Marshall pays tribute to 1970 crash victims, Cato lights up Tulsa early

AP

Marshall honored a tragic moment in school history today by honoring the victims of Southern Airways Flight 932, which crashed en route from North carolina to West Virginia on November 14, 1970. On that flight were 37 members of the Marshall football team including players and coaches as well as a number of prominent boosters for the program. The crash decimated the football program at the time and put the entire program in danger of folding. But the football program, university and community rallied and today was a time to pay tribute to the victims of the crash. Marshall’s football team, on the road for a Thursday night game at Tulsa, took time out of their day to watch the campus ceremonies as a team.

Head coach Doc Hollliday joined his team in watching the Marshall memorial service from Tulsa.

Tonight the football team is wearing a special memorial helmet with the number “75″ on one side of the helmet. That number represents the 75 passengers and crew of the flight killed in the crash.

Just spoke w/ Marshall’s AD Mike Hamrick told me it’s been emotional day for guys but thankful for Tulsa’s support pic.twitter.com/hqwkJZ9dro

— Martina Del Bonta (@MartinaFOX23) November 14, 2013

Marshall is off to a fast start in the game tonight. The Thundering Herd are up 14-0 midway through the first quarter. Rakeem Cato has already gone over 140 passing yards and has three touchdown passes. Former Penn State wide receiver Devon Smith, who once ran in to Joe Paterno during practice to fracture the coach’s hip, has one touchdown and 65 receiving yards thus far. A win for Marshall tonight would put the Thundering Herd in a first-place tie in the division with East Carolina.

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Oregon State C Isaac Seumalo became an instant starter for the Beavers the day he stepped onto the team’s practice field as a true freshman. Seumalo, however, may not open the season as a starter this fall due to a broken foot he suffered during the Hawaii Bowl.

Seumalo missed all of spring practice due to his recovery, and Oregon State head coach Mike Riley doesn’t have a definitive timetable for the center’s return.

Ohio State AD Gene Smith knows how to pander to his audience. Within the course of two days, Smith gave two different spins on the addition of Rutgers (and Maryland) to the Big Ten Conference.

Smith defended the league’s addition of Rutgers Saturday in an interview with NJ.com’s Dan Duggan.

Smith stated Rutgers “will bring a lot to the table.” The Buckeyes’ athletic director complimented Rutgers’ prestigious academic programs. He also mentioned the football team’s success under former head coach Greg Schiano and the money the school put into the program during that period.

The idea Rutgers was chosen to become a member of the Big Ten Conference due to a business decision was merely an after thought.

Smith was far more candid Sunday during an interview with The Columbus Dispatch’s Todd Jones. When Smith was asked directly about the Big Ten’s additions of Rutgers and Maryland, Smith stated the obvious.

“From a business point of view, it makes huge sense,” Smith told Jones. “This is a business deal. This is about money. Everybody wants to dodge that; I don’t. It’s about the stability of our conference for the long term.”

Smith looks at these moves as a way to adjust to the changing landscape of college football and the United States’ shifting population.

“It provides a new geography for us to have a presence in, for a number of reasons: television, recruiting, (and) providing Penn State with some geographical partners,” Smith stated. “The reality is, growth was inevitable for intercollegiate athletic conferences. We needed to be part of that.

“As far as the shifting population, that is reason enough by itself to look at the concept of expansion.”

With the Big Ten’s media days set to commence Monday and Tuesday, a big spectacle will be made of the additions of Rutgers and Maryland. The two programs will be accepted as equals among the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, etc. The reality is these program were merely business acquisitions which proved to be a means to an end for the Big Ten Conference.

South Carolina RB Mike Davis rushed for 1,183 yards and 11 touchdowns last season as a sophomore. If he has a similar junior campaign, Davis won’t return to Columbia for his senior season.

“Mike Davis, if he has a big year, he’s going to go pro,” South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier told ESPN.com’s Edward Aschoff after his annual media golf event Thursday. “And we’re going to tell him to go pro, because he should. The lifespan of a running back is only a certain amount of years. If a young man after three years can go, we’re going to shake his hand and let him go. That’s why you keep recruiting more running backs.”

After Spurrier watched former RB Marcus Lattimore suffer two major knee injuries, which put his potential professional career in jeopardy, the coach’s only recourse is to recommend Davis leaves after this season, whether he has an outstanding year or not.

