Morning Coffee: BSU mentioned in self-help book

Posted by ESPN.com’s Graham Watson

Boise State’s win over Oklahoma in the 2006 Fiesta Bowl has now become a self-help book.

The Broncos innovations on offense will be the subject of a new book called “The Creative Discipline: Mastering the Art and Science of Innovation.” The book analyzes why some organizations are able to use innovation more successfully than others.

The book, written by Nancy Napier, who is a professor of international business at Boise State, and Mikael Nilsson, who is a program manager at the Knowledge Foundation out of Brookline, Mass., will also incorporate strategies of local Boise businesses and groups.

The book is due for release later this month.

Now, on to our links:

• Speaking of Boise State… Brian Murphy of the Idaho Stateman says the Broncos are no closer to finding a starting quarterback after a scrimmage this past weekend. Neither Bush Hamdan nor Kellen Moore did anything to distinguish himself in the race.

• Kansas announced that it would play Texas El-Paso and Southern Mississippi in 2009. The Jayhawks have never met either team.

• Speaking of Houston… Coach Kevin Sumlin named sophomore Case Keenum the team’s starting quarterback. Keenum, the Conference USA Freshman of the Year last season, was battling junior Blake Joseph for the starting job.

• Eastern Michigan quarterback Andy Schmitt is maturing in his second season as the Eagles’ starter. He’s studying film of professional quarterbacks to pick up some pointers.

• Idaho has moved to a shotgun scheme, which is incorporating a lot of roll outs, option and play-action, according to the Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho.

• Northern Illinois quarterback Dan Nicholson was held out of this weekend’s scrimmage for health concerns, according to the Beacon News. Nicholson had offseason shoulder surgery and reported soreness.

• Fresno State is in the midst of a quarterback controversy between its second and third string players who are battling for the starting spot in the fall.

Read Original

Big 12 links: Stoops secure in OU’s rich football history

Posted by ESPN.com’s Tim Griffin

I was struck looking at some pictures on the Oklahoman’s web site of Bob Stoops and how he has changed as he begins his 10th season coaching the Sooners.

I recalled interviewing Stoops soon after he took over the Sooners’ job. His reputation preceded him after a strong run as Steve Spurrier’s defensive coordinator at Florida. But I will still struck at how young Stoops appeared to be back then — barely older it seemed than some of his players.

His career has provided for much of the juice in the Big 12. He led the Sooners to a bowl game his first season and to the national championship the next — the first time a Big 12 team ever claimed an undisputed football national championship.

Since Stoops started, 13 Big 12 coaches have come and gone and every job in the conference has turned over with the exception of Texas.

All of those coaches were fired except for Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who helped give Stoops his start.

Today, three Big 12 coaches — Kansas’ Mark Mangino, Texas Tech’s Mike Leach and Nebraska’s Bo Pelini — once worked for Stoops. And another, Baylor coach Art Briles, is a second-generation descendant of the Stoops’ coaching tree after earlier working with Leach at Texas Tech.

The beginning of Stoops’ 10th season has prompted a week-long series of stories this week in the Oklahoman. The first two days were compelling reads and I’m expecting the rest to be as similarly strong.

Oklahoman sports columnist Berry Tramel started the series Sunday with a definitive analysis of Stoops’ place in Oklahoma’s storied football history.

Today’s group of anecdotes about Stoops gave an interesting picture about him from those who know him best. My favorites included how Stoops demanded a practice field with no more chicken bones; his fastidious nature he inherited from his father: how he once stood up to Spurrier; and how he got his point across to the 2000 championship team to eat their breakfasts before practice. Good stuff.

Stoops’ place in Big 12 history is secure. But looking at those pictures sure did make me think about how quickly time slips away.

Here are today’s links. I can only hope they can have the staying power of Stoops.

