Football Games

Brian Hartline is the all-time leader for the Miami Dolphins when it comes to receiving yards in a single game. He also leads the NFL in receiving yards so far this season. But none of that mattered to the fourth-year player Sunday after his team lost in overtime for the second straight week, 24-21 to the Arizona Cardinals, to drop to 1-3 this season. He called his franchise-record 253 yards receiving on 11 catches "bittersweet. " "If you win the game, it's awesome," Hartline said . "If you don't, it has the asterisk.

Santa Ana Mater Dei (4-0) at Harbor City Narbonne (4-0), 7 p.m. (Time Warner Cable, Channel 101, midnight ): Narbonne could be the best City Section team since Crenshaw's group in 2009 and Birmingham's group in 2007. "It's one of the best teams I've seen on tape in a lot of years," Mater Dei Coach Bruce Rollinson said. In trying to deal with the Gauchos' speed and talent, Mater Dei will try to pick up first downs, control the clock and limit mistakes. Receiver-linebacker Thomas Duarte will be key on both sides of the ball.

In the dark Saturday's football game between USC and California will be televised by the Pac-12 Networks, which is carried by only a few local cable companies. A list of cable operators who will - and won't - be offering the game: Has the game: Suddenlink, Cox Cable Communications, Time Warner Cable, Dish. Doesn't have the game: AT&T U-verse, Calneva Broadband, Catalina Cable TV, Champion Broadband, Charter Communications, Lone Pine TV, Mediacom, Verizon, DirecTV.

Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach  convicted of child sex abuse , will be sentenced on Oct. 9, the judge in the case has ordered. Sandusky, 68, faces hundreds of years in prison after he was convicted of 45 counts of abusing 10 boys over the  course of 15 years. The former coach, who has been in jail since the June verdict, has maintained his innocence. Judge John Cleland, who presided over the much-publicized trial, scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. on Oct. 9 at the courthouse in Bellefonte, Penn., to determine if Sandusky should be classified as a sexually violent predator.

The clock is ticking, and like a lot of Southern California sports fans, Gary Price is growing anxious. For weeks, the Glendale resident has heard about stalled negotiations between the Pac-12 Networks and his satellite provider, DirecTV. This weekend, the stalemate hits home for Price and more than 1 million other viewers in the Los Angeles market. They will not get to watch UCLA play Houston in a game that is being broadcast only by the conference. The same thing could happen with the USC-California game next weekend.

Countless times, Ventura St. Bonaventure Coach Todd Therrien has proved to be hardheaded, but Friday night, he literally took it to another level. In the second quarter of his team's 18-7 victory over Redlands East Valley, Therrien said he suffered a concussion when struck out of bounds. "I wanted to stop the momentum, and my own receiver's foot kicked me in the temple," he said. "I got knocked to the ground, and they said I looked like Michael Spinks after Mike Tyson hit him. " If there were an award for coach of the year after the first three football games of the 2012 season, Therrien would be a runaway winner.

You know the economy is sluggish when fewer people show up for a cherished Sunday ritual. Yes, attendance is down at pro football games. Despite the National Football League's enormous popularity, attendance has slipped 4.5% in the last five years, including 3.2% last season, according to a new report. Ticket prices are still rising but at a slower rate in inflation-adjusted terms. The upshot: The stolid economy is taking a toll on upper-income men, who make up a large part of the NFL's fan base, according to the analysis by New York investment firm CovergEx Group.

1: Georgia at Missouri is not just the Southeastern Conference game of the week, it's the first time those words have ever been typed. This is a dangerous early trip into the Midwest for Georgia, favored to win the SEC East. Show-me Missouri fans know they have only one chance to make their first SEC impression. 2: Careful what you wish for. Texas A&M left the Big 12 last year because it got tired of Texas always getting its way. The Aggies now face the cold, hard truth of the SEC. Texas A&M plays Florida in College Station without benefit of a warmup as last weekend's opener against Louisiana Tech was postponed because of Hurricane Isaac.