14 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 19, 2001 NFL to play a full 16 games *I& NEW YORK (AP) - The NFL will play a full 16-game schedule this season, making up last week's missed games in the first week of January. And while it may still reduce the number of playoff teams from 12 to eight, commissioner Paul Tagliabue said yesterday that full playoffs are still a possibility. Tagliabue said the league's compe- tition committee had voted unani- mously to keep the 16-game format, switching the games called off last weekend to the weekend of Jan. 5-7, when wild-card games had been scheduled. But he said the committee is still looking at ways to keep the normal complement of 12 playoff teams rather than eight. That would mean three division winners and three wild- card teams in each conference would make the playoffs rather than the three winners and just one wild card. "This would be the best of both worlds. If they can keep the 16-game schedule and the six wild cards, then everybody's happy. It's just back to business," said coach Mike Sherman of Green Bay, one of many teams whose playoff chances would be hurt badly if the NFL cut back on wild cards. "I'll be curious to see what follows after this," added Andy Reid of Philadelphia, another team that might be affected. "I'd hate to disrupt the playoffs in that situation.... I'm sure they'll come up with an answer for it. They understand the importance of the playoffs." When the teams return, they are likely to have the regular officials back. NFL sources, speaking on condi- tion of anonymity, said the executive committee of the NFL Referees Asso- ciation was voting by e-mail on a pro- posal by the league that would end the lockout that lasted through the final game of preseason and the first game of the regular season. If it is approved by noon EDT Wednesday, the regular officials will be back for Sunday's games. As for the playoffs, Tagliabue said: "We continue to work on keeping six division winners, six wild cards and our entire postseason format intact. Several options have been pre- sented to us in recent days that would help us accomplish that. If we cannot resolve our entire postseason lineup in a satisfactory fashion, we then will go to ,a system of six division winners and two wild-card teams for this one season only." One option would be to move the Super Bowl, to be played in New Orleans, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 3. There is only a one-week break this year after the championship games. One way to do that would be to switch the Super Bowl and the National Auto Dealers Convention, scheduled for the next week. The Pro Bowl, scheduled for Feb. 4, would either be moved back a week or played as scheduled without players from Super Bowl teams. Another option would be to sched- ule most of the potential play'off teams for Saturday, Jan. 5, then play the wild-card games on Wednesday Jan. 9. The next round would be played Jan. 13-14 with the champi- onship games as scheduled on Jan. 20 - most likely with four exhausted teams. A third would be to play the title games on Super Bowl Sunday, Jan. 27, as a doubleheader at the Super- dome. The Super Bowl would be played the next week at another site with New Orleans promised another game in the future. WEBB Continued from Page :12 All-American Mark Pilja. While in high school, Webb won the Great American Festival two years in a row. Warhurst was con- tacted to have his team run in the race due to Webb's ties with the area. "Alan Webb is kind of a folk hero here, like he is a lot of other places," Warhurst said. Although the spotlight may be on Webb this weekend, Michigan's team consists of numerous talented runners including two senior All- Americans, Pilja and Mike Wis- niewski, as well as another talented freshman in Nathan Brannen. "We've got about 12 to 14 really solid funners so I'm going to red- shirt some kids," Warhurst said. Michigan is ranked 19th in the nation heading into the regular sea- son. This weekend, its main competi- tion will be No.10 North Carolina State. Other schools participating in the race include Furman, Brigham Young, and Georgia. "Certainly Michigan will be one of the favorites along with North Carolina State, Duke, Yale, and North Carolina-Chapel Hill," meet director Rick Hill said. With the recent tragedy that struck the nation this past week, Warhurst is giving the option for any runner to sit this weekend out. Yet, the team proceeded with all practices last week in order to help the runners emotionally and mental- ly and to feel the security that team- mates can bring to each other. Refs vote After making the difficult decision to cancel last week's games, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue made another decision to have a full 16-game schedule. to end the lockout 4 NEW YORK (AP) - NFL refer- ees began voting by e-mail yester- day on a plan that could end a lockout and have them back on the field when play resumes Sunday, two league sources said. A source familiar with the labor dispute, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 10-member " executive board of the NFL Refer- ees Association had agreed on the vote during a conference call yester- day morning. The league set a dead- line of noon EDT today for the result. Tom Condon, the lead negotiator for the officials, said he believed a deal was close. But he said he had made no final deal. Asked about the e-mail vote he replied: "I don't have any plan to send them to vote on." "They might have jumped the gun," he said of the NFL. But the sources said the vote was already under way. If approved, the deal would end a lockout that covered the last week of the preseason and the first week of regular games. Those games were worked by replacements. Both sides acknowledged the move toward an agreement was pre- cipitated by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington that caused commissioner Paul Tagli- abue to call off last week's games. A union source, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the ref- erees took that into consideration when they went back to bargaining. A basic package was put in place Sunday night in Pittsburgh, the sources said. Accident Survivor charged 4 LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) - The lone survivor of a wreck that killed eight Wyoming runners was charged yester- day with vehicular homicide and being drunk at the time of the crash. Clinton Haskins, a member of the university's rodeo team, was charged M with eight counts of aggravated homi- cide by vehicle. The complaint also charged Haskins was drunk but pro- vided no specifics. The Albany County Attorney's Office and police refused to comment. Haskins faces up to 20 years in prison on each count if convicted. Bond was set at $100,000. The aggra- vated nature of the charges is based on Haskins' alleged intoxication.