Sports SECTION B

The Lawton Constitution

Friday, May 8, 2020

BY BARRY WILNER

AP Pro Football Writer

The Kansas City Chiefs will open defense of their Super Bowl champi-onship by hosting Houston on Sept. 10 in the NFL’s annual kickoff game — pending developments in the coronavirus pandemic, of course.

The Texans won a regular-sea-son game at Arrowhead Stadium in 2019, then blew a 24-0 lead in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Another highlight of the opening weekend will have Tom Brady’s reg-ular-season debut with Tampa Bay against Drew Brees at New Orleans on Sept. 13 — the first matchup of 40-plus quarterbacks in NFL his-tory.

The opening of SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles area that Sun-day night has the Rams hosting the Cowboys.

Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas will debut on the Monday night, Sept. 21, with the Raiders facing Brees and the Saints.

All of the 32 teams released their schedules early Thursday evening, with the full 2020 list scheduled to be revealed by the league a bit later.

The Chiefs, who won their first Super Bowl in a half-century last February, need baseball’s Royals to move their game for Sept. 10, which now is part of a doubleheader two days earlier. The teams’ stadiums share parking lots.

The NFL schedule, not to men-tion offseason activities and the pre-season, has to be considered tenta-tive given the current prohibition on large gatherings.

But Commissioner Roger Good-

ell has said the league is planning for a normal season, albeit while mak-ing contingency plans.

“The league and the clubs have been in contact with the relevant local, state and federal government authorities and will continue to do so,” NFL spokesman Brian McCa-rthy said.

The traditional Monday night doubleheader on opening weekend will have Pittsburgh at the New York Giants, which has a rookie head coach in Joe Judge, and Tennessee at Denver.

“The number one positive is we’re getting ready to play football, so that’s the biggest thing,” Judge said. “Once you get the schedule, it starts moving a little bit faster in your mind in terms of preparing for what’s in front of you.”

Top overall draft pick Joe Bur-row and the Bengals start off against the sixth overall selection in April’s draft, Justin Herbert and the Char-gers at Cincinnati. The Bengals also will face the other highly rated rookie quarterback Tua Tagavailoa and the Dolphins in Week 13.

New England, without Brady at QB for an opener for only the sec-ond time since 2001 — he was sus-pended for the first four games of 2016 — hosts Miami on the open-ing Sunday.

Thanksgiving games will have Houston at Detroit, Washington at Dallas, then one of the league’s fierc-est rivalries with Baltimore at Pitts-burgh in the night game.

Late-season Saturday games will be scheduled but with unde-termined matchups for flexibility,

something the NFL has done pre-viously.

Certain to draw heavy early sea-son interest will be the past two league MVPs, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, facing off in Week 3 on Monday night at Kansas City. The Chiefs and Ravens each have five prime-time games, as do New England, Dallas, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, defending NFC champ San Francisco, and the Rams.

Detroit and Washington have no prime-time outings.

There’s one Friday night contest, on Christmas, when Minnesota vis-its New Orleans.

Every team has two home and two away games in the first month of the schedule. Whether that’s a quirk or by design is unknown.

The season ends Jan. 3 with all divisional matchups, as in recent years. Then follow the playoffs, with the Super Bowl slated for Feb. 7 in Tampa, Florida.

Pending developments with the coronavirus, of course.

Kicking off: Texans at Chiefs to open season

AP

The defending Super Bowl champion

Kansas City Chiefs and quarterback

Patrick Mahomes kick off the season

against the Houston Texans.

BY CLARENCE E. HILL JR.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TNS)

The Dallas Cowboys’ 2020 schedule is out and it features five prime-time games in Mike McCarthy’s first season as head coach, led by the season opener at the Los Angeles Rams in the first regular-season game at the new SOFI Stadium on Sept. 13 on Sunday Night Football on NBC.

The home opener at AT&T Stadium is against the Atlanta Falcons on Sept. 20, which is followed by a trip to Seattle to face the Sea-hawks on Sept. 27, completing a tough trio of games against potential playoff contenders to open the season.

After kicking off the preseason against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 6, the Cowboys will face the Los Angeles Chargers in the first game at SOFI Stadium in the second week of the pre-season. The date and time of the game has yet to be determined.

One of the other iconic days on the NFL sea-son will be on Thanksgiving when the Cowboys will play host to the Washington Redskins. It will be the 10th time the NFC East foes will square off on the holiday.

The Cowboys’ other prime-time games are against the Arizona Cardinals on ESPN’s Mon-day Night Football on Oct. 19, at the Phila-delphia Eagles on Nov. 1 on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, a Thursday night NFL Net-work matchup at the Baltimore Ravens on Dec. 3. and another NBC Sunday night affair against the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 20.

The Cowboys close the season with two di-visional games that could have playoff implica-tions. Dallas hosts Philadelphia on Dec. 27 and visits New York on Jan. 3.

