The Spartans and coach Tom Izzo had plenty of reasons to smile after trouncing Michigan. (AP)

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Tom Izzo is 58 now, rich, famous and headed to the Hall of Fame one day, all those Final Four banners he's hung up here at Michigan State serving as proof of that.

There is no complacency in the man, however, certainly not when the maize and blue of Michigan, hated Michigan, is across the way. Just the thought of it turns him back into a young assistant for Jud Heathcote.

Back in the late 1980s and most of the 1990s, Izzo would relentlessly recruit some star out of Detroit, all but wearing out I-96 in pursuit. And just when he'd think he was going to close the deal and finally deliver the player for the Spartans, the rug would get pulled out from under him. That Izzo never felt the deal was clean is no secret. NCAA sanctions against U of M eventually confirmed as much.

No amount of victories will ever cleanse the memory or douse the anger. Not for Izzo. No matter how many dominating defeats he's laid on how many different Michigan coaches, things

Wrestling will be dropped from Olympic competition after the 2016 Games. (AP)

The International Olympic Committee is dropping wrestling from competition after the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, the result of some elaborate secret ballot it holds every so often to determine its 25 "core sports."

In part because golf and rugby are coming to the Olympics, something had to go. This time it was wrestling, apparently edged out by the modern pentathlon for survival.

As such, both freestyle (somewhat similar to what you see in American high schools and colleges) and Greco Roman, each of which dated back to the 1896 Games in Greece, will soon be history. Wrestling can try to get back in, but the odds are long.

This is a poor decision and it would be only slightly less poor of a decision if it was modern pentathlon (a five-event competition of fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting) that got the boot instead.

It's golf that should never have been granted access in the first place.

[Related: Wrestling's governing body scrambles after being

Joe Paterno's wife, Sue, commissioned a report to look into the Freeh report findings. (AP)

Joe Paterno's role in covering up the Jerry Sandusky scandal was unfairly overstated by the Freeh Report and, in fact, Joe Paterno acted in the same proper and righteous manner Joe Paterno lived the rest of Joe Paterno's life, according to Sunday's release of an investigation funded by Joe Paterno's family.

None of that is a surprise. What else was it going to say?

Much like the original July 2012 Penn State-funded Freeh Report, this "Critique of the Freeh Report" is a masterful testament to unnecessary declarative statements, the creation of straw men and everything else one gets when lawyers are hired by wealthy clients to prepare a "thorough" report.

Both reports have flaws. Both are, at times, comically overstated. Both made someone a lot of money.

Still, amidst all the back and forth, Joe Paterno's situation can mostly be boiled down to a single question, and nothing in the 238-page "Critique" changed or challenged the Freeh Report's conclusion surrounding it.

Urban Meyer guided Ohio State to a 12-0 record last season. (AP)

Urban Meyer is so competitive that he once put together an epic 25-1 run at Florida, which included capturing his second national title in three seasons. Yet when he finally lost the 2009 SEC title game, the distress from the meat grinder was so intense he wound up in the hospital with heart problems.

Meyer then quit, for a day, only to return for another season. He quit again, took a year off, accepted the Ohio State job, went 12-0 and signed a consensus top-three recruiting class in his first full-year effort.

The man knows only one way to go, full-throttle and with fists closed. He'll apologize for none of it. He'll expect the same from everyone else, including, apparently, his peers in the Big Ten, who he doesn't think are pulling their weight. Forget just coaching his team, he's concerned about the other 11 programs, too.

Speaking on the Bishop and Rothman Show on 97.1 FM in Columbus on Thursday, Meyer called out most of the Big Ten after many conference schools

Brian Kelly interviewed with the Eagles, but opted to stay at Notre Dame. (AP)

For Notre Dame, the month of January was like some kind of endless bad dream, some strange combination of embarrassing, humbling, unnerving and simply ridiculous.

It started with a spot in the BCS title game, though the run-up to the game focused as much on the Declan Sullivan and Lizzy Seeberg tragedies as it did a return to on-field glory. The game was a 42-14 blowout, a disappointment, even if there is little shame in losing to Alabama.

Within hours, Brian Kelly was interviewing with the Philadelphia Eagles. Hours. Who the heck interviews for another job hours after a blowout loss in the title game? When word broke of the blatant interest in jumping to the NFL – almost unfathomable to old-time fans – the head coach didn't apologize or release a statement. He went radio silent for a few days as Fighting Irish players, recruits and fans were left hanging in the balance, uncertain what was up.

Kelly finally decided to stay, only for news of Manti Te'o and Lennay Kekua

Mark Stoops left an assistant job with Florida State a little more than two months ago to become the head coach at the University of Kentucky – despite never once setting foot on campus.

Mark Stoops could have Kentucky pointed toward a top-25 recruiting class. (Lexington Herald-Leader)He didn't need to see Lexington. He didn't need to tour the facilities. He didn't care that the program had lost at least five games every season since 1990, was just 110-160 overall and 9-85 against ranked teams.

Stoops believed in his own plan, believed in the people at UK and believed in one thing that increasingly carries incredible power on the recruiting trail – membership in the SEC.

"Kids want to play in the SEC," Stoops told Yahoo! Sports Wednesday morning. "It's important, we have a great program, a great school in a great location and we play in the best conference in America."

On Wednesday's National Signing Day, Stoops unveiled what many are hailing as the greatest recruiting class in the program's history, a nine-week mop-up that landed the Wildcats at No. 28 nationally after

The fallout from the new BALCO – the Miami-area Biogenesis clinic – continues to extend and envelop more major league players.

Ryan Braun's name surfaced in the records of the Miami-area Biogenesis clinic. (AP)In this case, it's news from Yahoo! Sports that Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun's name is in Biogenesis records. MLB is now investigating links between the former MVP, who previously tested positive for synthetic testosterone in 2011, and the clinic.

This follows a report last week from the Miami New Times linking Alex Rodriguez, Nelson Cruz and Gio Gonzalez to Biogenesis' operator Anthony Bosch, aka the new Victor Conte.

All of a sudden, MLB is back in crisis mode.

If one thing is clear by now, it's that baseball's so-called "Steroid Era" continues on. In fact, it should be obvious that there isn't really an "era" at all. It's just a fact of baseball life over the last half century.

There is plenty of evidence of PED use dating back to the late 1960s and clearly little has changed since the Mitchell Report and MLB deciding to get more vigilant

NEW ORLEANS – Jim Harbaugh was walking out of the media interview area in the depths of the Superdome, wearing the 1,000-yard stare of every Super Bowl loser.

The 49ers' coach had just mumbled through attempts to explain what had happened, explain why it happened, explain Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31. "Didn't play our best game … Ravens made a lot of plays." It was a lot of that.

As he stepped into the hallway, an excited NFL suit came charging toward the entrance.

"John Harbaugh is coming," he shouted. "John Harbaugh is coming." It was a bittersweet postgame for the Ravens' John Harbaugh who beat younger brother Jim. (Reuters)

This was to alert security that the champ was almost here. Jim looked down the hall for his brother, the Ravens' headman and freshly crowned coaching king of the NFL, but there was no sign of him.

So Jim jumped into the passenger seat of a waiting golf cart, folded his arms, leaned forward and began licking his lips. He appeared to be running every play of the game through his mind. A 49ers public relations man climbed on also. They were