Winners and Losers from Signing Day

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National Signing Day is just about over, so it’s time to take stock at who the winners and losers were on Wednesday.

Winners

Alabama – The rich get richer. Alabama nabbed yet another No. 1 recruiting class, thanks in part to the signing of the nation’s top recruit, defensive end Da’Shawn Hand. Ho-hum.

Kentucky – No, this is not a basketball recruiting ranking. Head coach Mark Stoops signed the best Wildcats recruiting class in recent memory, landing at No. 16 on the Rivals.com team list. It’s led by safety Mike Edwards and quarterback Drew Barker.

Virginia – The state of Virginia had three five stars this recruiting cycle and coach Mike London nabbed two of them, including the nation’s No. 5 player, safety Quin Blanding, and the No. 32 player, defensive tackle Andrew Brown. The other? The nation’s top prospect, the aforementioned Hand. Can’t get ‘em all.

Stanford – Given the difficulties of recruiting to an elite academic institution, perhaps Stanford should be graded on a curve. The Cardinal checked in at No. 14 in the team rankings, with quarterback Keller Chryst and defensive end Soloman Thomas being the elite prospects.

LSU – The Tigers signed a monster class and finished second in the team rankings behind Alabama. The nation’s top running back, Leonard Fournette, should make an instant impact as a freshman, as should No. 2-ranked wide out Malachi Dupre.

Michigan State – The Spartans used their Rose Bowl victory and No. 3 national finish to sign the No. 21 class, one of the best recruiting finishes by MSU in a long time. The jewel of the class is 5-star defensive end Malik McDowell, who should end up with the Spartans once issues with his dad get worked out.

Losers

UCLA – The Bruins thought they had a chance at Adoree Jackson. He went to USC. They thought they might get Malachi Dupre. He went to LSU. They hoped to get Budda Baker. He went to Washington. It was still a good class for Jim Mora (ranked 18th), but he swung for the fences a few times and whiffed.

Michigan – The Wolverines felt the effects of a disappointing 7-6 season and their class slumped to 31st in the national rankings. Michigan needs some instant help this fall and, outside of top corner Jabril Peppers, it fell short.

Virginia Tech — The Hokies received a major blow when top DT Derrick Nnadi signed with FSU. They missed out on Isaiah McKenzie, who signed with Georgia. A top receiver commit, Javon Harrison, also jumped ship to sign with the Seminoles. Overall, the Hokies finished 25th nationally but could’ve finished much higher with a stronger signing day.

The search for a new football home did not take long for former Texas A&M defensive end Gavin Stansbury. Stansbury plans to join the Houston Cougars of the American Athletic Conference and will be eligible to play immediately this fall. The news was first reported by Joseph Duarte The Houston Chronicle and followed  up by Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports via Twitter.

Just last week Texas A&M confirmed Stansbury decided to leave the program. This decision was made following an arrest after a traffic stop. There was a warrant for Stansbury’s arrest stemming from an altercation at a party at Rice University in April. Stansbury was faced with a misdemeanor charge for assault. Stansbury was suspended from team activities but had returned following the arrest.

As far as football is concerned, this is a nice addition for Houston. Stansbury was a three-star prospect at defensive end according to Rivals.com. The Cougars were picked third in the AAC this season, behind Cincinnati and defending champion UCF. Stansbury appeared in 10 games last season for Texas A&M and finished seventh on the team with 47 tackles and tied for the team-high with three sacks. He is ready to step right in and see some significant playing time for the Cougars.

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One of the perks of playing college football at a big program is getting an iPad loaded with the playbook on it every season. Today many players started getting their digital playbooks as camps start opening up. This tends to be a pretty exciting time for college football players, and they are surely advised not to share any of the information through public forums like Facebook or Twitter.

Sometimes players can get away with it. Kickers, for example, have a pretty simple role on a college football team. Kick the ball far on kickoffs and between the poles on extra point and field goal attempts.

Here is the playbook’s instructions to Oklahoma kicker Michael Hunnicutt.

We got iPads for our playbooks today. Here’s the only play loaded on mine.. pic.twitter.com/3TcEpjx5wj

— S. M. Hunnicutt (@Hunnicutt08) July 31, 2014

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As a legal investigation continues to cloud the future of Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon, the university has issued a statement stating the five-stare Class of 2014 addition is not currently reporting to team activities. That is about as close as we have gotten to any word of a possible indefinite suspension for the talented running back expected to contribute right away for the Sooners.

OU Athletics statement: “Joe Mixon is not reporting for team activities at this time. We will continue to monitor the situation.”

