Terrapins' Friedgen Makes Changes to Coaching Staff
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Friday, January 25, 2008; Page E02
Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen announced yesterday that he has hired assistant coaches Danny Pearman and Kasey Dunn and dismissed running backs coach Phil Zacharias.
Longtime assistant coach John Donovan was reassigned as running backs coach after spending the past two seasons coaching quarterbacks, duties that recently hired assistant head coach and offensive coordinator James Franklin will take on.
Friedgen was unavailable to comment.
Pearman takes over as special teams coordinator and tight ends coach, replacing Ray Rychleski, who left for a similar job at South Carolina. Pearman last coached tight ends and special teams at Duke under fired coach Ted Roof. He also coached at North Carolina and Virginia Tech, where he assisted Coach Frank Beamer with special teams. Maryland is Pearman's fourth ACC school in four years.
Dunn takes over for fired wide receivers coach Bryan Bossard. Dunn, who previously coached with Franklin at Washington State, most recently served as assistant head coach under fired Baylor coach Guy Morriss. Dunn also coached wide receivers and coordinated special teams.
-- Marc Carig
(c) 2008 The Washington Post Company
Football rankings
All my life I have been an Ohio State fan and the recent collapse won't change that. However I do have a big gripe with the powers to be when it comes to the final after bowl standings.
Georgia, Missouri and Ohio State were all ranked higher than the West Virginia Mountaineers, who absolutely made Oklahoma look like a junior college team by the score of 48 to 28. Their defense was terrific and 48 points speaks for itself offensively. They had the size, desire and speed to have given LSU all they had wanted. Last year they showed Georgia how they win.
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I don't disagree that LSU is the Mouth of the South, but come on guys, quit sitting on your empty heads and give credit where credit is due, and they did it without a head coach until after the game. My cousin who lives in St. Albans, W.Va., sent me an e-mail saying Ohio State boosters had suddenly grown by the entire population of the state in the annual OSU-Michigan game.
How can a player, graduate, assistant coach and then head coach of his alma mater leave what he had for all schools, Michigan? They hired the wrong coach. They should have hired Appalachian State's coach.
Roland H. Steer
Zanesville
Copyright (c)2008 Times Recorder
All rights reserved.
Fox hopes for college football fireworks
Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:55pm EST
By Steven Zeitchik
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - In the 10-year history of college football's Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system, no season has ever been marked by as much rankings disruption or controversy. And perhaps no college football season has ever mattered as much to a network.
Fox, which on New Year's Day will air the first of its four-game BCS package with the Sugar Bowl, is entering the second year of its bold plan to try to turn the college football postseason into a franchise as big as the NFL playoffs or March Madness.
Topsy-turviness ruled college football his year, as teams slid into, out of and back into contention. Low-profile entrants like Missouri and Kansas ruled the polls for much of the year, likely giving Fox Sports execs the cold sweats. In the end, a team with a national following, the Ohio State Buckeyes, ended up in the January 7 championship game in New Orleans against LSU, another school with a storied history and the first two-loss team in BCS history to play for the title.
The other BCS bowl games, which include smaller-market teams like West Virginia and Hawaii, may depend more on matchups than on built-in fan interest to attract viewers.
"The hard-core person is going to be watching these (BCS) games," said David Carter, founding director of USC's Sports Business Institute. "The question for Fox is: Will the casual fan tune in to the game?"
The entry of a two-loss team has also fueled the chattering classes of a sports nation, who say the current system should be scrapped for a playoff tournament.
It's impossible to draw a direct line between controversy and viewership; some say that all the discussion keeps college football in front of fans in a December light on games. "All the talk creates an awareness of the sport that I think will trickle down to the BCS," sports consultant Neal Pilson said.
Still, Fox is in the difficult position of peddling games played in a system most fans don't like. A Gallup Poll this year showed that a scant 15% of respondents preferred the BCS approach. "If you poll football fans, they overwhelmingly say they want (a playoff system)," Fox Sports chief Ed Goren said. "But we're thrilled with our relationship. We knew what we were signing on for."
Fox paid a reported $320 million for the rights to air four out of the five BCS games annually through 2010 (the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles stayed with ABC). The network essentially bet that even though the games lacked the definitiveness of a pro league's postseason -- and even though Fox owns no rights to regular-season college games -- it could still turn the BCS contests into major television events.
