Evening State Sports Briefs: Stricker still ranked No. 2 in Fed-Ex Cup

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MADISON - Madison golfer Steve Stricker is still at Number-two in the Fed-Ex Cup season point standings. Stricker has 1,865 – nine points ahead of third-place Luke Donald, and 41 behind points’ leader Nick Watney.

Stricker tied for 12th at the PGA Championship near Atlanta. Pewaukee native Mark Wilson and Jerry Kelly of Madison both tied for 26th in the year’s final major. Wilson dropped three places to 10th in the Fed-Ex standings, but Kelly rose two spots to Number-80. Rookie Keegan Bradley, who won the PGA, jumped 20 places to fourth in the season point totals. In the World Golf Rankings, Stricker rose two places to No. 3 this week. Wilson is 58th, same as a week ago. Kelly jumped 15 spots to 151st in the world. Luke Donald still leads the World Rankings, with Lee Westwood in second.

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University of Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema says he’s never had an off-season in which he spent so much time going over rule changes with his assistants. Three major changes are in store for the Badgers’ upcoming season, which begins two weeks from Thursday night at home against Nevada-Las Vegas. Bielema said his main project was reviewing the new 10-second rule. That’s the one which penalizes a team for committing an on-field penalty to stop the clock in the final minute of either half. Starting this fall, opponents will have three choices. They can take the yardage plus 10 seconds off the clock. They can take the yardage without the 10-second runoff. Or they can decline both. Also, offensive coordinator Paul Chryst says he’s spent a lot of time teaching his players the new rule against certain blocks below the waist. He says the rules spell out both “restricted” blocks and “unrestricted” ones. The third rule is designed to crack down on taunting and excessive celebrations. Those penalties will now be enforced at the spot of the foul. That means if there’s an illegal celebration just before a touchdown, points can be taken off the board.

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The Green Bay Packers are moving to a new practice schedule today. Coach Mike McCarthy is scrapping the night-time workouts, saying he wants a schedule that’s more like the regular season. So the Packers will start practicing at 11:15 today through Wednesday. Fans can watch the team in full pads for all three of those practices. Thursday’s workout begins at 11, and the players will not have pads. Green Bay’s home exhibition opener is on Friday night against the Arizona Cardinals. Meanwhile, there’s still a lot of buzz over rookie Randall Cobb’s performance in Saturday night’s exhibition loss at Cleveland. The second-round receiver from Kentucky caught three passes for 60 yards, all from the slot position. Two of those catches were on third down – and they helped continue drives that resulted in points for Green Bay. Cobb is expected to be the Packers’ main kick returner in the regular season – but he says his main goal is to be a complete NFL receiver.

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Green Bay Packers’ linebacker Diyra Briggs was released today. He had missed the entire training camp so far with an injured hamstring. The Packers had acquired Briggs off waivers from Denver last October. He played in five regular season games for Green Bay, with eight tackles on special teams. Briggs also played in all four of the Packers’ playoff contests last season. The Packers returned to a daytime practice schedule today for the first time at this year’s camp. Coach Mike McCarthy had said he wanted a scheduled that more closely resembled the regular season.

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