— Oklahoma Football (@OU_Football) July 30, 2014

Mixon was reportedly involved in a serious altercation over the weekend, with a 20-year old female reportedly being the other party involved and injured in the incident in question. Mixon’s attorney has stated his client’s innocence, but police continue to work the investigation to determine the next steps. The timeline for the police investigation is unknown just yet, but is expected to continue into next week and perhaps longer.

It is typical for schools to indefinitely suspend players tied to any ongoing legal investigations, so it was probably only a matter of time before Oklahoma released this type of statement, with summer camps set to open.

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Iowa is going to offer free tuition to five students, chosen at random, who have purchased season tickets for the upcoming 2014 season. If nothing else, it is one way to battle the downward trend in college football attendance.

“The fans in the stadium really feed off the energy from students, so we’d like to have a full student section,” Lisa Pearson, director of marketing for Iowa said to the Iowa City Press-Citizen. “We’re trying to get as many students into the stadium as possible.”

Iowa typically reserves 10,000 tickets for students, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, but only about 7,300 were sold last season. Overall season ticket sales have also dipped at Iowa with 52,000 tickets sold last season for Kinnick Stadium, which holds more than 70,000 on game day.

Students at Iowa might want to take the gamble on free tuition. Iowa should be a pretty good team this season and could easily play into the Big Ten West along with Wisconsin and Nebraska. The Hawkeyes always seem to have a year that comes out of nowhere and that appears to be what many are thinking this season. Iowa was picked second in the unofficial Big Ten media poll last week.

UPDATED (8:21 PM ET): It seems there may be a concern over this whole plan now. Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta released the following statement, as shared by KWWL;

“This afternoon we learned of concerns related to a student football promotion,” Barta said in a written statement. “A question has been raised whether the promotion is compliant with state raffle laws. I have suspended the promotion temporarily as we determine how to make sure that this promotion is in complete compliance.

“In the end, our goal is to do everything possible to make sure that the student experience at Hawkeye football games is as fun and exciting as possible,” he added.

So now there is a waiting game to find out if Iowa will be able to follow trough on this plan.

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Penn State and Pittsburgh used to play every season, but once the two programs went their separate ways by joining the Big East (Pitt) and Big Ten (Penn State), it has been a struggle to get the two programs to see eye-to-eye when it came to scheduling any future games. Much of the tension stemmed from the days of Joe Paterno leading the Penn State program and demanding an extra home game in any scheduling arrangement with Pittsburgh, but that is best left for historians to dig deeper into today. Penn State and Pittsburgh have a four-game series lined up for 2016 through 2019. If it was up to the head coaches of both programs today, the series would continue on an annual basis.

The topic of power conference opponents scheduling other power conference opponents has become an increasingly relevant topic with the emphasis shifting on strength of schedule in the College Football Playoff era. With Pitt also needing to fulfill a non-conference scheduling requirement to schedule an opponent from another power conference opponent each season under the ACC’s new guidelines, it would seem only natural for the Panthers to explore the revival of past annual rivalries against either West Virginia or Penn State.

Pittsburgh head coach Paul Chryst was asked about historic and regional rivals Penn State and West Virginia this week while moving through the ESPN car wash. In what may come as a bit of a surprise, Chryst told Brett McMurphy of ESPN he would prefer to see an annual match-up with Penn State instead of West Virginia if he had to choose between the two. Penn State head coach James Franklin appears to be on the same page, telling McMurphy today on his run through the ESPN media gauntlet he would support seeing an annual series with the Panthers.

What needs to happen before this can actually become an annual tradition in the Keystone State? There may not be a whole lot that needs to fall into place, although Penn State playign a nine-game schedule in the Big Ten moving forward while the ACC sticks to an eight-game schedule will present many of the same problems faced with reviving the Backyard Brawl between Pittsburgh and West Virginia. In the end, Penn State’s desire to assure an extra home game on the schedule could resurface in a different capacity by ensuring Penn State has seven home games at a minimum for years to come.

With new leadership in place at both schools compared to the late 1980s and early 1990s, perhaps getting these two in-state rivals back together for the long term could be a more realistic possibility.

Penn State and Pittsburgh last played in 2000. The two schools agreed to a two-game series in 2016 and 2017 and later agreed to extend the series by two more games through 2019. Penn State leads the all-time series, 44-41-4.

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For those who thought — or were hoping — they’d seen the last of these types of posts this year, you are sadly mistaken.

The latest to release its preseason watch list is the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, given annually to the nation’s top senior (eligibility-wise or academically) quarterback.  In other words, don’t freak out because Florida State’s Jameis Winston or the like aren’t included.

