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WATCH: Spectacular TD catch helps Ark. St. end longest losing streak in over a decade

By John TaylorOct 6, 2016, 9:33 AM EDT
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Literally, Arkansas State tried to hand Georgia Southern a win, but neither GSU nor Omar Bayless were having any of it.

Trailing 26-20 with eight seconds remaining and no timeouts in Wednesday night Fun Belt action, ASU was set up at the GSU eight-yard line with at least two shots at, with a successful point after, a game-winning touchdown.  As it turned out, thanks to Bayless and quarterback Justice Hansen — he of the key fourth-and-16 pickup earlier in the drive — the Red Wolves needed just one shot.

The Red Wolves were able to stun the Eagles (3-2, 2-1) despite committing five turnovers, including lost fumbles on each of their first three possessions.  The win, which included a comeback from a 23-10 deficit, extended one streak for the football program while snapping another.

Entering the Sun Belt matchup, ASU had lost five games in a row, tied with Georgia State, Miami of Ohio and Rice as the nation’s longest.  It had been the program’s longest such streak since losing five in a row in 2003-04.  They narrowly averted a six-game losing streak for the first time since 2001-02.

Conversely, the Red Wolves have now won 10 straight games in SBC play.  ASU’s lost loss in a league matchup came in November of 2014 on the road against Texas State.

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

UMass athletics
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.

Wisconsin new home for Houston transfer Collin Wilder

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By John TaylorApr 24, 2018, 1:23 PM EDT
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Nearly three weeks to the day he left a Group of Five program, Collin Wilder has landed at a school from a Power Five conference.

On his personal Twitter account, Wilder indicated in a tweet that he has decided to transfer to Wisconsin.  The announcement, replete with the defensive back pictured in a UW uniform, comes after he announced on the same social media site that he had decided to leave Houston.

A three-star member of the Cougars’ 2016 recruiting class, Wilder was rated as the No. 94 player at any position in the state of Texas.  Just one defensive player in UH’s class that year, five-star defensive lineman Ed Oliver, was rated higher than Wilder.

After playing in all 13 games as a true freshman, the native of Katy, Tex., played in the first two games of 2017 before he suffered what turned out to be a season-ending knee injury.

Wilder will be forced to sit out the 2018 season to satisfy NCAA transfer bylaws.  He will then have two years of eligibility at his disposal beginning with the 2019 season.

Bo Scarbrough takes jab at UCF with ‘real championship rings’ tweet

Alabama athletics
By John TaylorApr 24, 2018, 11:11 AM EDT
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For the fifth time since Nick Saban took over, Alabama football players have added some serious bling to their personal collections.

At the football team’s annual Steak & Beans dinner Monday night at the Mal Moore Athletics Facility, both the student-athletes and coaches were presented with their 2017 national championship rings.  The thrilling overtime win over Georgia in the College Football Playoff title game was the program’s fifth since Saban came to the Crimson Tide in 2007.

The rings are, to say the least, impressive, encrusted with over 150 stones per the school.  Of those 53 represents the number of wins for this most recent senior class.

Saban’s six national championships as a coach, including one at rival LSU, are tied the legendary Bear Bryant for the most in the sport’s history.  The Crimson Tide has won a total of 17 national championships, the third-most in big-time college football history behind Princeton’s 28 and Yale’s 27.

Of course, numerous Crimson Tide football players took to social media to show off and celebrate their latest title hardware.  The best use of Twitter, though, belonged to running back Bo Scarbrough, who took a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at UCF and the Knights’ unveiling “the only 2017 undefeated national championship ring this past weekend.