sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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SU
Sean Hickey Named to All-ACC Preseason Team (PS; Bailey)
Only Orangeman So Honored...
...
Here's a look at the full preseason team (votes):
Offense:
QB: Jameis Winston, Florida State (97)
RB: Duke Johnson, Miami (95)
RB: Karlos Williams, Florida State (37)
WR: Jamison Crowder, Duke (68)
WR: Rashad Greene, Florida State (56)
WR: DeVante Parker, Louisville (32)
OT: Cameron Erving, Florida State (82)
OT: Sean Hickey, Syracuse (26)
OG: Tre' Jackson, Florida State (82)
OG: Laken Tomlinson, Duke (52)
C: Andy Gallik, Boston College (39)
Defense:
DE: Vic Beasley, Clemson (96)
DE: Mario Edwards Jr., Florida State (66)
DT: Luther Maddy, Virginia Tech (74)
DT: Grady Jarrett, Clemson (61)
LB: Denzel Perryman, Miami (82)
LB: Kelby Brown, Duke (74)
LB: Stephone Anthony, Clemson (55)
CB: Kendall Fuller, Virginia Tech (80)
CB: P.J. Williams, Florida State (60)
S: Anthony Harris, Virginia (80)
S: Jeremy Cash, Duke (56)
Specialists:
PK: Roberto Aguayo, Florida State (79)
P: A.J. Hughes, Virginia Tech (29)
SP: Ryan Switzer, North Carolina (68)
...
Franklin Regional Grad Named Preason All-ACC (sportstown.post-gazette.com; Everett)
No Pitt player was named to the Preseason All-ACC team, but a former WPIAL player was.
Syracuse senior offensive tackle Sean Hickey, a Franklin Regional graduate, was selected to the team announced this morning. Hickey was the only Syracuse player picked.
Hickey (6-foot-5, 300 pounds) is arguably Syracuse's best player. He has said that he seriously considered declaring for the 2014 NFL Draft, but eventually elected not to. He could be a first- or second-round pick next year.
...
Terrel Hunt Inspired by Manning Passing Academy (houmatoday.com; Singleton)
Sitting near the back of Nicholls State University's Century Room inside John L. Guidry Stadium in Thibodaux, Syracuse quarterback Terrel Hunt didn't get a lot of attention during the annual Manning Passing Academy press conference on July 11.
While most of the national and local media crowded around big-name pro and college quarterbacks such as Peyton and Eli Manning, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, the area around Hunt's seat in the press conference room was noticeably empty.
But Hunt said it wasn't a problem for him. He just sat there and soaked up every moment of being in a room with some of the biggest names in football.
"It's been a really good experience," Hunt said. "You're surrounded by greatness. You've got the top quarterbacks here. You like the competition. You can see who you are up against. You get to meet all the quarterbacks you don't get to see during the year, so it's a great experience."
...
Rob Long
SU Football Will Hold Its Second Lift for Life Event Friday to Fight Brain Cancer Rob Long Beat (PS; Mink)
Syracuse will hold its second Lift for Life event on Friday, continuing its fundraising efforts to combat Anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare type of brain cancer that former punter Rob Long beat.
The event is private and will take place as part of summer workouts.
Formed in 2013 by long snappers Eric Morris and Sam Rodgers, the Syracuse chapter of Uplifting Athletes raised close to $8,000 last year and want to raise an additional $15,000 this year. You can help by donating via the team fundraising page.
...
How to Follow SU Players and Coaches Using Twitter (PS; Bailey)
With training camp right around the corner, syracuse.com compiled the Twitter accounts for Orange players and coaches active on social media.
Some accounts are protected, meaning if you want to follow the person, they will have to accept your request.
We'll do our best to keep this updated through the season. Please let us know if we're missing anyone in the comments section.
2014 Syracuse football player Twitter handles
#Player NamePOSClassTwitter Handle
1Ashton BroyldWRJunior@abroyld
1 Julian WhighamCBJunior@JulianWhigham
2Quinta FunderburkWRRS Junior@MoneyMakin_Funk
2 Wayne MorganCBJunior@LightsOutMorgan
...