• Texas Tech running backs coach Seth Littrell hasn’t set a timetable for settling on a starting tailback. Shannon Woods, Aaron Crawford and Baron Batch are hooked up in a tight battle for the job.
• Bryan-College Station Eagle columnist Robert Cessna liked what he saw from Texas A&M’s offense at their most recent scrimmage. TB Mike Goodson looked recovered from a tweaked groin muscle after scoring on an 80-yard screen pass from Stephen McGee.
• Baylor struggled through a turnover-fest at its most recent scrimmage, upsetting new coach Art Briles. “It (the turnovers) just makes you sick to your stomach,” Briles told the Waco Tribune-Herald. said. “I’m not sure if we were as mentally prepared as we needed to be … We’ve got to perform better, but I’d rather this happen now than on Aug. 28.”
• Colorado sophomore TB Demetrius Sumler has emerged as the Buffaloes’ likely starter against Colorado State in their season opener with heralded freshman Darrell Scott set for goal-line and short yardage duty.
• Scott and his uncle, Colorado WR/PR Josh Smith, still flashed some big-play potential at the Buffaloes’ most recent scrimmage. Scott contributed kickoff returns of 50 and 47 yards, while his uncle, Josh Smith, returned a punt 44 yards for a score and added a 62- yard kickoff return.
• Iowa State coach Gene Chizik has beefed up his secondary with the realization that every Big 12 North opponent will be playing a spread offense this season.
• Sign of the times? Lawrence Journal-World columnist Tom Keegan predicts that Kansas’ football team will be better than its defending national championship men’s basketball team.
• Check out the Kansas City Star’s video log of a recent Kansas practice to see how Coach Mark Mangino doesn’t like to be crowded during a media scrum. Ah, coach, that’s what happens when you start having a winning team.
• Kansas State coach Ron Prince doesn’t know what to think about his team’s top 25 ranking in Playboy Magazine — its only top 25 preseason ranking this season. “I’m not even going to try to say anything clever regarding that,” Prince told the Topeka Capital-Journal. There are six Big 12 teams ranked in the magazine’s preseason issue, or so I’ve been told. Oklahoma is No. 1, with Missouri fourth, Kansas 10th, Texas Tech 11th and Texas 13th among the top 25 heading into the 2008 campaign.
• No catchy nicknames yet for the package where Texas QB Colt McCoy and QB John Chiles both are in the lineup for the Longhorns. Coaches, for now, are referring to it as the “Q Package.”
• So much for all of the talk about open football practices at USC. Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido recently got booted from a Trojan workout at the L.A. Coliseum.
• Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne recently made a trip to the Omaha World-Herald offices to chat up members of the Fourth Estate. Osborne had an interesting comment to World-Herald columnist Tom Shatel. “There are some places where they have a Boone Pickens — they are always going to be OK,” Osborne said. “I think we’ll be in good shape, as long as that football stadium stays filled. If that goes south, it could be a problem.” Interesting comments from the leader of a school that had a near 100 percent renewal rate in season tickets.
• Andrew Hartsock of the Lawrence Journal-World analyzes Kansas’ options in replacing Brandon McAnderson at tailback. Heralded 2007 national junior-college rushing leader Jocques Crawford had an interesting take: “It puts a lot of pressure on me,” Crawford said. “You look at the status of the numbers he put up, how he helped the team, I’ve got big shoes to fill. But everyone’s replaceable.”
• Missouri coach Gary Pinkel was perturbed with his team’s performance after a sloppy, turnover-filled second scrimmage. I told our football team, ‘We’ve got to get better.’ It was sloppy in a lot of ways,” Pinkel told the Kansas City Star. And offensive coordinator Dave Christensen was even madder. “I can understand having some type of those errors with the twos, threes and fours, but it’s intolerable with the No. 1 offense,” Christensen told the Star.
• Natalie England of the San Antonio Express-News has an interesting retrospective of Mack Brown’s first 10 years coaching at Texas.
• The defensive effort by Missouri was a little brighter. The Tigers’ first-team defense held its opponents out of the end zone for the second-straight scrimmage. And All-Big 12 LB Sean Weatherspoon provided a pair of interceptions, including one to punctuate the scrimmage.
• The Kansas City Star serves up a passel of position ratings. Most interesting findings included Kansas State’s Josh Freeman ahead of Texas’ Colt McCoy at quarterback and Texas A&M’s Stephen McGee ranked 10th, behind Colorado’s Cody Hawkins and Nebraska’s Joe Ganz.
• Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News analyzes the preponderance of top quarterbacks in the Big 12.
• Oklahoma RB Chris Brown says he’s finally healthy after struggling with a right knee injury that requred microfracture surgery after the season.
• The Des Moines Register’s Andrew Logue suggests that Coach Gene Chizik play both Austen Arnaud and Phillip Bates in the Cyclones’ Aug. 28 opener against South Dakota State.
• Nebraska coach Bo Pelini went through a box of Sharpies as he pressed the flesh at the Cornhuskers’ annual Fan Day. Attendance was 8,125.
• Logan Dold and Keithen Valentine have emerged as Kansas State’s top two running backs for the Wildcats Aug. 30 opener against North Texas.
• Texas coach Mack Brown refuses to get in a war of words with Florida Atlantic coach Howard Schnellenberger, who reportedly called the Longhorns soft last week. “I haven’t called anybody out in 56 years,” he said. “And I’m not about to start now.” But give Schnellenberger credit for one thing. His team will be earning $900,000 for the Aug. 30 game – highest guarantee ever paid to a visiting non-conference opponent in Austin.

