Ole Miss defeated Georgia 39-34 in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal after a last-minute field goal.
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss threw for 362 yards, leading a second-half comeback for the Rebels.
Pete Golding, Kiffin’s successor, has now won two playoff games.

NEW ORLEANS — Lane Kiffin held hands with Kim Mulkey at a women’s basketball game while the football team he built for a rival school prepared to play its biggest game in program history.

It’s all still a little surreal.

Ninety minutes before kickoff of a College Football Playoff quarterfinal against Georgia, Mississippi fans inside the Superdome roared in support of Pete Golding, Kiffin’s successor, as he headed toward the locker room.

They’ve crowned their new king. He wins playoff games.

Eighty miles northwest of here on I-10, Mulkey grabbed Kiffin’s hand and thrust it into the air as if he’d won a magnificent prize — say, a $91 million contract from LSU.

Kiffin’s still never won a playoff game. Too bad. Golding’s won two.

As LSU fans feted Kiffin before a basketball game the Tigers would lose, the Ole Miss team he skipped town on prepared to receive the opening kickoff in a playoff game.

In the stands, some Rebels fans wore T-shirts with Kiffin’s name on it, and a four-letter word starting with “F” in front of it.

Surreal, I tell you.

Nothing, though, could be more surreal than this: Ole Miss, the team Kiffin turned heel on, roared as fiercely as ever throughout a second-half rally against one of the best teams college football has to offer. The Rebels toppled Georgia with a last-minute field goal. On to the semifinals against Miami.

And surely none of the jubilant Ole Miss fans among a crowd of 68,371 could wish for a turncoat holding a play sheet on the sideline and wearing his signature white hoodie.

So long to the renegade.

Golding is Mississippi’s hero now. He, and quarterback Trinidad Chambliss.

Who needs Kiffin, anyway? Not Ole Miss in this playoff.

Rebels 39, Georgia 34.

Improbable. Incredible. The stuff of fairytales.

Eat your heart out, Lane.

Golding sent Kirby Smart home a loser.

While Kiffin waited for the transfer portal to open, his former team heroically stormed to a stunning playoff upset.

‘We’re built for this,’ said wide receiver De’Zhaun Stribling, whose 40-yard reception set up the winning field goal.

The Rebels remain in hot pursuit of a national championship that seemed unfathomable after Kiffin vamoosed for the Oxford airport in November and boarded a flight bound for Baton Rouge.

The same fans who chanted Kiffin’s name two months ago sang a different tune after Ole Miss stole the lead from Georgia in the fourth quarter.

Let’s go Rebels! Let’s go Rebels! Let’s go Rebels!

A pro-Rebels crowd turned up the decibels inside the Superdome as Ole Miss slayed the SEC’s champion.

Trinidad Chambliss steals show at Sugar Bowl

This team’s got Kiffin’s fingerprints all over it, but Rebels fans who would rather not think about their former coach can celebrate the quarterback at the joystick of this thrill ride.

Chambliss threw for 362 yards, including a few magical completions while on the run that made you think the Ole Miss offense would be dangerous no matter who stands on the sideline, so long as Chambliss could be its quarterback forever.

Georgia couldn’t tackle what it couldn’t catch. Time and again, Chambliss sprinted away from pass rushers and twirled out of trouble, extending plays until a receiver found open space and Chambliss tossed a completion to him.

Chambliss’ exploits allowed Ole Miss to recover from a two-score halftime deficit, and the Rebels’ rally briefly sent Georgia into a fourth-quarter panic.

Trailing by three points with plenty of time remaining, Georgia went for fourth-and-2 from its own 33-yard line. Ole Miss linebacker Suntarine Perkins could scarcely believe Georgia snapped the ball. When Georgia did, Perkins sacked Gunner Stockton. Chambliss returned to the field. Minutes later, the Rebels were up by two scores.

Ole Miss’ replacement coach and its Division II transfer quarterback made Georgia freak out. Stranger than fiction, this Ole Miss season.