Among those who are included are three semifinalists for last year’s award, with all three hailing from the Pac-12: Arizona State’s Taylor Kelly (no relation), Oregon State’s Sean Mannion and Oregon’s Marcus Mariota.

Speaking of the Pac-12, they paced all conferences with seven quarterbacks on the watch list.  The Big Ten was next with six, followed by the SEC (five), Big 12 (three), Mountain West (two) and one each from the AAC, ACC and Conference USA.  Prairie View A&M’s Jerry Lovelocke was the only non-FBS player to make the initial cut.

AJ McCarron of Alabama was the 2013 recipient of the award.

Below is the complete list of 27 players:

Hold the phone on at least one of the players reportedly booted past the Austin city limits.

Both Rivals.com and 24/7Sports.com are reporting that Josh Turner is once again a member of the Texas football team.  Per the latter recruiting website, Turner was set to transfer when, “just prior to Turner finalizing his plans, head coach Charlie Strong allowed Turner to appeal to the decision of his dismissal.”

A meeting with head coach Charlie Strong was held Tuesday night that went well enough that Turner was placed back on the team, albeit with what 247Sports termed as “severe restrictions.” What those restrictions entail wasn’t divulged.

Turner has started five games in the secondary during his 37-game UT career.  He will be a senior in 2014.

Running back Joe Bergeron and Jalen Overstreet along with defensive end Chevoski Collins remain on the outside of the program looking in and are not expected to see their dismissals reversed. Bergeron is seeking to be released from his scholarship so he can transfer to a Div. II school in the state.

Maybe the situation’s not as dire as it appeared at first blush.

Ty Montgomery is in the midst of recovering from shoulder surgery, with Stanford’s David Shaw acknowledging this weekend that the star wide receiver might not miss just the opener against UC-Davis but the following Saturday’s conference opener against USC as well.  While there’s certainly the possibility that Montgomery could be held out of the opener — see: competition, level of — there appears to be more optimism regarding the game against the Trojans.

“Ty’s ahead of schedule. He’s ahead of schedule. He’s a phenomenal athlete,” Shaw said Wednesday.

As for holding out Montgomery for the opener even if he’s healthy enough? At least in the here and now, the Cardinal head coach doesn’t want to hear that kind of talk.

“f he’s ready to go Game 1 and the doctors say, `You know what, he’s at limited risk for re-injury, let’s let him go play,’ I’m all for it,” Shaw said. “There’s no babying football players. If Ty’s ready to go, he’s returning kickoffs, he’s playing the game. If he’s not, we’ll hold him off. I don’t have an issue with that.”

For his part, Montgomery said today that “[w]henever they can tell me I can play, I’m ready to play.”

Montgomery was easily the Cardinal’s top pass-catcher in 2013, leading the team with 61 catches for 968 yards and 10 touchdowns.  The next closest was Devon Cajuste‘s 28-642-5.

For good measure, Montgomery was third in the nation in kick return average (30.3) and was one of just seven players to return more than one kickoff for a touchdown (New Mexico’s Carlos Wiggins returned three for scores).

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If it weren’t for bad injury luck, Chris Gallon wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Speculation has surfaced recently that the Bowling Green wide receiver either suffered a significant new injury or had reinjured his knee.  While the school has yet to address what if any injury issue the wide receiver may be facing, the whispers are growing louder.  And sounding season-ending-ish before the season even gets started.

From the Twitter account of WTOL-TV’s Jordan Strack:

Can confirm rumors that BGSU Wide Receiver, Chris Gallon, was injured once again. Sounds like he will miss the entire season.—
Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) July 30, 2014

The loss of Gallon certainly wouldn’t be optimal for BGSU’s offense.

In 2012, Gallon led all Falcon receivers in catches (54), yards (720) and receiving touchdowns (six).  He was second in all three categories last year (24-232-2) when he went down with what turned out to be a season-ending injury.

In a move not even remotely unexpected, it appears LSU won’t have one member of its 2014 recruiting class at its disposal.

In a tweet, Ross Dellenger of the Baton Rouge Advocate confirmed that, according to head coach Les Miles, “Trey Lealaimatafao will ‘probably not‘ play this season after arm injury.”

Last week, Lealaimatafao suffered what was initially feared to be an amputation-level injury to his arm after punching through a weight-room window. Fortunately for Lealaimatafao, the physical damage wasn’t as severe as initially reported and the defensive tackle was released from the hospital two days later.

One day after his release, was Lealaimatafao was arrested for allegedly stealing a bicycle from an on-campus library.

Lealaimatafao was a three-star member of the Tigers’ 2014 recruiting class, rated as the No. 26 defensive tackle in the country and the No. 43 player in the state of Texas at any position.