Read Original

Steffy to start for Terps, Portis to play … where’s Turner?

Posted by ESPN.com’s Heather Dinich

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Around 8 a.m. today, Maryland offensive coordinator James Franklin called a meeting among his quarterbacks and went through numerous statistics that backed Ralph Friedgen’s decision to name Jordan Steffy the starting quarterback.

Yards after catch. Completion percentage. Yards per catch. Interceptions. Percentage of drives scoring. Good practice, bad practices.

“It’s hard if one quarterback all through the spring and all through summer camp was statistically better in almost every single category, it’s hard to rationalize not making him the starter,” Franklin said. “Having all that documation to make sure — because your gut feeling is one thing and statistics are another — we’ve got to make sure we’re being credible with information we’re putting out. Jordan led by a pretty large amount in completion percentage, he led in the least interception percentage.”

Steffy wins in just about every category except one: 2-0 against top 10 teams. That one belongs to Chris Turner.

“What made it hard is that Chris played well in the games,” Friedgen said. “That’s his M O. But based on not only fall practice, but I even went back to spring practices, and (Steffy) was by far and away ahead in all the statistics.”

Friedgen knows there were will be a few fans who won’t be happy with this decision.

“I know I’m going to be second-guessed on it,” he said. “That’s people’s prerogative, but I would hope that they would get behind this kid and give him all the support they can like I am.”

Turner is No. 2 on the depth chart, even though Josh Portis at this point is the only other signal caller guaranteed to play.

“He will play,” Franklin said of Portis. “He will play. He’s one of the most freakish athletes I’ve ever been around at any level.”

(Like I said before, X factor).

The staff has rotated the quarterbacks equally for the past nine practices. They’re going to have to continue to share reps because odds are all three of them are going to wind up playing. Strong odds.

Here are the Saturday stats:

Turner: Started eight games last year, and completed 153-of-241 attempts (63.5 percent) for 1,958 yards, seven touchdowns and seven interceptions.

Steffy: Started five of 14 games in his career, completed 82-of-141 pass attempts (58.2 percent) for 818 yards, two touchdowns and six interceptions.

Steffy is not looking over his shoulder, though. The competition is over.

“Coach Franklin said it this morning, the competition is over with and we’re moving forward,” Steffy said. “That’s what he said we’re going with. … I’m not going out there playing worried or looking over my shoulder at all.”

I understand Friedgen’s logic here — Steffy is the better practice player, he’s been more consistent, and the staff has numbers out the wazoo to prove it. He wants to reward the guy who has been the best player and leader at practice.

