Earlier this week, it was reported that Lane Kiffin had (once again) offered a USC football scholarship to a kid (literally) who had yet to enter high school.

A couple of days later, the Trojans’ cross-town rivals have responded in kind.

Texas quarterback Lindell Stone confirmed to ESPN.com Wednesday that he has indeed received a scholarship offer to play football at UCLA.  Stone, who just completed his middle school “career” a few months ago and would be a member of the Class of 2017, will hail — once he, ya know, actually gets there — from the same Southlake, Tex., high school that produced former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy and former Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel.

Stone has not yet given a verbal commitment to any school, likely because he was grounded from the phone or something.

“I’m very grateful right now,” the 14-year-old told the website. “We’re really not focused on recruiting right now. We’re more focused on getting on the field at high school and helping a team win a championship, but this is big. It’s finally showing how hard I’ve worked.”

Stone added that, while he has not yet talked to the Bruins coaching staff, his father has spoken to at least one assistant as well as the director of football operations.

The offer to Stone continues a disturbing, take-a-shower-then-take-another-one trend on an ever-creepier recruiting trail.  The Trojans offered an eighth-grade wide receiver recently, which came two years after the same coaching staff offered a scholarship to a 13-year-old quarterback who attended positional meetings and verballed to USC.  Over the past handful of months, Alabama, LSU and Washington have offered scholarships to an eighth-grader as well.

As an aside, why again do people think football recruits have a sense of entitlement?

AP

One of the highest-rated members of Purdue’s 2013 recruiting class has abruptly decided to not honor his National Letter of Intent, the player’s high school coach told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

Kyle Lindsay, the coach at Fort Wayne (Ind.) Bishop Luers High School, confirmed that, instead of playing for the Boilermakers, TyVel Jemison has opted for Grand Valley State.  Lindsay seemed confused and unsure of why his former player made such a decision.

“In all honesty, I’m not sure why the decision was made by Tyvel,” Lindsay said via text. “As of a month ago, he was committed and excited to go attend Purdue.”

The loss of Jemison is a significant blow to the Boilermakers.

The cornerback was one of the highest-rated recruits in Darrell Hazell‘s first Purdue class, rating behind only quarterback Danny Etling according to  Rivals.com‘s rankings.  He was a three-star member of this year’s class, listed as the No. 52 corner in the country and the No. 10 player in the state of Indiana.

AP

And before you ask, no, we have no clue where Harvey Updyke was involved.

Earlier today, Twitter chatter began to surface that the famed Howard’s Rock at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium was vandalized at some point of late by an unknown number of perpetrators.  In a press release Wednesday evening, the school confirmed that The Rock , named in honor of legendary Tigers head coach and College Football Hall of Famer Frank Howard, “was vandalized sometime  June 2nd or June 3rd.”

“We take vandalism, especially of such an important part of our history, very seriously,” said athletic director Dan Radakovich in a statement. “Police are investigating.”

The release from the school added that “[a] small portion of The Rock was broken off of its pedestal after vandals broke the casing that protects the artifact.”

Thanks to one of CFT’s Twitter followers — thank you, @trentacker for the heads up — we have what’s believed to be photographic evidence of the damage done to The Rock:

And, for those unfamiliar with Howard’s Rock, here’s a video clip of as well as the Wiki description of the hallowed tradition:

In the early 1960s, the rock was given to then head coach Frank Howard by a friend, Samuel Columbus Jones (Clemson Class of 1919). It was presented to Howard by Jones, saying “Here’s a rock from Death Valley, California, to Death Valley, South Carolina.” Howard didn’t think anything else about the rock and it was used as a door stop in his office for several years. In September 1966, while cleaning out his office, Howard noticed the rock and told IPTAY executive director Gene Willimon, “Take this rock and throw it over the fence or out in the ditch…do something with it, but get it out of my office.” Willimon had the rock placed on a pedestal at the top of the east endzone hill that the team ran down to enter the field for games. On September 24, 1966, the first time Clemson players ran by the rock, they beat conference rival Virginia, 40-35. Howard, seizing on the motivational potential of “The Rock”, told his players, “Give me 110% or keep your filthy hands off of my rock.” The team started rubbing the Rock for the first game of 1967, which was a 23-6 waxing of ACC foe Wake Forest.