“The thing as a running back is your life expectancy isn’t long in the NFL,” South Carolina running backs coach Everette Sands told Aschoff. “Here in the SEC, it’s probably the closest thing to the NFL.”

South Carolina will help Davis by employing a running back rotation this fall with fellow juniors Brandon Wilds and Shon Carson in the backfield. This will prevent some of the wear and tear other feature backs around the country will experience.

While Davis isn’t considered the top running back prospect potentially available for the 2015 NFL draft — that distinction belongs to Georgia’s Todd Gurley — his size (5-9, 223) coupled with a physical running style projects well to the next level. Early projections rank Davis as a Top 5 prospect at his position prior to the start of the 2014 season.

Davis’ ability to play at a high level and avoid injuries will set him up to make an easy decision after the season.

While Auburn’s run to the national title game last season was spurred by the team’s innovative offense and overwhelming rushing attack, the Tigers’ defense was led by defensive tackle Gabe Wright. Wright proved to be one of the most disruptive interior defenders in the nation, but his role is expected to expand this fall.

Wright will start the season at defensive tackle, but he’ll also be expected to receive repetitions at defensive end.

Wright was forced to play defensive end during spring practice due to injuries along the defensive line, and the Tigers’ coaching staff came away  impressed with his play.

“(Auburn defensive line coach Rodney Gardner) actually wanted to put me in last year, but he just stated I wasn’t mentally ready,” Wright told al.com’s Brandon Marcello. “I respect and I don’t second-guess his decision. If I’m called upon, I will answer the call. There’s no doubt about that. It just shows his confidence in me.”

Wright also wasn’t physically ready to play defensive end last year. He’s down to 290 pounds with enough the athleticism to set the edge and rush the passer.

“I’ve been wanting to drop down body weight since I’ve been here — and body fat –  which has been done,” Wright said.

Wright’s versatility will provide insurance along the Tigers’ defensive line after losing Dee Ford to the NFL and Carl Lawson to a potential season-ending ACL injury. Wright’s ability to provide depth at defensive end also allows the ultra-talented Montravius Adams to gain more repetitions at defensive tackle.

While Wright remains one of the best interior defenders in college football, his biggest contribution this season may be his ability to play defensive end until Lawson is fully healthy or one of the Tigers’ young pass rushers are ready to take over the spot.

Urban Meyer won 65 games, three SEC championships and two national titles during his six seasons as the head coach of the Florida Gators. Yet, there is still lingering resentment within the Gators’ fan base regarding how Meyer left the program.

Meyer’s wife, Shelley Meyer, isn’t happy with the grief her husband still has to endure from faceless detractors.

“All of my comments are about message board people,” Shelley Meyer told The Gainesville Sun’s Pat Dooley. “I still go to Gainesville four times a year. Nobody ever says anything mean to me. What I care about are the people down there who love us and know us. The people who hate us I don’t even know.

“I just wish people would get over it. I wish we could have been there 12 years. I’m the most bummed that we weren’t there 12 years.”

For some of the irrational members of the fan base, it was about more than slipping to an 8-5 record in 2010. It wasn’t about the large contingent of malcontents left on the roster when Will Muschamp took over the program. Urban Meyer’s decision to leave the program due to health concerns and then take the Ohio State coaching job a year later was a betrayal of the fans’ trust.

“But here is my perception (about Florida fans): I think they feel like they were kind of left at the altar,” Shelley Meyer said. “They feel a betrayal, even though they were so mad at him about how our last season (2010) went. You can’t please them. You can’t please all fans anywhere; you can’t. And I’ve just accepted that, and I love when our fans are behind us and support us and I love that they love their team, but we can’t take it personally.

“Because, not one person that is close to us (from their time in Florida) has ever come up and said anything bad. ‘Why did you leave? You faked it. You weren’t sick. You had this Ohio State thing lined up the entire time.’ I would hear that all the time, and I was like ‘Uh, no.’ Because I was not coming here. So, trust me, that was not planned. So, the people who are critical of us, it’s not the people who know us. It’s the people who aren’t even around the program. They just want their team to win, and whoever can get their team to win, that’s who they’re for. And if you can’t do it or if you left them, then they’ll hate you.”

