SPORTS www.News-Sentinel.com INSIDE TODAY Colin Kaepernick’s three touchdown passes lead the San Francisco 49ers over the St. Louis Rams. Page 3S Coming Wednesday: Update on the Colts from Reggie Hayes. OCTOBER 14, 2014 TUESDAY Heat players’ feelings cooling on LeBron And Raiders fans display their throwing arms and mentality. MIAMI HEAT BIG man Chris Bosh said it can be tough to alter your game to play alongside LeBron James, offering free advice for Kevin Love and the Cleveland Cavaliers. “It’s a lot more difﬁcult taking a step back,” Bosh said. The upside, now that James has gone to Cleveland, is that Bosh will be freed of carrying around the extra weight of another NBA championship ring. A COLUMN REGGIE HAYES BY [email protected] SCRAMBLED FANS The San Diego Chargers team bus was egged by Oakland Raiders fans as the team arrived at the stadium for Sunday’s game. With that, yet another chance for the Oakland faithful to win “NFL’s Classiest Fans” fell by the wayside. S SWINGS AND CONNECTIONS Boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. made $600,000 off his bet that the Denver Broncos would beat the New York Jets by more than 7.5 points Sunday. Good to hear. I was getting worried about his stability since his net worth these days is down to $295 million. I DON’T KNOW’S ON THIRD The New York Yankees plan to use Alex Rodriguez as a backup ﬁrst baseman to Mark Teixeira next season, a reﬂection of Rodriguez’s age (39) and the Yankees’ needs. As a result, the popular Abbott & Costello skit will be revived as “Juice on First.” HAVE ANOTHER BREW The Milwaukee Brewers ﬁred their See HAYES, Page 8S Illustration by Ken Dutton for The News-Sentinel ROSTER CUTS SUDDENLY A LOT EASIER Shoulder surgery will end season for IU’s Sudfeld Freshman Covington to start versus Michigan State. BY PETE DIPRIMIO [email protected] Photos by Blake Sebring of The News-Sentinel Kalamzoo’s Isaac Macleod skates by Komets defenseman Matt Krug to slip the puck past the right pad of goaltender Pat Nagle during the first period Monday night. Komets ﬁzzle in ﬁnal exhibition game Lackluster defensive play might have cost some players a spot UNFORTUNATELY FOR FORT Wayne Komets coach Gary Graham, he can’t cut everybody, though he probably considA column by ered it during the BLAKE SEBRING second period of Twitter: Monday night’s @blakesebring 7-3 exhibition loss to the Kalamazoo Wings. Graham and General Manager David Franke have to reduce their 25-man roster to a 20 on the active lineup by 3 p.m. Wednesday, but they’ll likely move quickly to beat that deadline. “We’ll be looking to move guys immediately, probably within the next 12 hours,” Graham said after the game. “Some guys showed enough now that we have to move in a different direction.” Asked if the decisions were harder now, Graham said, “After a game like that, it’s easy.” That was the most direct hit of the evening. It certainly looked like most of the players were taking it easy, especially defensively. Goaltender Pat Nagle gave up ﬁve goals on BLOOMINGTON — Nate Sudfeld is ﬁnished for the season. This much we know about the Indiana quarterback situation. Freshman Chris Covington is the new starter, with help from fellow freshman Zander Diamont. What does that mean for Saturday’s Homecoming game against No. 6 Michigan State? Stay tuned. Sudfeld dislocated his left (non-throwing) shoulder in the ﬁrst half of Saturday’s loss at Iowa. Coach Kevin Wilson said Sudfeld needs surgery, and it likely will happen Thursday. “The shoulder is slipping on him,” Wilson said. “It’s not his throwing side. He should be able to make a strong recovery.” Sudfeld, a junior, ﬁnishes the year completing 60.5 percent of his passes for 1,151 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions. It was a drop from his previous two seasons, in part because he was working with multiple new receivers and because of some dropped passes. “Our receiver play has not been Sudfeld as consistent and our quarterback has not been as good as it needs to be,” Wilson said. “That’s a challenge as we keep these guys coming.” How has Sudfeld handled the setback? “He’s doing fine,” offensive coordinator Kevin Johns said. “There is some frustration from the fact he’ll miss the reset of the year. He’s a competitor. He’ll bounce back just ﬁne. He’ll be ready for next fall.” Johns added Sudfeld will serve as a mentor for Covington and Diamont. “He’s disappointed that he can’t play, but he’s going to be See SUDFELD, Page 8S Irish defense in desperate need of a break 3rd-down breakdowns force too many extra snaps. BY TOM DAVIS [email protected] Komets defenseman Will Lacasse, right, charges into the Kalamazoo zone in an attempt to fire up the Fort Wayne offense during the third period. Up next Regular season begins Faceoff: Komets at Indy, 7:30 p.m. Friday Radio: WOWO, 1190-AM 17 shots, but most came within 10 feet of the net with no other Komet trying to help. Turnover after turnover became tape-totape passes for easy Kalamazoo scoring opportunities. “Guys tentative, guys nervous, it just didn’t look like the same group that has been playing all week,” Graham said. “... some of our core guys, our key guys ... we need guys to lead by example. Toe drags, turnovers, not strong plays along the wall, all those things add up. Kalamazoo played a simple game plan, outworked us and shot everything and made the most out of their scoring chances.” See SEBRING, Page 8S “We’ll be looking to move guys immediately ... . Some guys showed enough now that we have to move in a different direction.” — GARY GRAHAM, KOMETS COACH SPORTS EDITOR: TOM DAVIS | PHONE: 461-8240 | Midway through the second quarter of its victory over North Carolina last weekend, the Notre Dame defense settled into position against the Tar Heels on a third and 1. The Irish had stormed back from a 14-0 ﬁrst-quarter deﬁcit and scored the game’s last 21 points. North Carolina running back Elijah Hood, who had once pledged his services to the team wearing navy blue rather than Carolina blue, powered his way for 2 yards, which gave his team a new set of downs. Few of the 80,795 fans that ﬁlled Notre Dame Stadium realized it at the time, but that play was a microcosm of what plagued the ﬁfthranked Irish (6-0) all day. But Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly knew exactly what was happening. “We weren’t good on third down,” Kelly recalled afterward. “That’s really what happened ... we couldn’t get off the ﬁeld on third down.” EMAIL: [email protected] After that run by Hood, the Tar Heels forced the Irish defense to line up for 16 more snaps on that drive as they Kelly pulled to within 21-20 a few minutes later. And that wasn’t the lone problematic series for Kelly’s club. In the ﬁrst half, the Irish defense had to play 29 extra snaps after third-down conversions by North Carolina. All total, the Notre Dame defense played an extra 43 snaps than it truly had to (minus presumed fourthdown punts) during the game. “If you really critically look at it, we just gave them too many plays,” Kelly said. “We just weren’t locked in defensively like we had been the previous weeks. It wasn’t our best effort.” Notre Dame had no shortage of questions surrounding its defense entering this season. See IRISH, Page 8S