It is now a tradition for the Clemson Army ROTC to “protect” the Rock for the 24 hours prior to the Clemson-South Carolina game when held in Death Valley. ROTC cadets keep a steady drum cadence around the rock prior to the game, which can be heard across the campus. Part of the tradition comes after unknown parties vandalized the Rock prior to the 1992 Carolina-Clemson game.

The Charlotte 49ers, that is.

With the 49ers set to launch a football program that will ultimately land at the FBS level, the university announced Tuesday that the team will play its home games at Jerry Richardson Stadium.  Jerry Richardson, owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, donated $10 million to the university in exchange for what the school described as naming rights in perpetuity.

The 15,300-seat stadium bearing Richardson’s name was completed in October of 2012.

“Today, we take another huge step,” Charlotte chancellor Dr. Philip Dubois said. “Jerry knows that football can bring the students and the city of Charlotte together and he wanted to be among the first to stand up and state, ‘this program is important to me’.”

The 49ers will debut its newly-minted football program at the FCS level in 2013 and 2014.  In 2015, the 49ers will move to the FBS level as a member of Conference USA.

“The role UNC Charlotte plays in our community cannot be underestimated and its profile will only continue to grow,” Richardson said. “The addition of football is another step in that growth and it is important that our community supports the school and its programs. The potential of both the university and its athletic department is unlimited and I am pleased to be able to participate in their development. My personal experiences from football have been very beneficial and this is a way to support both the future of the game and the university.”

In addition to the eight-figure donation that netted his name on the stadium, Richardson also announced that he has endowed a football-only scholarship in honor of his son, Jon Richardson.

(Photo credit: Charlotte athletics)

Wisconsin was already facing the challenge of replacing three starters from its 2012 defensive secondary.  Now, it appears one of those players expected to take over a starting job may be leaving as well.

Citing a source with knowledge of the situation, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote Wednesday that “the UW staff anticipates rising redshirt freshman safety Reggie Mitchell won’t be with the team in the fall.”  No reason for the staff expecting a departure was given.

It was subsequently reported that Mitchell has been released from his UW scholarship and will transfer to Pittsburgh.

The school has declined to comment publicly on Mitchell’s status for summer camp and beyond.

In May, first-year Badgers head coach Gary Andersen was very clear during a radio interview that he fully expected Mitchell to emerge as one of his starters at safety.

“I’m excited about what he did,” Andersen said during the interview. “I believe as a freshman coming in he is going to lock down one of those safety spots.”

Mitchell played in one game in 2012 before taking a redshirt for his true freshman season.

(Photo credit: Wisconsin athletics)

AP

Florida’s pride wasn’t the only thing to take a hit this past postseason; the athletic department’s financial bottom line did as well.

According to the Gainesville Sun, it was revealed during a university system budget meeting Wednesday that UF lost in the neighborhood of $840,000 on its trip to the Sugar Bowl.  The Gators lost 33-23 to former UF defensive coordinator Charlie Strong‘s Louisville Cardinals in a game that was 30-10 entering the fourth quarter.

As is ofttimes the case, it was the allotment of tickets that played a significant role the financial deficit.  According to an early-January report by the Orlando Sentinel, UF sold less than 7,000 of the 17,500 tickets allotted to them; the Sun wrote that the loss was “mostly due to unsold tickets.”

The Gators’ plight, mirrored by several other schools in the SEC, led to the ticket allotment issue to be addressed during the conference’s recently-completed spring meetings.  From the paper:

UF was one of several SEC schools that took a loss on bowl ticket sales this past year, something that the league addressed at its annual spring meetings in Destin last month. Commissioner Mike Slive said the SEC will be pushing for a lower minimum number of tickets that bowls can require league schools to purchase in the future.

The good news for Florida and others in similar situations?  The chief operating officer of the College Football Playoff, Michael Kelly, said today that  ”the number of required tickets for schools in host bowls will drop from 17,500 to 12,500.”

