The college football season has come to an end for a number of teams around the nation and several highly-rated underclassmen have decisions to make. With the deadline for application to the NFL draft seven weeks away, the non-seniors must decide whether they should opt for April's event. Scouts expect a record number of underclassmen to enter next year's draft, so this week's column concentrates on the draft stock of a dozen non-senior prospects.
Notre Dame may have its own provision in the BCS selection process and an attractive fallback in the Gator Bowl, but the independent Irish don't have a whole lot of other bowl options when they fall short of those games.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Oftentimes, the most exciting college football Saturdays are the ones you least expect. On a day without a single game between two ranked teams, the sport provided us an all-day marathon of dramatic finishes, culminating with No. 11 Oregon's 44-41 double-overtime win at Arizona.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Maryland freshman punter Nick Ferrara didn't know it, but his misfiring right foot saved a legend's job Saturday. Because Ferrara couldn't follow his own coach's instructions during a 29-26 loss, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will have a chance to retire on his own terms.
With Dick Jauron's demise in Buffalo this week, the first domino has fallen in the NFL's annual exercise known as hiring/firing season. While nowhere near as many head coaching vacancies are expected this year compared to last year's record bloodletting, when 11 teams changed the guy in the No. 1 headset, you can be sure Jauron won't be the only one shown the door.
You aren't as different as you think, Big Ten fans and SEC fans. Same goes for you, Big 12 fans. And those Pac-10 fans over there may crave spicy tuna rolls instead of brats or barbecue, but they consider Saturday just as sacred as you do.
Hopefully, Bill Hancock negotiated a huge salary. Because he just took one of the worst jobs in the world.
The Washington Redskins (3-6) are struggling this season, but the organization got a break Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Native Americans calling the pro club's trademark "disparaging."
NFL prospects continue to rise and slide on draft boards as the college season enters the final weeks, but injuries continue to dominate the news.
The college football season has come to an end for a number of teams around the nation and several highly-rated underclassmen have decisions to make. With the deadline for application to the NFL draft seven weeks away, the non-seniors must decide whether they should opt for April's event. Scouts expect a record number of underclassmen to enter next year's draft, so this week's column concentrates on the draft stock of a dozen non-senior prospects.
Notre Dame may have its own provision in the BCS selection process and an attractive fallback in the Gator Bowl, but the independent Irish don't have a whole lot of other bowl options when they fall short of those games.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Oftentimes, the most exciting college football Saturdays are the ones you least expect. On a day without a single game between two ranked teams, the sport provided us an all-day marathon of dramatic finishes, culminating with No. 11 Oregon's 44-41 double-overtime win at Arizona.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Maryland freshman punter Nick Ferrara didn't know it, but his misfiring right foot saved a legend's job Saturday. Because Ferrara couldn't follow his own coach's instructions during a 29-26 loss, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will have a chance to retire on his own terms.
With Dick Jauron's demise in Buffalo this week, the first domino has fallen in the NFL's annual exercise known as hiring/firing season. While nowhere near as many head coaching vacancies are expected this year compared to last year's record bloodletting, when 11 teams changed the guy in the No. 1 headset, you can be sure Jauron won't be the only one shown the door.
You aren't as different as you think, Big Ten fans and SEC fans. Same goes for you, Big 12 fans. And those Pac-10 fans over there may crave spicy tuna rolls instead of brats or barbecue, but they consider Saturday just as sacred as you do.
Hopefully, Bill Hancock negotiated a huge salary. Because he just took one of the worst jobs in the world.
The Washington Redskins (3-6) are struggling this season, but the organization got a break Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Native Americans calling the pro club's trademark "disparaging."
NFL prospects continue to rise and slide on draft boards as the college season enters the final weeks, but injuries continue to dominate the news.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Quarterbacks have won eight of the last nine Heisman Trophies, and while that string of domination could continue this year with either Colt McCoy or Tim Tebow, The Watch is high on running backs. Backs fill the top three spots, and six of the top 10 and have been prominent on this list all season.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- You missed your window, Big Ten teams.
The question we need to ask in the wake of TCU's 55-28 win Saturday against Utah isn't, "Does TCU deserve to play in a BCS bowl?" It's this one: Of the three presumptive favorites to fill the two spots in the BCS title game, how many would struggle with TCU?
MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Here's the great thing about just showing up at a fairly random college football game: You just might end up seeing one of the best players in the country ... even if you have never heard of him before.
Three things have changed about the Bengals, who enter Heinz Field on Sunday tied for the AFC North lead with the Super Bowl champion Steelers:
Though it is not the over-arching, long-term agreement it sought with eight of college football's major conferences, the NFL believes a short-term arrangement to receive digitized versions of this season's game tapes directly from all affected schools is now in place, a league source told SI.com Thursday.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
A couple of weeks ago, I was on a talk show in Kansas City after Larry Johnson ripped coach Todd Haley on Twitter and twice used a gay slur, and the town was aflame with Johnson anger. I thought for sure the biggest problem for Johnson and his continued employment was that he characterized Haley as a small-timer and ridiculed him as a golf coach -- which, if you didn't know, is what he did for a few years after college.
So did you know Monday is Opening Day in college basketball?
Less than a month remains in college football's regular season and the rankings witnessed another big shakeup at the top this weekend. The situation is a little different on NFL draft boards as, for the most part, the players graded highest at the start of the year have maintained their rankings. This week, we focus on several unheralded prospects with the potential to shake up the early and middle rounds of next April's draft.
Before we get to who's on the list, let's address who's not. Quarterbacks Colt McCoy of Texas and Tim Tebow of Florida have been prominent members of The Watch for multiple seasons -- and many weeks this season -- but neither made the cut for the first time in who knows how long.
Thoughts, observations and helpful suggestions as the college football season hurtles toward the BCS apocalypse ...
Following Oregon's decisive 47-20 win over USC last weekend, I heard a lot of people say, "I can't see the Ducks losing again." Those people apparently hadn't been following the Pac-10 very closely this season.
Instead of docking them games, perhaps we could put Oregon's LeGarrette Blount, Florida's Brandon Spikes and Oklahoma State's Dez Bryant in stocks on the set of this week's College Football GameDay. Would that make everyone feel better, satisfy everyone's craving for justice? It's a remedy that makes as much sense as any of the actual punishments handed down to the aforementioned players.
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
The NFL is cautiously optimistic a deal is within reach in the coming days between it and the eight major college football conferences that have so far refused to release digitized versions of their 2009 game tapes for scouting and evaluation purposes, league sources told SI.com Friday.
About 20 players gathered behind Mickey Andrews as he faced the media on Tuesday night. A few hours earlier, a simple press release had gone out informing the college football world of what everyone had long suspected: This will be the final season for Florida State's longtime defensive coordinator.
The dirty little secret of the much-reviled BCS -- the part its keepers always boast but its haters refuse to accept -- is that it's helped make the sport's regular season more compelling.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Joe Cahn calls tailgates the last great American neighborhoods.
EUGENE, Ore. -- In the stands above the Oregon end zone, a lone Ducks fan held up a yellow posterboard sign that perfectly summed up what took place here Saturday night. "Welcome," it said, "To the Fall of Troy."
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
Was it really only a year ago the college football world centered around the Big 12 Conference?
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Linda Lewis steps inside her dining room, opens a drawer and shuffles through six DVD cases. It's shortly after 7 p.m. on a recent weeknight and she offers one disclaimer before slipping a shiny disc labeled The Nightmare: Part II into the player. "My husband and I usually only play it to entertain visitors during halftime," she said. "I'm not a fan of some of the songs' words."
Cassius Marsh, one of the top defensive tackles in the nation, committed to LSU today.
The play of the weekend -- and perhaps the play of the year, so far -- was undoubtedly the game-saving blocked field goal by Alabama's 6-foot-5, 365-pound Terrence "Mount" Cody. The block, one of two he had on the day, preserved a 12-10 Tide victory and, predictably, raised the question of whether he should be a Heisman contender.
Maybe when giants roamed the north central Indiana landscape, when Knute Rockne or Ara Parseghian coached at Notre Dame, a four-point victory over Boston College would not have occasioned much celebrating on the Irish campus.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Saturday's slate of games showed us yet again that no one seems bent on running away with the national championship. A week after Florida and Texas pulled out three-point squeakers, Alabama needed a last-second field goal block to survive Tennessee. While the 'Horns rebounded with a rousing blowout of Missouri, the Gators got pushed around at times by Mississippi State before pulling away.
