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INSIDE TODAY
Colin Kaepernick’s three touchdown
passes lead the San Francisco 49ers over
the St. Louis Rams. Page 3S
Coming Wednesday: Update on the Colts from Reggie Hayes.
OCTOBER 14, 2014
TUESDAY
Heat players’ feelings cooling on LeBron
And Raiders fans display their
throwing arms and mentality.
MIAMI HEAT BIG man Chris Bosh said
it can be tough to alter your game to play
alongside LeBron James, offering free
advice for Kevin Love and the Cleveland
Cavaliers.
“It’s a lot more difficult taking a step
back,” Bosh said.
The upside, now that James has gone
to Cleveland, is that Bosh will be freed
of carrying around the extra weight of
another NBA championship ring.
A COLUMN
REGGIE HAYES
BY
rhayes@news-sentinel.com
SCRAMBLED FANS
The San Diego Chargers team bus was
egged by Oakland Raiders fans as the
team arrived at the stadium for Sunday’s
game. With that, yet another chance for
the Oakland faithful to win “NFL’s Classiest Fans” fell by the wayside.
S
SWINGS AND CONNECTIONS
Boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr.
made $600,000 off his bet that the Denver Broncos would beat the New York
Jets by more than 7.5 points Sunday.
Good to hear. I was getting worried about
his stability since his net worth these
days is down to $295 million.
I DON’T KNOW’S ON THIRD
The New York Yankees plan to use
Alex Rodriguez as a backup first baseman to Mark Teixeira next season, a
reflection of Rodriguez’s age (39) and the
Yankees’ needs. As a result, the popular
Abbott & Costello skit will be revived as
“Juice on First.”
HAVE ANOTHER BREW
The Milwaukee Brewers fired their
See HAYES, Page 8S
Illustration by Ken Dutton for The News-Sentinel
ROSTER CUTS SUDDENLY A LOT EASIER
Shoulder surgery
will end season
for IU’s Sudfeld
Freshman Covington to start versus Michigan State.
BY PETE DIPRIMIO
pdiprimio@news-sentinel.com
Photos by Blake Sebring of The News-Sentinel
Kalamzoo’s Isaac Macleod skates by Komets defenseman Matt Krug to slip the puck past the right pad of goaltender Pat
Nagle during the first period Monday night.
Komets fizzle in final
exhibition game
Lackluster defensive play might have cost some players a spot
UNFORTUNATELY FOR
FORT Wayne
Komets coach
Gary Graham, he
can’t cut everybody, though he
probably considA column by
ered it during the
BLAKE SEBRING
second period of
Twitter:
Monday night’s
@blakesebring
7-3 exhibition
loss to the Kalamazoo Wings.
Graham and General Manager David Franke have to reduce
their 25-man roster to a 20 on the
active lineup by 3 p.m. Wednesday, but they’ll likely move quickly to beat that deadline.
“We’ll be looking to move guys
immediately, probably within the
next 12 hours,” Graham said after the game. “Some guys showed
enough now that we have to move
in a different direction.”
Asked if the decisions were
harder now, Graham said, “After
a game like that, it’s easy.”
That was the most direct hit of
the evening.
It certainly looked like most of
the players were taking it easy,
especially defensively. Goaltender
Pat Nagle gave up five goals on
BLOOMINGTON — Nate
Sudfeld is finished for the season.
This much we know about the
Indiana quarterback situation.
Freshman Chris Covington is
the new starter, with help from
fellow freshman Zander Diamont.
What does that mean for
Saturday’s Homecoming game
against No. 6 Michigan State?
Stay tuned.
Sudfeld dislocated his left
(non-throwing) shoulder in the
first half of Saturday’s loss at
Iowa. Coach Kevin Wilson said
Sudfeld needs surgery, and it
likely will happen Thursday.
“The shoulder is slipping on
him,” Wilson said. “It’s not his
throwing side. He should be able
to make a strong recovery.”
Sudfeld, a junior, finishes the
year completing 60.5 percent of
his passes for 1,151 yards, six
touchdowns and three interceptions. It was a drop from his
previous two seasons, in part
because he was
working with
multiple new receivers and because of some
dropped passes.
“Our receiver
play has not been
Sudfeld
as consistent and
our quarterback
has not been as good as it needs
to be,” Wilson said. “That’s a challenge as we keep these guys coming.”
How has Sudfeld handled the
setback?
“He’s doing fine,” offensive
coordinator Kevin Johns said.
“There is some frustration from
the fact he’ll miss the reset of
the year. He’s a competitor. He’ll
bounce back just fine. He’ll be
ready for next fall.”
Johns added Sudfeld will serve
as a mentor for Covington and Diamont.
“He’s disappointed that he
can’t play, but he’s going to be
See SUDFELD, Page 8S
Irish defense
in desperate
need of a break
3rd-down breakdowns force too many extra snaps.
BY TOM DAVIS
tdavis@news-sentinel.com
Komets defenseman Will Lacasse, right, charges into the Kalamazoo zone in
an attempt to fire up the Fort Wayne offense during the third period.
Up next
Regular season begins
Faceoff: Komets at Indy, 7:30 p.m.
Friday
Radio: WOWO, 1190-AM
17 shots, but most came within
10 feet of the net with no other
Komet trying to help. Turnover
after turnover became tape-totape passes for easy Kalamazoo
scoring opportunities.
“Guys tentative, guys nervous,
it just didn’t look like the same
group that has been playing all
week,” Graham said. “... some of
our core guys, our key guys ... we
need guys to lead by example.
Toe drags, turnovers, not strong
plays along the wall, all those
things add up. Kalamazoo played
a simple game plan, outworked us
and shot everything and made the
most out of their scoring chances.”
See SEBRING, Page 8S
“We’ll be looking to move guys immediately ... . Some guys showed enough
now that we have to move in a different direction.”
— GARY GRAHAM, KOMETS COACH
SPORTS EDITOR: TOM DAVIS
|
PHONE: 461-8240
|
Midway through the second
quarter of its victory over North
Carolina last weekend, the Notre Dame defense settled into
position against the Tar Heels
on a third and 1. The Irish
had stormed back from a 14-0
first-quarter deficit and scored
the game’s last 21 points.
North Carolina running
back Elijah Hood, who had once
pledged his services to the team
wearing navy blue rather than
Carolina blue, powered his way
for 2 yards, which gave his team
a new set of downs. Few of the
80,795 fans that filled Notre
Dame Stadium realized it at the
time, but that play was a microcosm of what plagued the fifthranked Irish (6-0) all day.
But Notre Dame coach Brian
Kelly knew exactly what was
happening.
“We weren’t good on third
down,” Kelly recalled afterward.
“That’s really what happened ...
we couldn’t get off the field on
third down.”
EMAIL: SPORTS@NEWS-SENTINEL.COM
After that
run by Hood,
the Tar Heels
forced the Irish
defense to line
up for 16 more
snaps on that
drive as they
Kelly
pulled to within
21-20 a few minutes later. And
that wasn’t the lone problematic
series for Kelly’s club.
In the first half, the Irish defense had to play 29 extra snaps
after third-down conversions by
North Carolina. All total, the
Notre Dame defense played an
extra 43 snaps than it truly
had to (minus presumed fourthdown punts) during the game.
“If you really critically look at
it, we just gave them too many
plays,” Kelly said. “We just
weren’t locked in defensively
like we had been the previous
weeks. It wasn’t our best effort.”
Notre Dame had no shortage
of questions surrounding its
defense entering this season.
See IRISH, Page 8S