Saturday’s game between Portland State and South Dakota was canceled because of illness within the Vikings football program, the schools announced.

South Dakota said that two days ago, a case of pertussis (whooping cough) struck the Portland State football program, causing team members to get sick.

Portland State said in a statement ‘that no players on the Viking team are seriously ill at this time.’

It is not known if the game will be rescheduled. The game was set to kick off at 4 p.m. ET from Hillsboro Stadium in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Portland State (0-2) is scheduled to play Boise State next Saturday, while South Dakota (1-1) takes on Drake University.

‘We are in communication with Portland State’s administration and will remain so as we continue to monitor the situation. Our utmost priority and concern are for the health and safety of everyone involved,’ Boise State said in a statement.

The Cleveland Browns thought they had solved their decades-long starting quarterback problem in 2022 when they traded for Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Little did they know that they were ending up on what is presently considered one of the worst trades in NFL history.

Watson’s tenure with the Browns has been disappointing. He made just 12 starts in his first two seasons while serving a suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy and battling injuries and has been nothing more than a mediocre starter in those contests.

The Browns entered the 2024 season with an 8-4 record in Watson’s starts, but he completed just 59.8 percent of his passes for 2,217 yards, 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions in those contests. That gave him a passer rating of just 81.4 and a below-average QBR of 40.4.

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There’s still time for Watson to turn things around, and the Browns are likely married to him because of the fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract they gave him.

Still, if the Browns had an out, they’d probably take it. And if they could go back recoup the assets they surrendered in the Watson trade, they would almost certainly exercise that option as well.

Meanwhile, the Texans are still basking in the glow of the trade, which sent out a malcontent in a dispute with the team and added a treasure trove of assets to the organization’s coffers. Those picks have since become a group of potential-packed young players who are adding upside to a roster that has already improved markedly under Nick Caserio and DeMeco Ryans.

Deshaun Watson trade details

Browns get:

QB Deshaun Watson
2024 sixth-round pick (used in the Jerry Jeudy trade)

Texans get:

2022 first-round pick (OG Kenyon Green)
2022 fourth-round pick (RB Dameon Pierce)
2023 first-round pick (DE Will Anderson Jr.)
2023 third-round pick (WR Tank Dell)
2024 first-round pick (CB Kamari Lassiter and LB Jamal Hill)
2024 fourth-round pick (S Calen Bullock)

The Texans received six draft picks in exchange for Watson and managed to turn them into seven players.

Houston enjoyed immense buying power during the three years after the Watson trade. The Texans maneuvered around the draft board frequently because of this, so most of the picks were not made at the original spots Cleveland was expected to pick. And in some cases, the picks acquired by the Texans from the Browns were packaged with other draft capital to move up.

Nonetheless, the seven players acquired represent the best estimate of what the Texans got from the Browns for Watson. When evaluating the package, it’s clear that the Texans look like the early winner of the trade by a wide margin.

What did the Texans get for Deshaun Watson?

Below are the seven players the Texans acquired for Watson:

OG Kenyon Green
RB Dameon Pierce
DE Will Anderson Jr.
WR Tank Dell
CB Kamari Lassiter
LB Jamal Hill
S Calen Bullock

Not all of the acquisitions have panned out, but the Texans acquired at least a couple of key playmakers from the deal.

Green was the first piece of the Watson trade the Browns cashed in. They acquired him after trading down two spots with the Eagles in the 2022 NFL draft with the plans of making him a starting guard. Green hasn’t lived up to that billing yet – he graded last among 77 starting guards during his rookie season, per Pro Football Focus, before missing the 2023 season with an injury – but he entered the 2024 season as Houston’s starter at left guard.

Pierce looked like he was going to be a good starter for the Texans after he ran for 939 yards and four touchdowns on 220 carries as a rookie. His yards per carry average slipped from 4.3 as a rookie to 2.9 in 2023 and lost his starting job to Devin Singletary, which prompted Houston to sign Joe Mixon during the 2024 offseason.