Whether conferences such as the SEC will seek a deeper reduction in the ducat requirement remains to be seen.

AP

Some links from around college football on a Wednesday… 

• Via our good friend Adam Kramer of the Kegs n’ Eggs blog, here are the top 15 rated players on NCAA Football ’14 as well as the individual ratings for every school. Why? Because video games and offseason and stuff. 
  
• Notre Dame just got a commitment from four-star quarterback DeShone Kizer of Toledo’s Central Catholic.
• What’s going on with Florida State’s athletic department, asks Patrik Nohe of the Miami Herald.
• This is just a tweet, but it’s definitely worth a click. Nick Saban is hilarious and he doesn’t even know it.
• A powerful story here about Kansas coach Charlie Weis and his daughter, who has global developmental delays.
• A hockey game at Beaver Stadium? That’d be cool.

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After all the commotion, Arizona State and Notre Dame will play in 2014 after all.

Via azcentral.com, ASU announced a new agreement with the Irish that will keep next year’s game in Tempe, but drop a 2017 trip to South Bend, which was part of the original series; an Oct. 5 game in Cowboys Stadium between the two programs this year is unaffected.

“The key for us was given the proximity of time to the date next year, we wanted to be able to maintain playing Notre Dame at home for our fans and student-athletes,” ASU AD Steve Patterson said. “The Pac-12 was willing to work with us (on the date change). We appreciate their help.

“Any time you go into a new conference like Notre Dame, it poses problems. If we’re going to represent certain standards, we’ve got to abide by contracts. It’s a good thing we were able to work it out for both parties.”

The game will now be played on Nov. 8, 2014.

Notre Dame attempted to get out of the ’14 trip to Tempe because, according to a report from Warchant.com, the Irish’s scheduling agreement with the ACC put Notre Dame against Florida State that year. That required another game to be bumped from the schedule and Arizona State was the odd program out. Understandably, ASU was none too happy about that news — the school had already started promoting the game — and fought to keep the Irish on the schedule.

As of April, ACC commissioner John Swofford said Florida State is still on Notre Dame’s 2014 schedule.

Rated as the No. 1 player in the Class of 2014 by a handful of recruiting websites, Da’Shawn Hand dropped a bit of news recently by surprisingly dropping a pair of schools from his future college to-do list.

The Woodbridge, Va., defensive end announced that South Carolina and Virginia Tech are no longer in his top five.  Hand’s new top three consists of Alabama, Florida and Michigan.

“I spoke to Bud Foster at Virginia Tech and that was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.,” Hand said according to Rivals.com. “And Deke Adams at South Carolina is a great person as well and that was difficult. Making those calls, especially to coach Foster, was the hardest thing I’ve had to do so far.”

Oddly enough, it appears the academic side of the equation played a role in Hand scrubbing the two schools from his list.

“I am pursuing a major in Sports Management or Sports Marketing, and Virginia Tech doesn’t offer that,” said Hand. “And I didn’t get a good feel for the professor at South Carolina, I just didn’t feel it.”

Hand said he has no favorite at this time, choosing to list his top three in alphabetical order.  The 6-4, 248-pound lineman has already visited the Tide and Wolverines but hasn’t yet done the same with the Gators, although a future trip to Gainesville is in his plans.

While Hand has whittled his choices down to three, it doesn’t appear it will stay that way for long; in announcing that he had dropped the Gamecocks and Hokies, Hand revealed that he’s “also interested in LSU and USC.”  Those two schools — which he described as being on the “outside looking in” – will be a part of Hand’s five official visits.

Hand, who said he hoped to make a verbal commitment at some point in December, added that those are also the only schools he will consider moving forward.

“This is my final list, I’m not open to any other teams,” the recruit said.

Hand is the top-rated prospect in the Class of 2014 by Rivals.com and 247Sports.com.  Scout.com puts Hand at No. 2 overall, while ESPN has him at No. 4.

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And this, like all other similar cases, is exactly what you don’t want during the offseason.

