Updated: Collin Klein hurdles Geno Smith in Heisman conversation

By Ben KerchevalOct 20, 2012, 10:18 PM EDT
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Updated 10:07 p.m. ET: There wasn’t much Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein needed to do after halftime to further ensure that he would be the new Heisman frontrunner once Sunday morning rolls around. 

Optimus Klein was lethal in a 55-14 thrashing of West Virginia Saturday night, going 19-of-21 for 323 yards and three touchdowns. He also scored another four touchdowns on the ground. The Mountaineer defense is beyond horrid, but if Geno Smith is going to get hype for putting up gaudy stats against terrible defenses, Klein should too.

Make no mistake, though. Klein’s earned his place in the Heisman conversation. He’s a touchdown machine and he’s going to have the opportunity to continue to put up huge numbers in the back half of the season against defenses from Baylor and Texas. And the more K-State keeps winning, the more exposure he’s going to get.

Meanwhile, Smith has been shuffled into the Heisman pack — if he’s still there. Smith’s a great talent, but the WVU offense has been shut down in the past two weeks, scoring just 14 points in each of the two losses.

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Okay, maybe we overestimated West Virginia a little bit. The first step is admitting.

That said, things don’t seem like they can get much worse for the No. 17 Mountaineers, who trail No. 4 Kansas State 31-7 at the half. At home. And WVU’s lone score was a kickoff return for a touchdown by Tavon Austin.

Kansas State, the hipster Big 12 team, is playing vintage Snyderball. Time of possession: 20 minutes for K-State. Total yards: 346-74. No turnovers. And tackling. Beautiful, open field tackling. WVU? Not so much. The Mountaineer defense is so bad it’s not even worth picking on.  The Heisman? Not Geno Smith‘s for the taking anymore. Collin Klein is making his case to take home the hardware.

But it’s a long season, which is what we should have been saying all along about WVU. The first month of Mountaineer football now seems like a mirage, and it’s only going to get tougher.

Arizona State, Mississippi State ink home-and-home

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By Zach BarnettApr 24, 2018, 6:59 PM EDT
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Arizona State and Mississippi State on Tuesday announced a home-and-home series to be played in 2024-25. Arizona State will host the first game in Tempe on Sept. 7, 2024, and the clubs will meet in Starkville on Sept. 6, 2025.

The Sun Devils and Bulldogs have never met previously.

The Arizona State trip is not Mississippi State’s only upcoming trek from the Deep South to the Southwest. The Bulldogs also lined up a visit to Arizona in 2020 and Texas Tech in 2029. Mississippi State will open the 2024 season against Eastern Kentucky and visit Southern Miss the week after its Arizona State visit, on Sept. 14. The Bulldogs have no other games lined up in 2025 as of yet, according to FBSchedules.

Likewise, Mississippi State is not the Sun Devils’ lone upcoming SEC opponent. Arizona State has a home-and-home with LSU on the docket for 2026-28, per FBSchedules. The Mississippi State games complete both of the Sun Devils’ non-conference schedules for these respective seasons. Arizona State opens with Wyoming and visits Texas State in 2024, and hosts Northern Arizona and Texas State in 2025.

UCLA lands Texas Tech graduate transfer OL Justin Murphy

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By Zach BarnettApr 24, 2018, 6:17 PM EDT
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Help is on the way for Chip Kelly‘s offensive line. One graduate transfer offensive lineman has the Bruins on his list, but another has already pulled the trigger for UCLA.

Texas Tech graduate transfer Justin Murphy on Tuesday committed to UCLA in a post on his Twitter account.

A native of Belton, Texas, Murphy signed with Texas Tech in 2014 and made four starts at right guard as a redshirt freshman. He again started four games at right guard in ’15 before moving out to tackle, where he started another four games. But after battling a series of knee injuries, Murphy announced in the middle of the 2016 season he had medically retired from the game.

After sitting out 2017, Murphy announced in March he planned to make a comeback.

UCLA remarkably started the same offensive linemen in all 13 games last season, but tackle Kolton Miller entered the NFL draft, guard Najoee Toran and center Scott Quessenberry graduated.

Toledo posts, then deletes, tweet offering to change mascot to Shrek

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By Zach BarnettApr 24, 2018, 5:08 PM EDT
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There are plenty of annoying trends on Twitter, but perhaps the worst is the “I’ll do X if this gets retweeted X-thousand amount of times.” I blame Wendy’s.

But blanket policies are never a good way to go through life, and an exception was made on Tuesday when Toledo offered to change its mascot from a rocket to Shrek with 500,000 retweets.

Sadly, some dreams are simply too beautiful to live in this fallen world, and the tweet was outed to be a hoax. “We are definitely not changing the school mascot to Shrek,” Toledo media relations specialist Christine Billau told USA Today. “The tweet was meant to be fun, but it caused too much of a distraction.”

Meanwhile, Bowling Green gleefully hopped on the dog pile with both elbows pointed out.

UMass grad transfer lineman narrows choices to Auburn, UCLA, USC

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By John TaylorApr 24, 2018, 3:45 PM EDT
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It’s not yet known to where Jack Driscoll will transfer, but the field has been significantly narrowed.

Earlier this offseason, Driscoll decided to transfer from UMass.  Tuesday, the offensive tackle confirmed to Rivals.com that he’s down to three schools as a potential landing spot — Auburn, UCLA and USC.

Neither football program will have to wait long for a decision as Driscoll expects to make an announcement Wednesday.  Driscoll had taken an official visit to all three of the campuses prior to whittling down his transfer to-do list.

“It will come down to one of those three schools,” the lineman told AuburnSports.com. “I feel like all three of the schools would be a good fit.”

Driscoll will graduate from UMass early next month, and will be eligible to play immediately in 2018 at whichever program he selects.  The upcoming season will be the first of two years of eligibility the 6-5, 294-pound lineman has remaining.

After starting eight games as a redshirt freshman in 2016, with most of those starts coming at left guard, he started all 12 games in 2017.  All of those starts this past season came at right tackle for the football-independent Minutemen. He was named to Phil Steele’s All-Independent first team while he earned second-team All-Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) honors for good measure.