• Will BYU spoil TCU's bowl bid? There are a few things you should know about TCU defensive end Jerry Hughes: He used to be a great running back, he's since blossomed into the nation's best collegiate defensive end, and he tends to hunt BYU QB Max Hall like a man possessed. Last season, TCU spoiled BYU's BCS bid, and Hughes' four sacks and persistent disruption were a big reason why. This year, the roles have reversed. The Frogs head to Provo ranked eighth in the BCS standings, and the Cougars hope to spoil those bowl dreams. TCU needs this win to remain neck-and-neck with Boise State in the BCS conversation, and deploying Hughes and the rest of a speedy, athletic defensive front is the best way to set up Hall for a repeat of his seven-sack, two-pick performance from 2008.
The NFL's college advisory committee may find it next to impossible to render informed opinions on the readiness of juniors who are potential 2010 draft prospects because the league has been locked in a multi-million dollar standoff with a Boston-area company that produces and disseminates digitized content of NCAA games for eight major conferences, league sources told SI.com.
The marriage between Ohio State and Terrelle Pryor began with such promise. The nation's most gifted high school quarterback joining forces with the reigning powerhouse of the Big Ten? What could possibly go wrong?
I'll admit it. Given the choice, I much prefer to watch a back-and-forth shootout (think Texas-Oklahoma last year) than a defensive stalemate (think Texas-Oklahoma this year). So it's been somewhat unsatisfying that the four games I've covered in person this season have been decided by scores of 19-8 (Boise State-Oregon), 18-15 (USC-Ohio State), 13-3 (Florida-LSU) and 16-13 (Texas-Oklahoma).
This is the fourth straight year that The Watch has named a Halfway Heisman Trophy winner midway through the season. The first two recipients, Ohio State's Troy Smith and Florida's Tim Tebow, went on to win the real Trophy in December. Last year's Halfway Heisman winner, Colt McCoy, got our vote at the end of the season, but not the nation's.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
The fans stormed the field, engulfing Josh Nesbitt and Georgia Tech. The ACC's best shot at the BCS title? Likely finished. The Coastal Division race? Chaotic.
Sure enough, Notre Dame was the lead story Saturday. Just not for either of the reasons we assumed.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Zach Collaros greeted the man who recruited him Thursday. Joe Tresey, the assistant who helped convince Collaros to play at Cincinnati, smiled and said hello.
• Will Oklahoma thwart Texas once again? This year's Red River Rivalry won't carry the significance we thought it would when Texas and Oklahoma began the season ranked Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. But it's still got plenty of sizzle, especially for a Texas team that likely can't afford a loss. The Longhorns have done little to impress so far this season and face this bleak reality: If they don't beat Oklahoma, they won't get another chance to prove themselves against a marquee opponent. Last year, the 'Horns left their fate to the system, and we all know how that ended. But, already, things are very different now than in 2008. Injuries and subpar play have pushed the Bradford-McCoy subplot to the back burner. This game's no longer about Heisman campaigns (though if McCoy stands a chance, he needs to start dazzling, and soon) and unlikely friendships; it's about survival, which means defense will be key. So while this one could easily come down to a Jordan Shipley shake-and-shimmy,
Most football fans want the so-called Bowl Championship Series detonated because, by employing only polls and computers to determine its title game opponents, an awful lot of fun is denied us. Hey, we want something like March Madness to determine a genuine national football champion.
There was a cool moment last summer when Texas teammates -- and roommates, and best friends -- Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley went fishing with a professional angler. As part of the made-for-TV moment, producers challenged the quarterback to connect with the wide receiver, like he has so often over the last few years.
Thursday night brings the return of an old tradition that has spent the past couple seasons on the backburner: a must-see Big East game.
Deep in preparation for a Big East mega-game Thursday at No. 21 South Florida, Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly took a day off to visit ESPN's corporate monolith last Friday. It was a match made in media heaven, Kelly being a Worldwide Co-Leader in the ways of corporate and self-promotion.
Notre Dame junior Jimmy Clausen is off to a fast start this season and many feel he will be an early pick in round one should he enter the draft. Clausen has most certainly improved most facets of his game in '09, including his decision-making.