Cowboys to open season at Rams,

host Redskins on Thanksgiving

By The Associated Press

HOBE SOUND, Fla. — The next match involving Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in-volves a $10 million donation for COVID-19 relief efforts, along with plenty of bragging rights in a star-powered four-some May 24 at Medalist Golf Club.

Turner Sports announced more details Thursday for “The Match: Champions for Char-ity,” a televised match between Woods and Peyton Manning against Mickelson and Tom Brady.

Medalist is where Woods plays when he’s at home. Man-ning and Brady said they have played there before — Manning running out of golf balls before reaching the 18th, Brady post-ing a 106.

The format will be better ball for the front nine and modi-fied alternate shot on the back nine, meaning both players hit tee shots and they take turns from there.

It will be simulcast on May 24 at 3 p.m. EDT on TNT, TBS, truTV and HLN, along with pre-match coverage available on the Bleacher Report app.

WarnerMedia and the four players will collectively make a charitable donation of $10 million to benefit various relief efforts locally and nationally. Turner said the match includes a partnership with the “All In Challenge,” an initiative that provides food for those in need.

Mickelson beat Woods in a playoff under the lights in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving week-end in 2018. This time, they are bringing in two of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks to add to the entertainment.

The announcement came with a video interview by TNT’s Ernie Johnson of the four play-ers, in which Brady said he wanted Woods as a partner un-til Manning’s father called to switch the teams.

The match will be held one week after live golf returns to television for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the PGA Tour and other tours around the world. Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson will play a charity match against Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff at Seminole Golf Club, one of Florida’s most famous courses that will have a tele-vised event for the first time.

Woods, Mickelson, QBs to donate $10 million to virus relief

AP

The next match involving Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson involves a $10 million donation for COVID-19

relief efforts, along with plenty of bragging rights in a star-powered foursome May 24 at Medalist Golf

Club. Turner Sports announced more details Thursday for “The Match: Champions for Charity,” a televised

match between Woods and Peyton Manning against Mickelson and Tom Brady.

BY DAVE SKRETTA

AP Basketball Writer

LAWRENCE, Kan. — The NCAA struck back at the Uni-versity of Kansas and its men’s basketball program Thursday, calling five Level I violations that are alleged to have oc-curred “egregious” and argu-ing that they undermine and threaten” college athletics.

In the latest in a series of back-and-forth filings, the NCAA reiterated in a 92-page response its claim that Adi-das representatives were act-ing as boosters when two of them — T.J. Gassnolo and Jim Gatto — helped to arrange pay-ments to prospective recruits. Those transactions became a central point in a wide-rang-ing FBI probe into college bas-ketball that has ensnared Kan-

sas, Louisville and several other high-profile programs.

“The institution secured sig-nificant recruiting and compet-itive advantages by committing alleged Level I men’s basketball violations,” the NCAA said. “The institution, in taking its defiant posture in this case, is indifferent to how alleged vi-olations may have adversely impacted other NCAA institu-tions who acted in compliance with NCAA legislation.”

Officials from Kansas have said they agree with the NCAA that Gassnola made payments to family members and han-dlers of two players, Billy Pres-ton and Silvio De Sousa. But coach Bill Self and assistant Kurtis Townsend said they were unaware of the transac-tions, backing up a statement

Gassnola made during sworn testimony.

But the NCAA countered with video and text documents that tie Self, Townsend and an-other assistant coach, Jerrance Howard, to Gassnola within the past five years. The govern-ing body also pointed out that Adidas paid about $250,000 for an induction party for Self when he was elected to the Na-ismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

This evidence, the NCAA argues, is “overwhelming fac-tual information that demon-strates Adidas, Gassnola and Gatto promoted the institu-tions interests and, therefore, are boosters.”

“The NCAA enforcement staff ’s reply does not in any way change the University of Kan-

sas’ position that the allega-tions brought against our men’s basketball program are simply baseless and littered with false representations,” the school said. in a statement Thursday. “As the federal trial proved, Adidas employees intention-ally concealed impermissible payments from the university and its coaching staff. The uni-versity has never denied these impermissible payments were made.

“For the NCAA enforce-ment staff to allege that the university should be held re-sponsible for these payments is a distortion of the facts and a gross misapplication of NCAA bylaws and case precedent.”

The initial notice of alle-gations was filed in Septem-ber, and Kansas officials had

90 days to respond, a deadline

that was extended to February.

The NCAA enforcement staff

then had 60 days to file the re-

ply that came out this week.

In the response, the NCAA

laid out its belief that a hear-

ing before the NCAA Com-

mittee on Infractions — which

has yet to be scheduled — could

ultimately decide some of the

sticking points in the case. The

university would have the op-

portunity to argue its case be-

fore the committee. If the com-

mittee ruled on behalf of the

NCAA, officials from Kansas

would have an opportunity to

appeal potentially crippling

penalties.

NCAA calls alleged Kansas hoops violations ‘egregious’