Recruiting
Prep Football Stars Commit to ACC Schools (Tyler Cross; neighbornewspapers.com; Pourtout)
Two Douglas County prep football stars who are entering their senior seasons have committed to attend programs in the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in the fall of 2015.
Alexander High School running back Mikell Lands-Davis has verbally committed to play collegiate football at Georgia Tech.
...
...
Chapel Hill High School defensive lineman Tyler Cross has verbally committed to attend Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. The 6-foot, 2-inch prospect helped lead the Panthers to a postseason appearance in 2013.
“The deciding factors committing to Syracuse were the support of the fans and the personal relationships everyone has in the program because it’s a family,” said Cross.
With Chapel Hill, Cross lines up at defensive end but plans are already forming for him to transition into a defensive tackle upon entering Syracuse. He will pursue a degree in business.
...
PSU Commit Says NJ Recruits Not Going to Rutgers Because 'We're Just Doing What'll Benefit Us Later in Life' (collegespun.com; DiFilippo)
New Penn State head football coach James Franklin has made it a point to recruit the state of New Jersey heavily. This has shown in his success in getting recruits from the state to come to Happy Valley, as five of the top 10 recruits in the state have committed to Penn State, per 247 Sports. The other five recruits in the 247 top 10 are committed to Alabama, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Syracuse. In fact, the highest ranked Rutgers commitment from New Jersey is the No. 20 player in the state.
It’s peculiar that none of the top recruits in the state have committed to Rutgers, the largest school in the state and the state’s only FBS school, but Nittany Lion commit and New Jersey native Juwan Johnson has a theory as to why recruits are going elsewhere.
Chris Adamski @C_AdamskiTrib
Follow
PSU WR recruit Juwan Johnson:"Everyone here expects us Jersey kids to go to Rutgers. But we’re just doin...what'll benefit us later in life"
4:46 PM - 23 Jul 2014
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College
No Bones in Recent Years for Vol Mascot Smokey The Dog
2014 College Football Preview/Haiku Fest: Nos. 41-45 (Time for Tennessee to Return to the Post Season; PS; Stevens)
45. TENNESSEE
Tennessee has reached sleeping giant status now, enduring four consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1903-06. It has never dealt with five sub-.500 seasons in a row. And while the Volunteers should be better, they could also find themselves making some miserable history in Knoxville this fall if it can't handle a loaded schedule.
It's not exactly hard to explain what went wrong. The Phil Fulmer train stopped delivering regular 10-win seasons and fans got restless. Tennessee, long a destination job, hired a short-timer who caused headaches with his constant jabbering (Lane Kiffin) and then just made a bad hire in Derek Dooley.
Enter Butch Jones last season, an upbeat guy with a longer track record as a head coach than Kiffin and Dooley put together when they came to the Volunteers. Jones already owns a victory over a ranked team, which is more than Dooley could say in three years, but Tennessee still went 5-7 for the third consecutive year.
The question here isn't why Tennessee might toss up the occasional losing record. Rather, how have the Volunteers found themselves stuck in neutral for so long, losing at least six games every season since 2008?
Living in the same neighborhood as Florida, Georgia and career-long Volunteer antagonist Steve Spurrier isn't a breeze, and the insistence upon maintaining the traditional annual series with Alabama doesn't help matters a bit. But there's simply too many advantages in place for Tennessee to keep finding itself home for the holidays. That shouldn't happen this year, but it might be another season before the Vols make a real push in the SEC West. Look for six or seven wins from Tennessee.
Tennessee in haiku:
Sooners, Dawgs and Tide
All by end of October
Vols' schedule a brute
...
Navy QB Keenan Reynolds Rushed for 31 TDs Last Season as a Sophomore
2014 College Football Preview/Haiku Fest: Nos. 46-50 (Navy Should Maintain Service Academy Dominance; PS. Stevens)
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49. NAVY
It's a historic season for Navy, which will relinquish independence after more than a century and join the American as a football-only member in 2015. For now, though, the pieces are in place to make this a memorable year for an entirely different reason.