As the Rebels’ lead swelled, Kiffin reshared a social media post about the transfer portal opening.

Simply surreal.

Ole Miss fans chant at Sugar Bowl in salute of Pete Golding

Of course, Georgia wouldn’t go quietly. It used a two-score flurry to tie the game.

Time remained. Not much, but enough for Chambliss. His deep strike to Stribling put Ole Miss in range for a game-winning 47-yard field goal off Lucas Carneiro’s right boot.

And you just had to wonder, as Carneiro’s winning kick sailed through the uprights, whether Kiffin was watching on TV from inside enemy territory.

‘Yeah, for sure’ he’s watching, wide receiver Harrison Wallace III said with a smile.

Let him watch then.

The party was on inside the Superdome, where Chambliss and Golding celebrated a surreal triumph.

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.

The U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team is a reprise of the 4 Nations Face-Off squad with a few reviisions.
The newcomers are Buffalo’s Tage Thompson, Utah’s Clayton Keller and Florida defenseman Seth Jones.
The USA will have some of the strongest goaltending at the tournament and is built like a team, rather a collection of All-Stars.

Tuning in to U.S. men’s hockey games at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics might give you a sense of deja vu.

Team USA is mostly running it back with the players who took part in the 4 Nations Face-Off.

That’s a sensible approach because the USA fell one game short of winning the 2025 tournament, losing to Canada in overtime of the championship game. Canada has brought back 19 players and added six newcomers.

The 2026 U.S. Olympic team has only three newcomers – Clayton Keller, Tage Thompson and Seth Jones – among the final roster announced on Friday, Jan. 2. Adam Fox and Chris Kreider aren’t back from the 4 Nations team.

Here’s the team that will be going to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, the first appearance by NHL players since 2014 (*-was on 4 Nations roster):

First six named

F Jack Eichel, Golden Knights*

F Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs*

F Brady Tkachuk, Senators*

F Matthew Tkachuk, Panthers*

D Quinn Hughes, Wild* (missed 4 Nations with injury)

D Charlie McAvoy, Bruins*

Additional Team USA forwards

Matt Boldy, Wild*

Kyle Connor, Jets*

Jake Guentzel, Lightning*

Jack Hughes, Devils*

Clayton Keller, Mammoth

Dylan Larkin, Red Wings*

J.T. Miller, Rangers*

Brock Nelson, Avalanche*

Tage Thompson, Sabres

Vincent Trocheck, Rangers*

Additional Team USA defensemen

Brock Faber, Wild*

Noah Hanifin, Golden Knights*

Seth Jones, Panthers

Jake Sanderson, Senators*

Jaccob Slavin, Hurricanes*

Zach Werenski, Blue Jackets*

Team USA goaltenders

Connor Hellebuyck, Jets*

Jake Oettinger, Stars*

Jeremy Swayman, Bruins*

Team USA Olympic hockey roster analysis

GM Bill Guerin told The Athletic that he wanted to build a team, not an All-Star team. And he has that. There’s scoring, there’s grit, there’s checking, there’s some of the best goaltending in the Olympics. The power play has the potential to be strong, there are plenty of penalty killers and their centers are solid on faceoffs. Plus, players are familiar with one another, important in a short tournament. One could argue that the USA might have won the 4 Nations if Quinn Hughes and McAvoy weren’t hurt and Matthew Tkachuk was able to play the full championship game.

But is the best team based on how players are playing this season? Miller has had an up-and-down season. Slavin has been limited to five games by injury. Tkachuk is still rehabbing from offseason surgery but is getting close to returning. Each player in the first six has been hurt at some point this season, suppressing their stats. Some U.S. players having solid seasons didn’t make the cut.

Team USA Olympic hockey roster snubs

As with Canada, the USA’s player pool is so deep that it’s a matter of hard choices rather than snubs. But a few names stand out. Dallas’ Jason Robertson has been on fire and is the U.S. leader in points and is second in goals. Montreal’s Cole Caufield has had a strong season, as his teammate, defenseman Lane Hutson.