It is time for Extreme Makeover: Heisman Watch Edition. For five weeks this list has stuck by the usual suspects despite the fact that many of them underperformed due to injury, inaccuracy or indifference. Well, now that we have a much larger sample of games, it is time to blow up The Watch, take a look at all the evidence and start from scratch. Half of these players weren't on the list last week, including two of the top three. This Heisman season has been so crazy that next week's Halfway Heisman Trophy could go to anyone on this list -- and maybe even to someone not on it.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Just for a moment, try to forget the 24-hour will-he-or-won't-he-play drama surrounding Tim Tebow. We'll get back to the Florida quarterback soon enough. With or without Tebow, top-ranked Florida (4-0, 2-0 SEC) will face its toughest test this season as it heads to Death Valley on Saturday night to battle No. 4 LSU (5-0, 3-0 SEC).
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
Game of the weekend: New England at Denver. Intriguing player of the weekend: Elvis Dumervil.
There are three things I can count on with near-weekly consistency every time I open my in-box on Monday mornings: 1) fans complaining about where their team is ranked, 2) fluffy school press releases, like "Vols Staying Positive Ahead of Key Matchup with Georgia," and 3) fans complaining about the refs.
Let's imagine a handyman builds a house with his own two hands. He pours the foundation. He builds the frame. He lays the tile. He brushes on every drop of paint. He lives in the house, but doesn't hold the deed. Without the handyman, the revolving cast of landlords would have a trailer instead of a mansion. For his skill, the handyman has been paid handsomely, and until recently he was allowed to choose his own apprentices. The current landlord tells the handyman he can leave whenever he chooses, provided that day comes sometime in the next two years. The landlord also introduces the man to the new tenant, whom the landlord has put in charge of selecting all the new fixtures and furniture.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
The Hayward earthquake fault line runs directly under Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. But there was no seismic shift there on Saturday evening.
The 10 storylines to watch this Saturday:
From his home in Austin, Texas, Chad Morris watches every Auburn game, just as he did for Tulsa the past two seasons and Arkansas the year before that.
The reason so many programs are high on Hialeah (Fla.) defensive end Corey Lemonier is because of his ability to gain leverage against blockers.
Loyal Mailbag readers know well I'm not one for speculating about end-of-season BCS scenarios until late October. This season, however, there's one particular possibility that's simply too fascinating to ignore. It practically jumps off the page when looking at the current polls.
The fourth week of college football saw a highly ranked SEC program go down to defeat, while upstart Houston once again tamed a Big XII team. It was also a week that saw a number of receivers turn in top performances and a few well-known names disappoint NFL scouts.
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled upsets to bring you a report on the most efficient team in America. In case you slept through it, Alabama steamrolled another opponent Saturday. This time it was Arkansas, an alleged budding offensive juggernaut led by a mad genius coach and cannon-armed quarterback.
A solid hour after the last of his 34 carries last Saturday, Ryan Williams sat on a folding chair, talking about how much gas he had left in the tank. "I could've gone for another 20," said the Hokies redshirt freshman tailback, who finished with 150 yards in Virginia Tech's rain-soaked beatdown (RECAP | BOX) of No. 9 Miami. Flecks of Lane Stadium turf were still stuck in his dreadlocks, on his cheek, in his beard. Welts and abrasions covered his arms. "I was bleeding all over the place," he went on, "but I didn't realize it. People had to tell me. I was having fun out there."
There are few certainties left in this young college football season -- four more top-10 teams fell this weekend, making it nine on the season -- but there is one thing you can take to the bank: Iowa's defense.
I ran into the SI Cover Jinx on Thursday at a little meat-and-three on Broad River Road. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Shouldn't you be chasing the Detroit Tigers? I'm surprised you weren't in Cleveland [Thursday] placing a banana peel on the pitching rubber, so Justin Verlander would slip and tear his ACL."
Football Insiders: Check out Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
You are USC, and this is how you let another national championship slip through your fingers. You're coming off a huge, emotional victory on the road in prime time. Up next: a road trip to a hostile stadium in the Pacific Northwest, against a team that went 0-12 in 2008. You have more talent on your scout team than the Washington Huskies have on their starting units.
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