The Midshipmen have perhaps the best quarterback of their current triple-option era in Keenan Reynolds, and that's saying something given the success of Ricky Dobbs' tenure as Navy's primary starter in 2009 and 2010. Reynolds rushed for 31 touchdowns and threw for eight more last year, and now enters the second half of his career as an established maestro in the Mids' offense.
Navy plays only four games outside the state of Maryland, and none of its road trips take it to an opponent that reached a bowl game last season. The two most daunting games (Ohio State and Notre Dame) will be played at NFL stadiums with 30 miles of Annapolis, and the annual meeting with Army is in Baltimore this year.
In a related note, the Mids' record for victories in a season is 10, set on three occasions. As narrow as Navy's margin for error can often be, an 11-2 season including a bowl game is not a far-fetched possibility.
It goes beyond Reynolds. The offensive line is experienced. So is the secondary. The Mids' top three fullbacks return. Punter Pablo Beltran and kicker Nick Sloan are reliable. It's a smart, well-coached team with few holes, and it would be a disappointment if this bunch doesn't at least match last year's 9-4 mark.
Navy in haiku:
Big gap with Army
A decade of dominance
Plus two and growing
...
High Expectations for Villanova, QB Robertson (philly.com; Narducci)
It's been quite a preseason for Villanova junior quarterback John Robertson, and practice hasn't even started.
Earlier this month, Robertson was among 20 players named to the watch list for the Walter Payton Award, given to the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Robertson also has been named a third-team FCS all-American by the Sports Network.
The honors continued Wednesday, when Robertson was named the Colonial Athletic Association's preseason offensive player of the year.
...
Central Michigan Excited for 'Very Difficult Schedule' and Home Game Against Syracuse (mlive.com; Butzin)
Central Michigan football has struggled out of the gate in the Dan Enos era.
In the last four seasons, the Chippewas have lost at least three of their first five games each year, and it's going to be difficult to end that streak in 2014.
CMU opens the season at home against FCS Chattanooga before embarking on three straight games against schools from "Big Six" conferences.
The Chippewas hit the road for a Big Ten matchup against the Purdue Boilermakers before hosting Syracuse for an exciting game in Week 3. CMU then closes out its non-conference schedule on the road against the Kansas Jayhawks.
...
ACC Settles Into Era of Stability (indianagazette.com; AP)
Welcome to the new Atlantic Coast Conference.
It’s where a founding member is out, a fast-rising program is in, Notre Dame is there, too — sort of — and nobody else is leaving.
Where a one-time punch line of a conference now boasts the Heisman Trophy winner, the reigning national champion and a handful of other individual award winners.
And where stability finally has arrived — with its status as a power conference secure entering the College Football Playoff era — leaving its members optimistic about its future.
“I think everybody is where they want to be,” Commissioner John Swofford said. “That’s real important.”
So, here comes ambitious Louisville into its fourth conference since 2004. There goes Maryland, off to the Big Ten.
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Former Players
Jim Brown Sues to Reclaim Stolen NFL Championship Ring (PS; AP)
Hall of Fame football star Jim Brown is running out of time to retrieve his 1964 NFL championship ring and has sued a memorabilia dealer in New York.
Brown has said the ring being auctioned online was stolen from him.
The 78-year-old Los Angeles resident filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan federal court against Lelands.com and Lelands Collectibles Inc.
The lawsuit seeks to halt the sale of the ring in an online auction that ends Friday. It also seeks unspecified damages over broadcast remarks that Lelands' founder, Joshua Evans, made about Brown.
Evans said Wednesday that Brown's claims "are entirely without merit and we intend to vigorously defend against them."
...
Jameel McClain Returns to Practice After Suffering Knee Injury Tuesday (PS; Bailey)
Former Syracuse linebacker Jameel McClain returned to practice for the New York Giants on Wednesday after suffering a knee injury on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
McClain had X-rays taken Monday night that came back negative. He's not expected to miss any more time as he fills in for injured middle linebacker Jon Beason.