The Texans traded up to land Anderson with the third pick in the 2023 NFL draft, and that move paid dividends. The Alabama product notched seven sacks as a rookie and was named the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year for his efforts. That makes him Houston’s best defensive building block given his potential as a high-impact pass rusher.

Dell was another player for whom Houston traded up. The diminutive receiver had no issues acclimating to the NFL, posting 47 catches for 709 yards and seven touchdowns in 11 games (eight starts) in 2023. He should continue to be one of C.J. Stroud’s favorite targets in a loaded receiving corps – provided that he can stay healthy.

Lassiter (second round) and Hill (sixth round) were acquired when the Texans traded out of the first round of the 2024 NFL draft while Bullock was selected in the third round of the event. All made Houston’s 53-man roster to start their careers and will be given a chance to establish themselves.

As it stands, the Texans would probably be pleased to have landed just Anderson and Dell as part of this trade. They look like bonafide stars who should be playmakers on each side of the ball. If one or more of the other Houston players turn into solid starters or role players, it will be a cherry on top for an already good-looking trade.

If not, the Texans will still be the clear-cut winners of this trade given Watson’s inability to stay on the field, his struggles quarterbacking the Browns and the exorbitant cost of his contract.

Florida State paid $1.3 million for Saturday’s game at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee against No. 25 Memphis, the former school of Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell.

The result was a 20-12 loss that dropped the Seminoles to 0-3 for the second time in the last five seasons.

Florida State is the first team ranked in the preseason top 10 poll to start 0-3 in a non-COVID year since Texas A&M did so in 1988. Penn State, ranked 7th in both polls, began the 2020 COVID-shortened season losing its first five games.

Norvell spent four seasons at Memphis compiling a 38-16 record and was hired by Florida State in December 2019, taking over for the fired Willie Taggert after guiding the Tigers to four straight postseason appearances, including the Cotton Bowl.

The Memphis game contract was executed six months after Norvell’s hiring, and the $1.3 million payment must be made on or before Feb. 15, 2025.

Mike Norvell buyout

Florida State, which is 0-3 for the second time under Norvell, is invested for the time being. At present, firing him would result in the school paying him $65 million not to coach or 85% of his base salary and supplemental pay over the remainder of a contract set to expire on Dec. 31, 2031.

The amount would be subject to Norvell’s duty to find another job with the income from that position offsetting what FSU would owe him.

‘I know what it takes to win games, I know what it takes for a team to go out there and be able to execute and play at a high level. We all have to do a better job of what we are doing throughout the course of the week,’ Norvell told reporters after Saturday’s loss.

‘We can’t continue to come into games and see things that are absolutely not a part of who we are show up.’

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Brian Kelly saved face as LSU rallied South Carolina, but why do the Tigers remain a recipe for disaster? Too many blunders.
South Carolina fails to protect lead after LaNorris Sellers injury.
September remains a troublesome month for Brian Kelly at LSU.

That No. 17 LSU rallied for a 36-33 white-knuckle road victory allowed Kelly to save face, but imperfections persist within his program.

LSU’s run game stumbled into the stadium late. Its offensive line, a supposed strength, had its hands full with South Carolina’s disruptive defensive front. Miscues came early and often.

LSU plays like a team disinterested in tackling or fundamentals. Short-yardage play-calling and execution remain a pitfall.

LSU should consider itself fortunate it didn’t face LaNorris Sellers in the second half. South Carolina’s freshman quarterback helped propel the Gamecocks to a 24-16 halftime lead, but an ankle injury sidelined Sellers for the final two quarters.

The Gamecocks languished without him.

South Carolina trumped LSU’s self-inflected wounds. The Cockaboose crashed thanks to 13 penalties, including a needless personal foul in the fourth quarter that negated what would have been a pick-six for a two-possession lead.

LSU avoided disaster, but the performance didn’t inspire confidence that a playoff berth awaits at the end of Kelly’s third season.

A game riddled with 22 total penalties and five turnovers ended with South Carolina missing a 49-yard field goal.