“He played well in those games, but we lost some games, too, with him,” Friedgen said of Turner. “There’s a consistency there that has to work. I’m a believer that good practices make good games, too. Some guys can do that, some guys have a talent for that, and if you can do that, it’s obviously better to play well in a game than in practice, and if we did that every game, it wouldn’t be a concern. We didn’t do it every game. We did it in some big games, and we had some support there, too. If I did that for every position, what would we do?”

It’s a fair point, so now it’s up to Steffy to prove he’s the best option on Saturdays. Something Turner did last fall.

Read Original

All in the family for Louisville’s Bolen

Posted by ESPN.com’s Brian Bennett

	Andy Lyons/Getty Images
	Brock Bolen makes a run during Louisville’s game against utah on Oct. 5, 2007.

It sounds like a college student’s worst nightmare. The summer before your senior year, your parents decide to move in with you.

That’s what happened to Louisville running back Brock Bolen. His father, Jim, and mother, Gail, left their home in Springboro, Ohio, this May and started boarding with Brock. And Brock couldn’t be happier about it.

“It’s great,” he said. “It’s like living back at home with no worries. During camp, I don’t have to worry about mowing the grass, and if I need to eat my mom will cook me some food. After a tough day at football, it’s nice to get back to some family.”

The Bolens aren’t like most families. Their patriarch is a former Green Beret who once worked as a bounty hunter in Africa and later served as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s personal valet. Jim Bolen has been in more fistfights than he can remember, was busted by the feds on an international gun-running charge and got rich as a self-made businessman before losing most of his savings when the housing bubble burst.

No wonder, then, that his son turned out so tough. Brock Bolen is a 6-foot, 238-pound bulldog, a tailback/fullback hybrid in the mode of former Rutgers star and current St. Louis Rams running back Brian Leonard. Bolen is one of the most underrated and maybe most underutilized skill players in the Big East, averaging better than 5.5 yards per carry in his two seasons at Louisville.

He should have a bigger role this year as new Cardinals offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm looks to emphasize the power running game. In last year’s finale against Rutgers, Brohm — then the quarterbacks coach — and head coach Steve Kragthorpe took control of the play-calling from Charlie Stubbs, who was let go after the season. Bolen ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns that night, including a career-best 55-yard gain.

“He’s done a great job at tailback for us and a great job in pass protection and blocking as well,” Brohm said. “He’s definitely going to be one of our main guys in the backfield and a great leader for us.”

He’s certainly got a strong support system at home. Brock lives with his parents, his older sister, Stephanie, and his longtime girlfriend, Haley Smith, in a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in southwestern Louisville. The Bolens bought the house when Brock transferred to Louisville from Illinois in 2005.

Jim and Gail didn’t plan on living there with their son, but they had the misfortune of starting a housing development project just before the market went south. They were forced to sell their 8,400-square foot home outside of Dayton, Ohio, to pay creditors.

“Normally you’d talk about something like this and it’s a horror story,” Jim Bolen said. “But it’s been absolutely great because we’re a very close family. We have badminton tournaments here every night, we play cards and all kinds of games and we cook together. Brock’s really happy. Then again, it’s our house, so he has no choice.”

They came to Louisville to watch Brock play his final season, hoping he’ll make a Mike Alstott-like impact in the NFL. Meanwhile, Jim used his unexpected unemployment time to pen his memoir, titled “No Guts, No Glory: My Incredible Life as a Brawler, Soldier, Mercenary, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman and All-Around Nice Guy.”

Among his many stories in the book, the elder Bolen recounts his years as the leader of a top-secret reconnaissance team during the Vietnam War. On one mission, in November 1968, Bolen was attempting to tap a communications wire in Cambodia. But his helicopter dropped him right in the middle of enemy camp, drawing immediate fire.

The chopper took off, with Jim still attached to the rappelling rope. He was dragged through the jungle at 60 m.p.h., bouncing off trees and avoiding artillery shells while nervously watching his fraying rope. The helicopter flew over a U.S. encampment when the rope snapped, sending Jim hurtling through the canvas of an armored personnel carrier. The sleeping American soldiers, startled by someone dressed in all black that had just dropped into their vehicle from the sky, proceeded to beat him senseless.