Basically, Tom Coughlin and Perry Fewell can breathe a major sigh of relief. Though McClain has had injury issues in the past, the Giants are counting on him to be the bridge that gets them to the regular season.
Coughlin was hopeful that was the case during practice today.
"He thought it was a shoe issue, an irritation in his foot, but it was over one of the metatarsals, so (the medical staff) brought him in to look at that," Coughlin said. "He is the one guy right now that other than heat (related absences), that it will be interesting to see what the discussion is inside."
...
Macky MacPherson Looks to Make Most of NFL Shot (cnycentral.com; Tamurian)
Doug Marrone saw something in Macky MacPherson in the Spring of 2008 when he offered the Christian Brothers Academy junior a full scholarship to play football at Syracuse University.
At the time, it was possible that some Orange fans saw this as a tribute to Macky's grandfather, the legendary Orange coach Dick MacPherson.
As soon as he stepped on the field, we realized the offer was legit, Macky would be a huge part of Syracuse's future. He started at long-snapper as a freshman and filled out his final three seasons as the team's starting center.
Now, Doug Marrone is giving MacPherson another shot to prove himself.
...
David Tyree's Hiring with Giants Draws Protests From Gay Rights Group (PS; Carlson)
The hiring of David Tyree, a hero in Super Bowl XLII with the Giants and the organization's director of player development as of Tuesday, has drawn criticism from gay rights organizations and others in the 48 hours since his hiring.
Tyree said in 2011 that he would give up his Super Bowl ring to stop gay marriage and that he knows "former homosexuals," statements that drew the ire of both the Human Rights Campaign and media across the country after his hiring.
The Human Rights Campaign promotes itself as America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.
Tyree's hiring comes at a sensitive time for the NFL, with St. Louis Rams defensive end Michael Sam is attempting to become the first openly gay player in league history, an effort that generated controversy of its own on Monday when former coach Tony Dungy said he wouldn't want to deal with the distractions Sam will bring.
...
Sean Hickey Named to All-ACC Preseason Team (PS; Bailey)
Only Orangeman So Honored...
...
Here's a look at the full preseason team (votes):
Offense:
QB: Jameis Winston, Florida State (97)
RB: Duke Johnson, Miami (95)
RB: Karlos Williams, Florida State (37)
WR: Jamison Crowder, Duke (68)
WR: Rashad Greene, Florida State (56)
WR: DeVante Parker, Louisville (32)
OT: Cameron Erving, Florida State (82)
OT: Sean Hickey, Syracuse (26)
OG: Tre' Jackson, Florida State (82)
OG: Laken Tomlinson, Duke (52)
C: Andy Gallik, Boston College (39)
Defense:
DE: Vic Beasley, Clemson (96)
DE: Mario Edwards Jr., Florida State (66)
DT: Luther Maddy, Virginia Tech (74)
DT: Grady Jarrett, Clemson (61)
LB: Denzel Perryman, Miami (82)
LB: Kelby Brown, Duke (74)
LB: Stephone Anthony, Clemson (55)
CB: Kendall Fuller, Virginia Tech (80)
CB: P.J. Williams, Florida State (60)
S: Anthony Harris, Virginia (80)
S: Jeremy Cash, Duke (56)
Specialists:
PK: Roberto Aguayo, Florida State (79)
P: A.J. Hughes, Virginia Tech (29)
SP: Ryan Switzer, North Carolina (68)
...
Franklin Regional Grad Named Preason All-ACC (sportstown.post-gazette.com; Everett)
No Pitt player was named to the Preseason All-ACC team, but a former WPIAL player was.
Syracuse senior offensive tackle Sean Hickey, a Franklin Regional graduate, was selected to the team announced this morning. Hickey was the only Syracuse player picked.
Hickey (6-foot-5, 300 pounds) is arguably Syracuse's best player. He has said that he seriously considered declaring for the 2014 NFL Draft, but eventually elected not to. He could be a first- or second-round pick next year.
...