Last year's ratings indicated an early victory. The network garnered an impressive 29 million viewers and a 10.6 rating among adults 18-49 for the championship game between Ohio State and Florida.
Fox was confident enough in the title game's appeal that it upped the ad rates this year by about 18%; it now costs nearly $1 million for a 30-second spot. The network says it has sold out its inventory on all four of its BCS games.
Fox Sports also faces some nonfootball complexities in the 2008 BCS season. With the Hollywood writers strike playing havoc with primetime schedules, the network will lose a key advantage -- the ability to promote one of its flagship shows.
The BCS package was seen by many TV insiders as a way to promote Fox's traditionally muscular midseason lineup, which last year included "American Idol," "24" and the heavily hyped "Drive." This year, the network will use the games to promo "Idol,' "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and "Prison Break" but of course won't be able to include "24," which was KO'd by the strike.
Still, Goren said that "one of the things we've been fortunate with at Fox is that we have more original programming launching in January than anyone else." Fox executives also say that close games can come from out of nowhere, giving juice to contests that on paper might not be as intriguing, like the Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl matchup did last year.
Experts note that growing parity in college football is indeed the biggest challenge for any network airing bowl games, but they add that there's little any network can do about it.
"In terms of national appeal, you're more dependent on the quality of the game if you don't have the high-profile teams," Pilson said. "You'd like to have USC and Notre Dame every year. But that's not the way the world works."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
(c) Reuters 2007 All rights reserved
Mark Farley honored with 2007 Eddie Robinson Award
Northern Iowa coach honored as most outstanding FCS college football head coach
Chattanooga, TN (Sports Network) - Northern Iowa head coach Mark Farley was named the 21st winner of the Eddie Robinson Award at the Sports Network FCS Awards Dinner, held on the eve of the NCAA Division I Football Championship. The Robinson Award, named for the legendary Grambling head coach, is presented annually to the top head coach in FCS.
"I'd like to thank my coaching staff and players because this is so much more of a team award and team recognition," said Farley. "It is a tremendous honor especially when you consider all the other coaches out there in the nation that are up for this award. It's really humbling."
The Panthers were 11-0 in the regular season and held the No. 1 ranking in the Sports Network Top 25 poll for six weeks. UNI was ranked ninth in the preseason, and steadily rose before taking the top spot in the poll on Oct. 15.
The Panthers grabbed attention in the second week of the season when they dominated an FBS opponent, Iowa State, by a 24-13 count on the way to a 4-0 non-conference start. Northern Iowa completed a 7-0 record in the Gateway Conference, finishing perfect in the regular season for the first time since 1960.
Along the way, UNI was forced to survive a pair of tough challenges in Gateway play, holding off Southern Illinois, 30-24, on Oct. 13, and coming from 13 points down in the fourth quarter to defeat Youngstown State, 14-13, two weeks later.
The Panthers were seeded No. 1 in the NCAA Division I Football Championships and defeated New Hampshire, 38-35, with a comeback in the final seconds before falling to Delaware, 39-27, in the quarterfinals.
Farley was a walk-on inside linebacker at Northern Iowa and eventually became a team captain and All-American during a playing career that lasted from 1983-86. He worked as a graduate assistant and assistant coach for the Panthers under former UNI head coaches Darrell Mudra, Earle Bruce and Terry Allen. After serving on Allen's staff at Kansas from 1997-2000, Farley returned as the Panthers' head coach in 2001.
In seven seasons as the head coach, Farley has compiled a 63-25 record and led the Panthers to two outright conference titles and a share of two others. His 2005 team tied for the league crown and advanced to the national championship game before losing to Appalachian State, 21-16. Farley placed third in the 2001 Robinson Award balloting, 10th in 2003, and 15th in 2005.
Farley is the second Gateway Conference coach to win the Robinson Award, joining Southern Illinois coach Jerry Kill, who claimed the honor in 2004. Farley's honor was just the fourth major award for a Gateway coach or player. Western Illinois linebackers James Milton (1998) and Edgerton Hartwell (2000) previously won the Buck Buchanan Award as the top defensive players in FCS.