Hilary Knight’s last time in a U.S. uniform will be at the Milano Cortina Olympics. And she hopes it will end with a gold medal around her neck.

Knight was named to her fifth Olympic roster Friday, headlining the 23-woman U.S. squad for next month’s Milano Cortina Games. She is joined by fellow veteran Kendall Coyne Schofield, who will be playing in her fourth Olympics, as well as young talents Abbey Murphy, Taylor Heise, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards.

‘Whenever we sign up to play for Team USA, it’s to win a gold medal, and that mindset hasn’t changed,’ Knight, considered one of the greatest players ever in the women’s game, said at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic media summit in October.

‘If you can get to the Olympics first, that’s a cherishable moment in itself. If you can get on a podium, that’s a huge honor. And then, if you can win a gold medal, it’s equal in honor,’ Knight added. ‘I think we have such a fantastic team. I want our legacy to be cemented on that world stage and I want people to know the names that are in the room and part of that is winning a gold medal.

‘I think we’re capable of doing it.’

Though archrival Canada is the reigning Olympic champion, and has won five of the previous seven Olympic tournaments, the U.S. women will be favorites in Italy. They have won two of the last three world championships, including an overtime thriller last spring, and routed Canada in all four games of the Rivalry Series last fall.

The Americans outscored Canada 24-7 in the Rivalry Series, with Knight and Murphy each scoring five goals and Heise finishing with nine points.

While there are only 11 holdovers from the U.S. team that won silver in Beijing, the Milano Cortina roster is an experienced group. Most have been on the squads for the last three world championships, with Heise (2022) and Edwards (2023) winning most valuable player honors and Harvey named best defenseman in 2023 and 2025. All 23 were on the roster for the Rivalry Series.

‘We’ve put in the work … over the last three years,’ Coyne Schofield said. ‘Whether it’s a world championship or a camp, whoever is on that team is going to be ready.’

The U.S. team has three goaltenders, seven defenders and 13 forwards. Every line is stacked with both goal-scoring potential and smothering defense.

The influence of the PWHL, now in its third season, can be seen on the U.S. roster. Sixteen of the 23 players are in the PWHL, including six from the reigning champion Minnesota Frost. The remaining seven players, including Harvey, Murphy and Edwards, are still in college.

‘It still hasn’t really kicked in yet,’ Edwards said on the TODAY show. ‘Getting that call is a dream come true.’

USA women’s hockey Olympic roster

Here is the full U.S. roster for the Milano Cortina Olympics:

Goaltenders: Ava McNaughton; Aerin Frankel; Gwyneth Phillips.

Defenders: Lee Stecklein; Cayla Barnes; Caroline Harvey; Megan Keller; Rory Guilday; Haley Winn; Laila Edwards.

Forwards: Kirsten Simms; Kelly Pannek; Grace Zumwinkle; Hayley Scamurra; Britta Curl-Salemme; Hilary Knight; Tessa Janecke; Hannah Bilka; Joy Dunne; Alex Carpenter; Kendall Coyne Schofield; Taylor Heise; Abbey Murphy.

Authorities in Nigeria have charged the driver of former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua with causing the car crash that killed two of his team members and injured the boxer.

Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode, 46, was charged at the Sagamu Magistrate Court in Africa on Friday.

‘The Ogun State Police Command wishes to inform the general public that the driver of the Lexus SUV involved in the Anthony Joshua accident case, Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode (male), aged 46, was charged to the Sagamu Magistrate Court today,’ authorities said in a statement on social media.

Kayode faces four counts: driving causing death, reckless and negligent driving, driving without due care and attention causing bodily harm and damage to property, and driving without a valid national driver’s license.

Joshua was a passenger in the Lexus with Kayode, his personal trainer, Latif Ayodele, and Sina Ghami, his strength coach, when the vehicle struck a stationary truck in Ogun State, near Lagos, Africa’s largest city.

