Mario Cristobal and Fernando Mendoza’s dad played high school football together in Miami.
Columbus High School sent several players to Miami in the 1980s, including Mario Cristobal.
A Miami newspaper described Fernando Mendoza IV as ‘un ganador.’ Translation: a winner.

Old high school football memories have a way of blurring the lines between reality and urban legend, as the years go by.

Give it enough time (plus a few cold ones), and the game manager who quarterbacked the prep team from yesteryear slowly morphs into Joe Montana.

The Columbus High football teams he coached in Miami in the 1980s, good though they were, didn’t revolutionize offense. They would’ve benefited from more talent at the skill positions.

 “Very vanilla,” Lavelle said of his Columbus offenses.

Vanilla tastes pretty good when you own the line of scrimmage.

Columbus did.

“We made a living up front,” said Lavelle, who’s retired from a decades-long career in coaching. “Our offensive and defensive lines were full of Division I kids.”

Columbus’ 1986 offensive line featured three surnames you’ll hear this week when Miami plays Indiana in the national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium.

Cristobal. Mendoza. Mirabal.

Mario Cristobal coaches Miami, where Alex Mirabal is his offensive line coach.

As for Fernando Mendoza IV, the cameras keep finding him in the stands throughout this College Football Playoff. You know his son, Fernando V, as Indiana’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback.

“Great kids. Just absolutely great kids, really good players,” Lavelle told USA TODAY of Mendoza IV, Cristobal and Mirabal.

“They’re the kind of kids that you get out of bed in the morning to coach and teach. They were freaking perfect.”

Fernando Mendoza IV was ‘un ganador’: A winner

Mendoza IV graduated a year ahead of Cristobal and Mirabal. The Miami Herald described Mendoza following his 1986 senior season as “the top offensive lineman” for Columbus.

The multi-talented Mendoza participated on the United States’ eight-man crew team that won the 1987 World Junior Rowing Championships in West Germany. He previously won gold in the four-man quad at the 1984 U.S. Junior National Championships.

Mendoza later rowed crew at Brown University.

For those uninitiated to rowing, let’s cut through the jargon.

The Miami Herald’s Spanish edition needed just two words to describe Mendoza in a story about his rowing accomplishments.

“Un ganador,” the newspaper wrote of him in 1987.

Translation: a winner.

That’s how Lavelle felt about his ’86 Explorers football team.

Columbus High’s ‘extremely strong’ brotherhood includes Mario Cristobal

As Lavelle put it, Columbus was “full of really good students” who “wanted to be” at the private Catholic school. They took a test to gain entry.

“When you go to Columbus,” Cristobal said, “that brotherhood is extremely strong.”

Cristobal recalls the details of Columbus winning a Class 5A region title in the ’86 season by upsetting Southridge, the state’s No. 1-ranked and previously undefeated team.

The Explorers won 3-0 on a field goal from Carlos Huerta, one of the many players Lavelle coached who’d play for Miami. Cristobal and Huerta became Hurricanes teammates.

Remember what we said about a vanilla offense?

Well, in that upset of Southridge, Columbus attempted five passes. It completed one. It won the game at the line of scrimmage.

The next year, in 1987, Cristobal earned third-team all-state honors before playing for Miami.

Mirabal later began his coaching career at Columbus as an assistant under Lavelle.

“He was in with both feet,” Lavelle said of Mirabal’s coaching interest.

Lavelle keeps in touch with Cristobal and Mirabal. They helped arrange for Lavelle and his sons to attend Miami’s first-round playoff win at Texas A&M. Cristobal texted Lavelle, who lives in Stuart, Florida, this week about attending the national championship.

Lavelle and his wife are Ohio natives, and they were in attendance in 2021 when Cristobal coached Oregon to a win against Ohio State at Ohio Stadium. Lavelle counts watching the Buckeyes lose to Cristobal’s team as “one of the great experiences of my life.”