Per multiple media outlets, Arizona State senior defensive end Junior Onyeali is currently the center of an investigation for an incident that occurred last month. Per azcentral.com and citing a police spokesperson, Onyeali allegedly threw a 2-by-4 into the windshield of a woman’s car following an argument in May. KPHO.com adds that the woman’s car belonged to his girlfriend. No one was injured in the incident and no charges have been filed yet.

ASU would only say it is aware of the situation and it’s not clear what disciplinary action Onyeali may face.

This is not Onyeali’s first time in trouble. He was suspended from the 2011 Las Vegas Bowl after a reported argument with then-coach Dennis Erickson and was later suspended by coach Todd Graham.

Meanwhile, walk-on defensive back Andres Garcia has been kicked off the team for an off-the-field arrest on suspicion of two counts of sexual assault and one count of assault/domestic violence.

According to Tempe Police: “Garcia became involved in a verbal argument with a twenty-one year old female acquaintance, which escalated into a physical assault when Garcia shoved the victim backwards into a wall briefly knocking her unconscious. After the victim regained consciousness, several friends including Garcia transported the victim to her home residence. When they arrived at the residence, Garcia and another friend carried the victim to her bedroom. At one point Garcia asked to speak alone with the victim at which time Garcia sexually assaulted the victim who was unable to give consent.”

With the ACC announcing its Grant of Rigths agreement in April, realignment at the highest level of college football looks to be on hold for the foreseeable future. The same can now be said for Conference USA’s expansion plans for the immediate future.

In a statement on Tuesday, the conference board of directors “elected to remain, for the foreseeable future, with its current membership plan.”

“We are thrilled with our membership going forward and excited about our collective potential,” commissioner Britton Banowsky said. “Our organization has established a great foundation in an increasingly stable environment. The system has found calm waters, which is helpful to all of us.”

Depending on your interpretation of “foreseeable future,” C-USA’s membership beginning in 2014 will be as follows (unless another league plucks a team or two): UNC-Charlotte, FIU, Florida Atlantic, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, North Texas, Old Dominion, Rice, Southern Miss, UAB, UTEP, UTSA and Western Kentucky.

The conference had been considering adding two more members to become a 16-team league.

The Matthew Thomas story has finally come to an end.

In a statement issued to Warchant.com Tuesday evening, the five-star linebacker who signed his National Letter of Intent with the Seminoles in February confirmed he will play for FSU this fall after publicly wavering on his commitment this spring.

“After meeting with coach Fisher and his staff and gathering all the information I have decided to honor my commitment to Florida State,” Thomas said in his statement to the site. “I also want to be close to my family and I want be part of what they are building at Florida State. I’m looking forward to winning games at Florida State and building towards my future.”

Thomas will report to Florida State on Saturday. The news comes just one day after Thomas’ father told multiple media outlets that his son wanted to attend USC — the school he was originally planning on signing with this past February.

“No disrespect to Florida State but Matthew is willing to take the punishment if there is one,” Billy Thomas told ESPN.com Monday. “He’s hoping Jimbo will let him go.”

Thomas, considered to be the No. 2 outside linebacker and No. 15 player at any position in the country from this year’s class, told the Miami Herald in early May that he signed with the Seminoles to make his mother happy and that he hoped to receive his release from FSU. However, FSU athletic director Randy Spetman confirmed later that month that the university had no plans to release Thomas from his NLI.

That’s understandable since it’s not FSU’s fault Thomas made a decision based on what his mother wanted and not what he wanted. DC Reeves of Warchant.com adds that Thomas stuck with the ‘Noles because, apparently, he was unwilling to sit out a year to satisfy NCAA transfer rules. That would obviously clash with his father’s statements about “taking the punishment.”

Whatever the reason, here’s hoping Thomas is doing what he wants to do. Not what someone else wants for him.

On the same day that the NCAA released its annual APR scores citing student-athletes’ academic success, TIME magazine published a piece suggesting not everyone takes schoolwork as seriously.

In an interview with the publication, former USC player Bob DeMars (1997-2001) says he was cursed at by assistant coach Ed Orgeron for leaving practice early to attend a statistics class. Orgeron was an assistant for the Trojans from 1998-2004, and came back to Los Angeles in 2010.