Brian Kelly, LSU football still too messy

It’s not yet panic time about Kelly’s tenure, but why does the season’s first month remain a recipe for hypertension? He’s now 5-4 at LSU in September games against Bowl Subdivision opponents.

It says something about Kelly that his squads improved throughout the past two seasons, but those teams had Jayden Daniels. He patched a lot of holes. LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier isn’t the problem, but he’s not a superhuman like Daniels.

The reinforcements Kelly assembles in a ballyhooed 2025 recruiting class won’t arrive in time to save this season. He must learn to cook with these imperfect ingredients. At least he’s got freshman running back Caden Durham, who provided LSU with a late-arriving ground game.

Even as the Tigers (2-1) outplayed South Carolina (2-1) in the second half, they insisted on making this escape perilous.

They failed to convert on a fourth down, 12 inches from the goal line. They allowed Rocket Sanders to run 66 yards, untouched, for a touchdown, somehow losing run containment despite backup quarterback Robby Ashford not being a passing threat.

In a play that encapsulated the warts of LSU’s first three weeks, Nussmeier was unprepared for a snap that ricocheted off his facemask for a fumble that South Carolina recovered and turned into a field goal.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, South Carolina blocked a punt, LSU botched an extra point, and the Tigers utterly squandered two red-zone opportunities.

As LSU’s blunders piled up, Beamer grinned like Cheshire Cat, while Kelly grew red in the face.

Shane Beamer makes bold proclamation, but South Carolina can’t quite deliver

Beamer oozes unabashed bravado, and, true to form, he strutted after his team’s thrashing of Kentucky a week ago. Then, he made a bold proclamation.

‘The bandwagon is getting full,’ Beamer said this week.

The supporters piled in throughout a first half during which the Gamecocks established a 17-0 lead. Sellers ran so fast on a 75-yard touchdown run, he could’ve been clocked for speeding in a school zone.

Beamer, though, offered a prescient warning at halftime.

‘We’re trying to screw this thing up,’ he told ABC before heading to the locker room.

So were Kelly’s Tigers, but South Carolina lacked much sustained punch without Sellers.

Kelly lifted his fists and smiled for perhaps the first time all day when Alex Herrera’s field-goal attempt inched wide of the uprights while time expired.

Sweet relief.

The Tigers gave Kelly a season’s worth of angst throughout three stressful hours, but at least they avoided a loss that not only would’ve emptied the bandwagon, but also wrecked the season.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

Subscribe to read all of his columns. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, and newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.

No. 3 Texas lost starting quarterback Quinn Ewers early in its game against Texas-San Antonio.

With the Longhorns up 14-0 with 12:19 left in the second quarter, Ewers started to limp off the field after a handoff before he took a knee and play stopped. Arch Manning, a redshirt freshman, has taken the place of Ewers in the Texas huddle.

On his first play, Manning faked a handoff and threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to DeAndre Moore Jr. to give Texas a 21-0 lead. On his second possession, Manning ran for a 67-yard score to put the Longhorns up 28-7 before halftime.

After the touchdown run by Manning, Ewers left the field with a towel over head and went to the Texas locker room. Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian told the ESPN broadcast that Ewers has a strained abdomen. He will not return.

Ewers entered the game as one of the Heisman favorites after leading Texas past Michigan last week. He had thrown for 506 yards and six touchdowns in the first two games and then added two more touchdowns passes before exiting the game Saturday.

This is the second appearance of the season for Manning, who was a five-star signee in the 2023 recruiting cycle. Manning played in the second half of the Colorado State game on Aug. 31, and he accounted for two touchdowns in that 52-0 win.

It’s mid-September and Year 3 of Major League Baseball’s expanded playoff format, a tournament that only deepened the degree of volatility when it comes to crowning pennant winners and World Series champions.

And with that has come a moderate overreaction to a two-year sample size that may prove aberrational.

In both 2022 and 2023, the No. 3 wild card from the National League – the last team in the field, in essence – has ridden a hot streak all the way to the World Series. The defending World Series champion Texas Rangers emerged from the wild-card round, as well.

