in accidents (that’s

8:08 PM ET Tim BontempsESPN CLEVELAND — Phoenix Suns guard Chris Paul will be out for the next six to eight weeks due to an avulsion fracture in his right thumb, a source confirmed to ESPN. The injury is a massive blow to a Suns team with the league’s best record and knocks the All-Star

6:22 PM ET Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO — Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz beat Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman 6-4, 6-2 to win the Rio Open on Sunday. The 18-year-old Alcaraz overcame third-seeded Schwartzman in the final to the delight of Brazilian fans at the clay-court tournament. The seventh-seeded Spaniard won his first professional match in Rio

4:04 PM ET The Super Golf League, which is being backed by Saudi Arabian money and fronted by Greg Norman, was dealt a pair of serious blows Sunday when two of golf’s biggest stars believed to be connected to the proposed breakaway circuit pledged their support to the PGA Tour. Two-time major champion Dustin Johnson

8:00 PM ET PITTSBURGH — Brian Flores has the resume of an NFL head coach. Four years as a New England Patriots scout. Fifteen seasons as a Patriots assistant coach. Four Super Bowl victories. Three seasons — including two winning seasons — as the Miami Dolphins head coach. Yet, Flores will not be a head

4:45 PM ET For more than eight months, leaders of the College Football Playoff have been unable to unanimously agree on what the future format of the sport’s postseason should look like. This week, they finally agreed to disagree, recommitting to the four-team format for the next four years. Friday’s news ended all speculation about

7:00 AM ET After ranking the top 100 prospects heading into the 2022 MLB season, it’s time to turn our attention to each team’s farm system as a whole. I’ve always found it both overwhelming and too subjective to line up 30 lists of players and say this list is better than that one with

7:32 AM ET DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — While the main conversation at Daytona International Speedway this week has revolved around NASCAR’s new Next Gen race car, and rightfully so, another next generational movement is taking place behind the wheel of that car. With all due respect to the machines the sanctioning body has touted as

1:10 PM ET Sam Marsden Moises Llorens After a 2-2 draw in LaLiga against Osasuna in December, Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez didn’t know whether to be delighted or despondent about the role three teenagers played in securing a point for his side. Nico Gonzalez and Abde Ezzalzouli scored the goals at El Sadar that day,

8:00 AM ET Mike Modano started his Hall of Fame NHL career with the Minnesota North Stars. They were a blast to watch back in the 1980s, with players like Neal Broten and Dino Ciccarelli scoring copious amounts of goals, until Norm Greed … er, Green … stole them from the “State of Hockey” and