Aranda faces old school when Baylor and LSU play in Texas Bowl in first meeting since 1985

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Aranda faces old school when Baylor and LSU play in Texas Bowl in first meeting since 1985

2024-12-31 01:29 Last Updated At：01:31

HOUSTON (AP) — When Baylor and LSU face off in the Texas Bowl on Tuesday, it will be the first meeting between the teams since the 1985 Liberty Bowl.

But they do have some familiarity with one another. Baylor coach Dave Aranda spent 2016-19 on the LSU staff, helping the Tigers to the 2019 national championship as defensive coordinator before leaving for Waco.

“It’s really cool,” Aranda said. “So many good memories and such great people, and such respect and appreciation for all of it. How my family was treated, just all of it.”

And he still holds an affinity for the school.

“I’m rooting for LSU — except for this game,” Aranda said.

Aranda’s Bears (8-4) enter the game on a high note with a six-game winning streak that came after they won just two of their first six games this season.

“I think there’s some momentum going,” Aranda said. “You get that momentum by winning, and that’s what we’ve been able to do. And we’ve got to be able to continue to do that, in any circumstance. I think if we do that, it puts us in a good position for next year, to be able to win some more.”

LSU (8-4) has won two in a row after a three-game skid as the Tigers head into their third bowl appearance under coach Brian Kelly.

“The game is such an interesting one in that momentum, belief, confidence, they all play a role,” Kelly said. “When teams are fairly equal — and that’s what the case is — all those things that I just mentioned play a role. You’re playing a team that believes they’re going to win. They’ve won games that they hadn’t won in a long time. They’ve gotten all that out of the way. So, that’s probably the biggest challenge.”

These teams both feature veteran quarterbacks in LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier and Baylor’s Sawyer Robertson.

Nussmeier ranks second in the Southeastern Conference and sixth in the nation with 3,739 yards passing and his 26 TD passes are second in the SEC. In 13 career starts, he has thrown at least two touchdown passes nine times and thrown for more than 300 yards eight times, including seven this season.

He’s led the Tigers to a 9-4 record as a starter.

Robertson leads the Big 12 with an 83.9 quarterback rating that ranks sixth in the nation. He started his career with the late coach Mike Leach at Mississippi State before transferring to Baylor last season.

He has thrown for a career-high 2,626 yards with 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions this season.

LSU will be without several top players Tuesday after tight end Mason Taylor, receiver Kyren Lacy and tackles Will Campbell and Emery Jones opted out as they prepare for the NFL draft.

Taylor, the son of NFL Hall of Fame Jason Taylor, had 55 receptions for a career-high 546 yards and two touchdowns as a junior before declaring for the draft earlier this month.

Lacy led the Tigers with 866 yards receiving and nine touchdowns and ends his career with 2,360 yards receiving.

Baylor receiver Josh Cameron leads the team with nine touchdown receptions this season, which ranks 11th in school history. His 44 receptions for 643 yards also lead the team and are both career highs.

The performance comes after he didn’t score a touchdown in his first two seasons.

Cameron is also the team’s punt returner, and he ranks second in the country by averaging 20.7 yards per return.

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Chief Justice Roberts pauses deadline for return of Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador

2025-04-08 04:08 Last Updated At：04:11

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts agreed Monday to pause a midnight deadline for the Trump administration to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The temporary order comes hours after a Justice Department emergency appeal to the Supreme Court arguing U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.

The administration has conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs.

But he is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.

Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

“The district court’s injunction—which requires Abrego Garcia’s release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Monday—is patently unlawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers, casting the order as one in “a deluge of unlawful injunctions” judges have issued to slow President Donald Trump's agenda.

The Justice Department appeal was directed to Roberts because he handles appeals from Maryland.

The Trump administration is separately asking the Supreme Court to allow Trump to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to the same Salvadoran prison under an 18th century wartime law.

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration's request for a stay. “There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a brief opinion accompanying the unanimous denial.

The White House has described Abrego Garcia’s deportation as an “administrative error” but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

“The Executive branch may not seize individuals from the streets, deposit them in foreign prisons in violation of court orders, and then invoke the separation of powers to insulate its unlawful actions from judicial scrutiny,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote in a response filed moments after Roberts issued his temporary pause.

Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless,” explaining that little to no evidence supports a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once an MS-13 member.

Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.

He had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

In 2019, an immigration judge barred the U.S. from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.