Cristobal beat Ohio State again, this time with Miami, on New Year’s Eve to continue the march to Hard Rock Stadium, where the Mendozas and Cristobal will spotlight Columbus.

Mendoza IV is a doctor in the emergency department at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. Although Cristobal hasn’t kept in close contact with his former teammate, he praised him as “a prominent member of the community down here in the medical field.”

“All the respect in the world for him and his family,” Cristobal said.

Dennis Lavelle had ‘the greatest time in the world’ coaching Columbus

Mendoza V also played for Columbus, starting at quarterback there for two seasons just a few miles from Miami’s campus. He didn’t receive a scholarship offer from the Hurricanes out of high school. Miami hired Cristobal weeks before Mendoza signed with California. He’s the one who got away.

“How could you have missed him, Coach?” Lavelle said teasingly.

In seriousness, Lavelle points out nearly “everybody else” missed on Mendoza, too. He had a two-star recruiting rating when he signed with Cal out of Columbus.

Miami pursued Mendoza when he decided to transfer. He chose Indiana, where his brother, Alberto, is the backup quarterback.

Not until Mendoza V was at Cal did Lavelle realize the son of one of his former players was a budding star quarterback. Now, watching Mendoza excel at Indiana, Lavelle offers an assessment we all share: “Man, can he play. Holy crap, he is the real deal.”

With one Mendoza quarterbacking the Hoosiers, another watching from the stands, and Cristobal and Mirabal coaching for the Hurricanes, Columbus will have its fingerprints all over this matchup.

As Lavelle reflects on coaching players like Mendoza IV, Cristobal and Mirabal at Columbus, he’s struck by a thought.

“That was just the greatest time in the world,” Lavelle said. “I miss it. I miss the (crap) out of it, I really do.”

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

Could Indiana beat 2019 LSU? A worthy debate.
2001 Miami also takes a spot in conversation of greatest college football teams.
Don’t forget 1894 Yale! It finished 16-0.

The debate will be as spirited as it is unsolvable.

Already, it’s gaining steam, and Indiana hasn’t even won the national championship yet.

While the Hoosiers skunked Oregon in the College Football Playoff semifinals, ESPN analyst Greg McElroy said Indiana was giving off 2019 LSU vibes.

So begins the discussion: If Indiana beats Miami to cap a dominant season, will the undefeated Hoosiers enjoy a claim as the greatest team of all-time?

Mere suggestion of that is probably enough to make Ed Orgeron rip his shirt off — not that the former LSU coach needs much encouragement to go shirtless. He’s living the good life in Miami Beach nowadays.

No matter how Miami-Indiana unfolds, I’ll hesitate before casting aside 2019 LSU.

No Heisman Trophy winner has ever thrown for more than the 5,671 yards Joe Burrow racked up that season. Wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase are on pace to be Pro Football Hall of Famers. Months after that season ended, 14 LSU players were selected in the NFL draft, including five in the first round.

Truly, a dominant group led by an unrelenting offense that routed one opponent after another en route to a 15-0 record.

LSU stomped Georgia in the SEC championship game, then smoked Oklahoma and Clemson in the playoff.

Let us not become such a victim of the moment that we forget Burrow threw for 956 yards and 12 touchdowns in just two playoff games.

Elite.

Offensively, the advantage goes to 2019 LSU.

Defensively, these Hoosiers would enjoy the edge. Their average margin of victory of 31.5 points trumps the ’19 Tigers.

Indiana belongs in the conversation, but could D’Angelo Ponds bottle up Chase? Would Fernando Mendoza go completion for completion with Burrow?

Unanswerable questions. That’s why these debates are a tad exhausting.

2019 LSU, 2001 Miami among greatest college football teams ever

I mean, sure, why shouldn’t Indiana make the claim of being the greatest if it beats Miami? In this era of hyperbole, seems there’s a GOAT on every street corner. Indiana at least would have a briefcase stuffed with evidence. The Hoosiers could call Ty Simpson or Dante Moore to the witness stand.