The Gators’ fan base is also currently suffering from envy. It’s easy to see how well the Buckeyes have played under Urban Meyer’s direction. Ohio State is 24-2 the past two years. Florida, meanwhile, is 22-16 under Muschamp, and the program is coming off a 4-8 season.

Only time and Florida once again playing at a high level will defuse the hatred toward the Meyers that currently exists within a fan base that previously adored them.

The Big Ten Conference is adamant about expanding its presence on the East Coast, particularly in New York City.

Adding Rutgers to the league, reaching an agreement with the Pinstripe Bowl and opening an office in Manhattan wasn’t quite enough to sate the conference’s desires.

The Big Ten Conference is considering hosting regular season contests in New York City at Yankee Stadium and Washington D.C., according to cbssports.com’s Jeremy Fowler.

The conference would use the neutral sites to help cultivate rivalries between Penn State and its newest members, Rutgers and Maryland.

“Like with Yankee Stadium — would there be a case where Rutgers or Penn State or Maryland, would they want to move a game to an iconic stadium like that?” Big Ten Network president Mark Silverman posed to Fowler. “You could bring in, for Rutgers, probably another 10 to 15,000 people there. Is that a game that makes sense to move there? Probably.”

It can also serve as an opportunity for the new schools to benefit from the more established programs in the conference. Teams like Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin have national followings and their fans travel well. Bigger venues to host these programs will be beneficial for both the programs playing in the games and the conference.

High-profile venues can also be used to entice marquee opponents as additions to non-conference schedules. Rutgers, for example, will travel to Seattle this fall to open the season against the Pac-12′s Washington State Cougars at CenturyLink Field. Rutgers can use the lure of Yankee Stadium to bring in other opponents from the Pac-12, Big 12 or SEC.

By potentially using stadiums at key demographic locations, the Big Ten Conference will be taking full advantage of its expanded footprint and the markets it cherished when the decision was made to expand to 14 teams.

Football coaches never let their teams or its fans forget that special teams are a third of the game.

UCLA expected to be strong on special teams this fall with both their kicker and punter returning after last season. Instead, UCLA head coach Jim Mora must deal with replacing one of the Bruins’ specialists as fall camp approaches.

Punter Sean Covington has left the team, according to bruinreportonline.com’s Tracy Pierson. A reason behind the departure has yet to be divulged.

Covington finished fourth in the Pac-12 Conference last season with an average of 42.6 yards per punt, and he received an honorable mention as an all-conference performer. Covington booted nine punts of 50 yards or longer and pinned opponents inside the 20-yard line 18 times. Covington was expected to be even better this season after winning the job as a true freshman.

UCLA plans to replace Covington with the JUCO addition of Matt Mengel.

“He has an NFL leg,” kicker/punter guru Chris Sailer says told Pierson. “Strongest leg I’ve seen since (USC’s) David Buehler. Huge in kickoffs. Big potential as a field goal kicker and punter. The sky is the limit.”

Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops recently took a shot at a former rival, the Texas A&M Aggies, and their soft non-conference schedule during an interview with ESPN. Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin didn’t back down from the challenge when asked about Stoops’ comments.

“Coach Stoops has the right to say whatever he wants, but if he wants to play us again we’ll take him up on that,” Sumlin told aggiesports.com.

It was the perfect response from Sumlin. Not only does he avoid going tit-for-tat with Stoops, but it’s a potential opportunity to strengthen the Aggies’ schedule in the future and rekindle a playing relationship against Texas A&M’s former conference, the Big 12.

The reality is Stoops was correct in his assessment. Texas A&M doesn’t play a bunch of “toughies.”

Since Sumlin took over the program, the Aggies’ non-conference schedule has included the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, SMU Mustangs, South Carolina State Bulldogs, Sam Houston State BearKats, Rice Owls, UTEP Miners, Lamar Cardinal and ULM Warhawks.

Oklahoma, meanwhile, has scheduled the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (twice) and the Tennessee Volunteers over the same period.

The blame can’t be laid at Sumlin’s feet. Schedules are made years in advance. Even so, the programs Texas A&M scheduled were never among the country’s best. But that’s set to change in the coming years when Texas A&M plays the Arizona State Sun Devils (2015) and the UCLA Bruins (2016).

And there is still room to add the Sooners to those schedules.

During SEC media days, Alabama head coach Nick Saban once again made his case for a rule to be implemented which would slow some of the uptempo offenses found around college football.

