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AUSTIN, Texas -- While Charlie Strong stood at a podium Monday and answered questions about whether hes about to lose his job, his Texas?football players stood behind him.The players crowded together behind reporters and cameras inside the Centennial Room at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium and listened to Strong insist his fate hasnt been decided and that he wants to return in 2017.When Strongs 28-minute news conference ended, the players gave him a round of applause. Strong hugged and thanked each of his players, who say they are upset about reports that Strongs tenure will come to an end after Texas faces TCU on Friday and that they are hopeful one more win will buy Strong another year in Austin.Texas defensive tackle Paul Boyette Jr. was moved to tears while making his passionate defense of Strong on Monday. A senior, Boyette said Strong taught him to become a man and hasnt been given enough time to turn the program around. Hes hoping for a swift resolution to all the uncertainty, too.No person deserves to be in this type of limbo at all, Boyette said.Boyette said he never thought Texas would end up in this predicament this season. He said he believes that, despite his coachs 16-20 record in Austin, Strong has built a foundation for the program and set it up for big success in 2017 and beyond.Players agreed with Strongs argument Monday that the Longhorns will play for a national championship again in the near future. They believe theyre close, even after a 24-21 overtime loss to 2-9 Kansas that made them 5-6 and 3-5 in the Big 12.Boyette praised the personal bonds Strong has build with his players and said most people dont understand what he and his team have gone through with the persistent speculation about Strongs job.I dont think youre ever going to find a head coach who loves his players like he does and genuinely cares, Boyette said. The things people see on Saturdays ... life is way more than that.Texas quarterback Shane Buechele said hes confident the team will fight hard against TCU (5-5, 3-4 Big 12) to try to save Strongs job, even if they dont know what will come next after the game.Were just trying to come together as a family, trying to support our coach and a guy we feel is really important to our family, Buechele said. I cant say enough. It shows how much support we have for him today.Texas players shot down the speculation that they might boycott the regular-season finale. Wide receiver Jacorey Warrick said Strong would never let that happen. They know how important a win would be for Strong and for his senior class clinching a bowl bid.Fellow quarterback Tyrone Swoopes and the rest of the Longhorns departing senior class have already gone through a coaching change before, when Mack Brown resigned after the 2013 season. When asked about going through this all over again with Strong, Swoopes replied, Its normal.The Longhorns players know all they can do right now to support their coach is give him a win Friday afternoon.Said Warrick: Well leave it all on the line. Joc Pederson Youth Jersey . Traditional contenders Brazil, Greece and Turkey drew the other three spots to complete the 24-team field for this summers tournament in Spain, basketball governing body FIBA announced Saturday at its meeting in Barcelona. Corey Seager Jersey . Uniteds eighth defeat of a wretched campaign means Liverpool, which currently occupies the fourth and final Champions League place, could go nine points clear of its fierce rival by beating West Bromwich Albion on Sunday. 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The NFL will replace longtime and controversial medical adviser Elliot Pellman with a new full-time chief medical officer, commissioner Roger Goodell wrote Wednesday in a letter to club executives.Pellman will retire, Goodell wrote, but the commissioner made the decision that prompted Pellmans retirement, sources told ESPNs Adam Schefter. Goodell understands that the NFL must demonstrate strong leadership on health and safety and that its players and fans need to trust in the league, the sources said.Pellman is retiring after a 30-year career with the NFL. A rheumatologist, Pellman had served as?New York Jets team doctor and was also chairman of the leagues powerful research arm.Pellman has been a central figure in the NFLs attempts to deal with rising concerns about concussions. For more than two decades, Pellman presided over the NFLs Mild Traumatic Brain Injury committee -- a group consisting largely of NFL trainers and doctors. The MTBI committee, formed in 1994 by then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue, spent decades producing studies that portrayed concussions as minor injuries, while Pellman and his colleagues attacked independent scientists who linked football to brain damage.In a 2013 story, Outside the Lines revealed that Pellman had served for years as Tagliabues personal physician. An earlier ESPN piece described how Pellman used the questionable conclusions of the MTBI committee in his work with the Jets, often allowing concussed players back into games. In 2005, the New York Times revealed that Pellman embellished his credentials and failed to disclose that he attended medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico. Pellman resigned as chairman not long after, though he remained on the committee.?In 2010, under pressure from Congress, commissioner Roger Goodell disbanded the MTBI committee and replaced it with the Head, NNeck and Spine Committee.ddddddddddddThe new leaders of that group agreed with assertions that the MTBI Committees work was infected and said they would use none of the previous studies.Pellman was removed from the committee, but, to the surprise of many researchers, he maintained a role a medical advisor within the league offices.On Wednesday, Goodell wrote that the new chief medical officers role will be to coordinate health-related efforts with team medical staffs, the NFLPA and medical committees. The new hire will ensure that teams have access to updated information and that NFL research funds are spent in an effective and targeted way, according to Goodell.In May, a congressional report concluded that the NFL had pressured the National Institutes of Health to strip the $16 million project from a prominent Boston University researcher. It also determined the NFL tried to redirect the money to members of the leagues committee on brain injuries. The study was to have been funded out of a $30 million unrestricted gift the NFL gave the NIH in 2012.A search for the NFLs new full-time chief medical officer role will begin this week and will be conducted by a panel of health and medical experts led by Dr. Betsy Nabel, the leagues chief health and medical adviser.Others on the search panel will include Dr. Rob Heyer, president of the NFL Physicians Society and team internist for the Carolina Panthers; Ronnie Barnes, senior vice president and head trainer for the New York Giants; Dr. Robert Cantu of Boston University; and Peter Foss, of G.E. Healthcare. The panel will work closely with the leagues Jeff Miller.Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada?and The Associated Press contrib