No. 1 Oregon and No. 8 Ohio State gear up for rematch of thriller won by Ducks

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No. 1 Oregon and No. 8 Ohio State gear up for rematch of thriller won by Ducks

2024-12-24 05:10 Last Updated At：05:20

Oregon and Ohio State have already produced one heck of a game this season.

Now, the top-seeded Ducks (13-0) and No. 8 Buckeyes (11-2) are gearing up for a rematch more than 10 weeks later in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game at the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

Of course, both teams have had ample time for evolution since that 32-31 Oregon win on Oct. 12. But they also have that game and players' familiarity with each other, not to mention common opponents in the Big Ten.

“Sometimes when you’re playing against a team maybe from another conference in the playoffs, there’s a little bit of an unknown, how can you expect this guy to play?” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said Monday. "What am I really looking at when I look at the teams they’re playing?

“This team’s not that way because we played them already and they played in the conference. So there’s again a reference point as we move into this one. So our guys know what they’re up against, but they also know that they’ve evolved and we’ve evolved, and so two very different teams heading into this game. And the team who prepares the best is going to win.”

Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who went on to become a Heisman Trophy finalist, passed for 341 yards and ran for a 27-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter of the first meeting.

Then, Atticus Sappington made the game-winning 19-yard field goal in the final two minutes.

The then-No. 2 Buckeyes were the highest-ranked opponent that Oregon has beaten during the regular season. After the Oregon fans' field-storming celebration, Ducks coach Dan Lanning quipped: “Anyone have a heart-rate monitor?”

Now, the questions include will they need one for this game? Or will it fail to provide the same thrills?

Ohio State opened the playoffs with a 42-17 win over Tennessee on Saturday night.

“I think you could probably argue that Ohio State’s best game was the game they just played,” Lanning said. "So it’s important at this point in the year that you’re playing really good football. Sometimes you don’t know that until you step on the field.

“That’s your job as a coach to get you ready for those moments, get our players ready for those moments, but certainly hope that we put our best foot forward when we play in this Rose Bowl.”

Lanning and the Ducks also played Washington twice last season, losing both by a field goal — 36-33 on Oct. 14 and 34-31 in the Pac-12 Championship Game on Dec. 1.

Lanning isn't about to tip his hand about what adjustments the Ducks might make or prepare for, but joked: “Yeah, we’re going to do the exact same thing, right, every play, first call.”

“I won’t really get into the differences, but they’re a really good team,” Lanning said. “I don’t know if there’s a more talented team in the nation.”

And by the time these two teams play again, 81 days will have passed from Round 1. Gameplans figure to change, with plenty of tweaks on offense and defense along the way.

“They’ve changed and they’re much more multiple in what they do,” Day said of the Ducks. "So you combine all those things together and you put the game plan in. And then you throw some things out. You add some things that you think might fit.

“At the end of the day, you only have to pack what you need and you’ve got to make sure that it’s clean and it’s a plan that the guys can go execute with a lot of confidence. That’s what we’re in the middle of right now.”

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Staying in office is the main challenge for troubled France's new government

2024-12-24 20:20 Last Updated At：20:30

PARIS (AP) — France’s president and prime minister managed to form a new government just in time for the holidays. Now comes the hard part.

Crushing debt, intensifying pressure from the nationalist far right, wars in Europe and the Mideast: Challenges abound for President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, after an already tumultuous 2024.

The most urgent order of business is passing a 2025 budget. Financial markets, ratings agencies and the European Commission are pushing France to bring down its deficit, which threatens the stability and prosperity of all countries that share the euro currency.

France’s debt — currently estimated at 112% of gross domestic product — has been high for years. It grew further after the government gave aid payments to businesses and workers during COVID-19 lockdowns even as the pandemic depressed growth, and capped household energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. The bill is now coming due.

But France’s previous government collapsed this month because Marine Le Pen’s far-right party and left-wing lawmakers opposed 60 billion euros in spending cuts and tax hikes in the original 2025 budget plan. Bayrou and new Finance Minister Eric Lombard are expected to scale back some of those promises, but the calculations are tough.

“The political situation is difficult. The international situation is dangerous, and the economic context is fragile,” Lombard, a low-profile banker who advised a Socialist government in the 1990s, said upon taking office.

“The environmental emergency, the social emergency, developing our businesses — these innumerable challenges require us to treat our endemic illness: the deficit,” he said. “The more we are indebted, the more the debt costs, and the more it suffocates the country.”

This is France’s fourth government in the past year. No party has a parliamentary majority and the new Cabinet can only survive with the support of lawmakers on the center-right and center-left.

Le Pen — Macron’s fiercest rival — was instrumental in ousting the previous government by joining left-wing forces in a no-confidence vote. Bayrou consulted her when forming the new government and Le Pen remains a powerful force.

That angers left-wing groups, who had expected more influence in the new Cabinet, and who say promised spending cuts will hurt working-class families and small businesses hardest. Left-wing voters, meanwhile, feel betrayed ever since a coalition from the left won the most seats in the summer's snap legislative elections but failed to secure a government.

The possibility of a new no-confidence vote looms, though it's not clear yet how many parties would support it.

Macron has repeatedly said he will remain president until his term expires in 2027.

But France's constitution and current structure, dating from 1958 and called the Fifth Republic, were designed to ensure stability after a period of turmoil. If this new government collapses within months and the country remains in political paralysis, pressure will mount for Macron to step down and call early elections.

Le Pen's ascendant National Rally is intent on bringing Macron down. But Le Pen faces her own headaches: A March court ruling over alleged illegal party financing could see her barred from running for office.

The National Rally and hard-right Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau want tougher immigration rules. But Bayrou wants to focus on making existing rules work. “There are plenty of (immigration) laws that exist. None is being applied," he said Monday on broadcaster BFM-TV, to criticism from conservatives.

Military spending is crucial, amid fears about European security and pressure from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for Europe to spend more on its own defense. French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who wants more military aid for Ukraine and to ramp up France’s own weapons production, kept his job and enjoys broad support.

More immediately, Macron wants an emergency law in early January to allow speeded-up reconstruction of the cyclone-ravaged French territory of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean. Thousands of people are in emergency shelters and authorities are still counting the dead more than a week after the devastation.

Meanwhile the government in the restive French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia collapsed Tuesday in a wave of resignations by pro-independence figures — another challenge for the new overseas affairs minister, Manuel Valls, and the incoming Cabinet.