Saban cited injury concerns as well as a lack of player development and coaching as reasons why college football needs to slow the pace of these offenses.

Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez is having none of what Saban is selling.

“Cry me a river. No one comes to games to watch defensive coaches,” Rodriguez told ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy.

There are two positions which clearly exist within this bickering.

First and foremost, Saban sees uptempo play and lack of substitutions as a competitive advantage for teams that play at a major faster pace than most of the teams in the SEC. Meanwhile, those coaches who can’t recruit with the likes of Alabama simply see it as a way to even the playing field.

And, despite Rodriguez’s bold claim, Alabama is one of the most successful teams in college football with a defensive mastermind at the helm. Rodriguez may be an offensive genius, but the Arizona Wildcats are 16-10 the last two seasons and the coach has never led a team to a national championship game.

Nick Saban’s response to Rodriguez should be very simple — to paraphrase hockey great Patrick Roy — “I can’t hear what Rich is saying, because my ears are blocked with two of my four national championship rings.”

As the wheels of conference realignment spun, a league’s “footprint” became more important than athletic success. A school’s market was more valuable than what it could bring to the field of play.

The Big Ten Conference’s inclusion of Rutgers may have been the most obvious case of a “Big 5″ conference looking more at a school’s location than how it will improve the league’s level of play.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, however, believes Rutgers is a major asset to the Big Ten.

“There’s some long-term historic rivalries, like ours with that team up north, and then there’s those that emerge,” Smith told NJ.com’s Dan Duggan. “I think the Rutgers-Penn State one will probably elevate itself over time and it will be one of those contests that everybody will look forward to all the time. I think Rutgers will bring a lot to the table.”

Smith cited the school’s previous success on the gridiron under former head coach Greg Schiano and the money the school pumped into the program during that era. The Scarlet Knights were 56-33 with six bowl appearances during Schiano’s seven seasons.

Under the supervision of Kyle Flood, the Scarlet Knights have remained competitive. They were 9-4 in 2012 but stumbled to 6-7 last season.

Despite these middling results against lesser competition, Rutgers remained attractive to the Big Ten Conference. Smith admitted the school’s location in New Jersey, as part of the New York City market, still remains a factor in Rutgers’ inclusion to the league.

“The East Coast, obviously from a market point of view, is huge for us,” Smith. “We have to have a presence on the East Coast and Penn State needed some partners on the East Coast. Rutgers does that.”

Even when another athletic director within the Big Ten Conference defends the inclusion of Rutgers from an academic and athletic standpoint, the school’s location still remains the No. 1 reason they were invited. After all, the Scarlets Knights are expected to finish last in the Big Ten’s eastern division.

Stanford’s Ty Montgomery is one of the nation’s top wide receivers, but he may not be ready to play by the start of the season.

Montgomery already missed the entirety of spring practice after he underwent surgeries on his arm and knee. Stanford head coach David Shaw then told Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News during Pac-12 media days that Montgomery is questionable for the season-opener against UC-Davis and “It will be close for USC.”

Montgomery led Stanford with 958 receiving yards last season. He was also named a Walter Camp All-American as a returner after he  averaged 30.3 yards per kick return.

Standford’s staff plans to bring Montgomery along slowly, and the coaches hope he will be ready by the end of the summer.

“Hopefully, by the end of training camp, he’ll be able to do more contact stuff,” Shaw added.

If Montgomery misses a game or two, Stanford QB Kevin Hogan will have to rely heavily on senior WR Devon Cajuste. Cajuste finished second on the team last season with 642 receiving yards. Sophomore Francis Owusu would be first in line to fill in for Montgomery until his return.

And Stanford can always rely heavily on its overwhelming running attack if the passing game sputters.

After two and half years of turmoil in the school’s leadership, Penn State University has finally found the person it wants to lead its athletic programs.

Sandy Barbour, who previously served as Cal’s athletic director, will take over the same role at Penn State, according to ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy. Barbour fills the role vacated by soon-to-be-retired Penn State AD Dave Joyner, who took over the position after the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Barbour, 54, was Cal’s athletic director from 2004 until she resigned from the position on June 27. Prior to Cal, Barbour served as Notre Dame’s deputy director of athletics from 2002 to ’04.

During her time with the Golden Bears, the university’s football team was 68-57.  However, the program has been on a steady decline over the past four years. Part of the reason Barbour was eventually forced out at Cal was based on the football program’s 1-11  record last season and it finished dead last in the Pac-12 among graduation rates.