It must be said, though, we’re defining this conversation too narrowly if we’re only considering 2019 LSU and 2025 Indiana. Because, 2001 Miami needs a word.

That super squad with six All-Americans went 12-0 and trounced Nebraska at the Rose Bowl to win the BCS national championship. The 2001 Hurricanes produced a stunning 38 NFL draft picks in the years that followed.

That season, Miami beat Syracuse and Washington in back-to-back weeks in November by a combined score of 124-7. These were not bad opponents. Syracuse finished 10-3. Washington went 8-4. Miami was just in a different league.

Brings to mind Indiana embarrassing Illinois 63-10 in September. The Illini finished 9-4. Good enough to beat Southern Cal and Tennessee, and good enough to lose to the Hoosiers by 53 points.

These debates are a bit tidier if confined to the parameters of the eras in which the teams played.

∎ Best team of the BCS era: 2001 Miami, although I’m tempted by Vince Young and 2005 Texas.

∎ Best team of the four-team playoff era: 2019 LSU, with apology to 2020 Alabama.

∎ Best team of the 12-team playoff era: TBD. We’re one game away from penciling in 2025 Indiana.

Indiana can go 16-0 to match 1894 Yale

I’d weigh in on the greatest pre-BCS team, but I admit to not having the necessary frame of reference. I’m no expert on 1894 Yale, which went 16-0, shut out 13 opponents and outscored its competition 485-13.

One opposing coach, after a 48-0 beatdown in 1894, told a reporter this of Yale: “Her game is steady and hard from start to finish.”

Sounds a lot like how Indiana looked against Alabama and Oregon.

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

WASHINGTON — NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said it best: The league is ‘well aware’ of Heated Rivalry.

‘It’s a wonderful story,’ Bettman said, adding that he binge-watched the entire series in one night. ‘The content — particularly for young people — may be a little spicy, so you have to balance that out.

‘I thought the storyline was very compelling,’ Bettman added. ‘And a lot of fun, because I could see where they were picking at things we (as a league) had done in the past, whether or not it was being in Sochi or the All-Star Game in Tampa. It was very well done.’

Bettman also credited Heated Rivalry, in tandem with the success of the 2025-26 regular NHL season to date, for leading to grown interest in the game.

He also made it clear that the league continues to support the LGBTQ+ community and is happy to host Pride nights and be a part of other initiatives, including the use of Pride Tape by teams and an ongoing affiliation with You Can Play, a campaign and movement that promotes LGBTQ+ inclusion in athletics and sports.

Regarding the previous initiative of wearing specialty warmup jerseys to promote different nights, like Pride, the league currently has no plans to bring them back, though Bettman insists it isn’t due to a lack of support for such causes.

‘It wasn’t about Pride jerseys or Pride night; it was about the fact of bringing things into the game that might not be embraced by the players wearing the jerseys,’ Bettman said. ‘It could be heritage nights — we don’t allow it — it could be political causes. It could be in times of conflict between countries, national origin. It was becoming a distraction, not just for the Pride jerseys, but for a variety of other things.

‘It’s a misrepresentation of what we did to suggest that it was about Pride jerseys; it was about the whole issue of what you put on the ice and how, when players don’t embrace the cause, whatever it is, then you create distraction, and it doesn’t fulfill the purpose in terms of embracing Pride nights.’

The Washington Capitals will host their 10th consecutive Pride night on Saturday when they face the Florida Panthers, who were honored at the White House on Thursday, with Bettman in attendance.

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After 11 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, DeMarcus Lawrence joined the Seattle Seahawks to chase a championship.
The veteran defensive end has had a significant impact on the Seahawks’ defense, both on and off the field.
Lawrence’s leadership has been credited with elevating the performance of younger players on the team.
The Seahawks, with a dominant defense, earned the NFC’s No. 1 seed and are favored to reach Super Bowl 60.

