Welcome to the playoff push: Breaking down the final 14 days of MLB’s regular season
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Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer
The legal efforts to unionize college athletes appear to be running out of steam this month as a new Republican-led administration gets set to take over the federal agency in charge of ruling on employment cases.
A players’ advocacy group who filed charges against the NCAA, Pac-12 and USC that would have potentially opened the door for college players to form a union decided Friday to withdraw its complaint. Their case – which was first filed in February 2022 – was one of two battles against the NCAA taken up by the National Labor Relations Board in recent years. Earlier this week, an administrative law judge closed the other case, which was filed by men’s basketball players at Dartmouth.
The National College Players Association, which filed its complaint on behalf of USC athletes, said the recent changes in state law and NCAA rules that are on track to allow schools to directly pay their players starting this summer caused them to reconsider their complaint.
“[T]he NCPA believes that it is best to provide adequate time for the college sports industry to transition into this new era before football and basketball players employee status is ruled upon,” the organization’s founder Ramogi Huma wrote in the motion to withdraw.
The NCAA and its four power conferences agreed to the terms of a legal settlement this summer that will allow schools to spend up to roughly $20.5 million on direct payments to their athletes starting next academic year. The deal is scheduled to be finalized in April.
College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have remained steadfast in their belief that athletes should not be considered employees of their schools during a period when college sports have moved closer to a professionalized model.
Some industry stakeholders believe that the richest schools in college sports will need to collectively bargain with athletes to put an end to the current onslaught of legal challenges facing the industry. Currently, any collective bargaining would have to happen with a formal union to provide sufficient legal protection. Some members of Congress say they are discussing the possibility of creating a special status for college sports that would allow collective bargaining without employment. However, Congressional aides familiar with ongoing negotiations told ESPN that influential Republican leaders in Congress are firmly against the idea.
The NLRB’s national board previously declined to make a ruling on whether college athletes should be employees in 2015 when a group of football players at Northwestern attempted to unionize. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s leader during the Biden administration, signaled an interest in taking up the athletes’ fight to unionize early in her tenure. Abruzzo is not expected to remain as the NLRB’s general counsel during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Under Abruzzo, the agency’s regional offices pushed both the Dartmouth and USC cases forward in the past year. Dartmouth players got far enough to vote in favor of forming a union in March 2024, but were still in the appeals process when they decided to end their effort last month.
The only remaining legal fight over employee status in college sports is a federal lawsuit known as Johnson v. NCAA. That case claims the association is violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, which does not guarantee the right to unionize but instead would give athletes some basic employee rights such as minimum wage and overtime pay. That case is currently working its way through the legal process in the Third Circuit federal court.
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Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
Louisiana State Police have issued an arrest warrant for former LSU receiver Kyren Lacy, who is accused of causing a fatal crash that killed a 78-year-old man on Dec. 17 and then fleeing the scene without rendering aid or calling authorities.
Louisiana State Police said on Friday that Lacy will be charged with negligent homicide, felony hit-and-run and reckless operation of a vehicle.
Police said they have been in contact with Lacy and his attorney to turn himself in.
According to a news release from state police, Lacy was allegedly driving a 2023 Dodge Charger on Louisiana Highway 20 and “recklessly passed multiple vehicles at a high rate of speed by crossing the centerline and entering the northbound lane while in a designated no-passing zone.”
“As Lacy was illegally passing the other vehicles, the driver of a northbound pickup truck abruptly braked and swerved to the right to avoid a head-on collision with the approaching Dodge,” a Louisiana State Police news release said.
“Traveling behind the pickup was a 2017 Kia Cadenza whose driver swerved left to avoid the oncoming Dodge Charger. As the Kia Cadenza took evasive action to avoid impact with the Dodge, it crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Kia Sorento.”
Police alleged that Lacy, 24, drove around the crash scene and fled “without stopping to render aid, call emergency services, or report his involvement in the crash.”
Herman Hall, 78, of Thibodaux, Louisiana, who was a passenger in the Kia Sorrento, later died from injuries suffered in the crash, according to state police.
The drivers of the Cadenza and Sorento also sustained moderate injuries, according to police.