And with that surprise success has come a school of thought that it’s better to be relegated to the best-of-three wild-card series, that having to win two more games is a more favorable position than an automatic berth in the Division Series – and the five-day, potentially rhythm-wrecking break that comes with it.

Yet the fascination with the 83-win Diamondbacks and the 87-win Phillies runs to NL pennants ignores several key factors.

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Most notably: Simple math. Would you rather have to win five games to advance to the League Championship Series, or three? A chance to come back from a 2-0 or 2-1 deficit or end your season at that point?

And the obsession with wild-card winners prevailing in later rounds ignores the fact that for every October Cinderella, another team is packing its bags barely 48 hours after arrival at the postseason ball.

“After 162 games, any kind of day off you can give your body is beneficial. I just don’t really buy into the hot team – good teams are going to win, period,” says Rays starter Zack Littell, whose club was on the wrong end of 2-0 wild-card round sweeps each of the past two years. “I don’t think three days, five days off after you just played 162 will matter – it’s not like coming into spring training where you just had four months off and re-learn to play together. Five days that you’re still with each other, still coming to the yard.

“I don’t buy into five days off all of a sudden changing your ability to play competitive baseball.”

‘It can end pretty quick’

There’s a larger sample size that suggests relegation to the wild-card series essentially reduces your season to one must-win game, despite the best-of-three format. Game 1 winners have won all eight wild-card series, seven of them in sweeps, with only the 2022 New York Mets taking Game 2 off the Padres before falling in Game 3.

Given the chaotic circumstances for many wild-card entrants – battling down to the last weekend of the season, often pursuing multiple lanes into the tournament – it can end in a hurry.

The Miami Marlins secured their playoff berth in Pittsburgh on the penultimate day of the 2023 season – same as the Diamondbacks – and were matched with fellow wild-card entrant Philadelphia. But that’s only after having to wait and see if they’d need to make up a suspended game in New York on the off day before the playoffs.

Instead, they hopped across Pennsylvania for their wild-card matchup at Philadelphia – and fell 4-1 and 7-1.

“With the current format, there’s all the sitting, but it’s a chance for guys to get their bodies right,” says Marlins infielder Jake Burger. “For us, you’re going into Philadelphia after 162 games, trying to get into that playoff mindset. You have that urgency to try and win Game 1, but a lot of this game is about momentum.

“When you have three games vs. five, it’s tough to flip that momentum at times.”

The Rays know that well.

In 2022, their pitchers were beyond heroic in Cleveland, pitching 23 innings and posting zeroes in 21 of them. Yet two swings of the bat – one from Jose Ramirez, the other Oscar Gonzalez – produced 2-1 and 1-0 Guardians victories and some early tee times for Tampa Bay.

Last year, the Rangers got hot at their expense, coming into Tropicana Field and winning 4-0 and 7-1 to end the Rays’ season and launch a seven-game postseason winning streak. And in consecutive years, staying active did little to rouse the Rays.

“Postseason baseball is cool. It’s exciting, but it can end pretty quick,” says Rays reliever Garrett Cleavinger, who pitched in both 2022 games at Cleveland and has pondered how resting teams might avoid rust. “It’s a tough one to balance. You don’t want to keep redlining it if you don’t have to. If you get a couple days off and get some guys rested, that’s probably a good thing.

“But you want people to stay sharp, too. It’s tough for teams to balance both ways.”

Matchup game

Yet make no mistake: There’s just one primary goal for contenders down the stretch.

“Everybody’s mindset in here is win the division,” says Orioles starter Zach Eflin. “I don’t think there’s any scenario in the game of baseball where we shy away from that.”

Eflin is headed to his third straight postseason, playing a key relief role for the ’22 Phillies and starting, and losing, Game 2 for the Rays last season. He’ll likely be a Game 2 starter behind Corbin Burnes for these Orioles, who trail the Yankees by two games in the AL East.