This is why DeMarcus Lawrence came to the Seattle Seahawks. After 11 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys – and one playoff disappointment after another – the veteran defensive end is in his best position yet to chase a championship.

The Seahawks, bringing a dominant defense that Lawrence impacts in multiple ways, will host the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 17 as the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. Having tied a franchise record with 14 regular-season victories, they are favored to ultimately reach Super Bowl 60.

“Being in one place for 11 years and now to come out here to Seattle, even though it’s dark and rainy all the time, it’s definitely refreshing,” Lawrence told USA TODAY Sports, chatting after leaving the Seahawks headquarters during the bye week.

“It’s so special. All I can do is pray about it, put one foot in front of the other and continue to work while chasing dreams.”

You don’t have to remind Lawrence – nursing an Achilles injury that Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald downplays as a concern – that nothing is guaranteed. Lawrence played in eight playoff games during his Cowboys tenure, yet his teams never advanced past the divisional round.

Yes, he’s been on a team that earned a No. 1 seed. But that didn’t quite pan out as the 2016 Cowboys were upset by the Green Bay Packers in their playoff opener.

Now he’s the so-called “old man” on a unit decidedly light on playoff experience. It’s no wonder Lawrence maintains, “Being where I am right now, it’s a great opportunity for me to have more clarity.”

In other words, don’t squander the moment. As the team’s elder statesmen, the 33-year-old is well-equipped to underscore the urgency.

“For a guy to be in this position at this stage of his career, he’ll tell you – he’s told me this – he understands the moment much more than he did in some of those Dallas years,” Leslie Frazier, the Seahawks assistant head coach and defensive specialist, told USA TODAY Sports. “You don’t know how many more times you’re going to be in this position.

“He’s capturing the moment and making sure everybody else understands that this doesn’t happen all the time. You need veteran guys like that. So, it means a lot to him, obviously, in so many ways. And then to make the Pro Bowl? At this stage of his career? He’s savoring these moments. It’s a special year.”

Lawrence’s free-agent signing an immediate impact for Seahawks

As Frazier alluded to, Lawrence’s impact on one of the NFL’s best defenses has been all-encompassing. Part of a deep defensive line rotation, the left end has led so well by example. His rich stat line from the regular season includes six sacks, 11 tackles for loss and three forced fumbles that tied for the league lead.

In Week 17 at Carolina, he punched out the football from Chuba Hubbard for the turnover early in the second half that set up a touchdown and ignited a significant momentum shift – one play after a Sam Darnold interception. In Week 10 against Arizona, Lawrence returned two fumbles for touchdowns that contributed to a rout and NFC Player of the Week honors.

To Frazier, a former defensive back who was part of an historic unit that led the Chicago Bears to a Super Bowl 20 crown, those highlight moments only begin to tap into the value Lawrence has demonstrated since he joined the Seahawks in what has proven to be one of the best offseason free agent signings (three years, $32.5 million) in the league. It helped that GM John Schneider and Macdonald had an edge in luring Lawrence, who followed defensive coordinator Aden Durde from Dallas. Durde was Lawrence’s position coach with the Cowboys.

“He gets in our building and we’re going through Phase 1, Phase 2 of the offseason program, and you immediately see the transformation in some of our young guys, like Byron Murphy (II) and (Nick) Emmanwori,” Frazier said, referring to the second-year defensive tackle and rookie safety, respectively. “The influence that he had on their performance in practice, and then that’s kind of carried over to what we see now in the games.

“It’s just that his influence goes beyond the impact plays, but also in the meetings, how he handles himself in practice. It just raises everybody else’s level. He’s a pro in so many ways. What he’s in practice, and in the locker room and the meeting rooms, those are the intangibles that the fans don’t see. He’s helped raise everybody’s play.”

Seahawks’ ‘Dark Side’ defense embraces Lawrence’s mentality

Emmanwori can vouch for that. The versatile South Carolina product has had an impressive debut campaign, but it began with adversity. He missed three games after suffering a high ankle sprain during the Seahawks’ season-opening loss against the 49ers. By his account, he was a bit timid when he returned nearly a month later.