And that’s one of his tamer tales. Bolen worked as a contract killer in the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and still carries around grizzly photos of the men he shot there. He escorted Flynt through parties at the Playboy mansion and accompanied best-selling author Harold Robbins along the French Riviera. He also spent time behind bars for his numerous bare-knuckle brawls and other misdeeds. In 1978, he was caught in an ATF sting after hatching a plot to run guns to Africa with an undercover agent. He received three years’ federal probation

“My wife has been after me for 15 years to write a book, and she thinks my life story would make a good movie,” said Jim Bolen, who expects the book to be ready for sale by the end of this month. “The main reason I wrote it is for my kids and my grandkids, so that they can remember some of my adventures. It would be nice if it generated some money, too.”

Brock knows his father’s life story, of course. But after reading the book, he said, “I hadn’t heard some of those stories before.”

It will be easy for him to catch up on the family history this fall. He just has to ask one of his roommates.

Read Original

ACC in the morning: Quarterbacks edition

Posted by ESPN.com’s Heather Dinich

Let’s start with the Terps, since the news of their latest quarterback, Jordan Steffy, had fans absolutely losing their minds on the message boards Monday.

Chris Turner wasn’t available to talk to the media on Monday, which is completely understandable considering his father said the family was “shell-shocked.” And no, that’s not some clever Terrapin marketing scheme that might suggest team unity.

The staff yesterday spoke about how it had all of the statistical data to name Steffy Maryland’s starter for this season, but if you’re looking for numbers to compare Steffy and Turner, check out this chart.

Regardless of the numbers, coach Ralph Friedgen wants to make sure he has credibility with his team for rewarding the best practice players.

While the competition is over in Maryland, NC State’s trio of quarterbacks have one more scrimmage — today — to impress Tom O’Brien. This is nothing new for Daniel Evans.

It is a somewhat unusual situation, though, for Miami, where no matter which quarterback Randy Shannon chooses, none of them will have taken a snap in a college game. So far, all indications are that Robert Marve is the frontrunner. No surprise there.

Florida State coach Bobby Bowden can’t remember the last time he had three quarterbacks take reps with the first team during a scrimmage — until Saturday, that is.

Not only does Drew Weatherford have Christian Ponder pushing him, but it’s now official: D’Vontrey Richardson is equally in the mix.

At North Carolina, it’s not about the quarterback anymore. It’s about T.J. Yates wanting to win the close games this season instead of watching them slip away. Caulton Tudor says this is the first season for Butch Davis to correct the program’s past mistakes.

Speaking of past mistakes … did first-year Virginia defensive coordinator Bob Pruett make a big one? Pruett is being accused of academic fraud and overpayment of players while head coach at Marshall.

Just what Al Groh needs right now … although it’s not like he doesn’t have any playmakers. And, Groh might find some help this season in wide receiver Cary Koch.

Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer needs all the help he can get at wide receiver after losing Zach Luckett.

Not that Clemson coach Tommy Bowden needs another running back this season, but highly touted freshman Jamie Harper was going to add to this year’s offense — before he put on a walking boot for his low ankle sprain. Will he be ready to go against Alabama?

Miami receiver Jermaine McKenzie is ready to stay healthy and play some football.

Like just about every other coach in the league, Jim Grobe is trying to add depth to his offensive line. And just like O’Brien, he stole a player from the defense to do it.

Read Original

Sunrise in the East: Injuries at Rutgers, Louisville

Posted by ESPN.com’s Brian Bennett

Here’s your morning rundown of what’s happening in the Big East:

* As camp winds down at Rutgers, the offensive line remains a question mark, Tom Luicci writes in The Star-Ledger. Starting left guard Kevin Haslam suffered a right ankle injury in Monday’s practice, and though the severity wasn’t immediately known, Haslam had to be helped off the field and was later seen on crutches. Haslam had surgery on the same ankle in April. At right guard, redshirt freshman Caleb Ruch has taken a tentative lead but still needs to show the coaching staff more in Wednesday’s scrimmage.