Terrel Hunt Inspired by Manning Passing Academy (houmatoday.com; Singleton)
Sitting near the back of Nicholls State University's Century Room inside John L. Guidry Stadium in Thibodaux, Syracuse quarterback Terrel Hunt didn't get a lot of attention during the annual Manning Passing Academy press conference on July 11.
While most of the national and local media crowded around big-name pro and college quarterbacks such as Peyton and Eli Manning, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, the area around Hunt's seat in the press conference room was noticeably empty.
But Hunt said it wasn't a problem for him. He just sat there and soaked up every moment of being in a room with some of the biggest names in football.
"It's been a really good experience," Hunt said. "You're surrounded by greatness. You've got the top quarterbacks here. You like the competition. You can see who you are up against. You get to meet all the quarterbacks you don't get to see during the year, so it's a great experience."
...
Rob Long
SU Football Will Hold Its Second Lift for Life Event Friday to Fight Brain Cancer Rob Long Beat (PS; Mink)
Syracuse will hold its second Lift for Life event on Friday, continuing its fundraising efforts to combat Anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare type of brain cancer that former punter Rob Long beat.
The event is private and will take place as part of summer workouts.
Formed in 2013 by long snappers Eric Morris and Sam Rodgers, the Syracuse chapter of Uplifting Athletes raised close to $8,000 last year and want to raise an additional $15,000 this year. You can help by donating via the team fundraising page.
...
How to Follow SU Players and Coaches Using Twitter (PS; Bailey)
With training camp right around the corner, syracuse.com compiled the Twitter accounts for Orange players and coaches active on social media.
Some accounts are protected, meaning if you want to follow the person, they will have to accept your request.
We'll do our best to keep this updated through the season. Please let us know if we're missing anyone in the comments section.
2014 Syracuse football player Twitter handles
#Player NamePOSClassTwitter Handle
1Ashton BroyldWRJunior@abroyld
1 Julian WhighamCBJunior@JulianWhigham
2Quinta FunderburkWRRS Junior@MoneyMakin_Funk
2 Wayne MorganCBJunior@LightsOutMorgan
...
Recruiting
Prep Football Stars Commit to ACC Schools (Tyler Cross; neighbornewspapers.com; Pourtout)
Two Douglas County prep football stars who are entering their senior seasons have committed to attend programs in the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in the fall of 2015.
Alexander High School running back Mikell Lands-Davis has verbally committed to play collegiate football at Georgia Tech.
...
...
Chapel Hill High School defensive lineman Tyler Cross has verbally committed to attend Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. The 6-foot, 2-inch prospect helped lead the Panthers to a postseason appearance in 2013.
“The deciding factors committing to Syracuse were the support of the fans and the personal relationships everyone has in the program because it’s a family,” said Cross.
With Chapel Hill, Cross lines up at defensive end but plans are already forming for him to transition into a defensive tackle upon entering Syracuse. He will pursue a degree in business.
...
PSU Commit Says NJ Recruits Not Going to Rutgers Because 'We're Just Doing What'll Benefit Us Later in Life' (collegespun.com; DiFilippo)
New Penn State head football coach James Franklin has made it a point to recruit the state of New Jersey heavily. This has shown in his success in getting recruits from the state to come to Happy Valley, as five of the top 10 recruits in the state have committed to Penn State, per 247 Sports. The other five recruits in the 247 top 10 are committed to Alabama, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Syracuse. In fact, the highest ranked Rutgers commitment from New Jersey is the No. 20 player in the state.
It’s peculiar that none of the top recruits in the state have committed to Rutgers, the largest school in the state and the state’s only FBS school, but Nittany Lion commit and New Jersey native Juwan Johnson has a theory as to why recruits are going elsewhere.
Chris Adamski @C_AdamskiTrib
Follow
PSU WR recruit Juwan Johnson:"Everyone here expects us Jersey kids to go to Rutgers. But we’re just doin...what'll benefit us later in life"
4:46 PM - 23 Jul 2014
...