The attention from Lawrence, an Aiken, S.C. native, made a huge difference; he implored the rookie to “stay hard.”

“My mental wasn’t really all there,” Emmanwori told USA TODAY Sports. “I was trying to figure out how my body felt. He could kind see me visibly kind of going through it.”

Lawrence: “Me and Nick, we’re from the same dirt, man. That’s my South Carolina guy. It’s beautiful to see the kind of talent that Nick has at a young age. I reminded him, ‘The injury is there and gone. Now it’s about the mindset.

“‘How hard are you going to approach things? When it starts to ache, are you going to stay strong or are you going to punk out?’ So, it was really about just keeping him mentally strong in those moments. And he’s been handling it so well.”

Of course, that mentality has worked across the board for the Seahawks defense. Seattle’s sixth-ranked defense has allowed an NFL-low 17.2 points per game, while yielding the fewest yards per rush (3.7) and lowest third-down conversion rate for opponents (32.1%) in the league.

And the unit has its own nickname, the “Dark Side.”

“We never hit anything alone,” Lawrence said, referring to the swarm mentality. “That’s how we roll, man.”

And if it’s up to Lawrence, the Seahawks will keep rolling – all the way to Santa Clara.     

Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on X: @JarrettBell

Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma is a master of many things, and when it comes to basketball, his place in history can’t be denied with a record 12 national women’s championships.

Auriemma, a Philadelphia native, also appears to be a master connoisseur of pizza, and when the Huskies completed their 34th consecutive victory with a 99-50 win against Villanova on Thursday night, he had a bit to say concerning his taste buds.

Connecticut’s postgame meal was pizza, and before he said a word during his postgame press conference about how the defending national champions played, Auriemma went on a hilarious rant about the quality of the Nutmeg State’s pies.

“The Pizza Capital of the world, my ass,” Auriemma said, adding the meal was basically ‘some red stuff they poured on the box and called it pizza,’ that must have been delivered hours before at shootaround.

“Don’t believe those signs, Mel, when you come into Connecticut, ‘Pizza Capital of the World,’” Auriemma said. ‘It’s (expletive). We’re going to get better pizza, I promise you. I’ll bring some for you guys to taste it. The good stuff, when we get the good stuff. Not the crap we’re passing off as pizza now. Being Italian and being from Philly, no, sorry. It doesn’t live up to the standards of UConn or the State of Connecticut.”

Auriemma didn’t name the pizza chain that was delivered to the locker room, but it certainly wasn’t delicious Frank Pepe’s, which has eight locations in the state.

There is a reason Auriemma is a Hall of Famer. He demands excellence on the court from his players and from his pizza.

COLUMBIA, SC — It seemed like miles separated Madina Okot and the nearest Texas defender.

South Carolina was up by a single point when Raven Johnson flipped the ball over to Okot, who was standing on the left wing with 3:36 to play Thursday night. Points had been hard to come by in this matchup between the defensive-minded Gamecocks and Longhorns. As each team committed season-highs in turnovers, possessions became precious. Making shots was crucial.

A full second passed between the time Okot caught the ball and when she began her motion to shoot an improbable 3-pointer. All five Texas defenders glanced at Okot, but none made their way to defend.

Why would they? The 6-foot-6 Okot typically plays like a traditional center. She scores her points in the paint, not behind the arc. She was 2-of-6 from 3-point range on the season. Surely, in this pivotal moment of the game, she wouldn’t dare attempt a deep shot.

If the Longhorns thought that, they were wrong.

Okot aimed and fired, and the ball fell softly through the hoop.

“I’ve been practicing for it,” Okot said through a smile. “In today’s game, I was like, ‘Wait, I’m open, let me try it.’ And it went in.”