Whether that’s in the wild-card series or ALDS will be determined in the final two weeks. The Orioles epitomized the “rust” concept in the ’23 ALDS, getting steamrolled by the Rangers in three games.

“In Philly in ’22, it was perfect for us to continue playing baseball. We got hot at the end of the year and just kept going,” says Eflin. “With the Rays, we just faced an extremely hot (Texas) team. They were barreling balls up, came here to Baltimore and kept doing it.”

Looking for a dark horse to emerge as that hot team in ’24? Well, don’t necessarily look for clues in these final two weeks. Eflin’s ’22 Phillies were just 14-14 the season’s final month and lost 10 of 13 in late September to imperil their playoff hopes before winning four of five for their 87th win.

And while the ’23 Diamondbacks enjoyed a 15-8 September, they lost their last four games, one of them after their playoff berth was ensured.

Perhaps it’s more instructive to view the compromised opponent as potential springboard. Arizona received a huge break before its wild-card series when Milwaukee Brewers started Brandon Woodruff was declared out with a shoulder injury that would require surgery; the stunned Brewers never recovered.

And in the NLDS, the Dodgers were similarly out of pitching, with Game 1 starter Clayton Kershaw requiring shoulder surgery after the season, but not before the D-backs jumped him for six runs in the first inning; they outscored L.A. 19-6 in the three-game sweep.

Arizona rode that wave all the way to Game 5 of the World Series. So perhaps that’s the blinking light we should look for – not the team bound to be rusty but a No. 3 wild card that had to play hard all the way into October and finds favorable matchups in the postseason.

Then again, it’s just the third year of the mega-playoffs. October will determine if this is the year for the revenge of the rested.

“There’s no crystal ball answer,” says Rays manager Kevin Cash. “The priority is to get in, do anything you can to get in.

“And maybe let the momentum of a strong month carry a little bit farther than what you would have thought.”

The police officer who has been placed on administrative duties for his role in Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop has previously been the subject of multiple complaints for use of force and conduct unbecoming of an officer, according to personnel records obtained by USA TODAY Sports on Friday.

Danny Torres, one of the officers who forcefully pulled Hill from his car Sunday morning, has been suspended six times in his nearly 28 years with the Miami-Dade Police Department and has received written reprimands on four other occasions, though one of those reprimands was later rescinded.

Details of the specific incidents and conduct that prompted the sanctions are not included in his seven-page employee profile, which was released Friday in response to a public-records request.

Torres has also been formally commended at least 32 times, including as recently as 2023, when he received commendations for professionalism and dedication to duty.

Torres is under scrutiny for his role in Hill’s detainment Sunday morning, when the Miami Dolphins wide receiver was forcibly removed from his car, taken to the ground and handcuffed for about 15 minutes. Hill, 30, was later given traffic tickets for careless driving and driving without a seatbelt. He is fighting the violations.

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Miami-Dade police director Stephanie Daniels said in a statement earlier this week that Torres had been placed on administrative duties pending an internal investigation into his conduct during the stop. While Torres’ attorney has publicly requested that the veteran officer be reinstated, Hill and members of his camp have called for Torres to be fired.

‘He’s got to go, man,’ Hill reiterated in a news conference Wednesday.

Torres, who was hired in October 1996, has an annual salary just shy of $123,000, according to online county records. In the past 27-plus years, he has faced six complaints alleging discourtesy, force violations, improper procedure and conduct unbecoming of an officer. In three of the cases, which took place between 2014 and 2018, some or all of the allegations were sustained; he was cleared in the other three complaints.

Torres’ most recent suspension came in June 2019, when he was sidelined for 10 days. He also received a 20-day suspension in 2018, according to the personnel records. It is immediately unclear what prompted the discipline.

The Miami New Times reported earlier this week that, outside of work, Torres is an avid motorcyclist and DJ. He is also listed as being on the board of directors of the local police union, the South Florida Police Benevolent Association. According to a Facebook post by the organization, Torres spent a month in a coma in late 2020; a GoFundMe page created on his behalf stated that he had been involved in an on-duty traffic collision.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.