The NFL has created a position to address the lack of women in coaching and scouting roles at the team level and named former womens football pro tackle player Sam Rapoport as director of football development.Rapoports role will be to identify women who are knowledgeable about the game and train them, and to create a space for those women in the social networks that often lead to jobs in football.My role is to create programming to show them that the pipeline is open to them, Rapoport said Tuesday, and create that pipeline for females to enter into positions that were traditionally held by men.Opportunities for women and minorities have been a focus for the NFL in the past year. The leagues insularity was exposed during the crisis surrounding Ray Rices domestic violence suspension. Last winter, women in the front office planned a womens summit that was held during the Super Bowl. There, commissioner Roger Goodell announced the NFL front office was creating a Rooney Rule for women in front-office jobs, meaning that for every managerial position and higher, a woman would be interviewed before a hire is made.With 52.6 million women viewing the Super Bowl this past February, according to the NFL, the league wants to expand opportunities for women in, for example, officiating and as athletic trainers.In such a strategic hire as this, we needed to have an individual that is passionate and knowledgeable in this space, NFL EVP of football operations Troy Vincent said. Sam is an excellent fit.Currently, 30 percent of the NFLs front-office employees are women. Football operations jobs are a different story. Sarah Thomas became the first woman hired as a full-time referee last year, and Kathryn Smith is a full-time quality-control coach for the Bills.Rapoport, as a former player, is plugged into a network of women who have played the game known as professional womens football even though players generally dont get paid to play. Jen Welter, the first woman to coach in the NFL through a coaching internship with the Arizona Cardinals, had a background in womens tackle and later played and coached men. Similarly, the NFL wants to mine that talent and train women for possible jobs in coaching and scouting.Playing tackle football obviously is not a prerequisite to being an excellent coach, Rapoport said. Adam Gase coaches the Dolphins and never played (in college or the NFL), and there are others. Its not a prerequisite, but in order to be a good coach, you have to have a general knowledge of football and you have to be able to relay that info in a coherent way to players. And, to me, that translates to male or female. Do you know your stuff, and are you able to relay that in a coherent way?Connecting qualified women with NFL teams may be a bigger challenge. Rapoport has been calling general managers and owners to set up a committee on gender inclusion. With just two months on the job, she is in the early stages, but the goal is to create connections that can lead to jobs in a field where many hires are based on previous relationships in mens football.Thats how any job -- not just football, but any job thats a prestigious job -- is acquired, Rapoport said. Thats our biggest barrier. We didnt grow up in the male tackle football world, so we dont have a friend who is a coach, or, I played for him, so hell recommend me for a job.Thats a reason this position exists, and thats a big-time focus for me, just connecting owners and general managers to women who are very qualified and very passionate and ready to go.Rapoport played flag and touch football growing up in Canada and was a member of the Canadian national flag team. She has worked in football since 2003, first with a marketing internship with the NFL and later developing a national flag football program for girls during her six years with USA Football.In 2003, as a quarterback for the Montreal Blitz, Rapoport applied for her NFL internship by sending her résumé along with photo of herself in pads and a football. She wrote on the football with a Sharpie, What other quarterback could accurately deliver a football 386 miles?She got the internship.I was told it stood out among the other applicants, Rapoport said. 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So LSU and Florida will meet after all.They will play 42 days later than originally scheduled and about 600 miles west of the original site.But the No. 16 Tigers will host the No. 21 Gators on Saturday afternoon in Tiger Stadium in a game postponed from Oct. 8 in Gainesville, Fla., due to Hurricane Matthew.The new date and location came after several days of contentious negotiations involving the two schools and the SEC.Look, anything that comes up that really is out of your control, I mean, you can sit and cry about it or you can just move on, Florida coach Jim McElwain said. Thats what weve got to do. It is what it is. Were going there to play and thats the way it is.These teams seasons have come much more clearly into focus than they were when the postponement took place.LSU (6-3, 4-2 in the SEC) is 4-1 since Ed Orgeron was named interim head coach after Les Miles was fired in the wake of a 2-2 start.Florida (7-2, 5-2) has put itself on the cusp of a second consecutive SEC East Division title, though it enters the game with at least seven starters sidelined by injury. If the Gators win, they go back to Atlanta to play West Division champion and No. 1 Alabama on Dec. 3. If they lose, they can still win the East if Tennessee loses either at home to Missouri this week or at Vanderbilt next week.Had this game been played Oct. 8, Florida likely would have avoided Tigers All-America running back Leonard Fournette, who was sidelined by an ankle injury. Fournette aggravated the injury for the third time this season in a win against Arkansas last week but hes more likely to play than he would have been six weeks ago.Derrius Guice has established himself as one of the top running backs in the SEC while getting expanded playing time due to Fournettes limited playing time.Florida has the No. 2 rush defense in the SEC (111.7 yards per game), but its top three tacklers -- linebackers Jarrad Davis and Alex Anzalone and safety Marcus Maye -- wont play because of injury.The Gators also could be without as many as three starters on the offensive line.They were injured when we were about to play and then I guess they got a couple guys back and now they lost multiple guys, LSU outside linebacker Arden Key said.dddddddddddd I know theyre scared to come up here because they dont have all their stars or whatnot.Both teams have starting quarterbacks who transferred from Purdue and werent starters at the beginning of the season. Danny Etling replaced a struggling Brandon Harris after two games for LSU.Austin Appleby will be making his fourth start of the season and second in a row because of injuries to Luke Del Rio.LSU, which concludes the regular season at Texas A&M on Thanksgiving night, will honor its departing seniors before a home game it wasnt supposed to have. A week ago, the Gators bid farewell to their departing seniors a week earlier than originally planned.Had this game been played as originally scheduled, LSU would be hosting South Alabama on Saturday and Florida would be hosting Presbyterian College in a tune-up for its regular-season finale at Florida State next Saturday.Gators players remember October speculation that suggested they werent eager to play the game then or now.I think the LSU game is one of the biggest games for us every season just like FSU, just like Georgia, safety Nick Washington said. I mean were going to go into it with a little more of a chip on our shoulder because of whats been said in the media and what not. I know were ready to go.So instead of playing a non-conference breather, LSU and Florida are meeting in a Top 25 matchup with important implications. In addition to the Gators trying to wrap up a division title and strengthen their long-shot of making the College Football Playoff, the Tigers are trying to enhance their attractiveness to bowls and strengthen Orgerons case to be the full-time head coach when these teams finally meet in The Swamp next season.We didnt have success in one game. Were 4-1, Oregeron said in reference to whats happened since he took over. Theres a lot of good things weve done. I really feel like we have a good football team, and I like that theyre having fun. ' ' '