— James Madison 27, Western Kentucky 17
Dukes get their first-ever I-A bowl win.
Hilltoppers led 14-7 at halftime.
JMU ran ball for 212 yards, outgained WKU 394-318
— UNLV 24, California 13
Rebels get their first bowl win since 2000.
UNLV won despite completing only 6-19 passes.
Cal’s QB bolted; they used two backups in this game.
— Conference bowl records (SU/ATS)
AAC 1-0 SU/0-1 ATS
ACC 0-1 SU/0-1 ATS
Big X 0-1 SU/1-0 ATS
C-USA 0-1 SU/0-1 ATS
MAC 0-1 SU/0-1 ATS
MWest 1-0 SU/1-0 ATS
Sun Belt 2-0 SU/2-0 ATS
Favorites: 2-2 ATS
Totals: under 3-1
— UConn 94, Xavier 89 OT
Xavier shot 13-24 on arc; they led by 5 with 5:16 left.
UConn shot 55.6% inside the arc.
— Oklahoma 87, Michigan 86
11-0 Sooners were down 11 with 9:55 left to play.
Oklahoma was 12-25 on arc, Wolverines 4-28
— Memphis 64, Virginia 62
Virginia led by 11 early in second half.
PJ Haggerty played all 40:00, scored 27 points for 9-2 Memphis
— New Mexico 78, VCU 71
Donovan Dent scored 40 points for the Lobos.
VCU was only 13-24 on the foul line.
— Atlanta Falcons added kicker Riley Patterson to replace Younghoe Koo, who is on IR and is done for the regular season.
— As we speak, the Chicago White Sox win total for 2025 in 49.5, the lowest in recent memory. Last year, the A’s were supposed to suck; their win total was 57.5. White Sox were 41-121, an incredibly terrible season. The 2024 A’s wound up 69-93, by the way.
— Famous birthdays, December 19:
Tim Reid, 80
Kevin McHale, 67
Bill Wegman, 62
Jennifer Beals, 61
Arvydas Sabonis, 60
Joe Slusarski, 58
Tom Gugliotta, 55
Alyssa Milano, 52
Warren Sapp, 52
Jake Plummer, 50
— When the Carolina Panthers were favored over the Cowboys Sunday, it was the first time in 34 games that the Panthers were favored to win. It didn’t go well.
— Former NFL QB Michael Vick is the new football coach at Norfolk State, which went 3-8/4-8 the last two years at the I-AA level.
Vick is 44 years old; he last played in the NFL in 2015 for Pittsburgh. He has no formal coaching experience, but he played QB in the NFL for 13 years and was a coaching intern for the Chiefs five years ago. He’ll need to hire experienced assistant coaches.
— Quarterback TJ Finley should write a book someday; he recently transferred to Tulane, which will be his fifth college team. He’’ll be 23 in March.
2020— started five games for LSU (2-3)
2021-22— started six games for Auburn (2-4)
2023— started the whole season at Texas State (8-5)
2024— started three games for Western Kentucky (2-1)
2025— Tulane.
— Wake Forest hired former Washington State coach Jake Dickert as its new football coach; he replaces Dave Clawson, who is a really good coach, but Wake Forest doesn’t have the resources that its competitors have, so Clawson resigned.
Dickert was 23-20 in three years at Wazzu, 8-4 this season. Washington State wasn’t in a league this year; they’ll eventually be in the re-configured Pac-12 with a lot of Mountain West teams.
— Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia was granted eligibility for the 2025 season, very good news for the Commodores; he’s been arguing that junior college seasons should not count against NCAA eligibility, which could open up a whole new can of worms.
— Modern college football: Alabama poached the long snapper from the Cal Bears.
— In his excellent career, NBA star James Harden has scored 40+ points in 103 games.