“Here’s the problem,” Luicci writes. “For now, walk-on Howard Barbieri is the backup at both guard spots, meaning a time-consuming injury to Haslam or less-than-stellar performance tomorrow by Ruch could throw the offensive line into a state of flux.

“That’s not a good thing for a unit that relies heavily on precision and timing — and now has 13 days before the opener to get its act together.”

* At Louisville, receiver Scott Long’s injury was diagnosed as a broken fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot, reports C.L. Brown in The Courier-Journal. Though school officials haven’t given a timetable for his return, Long will undergo surgery and almost surely will miss the opener against Kentucky and maybe more. The normal recovery time from a fifth metatarsal surgery is about four-to-six weeks, though athletes have come back more quickly from it.

* Meanwhile, Brown checks in with Louisville’s new defensive line coach Ken Delgado, who was hired away from Cal to fix a unit that saw its sacks total drop from 44 in 2006 to just 17 last year.

* At South Florida, the running back battle continues to get more interesting. Mike Ford was the team’s top tailback last year with 12 touchdowns, but he’s been running behind senior Ben Williams on the depth chart. The St. Petersburg Times’ Greg Auman notes that sophomore Richard Kelly, who has just one carry for one yard under his belt, has gotten into the mix as well.

“The running back position is still a very intense competition between four guys,” offensive coordinator Greg Gregory told Auman. “Kelly stood out in the scrimmage, and he stood out again (Monday) morning. Kelly has thrown himself right into the heat of the battle. He’s moved fast. He’s playing extremely well. Big body, hard to tackle. He’s pounding it. … We don’t know who No. 1 is yet.”

* Freshman Robert Sands is making his move toward possibly winning the starting free safety job at West Virginia, says Dave Hickman in the Charleston Gazette. Sands is unusually tall for a safety — he’s been listed at 6-foot-6 and is actually 6-foot-4 1/2. He’s battling redshirt freshman Eain Smith for the job and is coming on strong.

* Paul Zeise has a feature on Pitt receiver Oderick Turner in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Turner was the Panthers’ No. 1 wideout in the absence of Derek Kinder and is working hard to improve all facets of his game to keep that role. He had 36 catches last year, but expect that number to go up with the Pitt quarterback situation in much better shape than it was a year ago and Kinder back to occupy coverages.

* Brent Axe of the Syracuse Post-Standard has a video interview with Orange quarterback Andrew Robinson that gets better after the first question.

I’ll be stopping by Cincinnati practice later today.

Read Original

Big Ten Morning Briefing: Indiana’s Lewis addresses suspension

Posted by ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg

Game week is almost here, and coaches around the league have some big decisions to make. Your only decision is to keep reading.

• Rejus Benn could use a shave, particularly if he ends up on stage accepting an award or two in December. But the Illinois sophomore wideout isn’t concerned about his preseason hype, Bob Asmussen writes in The (Champaign, Ill.) News-Gazette. Sirod Williams’ season-ending knee injury put Illini defensive tackle Josh Brent in the mix to start, Mark Tupper writes.
  
• No one at Indiana has said much about the reasons behind quarterback Kellen Lewis’ spring suspension. But Lewis finally opened up Monday, saying he had thrown himself into “a party lifestyle,” skipping classes and team meetings, Terry Hutchens writes in The Indianapolis Star. Very candid stuff from the junior:
  

“There were times when they called me and couldn’t get a hold of me for three days. I had gone out and partied and then missed two classes and didn’t wake up until 12:30. … When you start believing in your own hype a little bit, you start thinking you can slide in a little bit later than everybody else. And now that you don’t have to follow the same rules, you can bend this rule or that one. ‘The essay is due on Thursday, but I can just e-mail it to [the instructor] later that night,’ that kind of thing. And then it all just kind of caught up with me and my grades slipped to a point they had never slipped to before.”