Farley received 39 first-place votes and 310 points out of 120 ballots cast by a panel of sports information directors and selected media who regularly cover FCS games. Al Lavan of Delaware State finished second in what was the largest margin ever (97 points) between a first- and second-place finisher.
The Eddie Robinson Award was established in 1987 by The Sports Network.
(c)2007 The Sports Network. All Rights Reserved.
Parity in college football
December 8, 2007, 11:30 p.m.
One year of parity is no trend
By Bill Peterson
Football Review of Texas Editor
Four years ago, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) computers offended college football's glamour pimps by leaving Southern California out of the national championship game. The BCS responded disastrously.
Because USC fell short in 2003 due to its relatively weak schedule, the BCS took its usual blunt instrument approach and just stripped the strength of schedule component from future calculations. College football pundits approved tying fate more closely to the whims of voters, but they also expected the regular season to pay a heavy price.
By and large, the pundits were right. Lacking incentive to play one or two tough non-conference games, most football powers eased up on their schedules, all but killing the national title race. Ohio State and Texas were the major exceptions, playing each other in consecutive years, ruining the loser and starting the winner towards the national title game. Otherwise, 2004-2006 played out as three of the dullest college football seasons in memory.
In 2004, Southern California and Oklahoma rated first and second in the second BCS ranking of the season. On Oct. 30, when the third ranking came out, Auburn moved up to No. 3. For the season’s remainder, that's how they stayed. USC beat Oklahoma, 55-19, in the Orange Bowl, while Auburn finished the season unbeaten and with no chance to play for the national championship.
In 2005, the first BCS rankings came out with USC No. 1 and Texas No. 2. Everyone with a drunk's wit knew they would play each other for the national title and the season droned on without suspense for another ten weeks until the Rose Bowl, when Texas beat USC for the national title, 41-38, coronating Vince Young as a national treasure for the next few months.
In 2006, Ohio State came up No. 1 in the first BCS rankings, Michigan climbed into No. 2 a week later, and they both ticked through the Big Ten like clockwork until they met for the Buckeyes' thrilling 42-39 win in Columbus. Michigan fell from No. 2, replaced for a week by USC before Florida sneaked in at the end. Florida then crushed Ohio State, 41-14, for the national title.
For three consecutive seasons, the team on top of the first BCS ranking stayed there through the final issue that decides who will play for the national title. Three entire seasons elicited barely a yawn between them. In any other sport, comparable monotony is poison if not for playoffs. Only college football can survive such drudgery and the lack of a playoff system, thanks to the most and the strongest annual rivalries in all of sports.
Why is this year different?
Or is it really so different in the end?
The college football season transpired so chaotically that it circled all the way back to form, settling into Ohio State and Louisiana State for the national championship on Jan. 7. Hardly a big surprise. LSU began the season ranked No. 2 by the Associated Press. Ohio State started out only 11th, but climbed the rankings as it slugged Youngstown State, Akron and Washington before winning all its Big Ten games through October.
Four times this season, the No. 1 team lost, six times the No. 2 team lost and both lost three times in the last two months, including each of the last two weeks. Yet, the outcome isn't much different from the first BCS ranking on Oct. 14, which showed Ohio State No. 1 and LSU No. 4, though No. 2 by the computers.
After all the upsets, we still have the game that seemed most likely on Oct. 14, unless you thought Boston College and South Florida were for real. After the cameo appearances among the top three by South Florida, Boston College, Oregon, Kansas, and Missouri, we still get the likely national championship game.
It's not as likely as the title games from the last three years, but it's Ohio State, master of the Big Ten, against the Southeastern Conference champion, which happens to be LSU. We get Ohio State, on top of the BCS in five of eight issues, against LSU, which led two issues and came up second in two others.
Nobody with a right mind would put down the 2007 college football season, which gave us more twists, turns and surprises than history has ever seen. We knew a strange storm brewed when Appalachian State won at Michigan on the first Saturday of September. In no other season has college football won so many converts from the NFL's following.
But the drama of one season doesn’t necessarily predict a compelling future for college football. Even if we've just witnessed, by far, the best regular season of any major spectator sport in the 21st century, it might just be a freak occurrence. One breath after considering that we’ve never seen a season like it, we wonder if we’ll ever see its like again. Because, in the end, it's nothing shocking.
