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Notre Dame football team members dealing with flu ahead of semifinal vs Penn State: report

Some members of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish may have to do their best Michael Jordan impression on Thursday.

The flu is reportedly going around the team, just hours before their College Football Playoff semifinal against Penn State.

On3 Sports reported that "those who have it have it bad, but it sounds like that's mostly backups and special teams players."

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Other reports since indicate that the illness has subsided in recent days, but players are not out of the woods yet.

The Fighting Irish are riding high headed into Thursday's Orange Bowl after taking down the second-ranked Georgia Bulldogs in the quarterfinal last week.

Notre Dame earned the seventh seed in the bracket, which got them to host a home game against No. 10 Indiana. That was a rather easy victory, but Thursday may just be their toughest test yet.

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Penn State held Boise State star running back Ashton Jeanty to just 104 rushing yards last week, his lowest of the season. That is not necessarily great news for the Irish, considering Riley Leonard had just 90 yards passing against the Bulldogs.

The Nittany Lions are the sixth seed in the bracket. 

The Fighting Irish's season seemed to be dead in the water after losing at home to Northern Illinois in the second week of the season, but they have since rattled off a dozen consecutive wins to find themselves just one victory away from their second national title game in the last 15 years.

However, if they can get by what seemed to be a program-altering loss at the time, a bug seems to be just a minor speed bump.

This is the third time the Fighting Irish are in the playoffs, having lost in the semifinals in both 2018 and 2020.

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Why pro wrestling great Jeff Hardy believes he could've been as big as John Cena

Jeff Hardy is one of the most popular pro wrestlers of his generation.

Hardy’s death-defying stunts will live in the minds of fans for the rest of their lives. He performed in WWE in three separate stints between 1994 and 2021. He and his brother, Matt, became a beloved tag team and won several championships in his career. He was also a WWE champion and World Heavyweight champion during one of his runs.

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The heights of Hardy’s career in WWE were derailed because of legal trouble and his battles with addiction. However, the North Carolina high-flyer said in an interview with WFAA-TV that he believes he could have been bigger than John Cena.

"The way I was living life in my 20s and 30s, if I was living life the way I’m living life now, oh my gosh, there’s no telling," he told the station on Tuesday. "I would probably be bigger than John Cena today. I was born with such a gift to be a pro wrestler. It just felt so natural, like I was totally created to do this thing.

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"The cool thing is I’m still here, have life and feel good. As Matt had mentioned, we’re big ice baths, and that’s been crazy beneficial for me mentally and physically. I don’t put a number on it. I’ll just pretty much wrestle until I can’t wrestle anymore."

The 47-year-old is still one of the biggest acts in the industry. Aside from WWE, he has performed for TNA Wrestling, Ring of Honor and All Elite Wrestling.

The Hardys are the current tag-team champions for TNA Wrestling. They defeated The System and ABC in a triple-threat full metal mayhem match at Bound for Glory last year.

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Raiders fire general manager Tom Telesco after just 1 season, enter total rebuild of staff

Just two days after the Las Vegas Raiders let Antonio Pierce go, a total overhaul is underway in Vegas.

The Raiders announced Thursday they had fired general manager Tom Tedesco after just one season.

"We appreciate his efforts in helping build a foundation for the future. We wish Tom and his family all the best," the team said in a statement.

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Pierce insinuated Monday, the day between Las Vegas' season finale and the team firing him, that a conversation was expected between owner Mark Davis and Telesco.

The news comes a day after reports circulated that Tom Brady, who purchased a 5% stake in the team last season, would have a big role in picking the team's next head coach. Apparently, he even reached out to Bill Belichick, who joined the University of North Carolina last month.

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Telesco joined the decimated Raiders prior to this season, stuck with Gardner Minshew and Aidan O'Connell as his quarterbacks after getting rid of Jimmy Garoppolo after a tumultuous campaign in 2023.

It was clear Telesco was hitting the reset button, and the team's 4-13 should not surprise anybody. But Telesco struck gold when he selected Georgia tight end Brock Bowers with the 13th pick. Bowers' 112 receptions this season are the most by a rookie in NFL history.

Prior to joining the Raiders, Telesco spent 11 seasons with the Chargers in San Diego and Los Angeles.

The Raiders are one of three teams looking for a new general manager, along with the New York Jets and Tennessee Titans. The Raiders hold the sixth selection in the NFL Draft behind the Titans, Browns, Giants, Patriots and Jaguars.

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US swimmer Gary Hall Jr loses Olympic gold medals in California wildfires: ‘Something I can live without’

Olympic gold medalist Gary Hall Jr. was among the thousands of California residents displaced by the wildfires raging across the Los Angeles area this week, and like many, he lost all of his priceless possessions – including all 10 of his Olympic medals. 

However, for Hall, he is grateful to have walked away with his life. 

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Hall recalled the moment he first saw a "plume of smoke" coming from his backyard. He was on the phone with his daughter when disaster struck. 

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"I saw the flames erupt and houses start popping. There were explosions. I didn’t have a lot of time," he recalled in the interview. "Sunset Boulevard was a complete logjam. People abandoned cars and were running for their lives. Police were telling them to do that. My girlfriend was trapped in her car around smoke." 

The wildfires spread quickly. Hall only had time to grab the essentials – his dog and a few personal items.

The home in Pacific Palisades that he was renting was burnt down, and with it all of his Olympic medals, including five gold, three silver and two bronze. He thought about them at the moment, but the seriousness of the situation did not allow him to grab them. 

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"I did think about the medals. I did not have time to get them," Hall told the outlet. "Everyone wants to know did the medals burn? Yeah, everything burnt. It’s something I can live without. I guess everything is just stuff. It’ll take some hard work to start over. What can you do?" 

Hall described the scene as "worse than any apocalypse movie you’ve ever seen and 1000 times worse." More than losing his medals, Hall’s home, where he ran a business teaching kids to swim, is now completely gone.  

"It’ll be a range of emotions, particularly when it’s time to go back to where the house stood. I’ll shift through the ash and see if the medals melted together. Will I be able to find anything worth saving? Probably not. I don’t know." 

Thousands of California residents were evacuated as fierce wildfires fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds tore through Southern California this week. At least five people are dead as the fires continued to burn more than 27,000 acres on Thursday. 

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