From the piece:

In order to show up on time for a required statistics course one semester, he says he had to leave spring practice twenty minutes early, once a week. His defensive line coach, Ed Orgeron, wasn’t happy. You motherf—-r, DeMars remembers Orgeron, who went on to become head coach at Ole Miss from 2005 to 2007, and is now back at USC as assistant head coach, shouting at him. “He M-F’d me all over the place,” says DeMars. “He made me feel like a bad person for going to class.”

And later…

DeMars says that when other players ran sprints for missing class, Orgeron would give DeMars the “stink-eye,” as if DeMars let him down for actually going to class. 

(Writer’s note on the alleged “stink-eye”: pretty sure that’s just how Orgeron looks all the time.)

DeMars said he originally wanted to major in the university’s cinema program, but scheduling conflicts with practice resulted in DeMars switching to a business major. He currently works as a filmmaker.

In response, USC athletic director Pat Haden released the following statement to TIME (Orgeron was not made available to comment):

“While the alleged events happened before my time as athletic director at USC, I can say that all our football practices have been open to the media and players’ families since before Bob was here, and have been open to the public for most of that time as well. The transparency of practice would have brought to light this type of alleged inappropriate behavior. We also have high standards for our coaches and monitor and evaluate them as we would any of our employees.

“Additionally, we have always been proud to support our student-athletes in a full range of academic pursuits. Majors represented in 2012 among football alone included Theatre, Business Administration, Psychology, Communications, Economics, Chemical Engineering and Political Science.”

Generally speaking, let’s not pretend that an education comes  first for some (many?) players, but those who do want to make it a priority — or at least enough of one to stay eligible — need to be able to do so without reprimand. Or a stink eye.

Especially if that’s the “payment” they receive.

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Believe it or not, the contract for Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany was, as of a 2008 announcement, set to expire at the end of this month.

Delany, of course, will be the Big Ten’s commissioner beyond that date. In fact, he’s signed on for another five years. It’s just that no announcement was ever made.

ESPN’s Big Ten blog reached out and received confirmation from the conference that Delany received another contract extension two years ago that will take him through June of 2018.

The Big Ten confirmed to ESPN.com this week that Delany received a contract extension in 2011 that takes him through June 30, 2018. The league’s Council of Presidents/Chancellors approved the extension, but the conference never made a public announcement.

Delany’s been known to take a weird stance on a thing or two — namely threatening to de-emphasize athletics should the Ed O’Bannon plaintiffs win their lawsuit against the NCAA and co-defendants — but he is among the highest paid and most powerful people in all of college athletics. Most importantly, he’s done a great job of bringing in mountains of cash for his league and he’ll oversee another set of TV negotiations in a few years that will be influenced by the additions of Maryland and Rutgers.

Based on that alone, he can stay as long as he wants.

The NCAA released annual Academic Progress Rate scores on Tuesday.

APR is calculated for each individual university sport based on factors such as the eligibility and retention of each scholarship student-athlete. Frankly, APR scores don’t tell you a lot, yet consequences for not meeting the minimum bar can result in practice restrictions or postseason bans.

In order to compete in the 2013-14 postseason, teams must achieve either a 900 rolling multi-year APR or a 930 average over the most recent two years. That standard will increase to a multi-year score of 930, which predicts a Graduation Success Rate of approximately 50 percent, or a 940 two-year average for the 2014-15 postseason.

There will be 18 teams ineligible for postseason play this academic year, but none in major college football.

Below are a few notable APR scores for football (keep in mind they are representative of the 2011-12 academic year) You can also search individual programs HERE if you so choose.

Best APR scores (football):
Northwestern: 996
Boise State: 993
Duke: 989
Clemson: 985
Wisconsin: 985
Georgia Tech: 983
Boston College: 982
Missouri: 982
Ohio State: 982
Rice: 979

And here are the average APR scores for the five power conferences (via Brett McMurphy):
Big Ten: 964.9
ACC: 964.5
SEC: 957.1
Pac-12: 952.5
Big 12: 947.1