The 36-year-old Joshua was taken to the hospital with injuries following the accident and was discharged on Wednesday.

Kayode was granted bail in the amount of 5,000,000 Naira, the equivalent of nearly $3,500 U.S. dollars, and the Ogun State Police Command said his case has been adjourned until January 20.

Joshua was in Nigeria visiting relatives for New Year celebrations, according to the BBC, following his Dec. 19 fight with YouTuber-turned-boxer, which he won in a sixth-round knockout.

The first weekend of calendar year 2026 also marks the final one of the 2025 NFL regular season − and the league seems poised to ring in the new year properly.

Twelve of Week 18’s 16 games are set to have some level of impact on the largely fluid playoff field − whether they determine a divisional winner, home-field advantage and a first-round bye or simply postseason seeding. (The No. 1 pick of this year’s draft also remains unclaimed, so contests including the Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants are hardly meaningless, either.)

As it pertains to setting up the Super Bowl 60 tournament, Saturday should be especially fun − starting in the afternoon, when the Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers might decide who wins the NFC South … though an already eliminated squad might still get a say on that front. The prime-time game features the rematch of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers − the winner to be crowned NFC West champions while earning the conference’s top seed. The vanquished will be relegated to the wild-card scrum.

Sunday afternoon won’t have as many tidy matchups, even as the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars jockey for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, while the Jags and Houston Texans continue trying to capture the AFC South throne.

However Sunday night, the 272nd and final game of the regular season, will have winner-take-all stakes as the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vie for the AFC North title in the latest installment of their border way. The loser goes gets nothing.

How does this chaos resolve before 18 teams book their tee times? USA TODAY Sports’ crew of NFL experts break out their crystal balls:

(Odds provided by BetMGM)

Week 18 picks, predictions, odds

Panthers at Buccaneers
Seahawks at 49ers
Packers at Vikings
Browns at Bengals
Saints at Falcons
Cowboys at Giants
Colts at Texans
Titans at Jaguars
Chargers at Broncos
Chiefs at Raiders
Jets at Bills
Commanders at Eagles
Lions at Bears
Cardinals at Rams
Dolphins at Patriots
Ravens at Steelers

ATLANTA ― Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey and the No. 18-ranked Fighting Irish led by as many as 14 points against unranked Georgia Tech on Thursday to open ACC conference play.

And they and lost, 95-90, in overtime.

‘Frustrating loss for us. Didn’t feel like we came out ready to play today. It’s my job to get this team ready,’ an emotional Ivey said postgame.

‘We just never adjusted to putting more pressure defensively on them. Great team win for them. For us, it’s a big lesson. We have to come out with a sense of urgency, and we have to come out with a sense of toughness ― and that’s what we lacked today.’

As Ivey spoke about her team’s perceived complacency, she appeared frazzled. Her signature curls were tucked into a bun for the entire game. The cadence of words, usually even and confident, was choppy as she did everything she could to avoid sounding uneven. Perhaps it was the bright lights of the postgame presser, but the Notre Dame coach’s eyes looked more watery the longer she answered questions.

The Fighting Irish went on an 11-0 run at the 7:27 mark of the third quarter, pushing the lead to 14 points. Ivey said while her team ‘normally kind of [takes] off’ with that kind of offensive burst, defensive lapses doomed them. It left the door wide open for Georgia Tech and Walker, who finished with a career-high 33 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, to climb right back in.

Georgia Tech finished Thursday’s upset victory shooting 53% from the field and outscored Notre Dame’s bench 21-11. The Jackets’ bench production included four huge 3-pointers from Catherine Alben, including a buzzer-beating shot at the end of the third quarter to cut the lead to six and a dagger shot with 2:38 remaining in overtime. What’s more, the Yellow Jackets outrebounded the Fighting Irish 42-36 and earned more than half of their 95 points (52 points) in the paint. Georgia Tech just kept applying pressure and never let up, a metaphor for what could be happening to Ivey in South Bend.