Lacy played two seasons at Louisiana before transferring to LSU in 2022. This past season, he had 58 catches for 866 yards with nine touchdowns and declared for the NFL draft on Dec. 19, two days after the crash.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Tears welled in Drew Allar‘s eyes and began to fall down the Penn State quarterback’s face as he spoke about a game that was in his grasp, until it wasn’t.
Allar, who showed clear improvement during his second year as Penn State’s starting quarterback, struggled for much of Thursday’s 27-24 loss to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl. But after helping Penn State take the lead midway through the fourth quarter, he had a chance to lead a game-winning drive as the offense took possession with 47 seconds to play and the score tied at 24-24.
Then, on first down from the Penn State 28-yard line, Allar looked downfield for wide receiver Omari Evans but badly misfired, and Notre Dame’s Christian Gray dove to intercept the ball. The Irish then picked up a key first down, setting up Mitch Jeter‘s 41-yard field goal attempt, which he converted with seven seconds left.
“I was going through my progression, got to the backside, and honestly, I was just trying to dirt it at his feet,” Allar said. “I should have just thrown it away when I felt the first two progressions not open, because of the situation we were in.”
Allar, who completed 71.6% of his passes during the regular season and helped Penn State reach the Big Ten title game, connected on only 12 of 23 attempts Thursday for 135 yards. Penn State converted 3 of 11 third-down chances and didn’t complete any passes to its wide receivers. Thursday marked the only game in the past 20 seasons that Penn State failed to complete a pass to a wide receiver.
Notre Dame entered the game fifth nationally in third-down conversion defense at a shade under 30%, while Penn State was 15th nationally in third-down conversions at 47%. On third-and-goal late in the first quarter, Allar’s pass to running back Nicholas Singleton went a bit behind him, bouncing off his hands to prevent a likely touchdown.
“I thought we had a really good plan,” Allar said. “I thought [offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki] and the offensive staff had a really good plan for normal downs, third down and red zone, but I missed a couple throws on it, so it comes down to just execution. Credit to Notre Dame for making it tough, for sure, but I think if we just execute those moments that we would have put ourselves in a better position. It starts with me hitting some of those throws.”
Despite winning a team-record 13 games, including the first two CFP victories in school history, Penn State squandered two leads to fall just short of advancing to the national title game. Coach James Franklin, who dropped to 1-15 against AP top-five opponents, pointed to Penn State’s third-down struggles on both sides of the ball — Notre Dame converted 11 of 17 opportunities — and the final minutes of the first half and start of the second half as the biggest factors in the outcome.
“He’s hurting right now, should be hurting, we’re all hurting, this ain’t easy,” Franklin said of Allar. “He’ll handle it great. He’ll be hurting tonight and he’ll be hurting tomorrow and he’ll hurt a little bit less than the next day and so on and so forth. But he’s a committed guy that’s going to do it the right way.”
Kotelnicki said the team embraced a “playing to win” mindset and wanted to remain aggressive in the final minute. After Singleton rushed for 13 yards on the first play, Penn State tried to use tempo on the ill-fated pass.
“He’s going to put that on himself, and he doesn’t have to,” Kotelnicki said. “I’ve got to be better for him and our offense to make sure that whatever we’re doing, whatever play we’re calling, that our people have a chance to separate and put him in a position where he can feel more comfortable. So I simply say to him, ‘That ain’t you. That’s not on you. You don’t need to take that on your shoulders and feel the blame for that.'”
Allar’s interception marked his first of the CFP and just his eighth all season. He struggled with accuracy during four postseason games — the Big Ten championship and three CFP contests — hitting on only 58 of 109 (53.2%) of his attempts, while throwing six touchdown passes and three interceptions.
The 6-foot-5, 238-pound junior announced last month that he intended to return to Penn State for the 2025 season rather than enter the NFL draft.
“We didn’t win the game, so it wasn’t good enough, I think it’s plain and simple,” Allar said. “So I’ll learn from it, just do everything in my power to get better from it and just grow from it.”
Franklin called Allar’s growth “significant” from 2023, his first year as Penn State’s starter.
“He said it, and it may not feel like it right now, but he’ll learn from this, and he’ll be better for it, and so will we,” Franklin said.
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