Also, some notes from Hoosiers practice, as wideouts Andrew Means and Brandon Walker-Roby returned to the field.

• Iowa’s linebacking corps has a youthful look after the losses of the Mikes (Humpal and Klinkenborg). Jacody Coleman leads the next generation of Hawkeyes linebackers, Ryan Suchomel writes in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Derrell Johnson-Koulianos’ name isn’t the only interesting thing about the sophomore wideout, Marc Morehouse writes in The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette.
  
• More details are emerging about Michigan running back Kevin Grady’s drunken driving arrest. According to police, the Wolverines junior was passed out at the wheel, The Grand Rapids Press reports. Michigan doesn’t have many definitive answers on its depth chart, but coach Rich Rodriguez isn’t lacking for options, Angelique Chengelis writes in The Detroit News. The healing process continues for Wolverines offensive lineman Elliott Mealer, who lost his father and girlfriend in a car accident last Christmas.
• Brandon Long was overshadowed by Michigan State teammate Jonal Saint-Dic last season. The defensive end knows his time is now, Chris Solari writes in the Lansing State Journal. Long and the other Spartans defensive linemen face an immediate test in Cal’s Jahvid Best, Eric Lacy writes in The Detroit News.
  
• Minnesota’s offensive line is young and banged-up, but guards Chris Bunders and D.J. Burris are back in the mix after injuries, Kent Youngblood writes in the Star Tribune.
  
• Northwestern broke camp in Kenosha, Wis., after a solid 10 days.
• Ohio State opened its doors to the public Monday night, and freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor didn’t disappoint, Tim May writes in The Columbus Dispatch. More on Pryor’s throwing motion and wideout Dane Sanzenbacher, the star of Ohio State’s camp, from The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Doug Lesmerises. Also, Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel weighs in on the debate about closing practices and scrimmages to the media and the public.
  
• Josh Hull has gone from walk-on to projected starter at Linebacker U., Ron Musselman writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The 50-yard Lion blog begins ranking Penn State’s opponents, from easiest to hardest.
  
• The prognosis doesn’t look good for Purdue running back Jaycen Taylor, who has his right knee evaluated today, Tom Kubat writes in The (Lafayette, Ind.) Journal and Courier. Boilers fifth-year senior safety Frank Duong has been rewarded with a scholarship, WNDU-TV reports.
  
• Wisconsin will name its starting quarterback Wednesday, with Allan Evridge the likely choice, Jim Polzin writes in The Capital Times. The team also could open the season without star linebacker Jonathan Casillas (ankle). Badgers cornerback Niles Brinkley, a possible starter, is inspired by the memory of his sister, who died earlier this month.
  

Read Original

Richt glad his QB son picked Clemson (AP)

This was one prospect Georgia coach Mark Richt turned away for all the right reasons. His son, Jon, was a rising quarterback prospect at Prince Avenue Christian School in Athens, Ga., who dreamed of starring for the Bulldogs. But armed with advice from his father, Jon selected Clemson, Georgia’s regional rival about an hour away.
Read Original

Steffy picked as Maryland’s starting QB (AP)

Jordan Steffy was picked to start at quarterback for Maryland in the season opener against Delaware by coach Ralph Friedgen on Monday. Steffy lost his starting job last season when he left the fifth game of the season, against Rutgers, with a concussion. Chris Turner took over, guided the Terrapins into the Emerald Bowl and entered summer practice as the favorite to beat out Steffy and Josh Portis.
Read Original

SMU QB Willis dropped to third string (AP)

If Justin Willis adds to his career lead in passing touchdowns at SMU, it probably won’t be as the starter in new coach June Jones’ run-and-shoot offense. The two-year starter and former Conference USA Freshman of the Year is listed at No. 3 on the depth chart after Jones on Monday narrowed the starting quarterback competition to a pair of freshmen: Bo Levi Mitchell and Braden Smith.
Read Original

Next Page »