Ivey may not admit it, but her seat appears to be getting hotter by the day.

Under the St. Louis native, Notre Dame has made four straight Sweet 16 appearances. But, the underwhelming performances at the worst possible time are starting to feel familiar. For example, during the 2024-25 season, just days before March Madness, Notre Dame had three ranked losses to ACC opponents over a five-game stretch, including a double-overtime 104-95 loss to NC State, where the wheels came off in the final minutes. Sound familiar?

Looking deeper and not fanning the already hot flames, Ivey deserves some grace for coaching a revamped roster. The Fighting Irish lost four players to the transfer portal, including former starting guard Olivia Miles, as well as all-around glue player Sonia Citron, to the WNBA. Junior Hannah Hidalgo is the lone returning starter. Ivey’s new-look starting lineup currently includes a rotation of grad transfers, seniors and Hidalgo, as the team battles injuries ― which isn’t exactly ideal for a roster that needs consistency and cohesion as it hits the toughest parts of its schedule.

During three of the six years of Ivey’s head coaching tenure, Notre Dame’s offense and defense have started and ended with Hildago. If she isn’t hitting, the Irish have had a tendency to falter in big moments no matter who else is on the court. Still, what happened Thursday at McCamish Pavilion shouldn’t have happened at all.

Notre Dame opened conference play with a loss to a scrappy, yet unranked team and play Duke, which is on a five-game winning streak, on Sunday, January 4. Not to sound dramatic, but the NCAA tournament conversation hasn’t begun and the Fighting Irish are potentially staring another disappointing elimination in the face.

Ivey knows it, too, even if she won’t say it now.

‘[Today’s game] kind of put a mirror to their face about things that we have to be better at,’ Ivey said. ‘I didn’t think that we were focused, ready to play today. I thought it took us a while for us to get going within our identity of what our expectation is, and our standard … We didn’t do that today.’

Whatever Notre Dame’s identity is, it needs to find it quickly, or it won’t survive the back half of the season. And, if Ivey wants to keep the heat under her seat at bay, the Fighting Irish’s upcoming slate is a good place to start chipping away with consistent defense that doesn’t sputter in crunch time. Notre Dame plays three ranked opponents over the next two and a half weeks, including No. 16 North Carolina, No. 13 Louisville and No. 1 UConn ― no pressure ― on January 19.

PASADENA, CA — It’s the mark of an overmatched team to use gimmicks to search for a seam. In that sense, old money Alabama was clearly overmatched against new money Indiana at an overcast Rose Bowl on Thursday, Jan. 1.

The two teams’ philosophies looked diametrically opposed in the first half. Where Indiana used a methodical offensive attack to move the ball north-to-south against the Crimson Tide, Alabama leaned on gadgetry to try find cracks in the last undefeated FBS team in the country. It failed miserably, with Alabama falling to Indiana 38-3 in a completely lopsided College Football Playoff matchup.

It was a browbeating so thorough, by the end would-be Alabama tacklers looked completely disinterested in bringing down Indiana ball-carriers.

Alabama’s shenanigans came to a peak with Indiana up 3-0 with 12:44 in the second quarter. On its own 34-yard line, Alabama went up to the line of scrimmage on a fourth-and-1 with Daniel Hill lining up in the wildcat.

Indiana responded with a timeout.

The Crimson Tide subsequently lined up to punt with Ty Simpson as an upback, with Simpson sprinting under center to try to spook Indiana into jumping offsides.

When that didn’t work, Alabama took a timeout.

Instead of cutting his losses, however, Kalen DeBoer again sent the offense out, again with Hill in the shotgun. Hill pitched the ball to Germie Bernard in motion on a jet sweep before Indiana swarmed him short of the line to gain, giving the Hoosiers the ball on the Alabama 34-yard line and leaving Crimson Tide fans across the country muttering, “too cute” under their collective breath.