College
No Bones in Recent Years for Vol Mascot Smokey The Dog
2014 College Football Preview/Haiku Fest: Nos. 41-45 (Time for Tennessee to Return to the Post Season; PS; Stevens)
45. TENNESSEE
Tennessee has reached sleeping giant status now, enduring four consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1903-06. It has never dealt with five sub-.500 seasons in a row. And while the Volunteers should be better, they could also find themselves making some miserable history in Knoxville this fall if it can't handle a loaded schedule.
It's not exactly hard to explain what went wrong. The Phil Fulmer train stopped delivering regular 10-win seasons and fans got restless. Tennessee, long a destination job, hired a short-timer who caused headaches with his constant jabbering (Lane Kiffin) and then just made a bad hire in Derek Dooley.
Enter Butch Jones last season, an upbeat guy with a longer track record as a head coach than Kiffin and Dooley put together when they came to the Volunteers. Jones already owns a victory over a ranked team, which is more than Dooley could say in three years, but Tennessee still went 5-7 for the third consecutive year.
The question here isn't why Tennessee might toss up the occasional losing record. Rather, how have the Volunteers found themselves stuck in neutral for so long, losing at least six games every season since 2008?
Living in the same neighborhood as Florida, Georgia and career-long Volunteer antagonist Steve Spurrier isn't a breeze, and the insistence upon maintaining the traditional annual series with Alabama doesn't help matters a bit. But there's simply too many advantages in place for Tennessee to keep finding itself home for the holidays. That shouldn't happen this year, but it might be another season before the Vols make a real push in the SEC West. Look for six or seven wins from Tennessee.
Tennessee in haiku:
Sooners, Dawgs and Tide
All by end of October
Vols' schedule a brute
...
Navy QB Keenan Reynolds Rushed for 31 TDs Last Season as a Sophomore
2014 College Football Preview/Haiku Fest: Nos. 46-50 (Navy Should Maintain Service Academy Dominance; PS. Stevens)
...
49. NAVY
It's a historic season for Navy, which will relinquish independence after more than a century and join the American as a football-only member in 2015. For now, though, the pieces are in place to make this a memorable year for an entirely different reason.
The Midshipmen have perhaps the best quarterback of their current triple-option era in Keenan Reynolds, and that's saying something given the success of Ricky Dobbs' tenure as Navy's primary starter in 2009 and 2010. Reynolds rushed for 31 touchdowns and threw for eight more last year, and now enters the second half of his career as an established maestro in the Mids' offense.
Navy plays only four games outside the state of Maryland, and none of its road trips take it to an opponent that reached a bowl game last season. The two most daunting games (Ohio State and Notre Dame) will be played at NFL stadiums with 30 miles of Annapolis, and the annual meeting with Army is in Baltimore this year.
In a related note, the Mids' record for victories in a season is 10, set on three occasions. As narrow as Navy's margin for error can often be, an 11-2 season including a bowl game is not a far-fetched possibility.
It goes beyond Reynolds. The offensive line is experienced. So is the secondary. The Mids' top three fullbacks return. Punter Pablo Beltran and kicker Nick Sloan are reliable. It's a smart, well-coached team with few holes, and it would be a disappointment if this bunch doesn't at least match last year's 9-4 mark.
Navy in haiku:
Big gap with Army
A decade of dominance
Plus two and growing
...
High Expectations for Villanova, QB Robertson (philly.com; Narducci)
It's been quite a preseason for Villanova junior quarterback John Robertson, and practice hasn't even started.
Earlier this month, Robertson was among 20 players named to the watch list for the Walter Payton Award, given to the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Robertson also has been named a third-team FCS all-American by the Sports Network.
The honors continued Wednesday, when Robertson was named the Colonial Athletic Association's preseason offensive player of the year.
...
Central Michigan Excited for 'Very Difficult Schedule' and Home Game Against Syracuse (mlive.com; Butzin)
Central Michigan football has struggled out of the gate in the Dan Enos era.
In the last four seasons, the Chippewas have lost at least three of their first five games each year, and it's going to be difficult to end that streak in 2014.
