AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Missed kicks and makes. Big returns. Shaky nerves.
Special teams have produced some nerve-wracking, game-changing and game-clinching moments so far in the College Football Playoff.
The potential for more blink-of-an-eye touchdowns and knee-knocking pressure on late game field goals gets even bigger heading into the semifinals with Notre Dame-Penn State on Thursday night at the Orange Bowl and Ohio State-Texas on Friday night at the Cotton Bowl.
Notre Dame seems to have resolved its kicking struggles just at the right time.
Fighting Irish kicker Mitch Jeter, a graduate transfer from South Carolina, missed two games in the regular season with a hip injury and was just 8 of 15 on field goals heading into the quarterfinal against Georgia. Then he nailed kicks of 44, 48 yards, and 47 yards to become the first kicker in playoff history to make three from 40 yards or longer in a single game.
Texas' Bert Auburn could use a boost of confidence like that. His 66 career field goals is a record at a school that has produced future pro standouts Phil Dawson, Justin Tucker and Cameron Dicker. But he is just 16 of 25 this season, including a 6-of-14 mark beyond 40 yards.
In the quarterfinal win over Arizona State, he missed twice in the final 2 minutes of regulation. The first, from 48 yards, went wide right. Before he lined up 38 yards out with 3 seconds left, coach Steve Sarkisian tried giving him a pep talk. The ball doinked off the left upright. Texas prevailed in double overtime.
Auburn sent the SEC championship game into overtime with a tying kick in the final seconds. Teammates insist they believe he can deliver another big kick if needed.
“He’s made a lot of amazing kicks for us in the past. He’s going to come up big when we need him,” Texas defensive back Jahdae Barron said. “So, if he could just block out the noise. He knows we’re riding with him. We’ve got his back through it all. That’s what the culture is here.”
Texas and Notre Dame both scored on kick returns in the quarterfinals.
The Longhorns' Silas Bolden returned the first punt of the game 75 yards for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead against Arizona State. A senior transfer from Oregon State, the speedy Bolden hasn't delivered as much as hoped as a receiver, where he has 22 catches for 243 yards, but he finally broke off the big play in the return game.
It was a Notre Dame kickoff return against Georgia that swung the game for the Irish.
Jaydon Harrison's 98-yard return to open the second half stretched Notre Dame's lead to 20-3 and stunned the Bulldogs, who had been tied 3-all in the final minute before halftime.
A Jeter field goal and a Beaux Collins touchdown catch made it 13-3 before Harrison delivered. Fifteen seconds into the second half, Notre Dame led 20-3.
Notre Dame closed out the win with a little special teams trickery.
Notre Dame had a fourth-and-short deep in his own territory when coach Marcus Freeman sent the punt team out before running all 11 players off the field and sending in the offense.
Surprised, Georgia raced to match up and then jumped offside as the play clock ticked down. Notre Dame got the first down and kept the ball for another five minute, bleeding away the game clock.
“We practiced it to a point where I felt like we couldn’t get it wrong,” Freeman said. “I thought they did a great job of not panicking, which the whole point of that is trying to get some other panic.”
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Notre Dame's Jayden Harrison (2) returns a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown during the second half against Georgia in the quarterfinals of a College Football Playoff, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI informant who fabricated a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes that became central to Republicans’ impeachment effort was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison.
Alexander Smirnovpleaded guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about the phony bribery scheme in what prosecutors say was an effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Smirnov, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, falsely claimed to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015.
Smirnov's explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed "bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors. In reality, investigators found Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017 — after Biden's term as vice president.
Prosecutors noted that Smirnov's false claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden, a Democrat who defeated Republican then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Biden administration dismissed the House impeachment effort as a “stunt.”
Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
"In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a country that showed him nothing but generosity, including conferring on him the greatest honor it can bestow, citizenship," Justice Department special counsel David Weiss' team wrote in court papers. "He repaid the trust the United States placed in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, more specifically, that one of its premier law enforcement agencies placed in him to tell the truth as a confidential human source, by attempting to interfere in a Presidential election."
Smirnov will get credit for the time he has served behind bars since his arrest last February in the case accusing him of lying to the FBI. Prosecutors in November brought new tax charges alleging he concealed millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022.
Smirnov's lawyers had sought no more than four years behind bars, noting the “substantial assistance" he provided to the U.S. government as an FBI informant for more than a decade. Smirnov's lawyers noted in court papers that he suffers from serious health issues related to his eyes and argue that a lengthy sentence would “unnecessarily prolong his suffering.”
“Mr. Smirnov has learned a very grave lesson and proffers to this Honorable Court that he will not find himself on this side of the law again,” attorneys Richard Schonfeld and David Chesnoff told the judge in court papers.
Smirnov was prosecuted by Weiss, who also brought gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced in December after being convicted at a trial in the gun case and pleading guilty to tax charges. But he was pardoned by his father, who said he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov's lawyers wrote in court papers that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump — who was charged in two federal cases by a different special counsel — “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”
Special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the two federal cases against Trump — accusing him of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida — after Trump's presidential victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Follow the AP's coverage of Hunter Biden at https://apnews.com/hub/hunter-biden.
FILE - In this courtroom sketch Defendant Alexander Smirnov speaks in Federal court in Los Angeles, Feb. 26, 2024. (William T. Robles via AP, File)