The sold-out crowd inside Colonial Life Arena erupted. South Carolina had a four-point advantage in a grind-it-out game where two-possession lead felt like a 20-point margin. Okot’s unlikely 3-pointer was a dagger to Texas, which lost back-to-back games for the first time since November 2022.

“Probably the play of the game is Okot’s 3,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “Other than that, it was just a heavyweight title fight.”

Okot finished with 10 points and five rebounds in South Carolina’s 68-65 victory over the Longhorns. She was a difference-maker, and her signature moment pointed to something larger: Okot is playing with confidence, she’s struggled through her ups and downs since transferring in from Mississippi State, and she’s emerging as an important contributor for the Gamecocks in their quest to go to the Final Four for the sixth consecutive season.

“She couldn’t have hit it at a more important time, for her and for us,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said of Okot’s 3-pointer. “She’s got to take something from this game that she’s got to feel good about. She’s working through some things. And sometimes, when players are working through things, they just got to get to the other side.”

This is Okot’s second season of college basketball. A native of Mumias, Kenya who has featured for her country’s national team, she didn’t start playing the sport until six years ago. 

After spending some time at a university in Kenya, she arrived at Mississippi State last season where she quickly established herself as a player who could battle with some of the best bigs in the country, averaging 11.3 points and 9.6 rebounds in 22.6 minutes per game. She ranked fourth nationally last season in field goal percentage with a 64.9% clip and was third in rebounds-per-40-minutes with 16.9.

So, when Okot went into the transfer portal last spring, she was highly sought after as a mobile big with room to sharpen her skills. She wound up at one of the most successful programs in the country, one with a knack for developing post players into WNBA prospects.

Staley’s best teams at South Carolina, the ones who have won national championships, have played through a dominant center, from A’ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston, to more recently Kamilla Cardoso. Even Sania Feagin became a WNBA draft pick last season. Okot seemed poised to be next in line.

But this group of Gamecocks are different.

On each of Staley’s last five South Carolina teams, no more than three players averaged double figures in scoring. This year, all five starters are scoring in double digits.

And Okot is one of them at 15.1 points per game, but the scoring is more spread out. Guards, like Johnson, a fifth-year senior — who is averaging a career-high 10.2 points per game — are being asked to put the ball in the basket more often.

So the Gamecocks aren’t leaning on Okot the same way they did with Boston or Cardoso. Part of that is seemingly by design as Staley and her staff get Okot up to speed and more comfortable with all that comes with being a Gamecock.

“They’re all just growing pains,” Staley said of what Okot has experienced. “She hasn’t been in this situation. It’s unfamiliar territory for her regarding big stakes, big games, everybody is watching. It takes some time to get used to it… I hope she can see we’re still winning with her not even at her best.”

The hurdles Staley has eluded to are hard to find on stat sheets. She’s tallied double-doubles in 13 of 18 games this season and she’s still shooting north of 60% from the floor. Okot is also third nationally in defensive rating with a 63.5 mark, according to Her Hoop Stats.

For a lot of players, the numbers Okot is posting would be the ceiling. Staley and the Gamecocks seem to think the sky is the limit in this case.

That includes Okot’s roommate, the most veteran player on the roster, Johnson. She’s constantly in Okot’s ear about how she can get better.

“I get on her about little things. I was telling Madina about a play she messed up last game, and I was on her butt. I’m trying to hold her accountable,” Johnson said. “She’s very hard on herself. She wants to be great. She wants to be one of the best post players to come out of here. So, I’m trying to be a really good point guard to her.”

South Carolina is hoping they’ll have more time to help Okot realize her potential. While this is only her second season of college basketball, the NCAA has deemed her a senior because of the time she spent at a Kenyan university and in the FIBA Africa League. Staley said earlier this season the Gamecocks are fighting “like heck” to petition the NCAA for another year of eligibility.

Okot has proven she’s capable of making game-winning plays under the bright lights against elite opponents. Even if South Carolina isn’t successful with its appeal to the NCAA, she might be good enough to help the Gamecocks reach their lofty goals for this season.