USA Update

KIRK Herbsreit didn’t hold back on ESPN’s College GameDay when discussing the Indiana Hoosiers’s loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Friday night’s first round of the College Football Playoff.

Herbstreit sounded off on the decision to include the Hoosiers in the first round of the inaugural 12-team Playoff.

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Notre Dame’s Jaylen Sneed celebrates after a sack against Indiana Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke in the Fighting Irish’s 27-17 win on Friday night[/caption]

Indiana kept the game close, but the 27-17 final wasn’t as competitive as it may seem on the box score.

Notre Dame controlled the game as they were up 20-3 after three quarters and the Hoosiers put together two touchdown drives late in the fourth quarter.

On Saturday’s edition of College GameDay, Herbstreit didn’t mince words suggesting Indiana shouldn’t have been included in the tournament.

“The atmosphere was historic. The game was not,” Herbstreit explained.

“I am not going to sit here and say, ‘Why was Indiana in?’ Indiana, with what you guys like to talk about, they got 11 wins, they got to be one of the best teams.

“Indiana was outclassed in that game.

“They should not, physically, they were not a team that should have been on that field when you consider other teams that could have been there.

“That’s not a knock on Indiana, they had a great year.”

Herbsreit continued, saying that the CFP committee has to do “a better job of weighing who the best 12 [teams] are vs. who is the most deserving because, by golly, [a team] got 11 wins.”

The 55-year-old referenced the fact that the No. 10 seed Hoosiers won 11 games and made a second-to-last-at-large bid to make the tourney ahead of only the SMU Mustangs.

Indiana and SMU made the bracket over the 10-2 Miami Hurricanes, 9-3 Ole Miss Rebels, and 9-3 South Carolina Gamecocks.

The Hoosiers trailed fewer minutes than any other FBS team this season entering the playoffs and had the highest-scoring squad in the playoffs.

The Fighting Irish gave Indiana their second straight loss to a top-five opponent this season.

“They took it to us. I thought their quarterback played really well, I thought their defense suffocated our offense till the last 1:50 or whatever,” said first-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti, per ESPN.

“They won, they deserved to win. We didn’t play our best game, but they had a lot to do with that tonight.”

The Fighting Irish will now take on the 11-2 SEC champion Georgia Bulldogs in the Suger Bowl.

Notre Dame has a chance to reach the semifinals as they eye their first national title since 1988.

The playoff continues on Saturday with SMU visiting the Penn State Nittany Lions at noon Eastern.

The No. 5 Texas Longhorns will host the No. 12 Clemson Tigers in Austin and then a final game with the No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes taking on the No. 9 Tennessee Volunteers in Columbus at 8:00 pm Eastern.

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Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti reacts during the third quarter of the contest[/caption]

THIS is the chilling footage of a tourist’s last moments as he was seen sprinting out of an airport and dumping his belongings before vanishing.

Lars Mittank from Berlin, Germany has been missing for over a decade after he was last seen fearing for his life while on holiday in Bulgaria in July 2014.

Facebook / Findet Lars Mittank

German tourist Lars Mittank, 28, vanished without trace, over a decade ago[/caption]

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The footage of Lars’ final moments has baffled investigators, online sleuths, and his friends and family[/caption]

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The tourist was seen sprinting out of the airport in a panic moments after speaking to an airport doctor[/caption]

The then 28-year-old was last seen in spine-chilling footage from Varna Airport where he was due to fly home.

The German tourist was on his first holiday abroad and CCTV footage showed him calmly walking around the airport in a bright yellow t-shirt at the end of the trip.

But moments later he was shouting about dying and ran in the opposite direction out of the airport never to be knowingly seen again.

“I don’t want to die here! I have to get out of here,” he reportedly told airport doctor Dr Kosta Kostov after he was told he was fit to fly, per the Daily Mail.

These are believed to have been his last words with Kostov describing his patient as “nervous and erratic.”

Moments later, Lars was seen sprinting out of the airport in a panic, with fellow travellers looking on in shock.

He ran out of the building and across the car park before climbing a two-metre fence.

In his panic, he left behind his bag and phone and landed in a field near the National Highway A2 where he continued running until he disappeared.

All that is known about his time in Bulgaria is that he got into a fight with football fans at a McDonald’s which saw him suffer a perforated eardrum and possible concussion.

His friends said at the time that he had started taking strong medication before his flight home after visiting a local doctor.

They had all been staying at the Viva Club Hotel in the Golden Sands resort for their week-long trip away.

Due to his injury, Lars’ friends were able to return home on July 7 while he had to wait due to the cabin pressure changes which would have hurt his eardrum.

After his friends left, Lars checked into the Hotel Color in Varna to recover before flying home.

This is where there was another bizarre twist in the case.

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Lars had previously called his mother in a panic claiming he was being followed and would be killed or robbed[/caption]

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After he fled the airport and ran into a field along the A2 highway, Lars was never seen again[/caption]

The 28-year-old frantically called his mother, Sandra, in a blind panic claiming he was being followed by four men who were trying to kill him.

He instructed Sandra to cancel his bank cards as he believed the details had been copied over when he checked into the hotel.

She told a German news outlet: “I thought, God, my son is in danger.

“I could hear his heart pounding over the phone. He said people were trying to rob or kill him.”

Lars would only speak to his mother in whispers, telling her that he did not feel safe and that the hotel was “strange.”

In a text, he asked his mother questions about the medication he had been given for his injuries.

Hotel CCTV reportedly shows him pacing up and down in the hotel foyer hiding in a lift and watching out of windows.

But, no other people were seen acting strangely or following the tourist.

Lars’ erratic and bizarre behaviour saw rumours fly about mental illness and drug abuse but he had no history of either according to family and friends.

I don’t want to die here! I have to get out of here.

Lars MittankDoctor Kosta Kostov

The night before he went missing, he reportedly left the hotel at 1 am where he went to an unknown location for about an hour before he returned.

The following day on July 8, Sandra received a text from her son saying he was at the airport and was going to try and return home.

She bought him a bus ticket and sent 500 Euros which he never withdrew but he was seen arriving at Varna Airport by taxi where he then saw the doctor and vanished.

Dr Kostov claimed that Lars had been doubtful about the medication he had been given and when it was suggested he had a psychotic reaction to his medication, Kostov said this was not possible.

Lars had reportedly never filled his prescription.

With no conclusion from the police investigation into his disappearance, online sleuths have been digging into the case, focusing largely on his final moments caught on CCTV.

Lars’ mother continues to hold out hope that new information will be found regarding what happened to her son.

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Lars’ friends had already returned home as he was waiting to recover from injuries he got in a fight in McDonald’s[/caption]

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In the last moments he was caught on camera, Lars can be faintly seen running into a field[/caption]

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