CMU opens the season at home against FCS Chattanooga before embarking on three straight games against schools from "Big Six" conferences.
The Chippewas hit the road for a Big Ten matchup against the Purdue Boilermakers before hosting Syracuse for an exciting game in Week 3. CMU then closes out its non-conference schedule on the road against the Kansas Jayhawks.
...
ACC Settles Into Era of Stability (indianagazette.com; AP)
Welcome to the new Atlantic Coast Conference.
It’s where a founding member is out, a fast-rising program is in, Notre Dame is there, too — sort of — and nobody else is leaving.
Where a one-time punch line of a conference now boasts the Heisman Trophy winner, the reigning national champion and a handful of other individual award winners.
And where stability finally has arrived — with its status as a power conference secure entering the College Football Playoff era — leaving its members optimistic about its future.
“I think everybody is where they want to be,” Commissioner John Swofford said. “That’s real important.”
So, here comes ambitious Louisville into its fourth conference since 2004. There goes Maryland, off to the Big Ten.
...
Former Players
Jim Brown Sues to Reclaim Stolen NFL Championship Ring (PS; AP)
Hall of Fame football star Jim Brown is running out of time to retrieve his 1964 NFL championship ring and has sued a memorabilia dealer in New York.
Brown has said the ring being auctioned online was stolen from him.
The 78-year-old Los Angeles resident filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan federal court against Lelands.com and Lelands Collectibles Inc.
The lawsuit seeks to halt the sale of the ring in an online auction that ends Friday. It also seeks unspecified damages over broadcast remarks that Lelands' founder, Joshua Evans, made about Brown.
Evans said Wednesday that Brown's claims "are entirely without merit and we intend to vigorously defend against them."
...
Jameel McClain Returns to Practice After Suffering Knee Injury Tuesday (PS; Bailey)
Former Syracuse linebacker Jameel McClain returned to practice for the New York Giants on Wednesday after suffering a knee injury on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.
McClain had X-rays taken Monday night that came back negative. He's not expected to miss any more time as he fills in for injured middle linebacker Jon Beason.
Basically, Tom Coughlin and Perry Fewell can breathe a major sigh of relief. Though McClain has had injury issues in the past, the Giants are counting on him to be the bridge that gets them to the regular season.
Coughlin was hopeful that was the case during practice today.
"He thought it was a shoe issue, an irritation in his foot, but it was over one of the metatarsals, so (the medical staff) brought him in to look at that," Coughlin said. "He is the one guy right now that other than heat (related absences), that it will be interesting to see what the discussion is inside."
...
Macky MacPherson Looks to Make Most of NFL Shot (cnycentral.com; Tamurian)
Doug Marrone saw something in Macky MacPherson in the Spring of 2008 when he offered the Christian Brothers Academy junior a full scholarship to play football at Syracuse University.
At the time, it was possible that some Orange fans saw this as a tribute to Macky's grandfather, the legendary Orange coach Dick MacPherson.
As soon as he stepped on the field, we realized the offer was legit, Macky would be a huge part of Syracuse's future. He started at long-snapper as a freshman and filled out his final three seasons as the team's starting center.
Now, Doug Marrone is giving MacPherson another shot to prove himself.
...
David Tyree's Hiring with Giants Draws Protests From Gay Rights Group (PS; Carlson)
The hiring of David Tyree, a hero in Super Bowl XLII with the Giants and the organization's director of player development as of Tuesday, has drawn criticism from gay rights organizations and others in the 48 hours since his hiring.
Tyree said in 2011 that he would give up his Super Bowl ring to stop gay marriage and that he knows "former homosexuals," statements that drew the ire of both the Human Rights Campaign and media across the country after his hiring.
The Human Rights Campaign promotes itself as America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.
Tyree's hiring comes at a sensitive time for the NFL, with St. Louis Rams defensive end Michael Sam is attempting to become the first openly gay player in league history, an effort that generated controversy of its own on Monday when former coach Tony Dungy said he wouldn't want to deal with the distractions Sam will bring.
...