Has college football achieved lasting parity? Has it even reached parity this year? And how would college football fans react to a national championship game between Kansas and South Florida? Maybe we should be relieved. Here’s your final BCS top five: Ohio State, LSU, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Georgia. Sound familiar?
Admittedly, that question leaves a lot out. But so does all the dreaming about parity on college football. It’s true that Kansas came from absolutely nowhere this year to finish No. 8 in the BCS, and that Missouri, Boston College, South Florida and Oregon came from close to nowhere to contend for a few days. It’s equally true that Texas, Michigan, Louisville and California fell much further than anyone expected.
But one year does not make a trend. It makes a beautiful sight, it raises hopes that top recruits will spread themselves around, and it even goes some way towards vindicating college football’s bizarre championship system, for those who need it.
However, there’s nothing in the structure of college football to guarantee that the national picture will ever again approach this year’s excitement. Four years after the BCS restricted itself to two polls and an aggregate computer score, we’ve enjoyed one terrific season and endured three complete duds.
In the end, this college football season has taken us just about where we expected to wind up. Unlike past seasons, and, perhaps, future seasons, getting there has been more than half the fun. Great ride. Hope to take it again some time. Just don't count on it.
Copyright 2007, The Texas Review of Football
Oregon Tops Unbeaten Arizona State: College Football (Update2)
By Bob Bensch
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Dennis Dixon threw four touchdown passes as the University of Oregon defeated Arizona State 35-23 to hand the Sun Devils their first loss of the season.
Jonathan Stewart ran for a score and caught a touchdown pass for the Ducks (8-1, 5-1 Pacific-10 Conference), who are ranked fifth in the Bowl Championship Series, which determines the two participants in college football's national championship game.
Rudy Carpenter threw for 379 yards with two touchdowns and an interception for fourth-ranked Arizona State (8-1, 5-1), which came into the game as one of five undefeated teams in major college football.
Jaison Williams had six catches for 106 yards with his two touchdown receptions coming in the first 16:23 as the Ducks took a 21-3 lead at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon.
The Sun Devils scored 13 straight points on a 26-yard scoring pass from Carpenter to Michael Jones and two field goals by Thomas Weber to get within 21-16, before Stewart ran for a 33-yard score and Drew Davis caught a 19-yard touchdown from Dixon to put Oregon up 35-16 with a second left in the third quarter.
Dixon completed 13 of 22 passes for 189 yards and rushed 11 times for 57 yards before leaving early in the fourth quarter after being hurt while running the ball. Oregon's defense sacked Carpenter eight times.
LSU Rallies
In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, third-ranked Louisiana State scored two touchdowns in the final 2:49 to rally for a 41-34 victory over No. 17 Alabama.
Matt Flynn threw a 32-yard scoring pass to Early Doucet to tie the score 34-34 at Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Tigers (8-1, 5- 1 Southeastern Conference) then forced a fumble by Crimson Tide quarterback John Parker Wilson that LSU recovered at the Alabama 4. Jacob Hester ran in from the 1 two plays later to put Louisiana State up for good.
Flynn threw for 353 yards with three touchdowns -- two to Doucet -- and three interceptions and Hester ran for two scores, while Wilson had 234 yards passing with three scores -- two to Keith Brown -- and an interception for the Crimson Tide (6-3, 4- 2).
Many of the LSU players were recruited by first-year Alabama coach Nick Saban, who was the Tigers' coach from 2000-04.
Still Undefeated
No. 1 Ohio State and No. 8 Kansas remained unbeaten earlier today.
In Columbus, Ohio, Chris Wells ran for 169 yards and three touchdowns as Ohio State beat No. 21 Wisconsin 38-17 for its 20th straight Big Ten Conference victory.
Todd Boeckman threw two touchdowns passes to Brian Robiskie for the Buckeyes (10-0, 6-0), who broke the conference mark for consecutive Big 10 wins set by Michigan from 1990-92. Wisconsin is 7-3, 3-3.
In Lawrence, Kansas, Todd Reesing threw a school-record six touchdown passes as Kansas routed Nebraska 76-39. Reesing completed 30 of 41 passes for 354 yards as the Jayhawks (9-0, 5- 0 Big 12) scored on 10 straight possessions.
Brandon McAnderson ran for 119 yards and tied a school- record with four rushing touchdowns as Kansas handed Nebraska (4-6, 1-5) its fifth straight loss.
