nfl
League to look at Tomlin’s actions on kick return
PITTSBURGH – Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s not-so-nimble footwork provided a pretty good impersonation of his team’s decidedly graceless season during a 22-20 loss to Baltimore on Thursday night.
Tomlin got caught looking at the scoreboard and walking a little too close to the field of play during a kickoff return by Baltimore’s Jacoby Jones in the third quarter. When Tomlin realized the streaking Jones– and Pittsburgh’s possible playoff hopes – were about to pass him by, Tomlin lamely and belatedly attempted to get out of the way.
The NFL will take a look at Tomlin’s inattentiveness during its usual game review sometime next week.
college football
Nebraska’s Pelini: ‘If they want to fire me, go ahead’
LINCOLN, Neb. – Bo Pelini said he hasn’t been told if he’ll return for a seventh season as Nebraska’s head coach and that he isn’t spending any time worrying about it.
“If they want to fire me, go ahead,” Pelini told reporters after the Cornhuskers’ 38-17 loss to Iowa on Friday to finish the regular season 8-4. “I believe in what I’ve done. I don’t apologize to you. I don’t apologize to anybody, myself or this staff. My record, our record since I’ve been here, speaks for itself. And this program is heading in a good direction.”
Saturday’s comments were consistent with what Pelini told USA TODAY Sports nearly two weeks ago.
“You know what? People are gonna say what they want to say,” he said. “I really don’t care. If they want someone – if somebody wants someone else – so be it. I’ll move on.
“I know what I know, and I believe in what we’re doing. I believe in how we’re doing it. We do it the right way here. That’s about it. That’s all you can do.”
Though Pelini is 57-24 at Nebraska, his performance has been heavily scrutinized in the wake of bad losses to UCLA and Minnesota.
The question is whether first-year athletic director Shawn Eichorst believes Pelini is moving the program in the right direction. Pelini is under contract through 2017 and makes almost $3 million per year.
The Huskers haven’t won a conference championship since 1999, and they were eliminated from the Big Ten Legends Division race two weeks ago.
skiing
Svindal fastest in training for World Cup downhill
LAKE LOUISE, Alberta – Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was fastest in the final training run for a World Cup downhill at Lake Louise.
Svindal was a double winner in Lake Louise last year with victories in the downhill and super-G.
The downhill course was shortened for Friday’s training because of poor visibility at the top of the mountain.
Svindal’s time was 1 minute 24.33 seconds. Georg Streitberger of Austria was second in 1:24.47 and Bode Miller was third in 1:24.78.
Saturday’s race is the first men’s downhill of this World Cup season.
olympics
Lab finds 266 positive results with a new steroid test
ZURICH – A German anti-doping laboratory using a new steroid test has found 266 positive cases in the past year and is finding other positives in retesting of old samples.
Cologne lab scientist Hans Geyer revealed detailed figures Friday at an anti-doping conference hosted by FIFA.
The lab found 184 cases involving stanozolol, the banned drug used by sprinter Ben Johnson at the 1988 Olympics, and 82 of oral turinabol, a steroid widely used in the former East Germany.
Geyer said many of the positives since November 2012 involved athletics, weightlifting and wrestling, and all were reported to the World Anti-Doping Agency and sports governing bodies.
Associated Press