Barbour was able to get a new stadium built for the football program, but she left Cal with $445 million in debt due to athletic renovations, according to the San Francisco Gate.

There will also be a question of how Barbour will mesh with the coaching staffs already in place.

Penn State’s football program was kept afloat by former head coach Bill O’Brien. Once O’Brien left for the NFL, Penn State made a major hire by luring James Franklin away from Vanderbilt. However, there are always concerns over how attached a new athletic director is with a head coach they didn’t hire.

Barbour will provide Penn State with something the university has lacked in recent years…stability. But her recent track record makes this a questionable hire.

It hasn’t exactly been a banner off season for the Georgia Bulldogs and head coach Mark Richt.

The team’s off-the-field issues continued Saturday morning when reserve linebacker Davin Bellamy was arrested on charges of DUI and speeding, according to the Athens-Clarke County (Ga.) jail log. Bellamy, a redshirt freshman, was booked at 5:02 a.m. and released an hour and 20 minutes later after posting a $2,000 bond.

Bellamy is the fifth member of the Bulldogs’ defense to be arrested this off season.  The linebacker’s arrest comes on the heels of the team dismissing defensive tackle Jonathan Taylor from the team Wednesday after his second arrest. Taylor was the third member of the unit to be dismissed.

Since this is Bellamy’s first offense, he isn’t expected to be dismissed from the team, but the Georgia’s student-athlete handbook stipulates that any athlete with a DUI charge is required to be suspended for 20 percent of the team’s season. As a result, Bellamy will miss at least the first two games of the season against the Clemson Tigers and the South Carolina Gamecocks. Coach Richt could decide to extend the suspension beyond two games if he deems it necessary.

The loss of Bellamy deals a blow to the Bulldogs’ linebacker depth. Bellamy, a three-star recruit in the 2013 class, was projected to be a backup behind junior Jordan Jenkins at Jack linebacker. Without Bellamy in the lineup, sophomore Johnny O’Neal will now have an opportunity to gain more playing time within the linebacker rotation.

Bellamy’s arrest is the seventh overall for the program since the end of last season and the 32nd in the past four years.

Auburn wanted to buyout the contract of former head coach Gene Chizik so badly the school was willing to carve out $8.78 million just to move on. According to a report from Al.com, Auburn set aside nearly that much to buyout the contracts of Chizik and the assistant coaching staff before bringing Gus Malzahn back to Auburn.

As reported, Auburn was originally prepared to spend $11.09 million to buyout the various contracts but the total was reduced as coaches found jobs elsewhere. Chizik, who led Auburn to a national championship just four seasons ago, received a buyout of $7.5 million to account for the remainder of his money owed on his contract. Auburn will pay Chizik a little more than $200,000 per month through the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

The remainder of the $8.78 million in buyout money was reserved for former assistant coaches Scot Loeffler, Brian VanGorder and Trooper Taylor. All three coaches have received their final buyout payments.

Auburn worked in the red last year, but with the buyout costs starting to trim down and with a nice boost from revenue sharing through the addition of the SEC Network, Auburn should be in decent shape a year from now.

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Police say a Southern Mississippi football player has admitted he had a role in planning an armed robbery. Defensive back Ed Wilkins was one of two men involved in the criminal planning, and now he has been indefinitely suspended by the school while the legal process plays out. The university is also investigating the situation. The Sun Herald was first to report the story.

Wilkins and his alleged accomplice, Michael Bailey, were booked in a county jail Friday evening, according to The Sun Herald. A bail was set for each at $75,000.

“This is a serious matter,” Southern Miss head coach Todd Monken said in a statement. “Ed has been removed from the program while we gather additional information.”

The details from a police report state Wilkins and Bailey had a plan to go to a residence in search of money and drugs. Police responded Friday morning to an armed robbery in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and discovered Bailey, who told officers he was just visiting some former roommates to smoke marijuana. Wilkins had reportedly entered the residence with a handgun equipped with a laser and wearing a ski mask while demanding money. When police arrive don the scene, Wilkins was found hiding in a car across the street.

What a masterful plan at work.

Wilkins started nine games for Southern Miss last season, recording 39 tackles and one interception.

Helmet sticker to Dr. Saturday.

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