Josh Magee has already left one FBS football program, and is set on doing the same a second time.

South Alabama head coach Joey Jones confirmed to al.com that Magee has decided to leave the Jaguars due to family reasons.  The website wrote that “Magee will look to play elsewhere, probably closer to his home in Hoover (Ala.).”

The move came as a surprise as Magee had a solid spring practice, with Jones saying that “obviously, we had high expectations for Josh.”

Magee was a member of the Tide’s 2012 recruiting class, but took a redshirt his true freshman season. After one season in Tuscaloosa, he decided to transfer to USA, sitting out the 2013 season to satisfy NCAA bylaws.

He exited spring this year as one of the Jaguars’ No. 2 wide receivers.

(Photo credit: Rivals.com)

Yes, yes, another post, another arrest.

The latest college football player to run afoul of the law is New Mexico’s Jamal Price, who the Albuquerque Journal is reporting was arrested following a domestic incidence Monday.  Specifically, the offensive lineman was charged with breaking & entering and conspiracy to commit a fourth-degree felony.

The paper wrote that “[a] criminal complaint says he pushed his girlfriend and Lobo basketball player Khadijah Shumpert at her apartment on Monday night in a dispute over an ‘Apple’ television.”

Because of the arrest and subsequent charges, Price has been indefinitely suspended from the team.

“I do think there is a level of frustration that’s shared by the coaches and the players,” Lobos head coach Bob Davie said. “In fact, I know that. I know guys want to make the right decision. They understand what it takes to make the right decision and they are hurt by this. I know our football team is hurt by this.”

Price started 10 games for the Lobos in 2013.  He was listed as the starting right guard on UNM’s depth chart heading into summer camp.

(Tip O the Cap: ArrestNation.com)

(Photo credit: New Mexico athletics)

Unfortunately, a situation off the field will cost Fresno State a potential defensive contributor on it.

Bulldogs head coach Tim DeRuyter confirmed to the Fresno Bee that Randon Knotts has decided to leave his football program. While no specifics were given, the coach pointed to the general “family issues” as the impetus for the departure.

“We like the progress he was making. He’s a really outstanding young man, but he has some family issues back home that he needs to go home and take care of,” DeRuyter told the Bee.

There was no indication that Knotts would be returning at any point in the near future, if at all.

Knotts was a two-star member of Fresno’s 2013 recruiting class and took a redshirt as a true freshman. The paper wrote that “Knotts in the spring got reps at safety as well as the nickel position.”

(Photo credit: Fresno State athletics)

An LSU stick-and-baller did it earlier this month. Now, another FBS football program in that state will be the beneficiary of a similar move.

Earlier this week, Louisiana Tech announced that Taylor Burch (no relation) has joined the football program. And, actually, it’s rejoined; in 2010 and 2011, Burch was on the football Bulldogs roster.

Burch left the football team following the 2011 season and concentrated on baseball full-time the past two seasons after splitting his time between the sports. His baseball eligibility is expired, and he will be entering his final season of football eligibility.

While Burch served as the holder on field goal and extra point attempts, he will enter summer camp listed as a quarterback. During the last season of his first go-around with the football Bulldogs, the school noted Burch completed a 12-yard pass to on a fourth-and-four fake field goal against Houston.

(Photo credit: Louisiana Tech athletics)

For Oklahoma fans anxiously looking for the Joe Mixon situation to take its next step, you’re going to have to wait.

According to Tulsa World, a police investigation into the incident involving the highly-touted 2014 signee is expected to continue into next week, with an intimation that perhaps it could extend even further.  Once the investigation is wrapped up, the results will be sent to the district attorney, who will make a determination on whether charges will be filed.

“We are not closer to making an arrest,” Norman Police Department captain Todd Gibson told the World. “and would anticipate having documentation to the Cleveland County District Attorney sometime late next week.”

Late last week it was reported that Mixon was involved in an altercation at a cafe just outside of campus. It was alleged that Mixon punched a 20-year-old woman in the face, breaking four bones.

In a statement released by his attorney a couple of days later. it was claimed that Mixon was merely acting in self-defense.

“This past Friday morning Joe Mixon found himself in a situation where he was subjected to both verbal and physical attacks from a very intoxicated and troubled young woman. As a result of these physical attacks, Joe instinctually defended himself against further harm.”

The release ended by stating “[a]s we have always maintained, Joe has done nothing wrong.”

Mixon was a five-star member of the Sooners’ 2014 recruiting class, rated as the No. 1 running back in the country and the No. 8 player at any position in the country.

(Photo credit: Rivals.com)