In other games featuring teams in the BCS top-25, it was No. 9 Missouri 55, Colorado 10; No. 10 Georgia 44, Troy 34; No. 12 Michigan 28, Michigan State 24; No. 13 Connecticut 38, Rutgers 19; No. 15 Texas 38, Oklahoma State 35; No. 16 Auburn 35, Tennessee Tech 3; Cincinnati 38, No. 18 South Florida 33; No. 20 Florida 49, Vanderbilt 22; No. 22 Boise State 42, San Jose State 7; No. 23 Virginia 17, No. 24 Wake Forest 16; and No. 25 Clemson 47, Duke 10.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Bensch in Trenton, New Jersey at bbensch@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 4, 2007 00:04 EDT
(c)2007 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Playoff ranks above BCS for college football
Erik Boland
October 28, 2007
STATE COLLEGE, Pa.
The BCS computers probably wouldn't like the New England Patriots.
Among the arguments against college football determining its champion the way every other sport does is that robust debate is part of the fun, the season-long excitement of the sport.
OK ...
So let's envision the Patriots, 16-0 but playing out of this year's lousy AFC East, finishing decimal points behind Dallas and Indianapolis in the SBD (Super Bowl Determinants) standings. Never mind the Patriots beat both during the regular season and finished first in the media and coaches' polls. The numbers are the numbers and, doggone it, the computer compendium liked the Colts and Cowboys a bit better.
Then, announcing those results, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell smugly says, "Yes, but debate among fans is part of the landscape, the fun of professional football."
Satisfied?
Yet that nonsense comes out of the mouths of too many college administrators and still too many college football pundits - though that number continues to dwindle - when railing against a playoff system.
Admittedly, the BCS defenders only occasionally go that direction, instead always relying on what they consider an unassailable argument that goes this way: "This system assures the integrity of the regular season. Every week counts."
And so we ask Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy for a few words, courtesy of his YouTube Rant Heard 'Round the 'Net: "That's not true!"
Untrue because that argument is actually the weakest favoring the BCS, not the strongest. Because what the BCS system assures, as the season goes along, are devalued rather than more important games.
Take last night's game here between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 25 Penn State, played in an electric atmosphere in prime time. Ohio State's stakes - win out and play in the January title game in New Orleans - were obvious. Penn State's? Beating the No. 1 team in front of a rabid home crowd.
Nothing wrong with that, but the reality is Ohio State had more to gain - and lose - than Penn State did.
So how about these stakes?
Ohio State trying to stay unbeaten while two-loss Penn State attempts to run the table and squeeze into an eight or 16-team playoff. That scenario certainly would have made last week's Rutgers-South Florida game a bit more interesting. Two-loss Rutgers suddenly could have gotten more out of the Thursday night upset of the then-ranked No. 2 team than a recruiting boost. It also would have made yesterday's meltdown against No. 7 West Virginia that much more devastating.
As it is, the hope for two and three-loss teams is a berth in the Irrelevant.com Bowl in late December or one of the Jan. 1 bowls that lost their cache almost a decade ago. There's little to play for other than the satisfaction of knocking an undefeated or one-loss team out of national title contention. That, and securing a bowl invite that only their fans care about.
We keep hearing about college football's grand bowl tradition, yet that nearly 100-year-old tradition was essentially wiped out with debut of the BCS in 1998. In attempting to match the two "best" teams through the use of polls and mathematicians, the unintended consequence was making every bowl but the designated BCS title game a "Who Cares" event for everyone except the participating schools and hardcore fans.
Last year's Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl game was deemed an instant classic, though a game that actually meant little except a big BCS payoff for the respective school's coffers ranking as a classic rings hollow. Five years from now Oklahomans will remember only that the Sooners lost to some upstart from a conference they've never heard of - and likely hadn't heard from since - while folks in Boise will recall the night fondly. And they'll be the only ones.
Now, imagine how the game - ending in the see-saw way it did with a two-point overtime conversion from Ian Johnson and subsequent marriage proposal to a cheerleader - might be remembered if "National Quarterfinal" had been slapped on it instead of Tostitos.
Come to think of it, Tostitos National Quarterfinal would have been fine, too.
Copyright (c) 2007, Newsday Inc.
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