Football
* Bridgewater leads Louisville to BCS: Banged-up Teddy Bridgewater came off the bench to throw two-second half touchdown passes, and John Wallace kicked a 29-yard field goal with 1:41 left to send Louisville to the BCS with a 20-17 victory against Rutgers on Thursday night in Piscataway, N.J. In a game between one team headed to the Big Ten and another bound for the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East handed out its second-to-last bid to a school that entered the league during its last massive rebuild in 2005 and watched its athletic program blossom. The Cardinals will be going to the BCS for the second time, first since 2006. Louisville (10-2, 5-2) will share this Big East title with Rutgers (9-3, 5-2), Syracuse and possibly even Cincinnati, but the BCS bid will be all theirs. The BCS standings will be used to break the tie and there is no doubt Louisville, with the best overall record in the conference, will be on top.
• Monte Kiffin resigns from son’s USC coaching staff: Southern California assistant head coach Monte Kiffin will resign from his son’s coaching staff after a miserable season for the Trojans’ defense. Monte Kiffin announced in a news release Thursday night that he will leave USC after the Trojans’ bowl game next month to pursue a return to the NFL. “I wanted to make this announcement now so that our players who are preparing for the bowl game and our recruits who will be visiting campus are aware," Monte Kiffin said in a statement. “The chance to work for my son, Lane, was unique and memorable, but we always treated each other professionally on a coach-to-coach basis. Although things didn’t always go as well as we would have liked this year from a defensive and win-loss standpoint ... I see great things ahead for the USC football program."
Baseball
* Rivera, Yankees agree to $10 million deal: Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees agreed Thursday to a $10 million, one-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal had not yet been announced. The person said the deal includes additional bonus opportunities, as did the team’s agreement with Andy Pettitte earlier in the week. After missing most of the season because of a knee injury, Rivera accepted a cut in guaranteed money from his $30 million, two-year deal that had covered the last two years. Rivera, who turned 43 on Thursday, was limited to nine games this year after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while tracking down a fly ball during batting practice in Kansas City on May 3. He is baseball’s career leader with 608 saves.
Olympics
* McKee to help lead U.S. Olympic sailing team: Two-time Olympic medalist Charlie McKee has been appointed high-performance director of the U.S. Olympic sailing program. Thursday’s announcement came three months after the United States’ embarrassing flop at the London Olympics, when it failed to win a medal for the first time since the 1936 Berlin Games. McKee’s responsibilities will include managing all on-the-water elements of the U.S. sailing team, including the coaching program, technical development and youth development.
Hockey
* Mediators fail to help in NHL labor fight: The NHL, the players’ association and now even federal mediators agree on one thing: The bickering sides are nowhere near a deal that would put hockey back on the ice. The league and the union wrapped up two days of talks Thursday in New Jersey, with help from mediators, but moved no closer to a solution to save the season that has already been delayed and shortened. Two members from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service joined the discussions on Wednesday and Thursday but couldn’t bring the sides any closer.
— From wire reports
