Category: College Football (Page 97 of 296)

Preseason Coaches Poll out: Alabama No. 1

TUSCALOOSA, AL - APRIL 17: Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram #22 warms up prior to the start of the Alabama spring game at Bryant Denny Stadium on April 17, 2010 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Dave Martin/Getty Images)

No surprise here: Defending champs Alabama has the No. 1 ranking in the preseason Coaches Poll.

From FOX Sports.com:

Boise State will begin the season ranked No. 5. The Broncos, like Alabama, finished last season 14-0. They beat TCU in the Fiesta Bowl.

The Crimson Tide got 55 of 59 possible first-place votes. The other four went to Ohio State, which is No. 2 in the newspaper’s ranking.

Florida is third, followed by Texas, which lost to Alabama in the BCS title game in January.

Virginia Tech is sixth, followed by TCU, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa to round out the top 10.

Nos. 11 through 15 are Oregon, Wisconsin, Miami, Penn State and Pittsburgh. They are followed by LSU, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Arkansas and Florida State, which will be without Bobby Bowden as coach for the first time in 35 years.

With all that has happened in college football over the past couple of months, it’s hard to fathom that actual games will be starting in a few weeks. Football is almost upon us!

Couple things that I’m interested in seeing:

– How TCU bounces back from its dud in the Fiesta Bowl.

– How Texas QB Garrett Gilbert fairs in his first full season after getting thrown to the wolves in the BCS title game.

– What the Tim Tebow-less Gators will look like (it’s felt like an eternity since Tebow wasn’t the one taking snaps from under center).

– What Mark Ingram has in store for an encore performance.

– What Nebraska’s defense looks like without Ndamukong Suh, who was perhaps the most dominant defensive player in college football last year.

What has your attention heading into the new college season?

Rich Rodriguez era still haunts West Virginia

CINCINNATI - NOVEMBER 17:  Head Coach Rich Rodriguez of the West Virginia Mountaineers looks on during the Big East Conference game against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Nippert Stadium November 17, 2007 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

West Virginia has become the latest football program to be accused of violating NCAA rules, according to ESPN.com. The violations (five major and one secondary) occurred from 2005 to 2009, which includes the time span that former head coach Rich Rodriguez was there.

Among the NCAA’s allegations involving West Virginia:

• Between the 2005-06 and 2007-08 seasons, non-coaching staff members monitored and/or conducted skill-development activities with football players at least two days a week in the spring and summer.

• Between the 2005-06 and 2007-08 seasons, non-coaching staff members sometimes analyzed video with football players.

• From 2005-06 to 2007-08, non-coaching staff members sat in on coaches’ meetings that they were not allowed to attend.

• From 2007-08 to 2009-10, non-coaching staff members did the above and also provided advice and/or corrections to players pertaining to technique and plays.

The NCAA also wants to know if West Virginia believes Rodriguez and/or Stewart knew or should have known of the violations and/or that they were violations of NCAA rules.

The good news for WVU is that AD Oliver Luck is cooperating with the NCAA and seems to be taking a proactive approach with dealing with these allegations. But seeing as how current head coach Bill Stewart is also being accused of “failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance,” this obviously isn’t good news for the current state of the Mountaineer football program. (Not in terms of wins and losses, but more so image.)

When will West Virginia ever be rid of Rich Rod?

University of Georgia’s awful freshman orientation video

Good find by Deadspin. (It must be nice to have an army of readers sending you a boatload of tips every day.)

I’m almost loathe to hate on the orientation leaders performing in this abortion of a video, because I guarantee that they had no choice. This is clearly a 50-year-old woman’s idea of what 18-year-old kids find cool, and how to relate to them. Those poor redshirts, all they get in exchange for their dignity is summer housing and a tuition reimbursement.

But everything about this video is amazing. The production values (check the disappearing effect at 1:45), the sound quality (I’m not certain, but I think they may have recorded the vocals underwater), and Mark Richt!

It’s so bad, it’s good. I’d give them credit if I thought this was done on purpose, but I don’t think it was.

From a football standpoint, Masoli well worth the risk for Ole’ Miss

PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 01:  Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli #8 of the Oregon Ducks attempts a pass against the Ohio State Buckeyes at the 96th Rose Bowl game on January 1, 2010 in Pasadena, California.  (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

Last week, University of Mississippi head coach Houston Nutt sat at the roulette table of life down on his luck. He had just suffered another huge loss when Raymond Cotton decided to transfer and when he looked down at his chip stack, he realized his next play had to be all-in.

Things haven’t really gone Nutt’s way over the past couple of months. Last year, many college football pundits thought that the Rebels would be a sleeper in the SEC West. But in their first real test of the season, they were beaten by South Carolina in Week 3 and stumbled to a 9-4 overall record, which included a 4-4 finish in the conference.

Following the season, Nutt lost his starting quarterback when Jevan Snead surprisingly entered the NFL draft instead of returning for his junior year. That left Nathan Stanley to compete with Cotton (a highly touted underclassmen) for the Rebels’ starting quarterback job.

But last week, Cotton decided to leave the program, which left the Rebels with Stanley and former junior college star Randall Mackey as the only other quarterbacks on scholarship.

So Nutt decided to take a chance.

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