Indiana capitalized on the opportunity, with Charlie Becker hauling in a 21-yard touchdown pass from Fernando Mendoza on the ensuing possession to procure a 10-0 lead and the first Indiana touchdown in Rose Bowl history.

“Just felt like it was going to be one of those games where you gotta take advantage of possessions,” DeBoer said of the choice to go for it after the game. He later said the choice to hard count before calling a timeout was to buy some time. “I try not to be reckless. I try to be aggressive. … Did the punt slash try to hard count, just give me a little more time to think about what my decision would be. Give some of the guys on the sideline a talk through the play-call. And so I really felt like … I was committed to going for it to try to make it happen.”

The sequence took approximately six minutes of real-life time and felt like a microcosm of how both teams approached the CFP quarterfinal matchup. Alabama desperately felt like it had to make something happen. Indiana was ready with a surgical counterstrike.

That’s the hallmark of a Curt Cignetti team. Despite his lamentations about poor practices and the challenges of traveling to Southern California, which Cignetti told media members after the game was a message to his team through the television, Indiana showed up when it mattered and never looked off kilter in any phase outside of a poor first series.

When it was 10-0 and Alabama began to put together a drive in answer to Indiana’s touchdown, it ended with a shot that left Ty Simpson shaken, causing him to fumble away what was to that point Alabama’s best scoring opportunity. Indiana held Alabama to 93 yards in the first half, including 64 passing yards, and was dominant at the line of scrimmage.

The second half opened with much of the same. A screen pass to Ryan Williams was blown up for a loss of two to put Alabama behind the sticks. Then another screen pass with more movement than substance to Josh Cuevas fell incomplete. On third-and-12, Simpson checked down and Alabama punted again, with the Tide’s pre-snap window dressing failing once again.

Entering this game, teams with a bye in the 12-team CFP were 0-6. So how did Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and company avoid the hangover?

“Coach Cignetti did a fantastic job with the trickledown effect of really making sure there was no complacency,” Mendoza told reporters after the game. “Because you have 26 days off, it’s very, very tough, especially on the first drive as an offense — myself included — I think we got off to a slow start.

‘And then other than that, once we got our feet wet we had the ball rolling and got back to playing Indiana brand of football. And so I think it was great overcoming that challenge as a team having such a long time off, but I think we overcame that challenge and it showed on the field today.”

There is no way to twist it: Alabama didn’t lose the Rose Bowl. Indiana won it. And did so in dominant fashion.

The Hoosiers entered this game as the better team, and left it in another league. Mendoza vindicated a more disparate Heisman vote than many expected with a nearly flawless game, going 14-for-16 with 194 yards and three touchdowns. Defensive coordinator Kane Wommack tried to dial up pressure, but Mendoza broke the pocket and had multiple scrambles that kept Indiana on schedule.

In that regard, sometimes just being on time is the difference. Alabama’s inability to run the ball caught up to it on one of college football’s great stages, with the Crimson Tide finding themselves behind the sticks time and time again. Alabama was just 3-of-11 on third down, whereas Indiana was 9-of-14 thanks in large part to avoiding negative plays.

The game ended with a perfect summation of its tenor: On fourth-and-4 at the two-minute mark, with Alabama about to get the ball back down 35, the Crimson Tide jumped offsides to let Indiana take a knee to kill the clock.

There is no one stat that explains Indiana’s dismantling of the Crimson Tide. It was a beatdown, top to bottom, and the score reflected it. Now, Indiana goes into a semifinal matchup against Oregon in a highly anticipated rematch with sky-high expectations. It lived up to its No. 1 seed, shook off the curse of CFP rest, and legitimately looked like the best team in country.

So what will its follow-up performance look like?

“Well I’m not gonna assume anything like, we’ve bounced back from a number of big wins and we’ll be fine,” Cignetti said. “Because it’s process. So we’ll have a very big challenge ahead of us next week, it’s very hard to beat a really good football team twice. There’s no doubt about that.”