College Football Capsules: Nine unbeatens left as season nears halfway point
Almost halfway through the college football season, there are nine unbeaten teams. Because several of the schools eventually will play each other, including Cincinnati and South Florida on Thursday night, no more than six can finish the season without a loss.
With the BCS standings due out Sunday, here’s a look at the long-term forecasts for the perfect teams to see which ones might be able to keep the zero in the loss column through the regular season (including conference championship games).
No. 1 Florida (5-0) — Assessment: Gators have done nothing to damage their status as favorites to win the national title, even though their offense is not quite as balanced as Urban Meyer would like. Florida is perfect but not flawless.
Remaining schedule: Tim Tebow and Co. will be double-digit favorites until they get to the Southeastern Conference title game, where they could very well face ...
No. 2 Alabama (6-0) — Assessment: The Tide has been even more impressive than Florida, mostly based on the opening victory against Virginia Tech.
Remaining schedule: Tougher than Florida’s but probably not tough enough to keep Tide from rolling into Atlanta for a matchup of unbeaten teams.
No. 3 Texas (5-0) — Assessment: Longhorns still struggle to run the ball and have yet to beat another Top-25 team.
Remaining schedule: Any questions about Colt McCoy’s crew will be answered over the next three weeks: Oklahoma, at Missouri, at Oklahoma State. They haven’t looked like a team that can sweep through that.
No. 5 Boise State (5-0) — Assessment: The victory against Oregon looks better with every victory the Ducks rack up.
Remaining schedule: Weak. Broncos should run the table. To have any chance at playing in the BCS national title game, they need to not only win but win big. Even then it will be tough.
No. 8 Cincinnati (5-0) — Assessment: Tony Pike and the Bearcats’ offense have been humming, and the rebuilt defense has been better than expected.
Remaining schedule: Plenty of tough games left, starting Thursday night at South Florida. But coach Brian Kelly’s offense makes the Bearcats a legitimate dark horse to reach the BCS national title game.
No. 11 Iowa (6-0) — Assessment: Good defense, solid kickers, OK offense and some luck. Hawkeyes are second in nation in takeaways and tied for fifth in turnover margin, which explains why they’ve won all those close games.
Remaining schedule: Consecutive road games starting Saturday at Wisconsin (followed by at Michigan State) should take care of the Hawkeyes’ 10-game winning streak.
No. 12 TCU (5-0) — Another typically strong TCU team, with top-10 defense and strong running game. Road victories against Virginia and Clemson might not look quite so impressive at season’s end.
Remaining schedule — Going unbeaten in the Mountain West won’t be easy, but if the Frogs do, they could at least pass Boise State and be a BCS buster for the first time.
No. 17 Kansas (5-0) — Todd Reesing leads potent offense. The defense? Not so good. Jayhawks haven’t beaten an opponent of consequence yet.
Remaining schedule — After a trip to Colorado on Saturday, KU finally starts playing some serious competition, including Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska. The losses will come.
No. 21 South Florida (5-0) — Season-ending injury to Matt Grothe seemed to be a season-killer, but B.J. Daniels looks like a more than adequate replacement. However, that victory at Florida State is really the only notable accomplishment so far. And even that’s not saying much.
Remaining schedule (5-0) — Like the Jayhawks, investors should be bearish on the Bulls. Their next three games: Cincinnati, at Pittsburgh, West Virginia. And they play at Miami in November.
ACC’s Atlantic Division: Parity or parody?
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest has taken its turn atop the Atlantic Coast Conference’s "other" division. This year, that might not be much to brag about.
The ACC’s power appears concentrated in a Coastal Division with three ranked teams and two of those in the top 10. Meanwhile, the Demon Deacons are in charge of an Atlantic Division that at best is a step behind.
It’s a division devoid of star power, where teams have risen in the standings seemingly by default.
Florida State, the preseason favorite and standard-bearing program, is winless in the league — mired in its worst season in three decades. The trendy dark horse, North Carolina State, hasn’t won an ACC game, either. Barring a flurry of upsets, the division winner figures to have two or more league losses.
The quagmire raises the question: Is this a supremely balanced division or simply a collection of six average teams?
"Any given week, a team can go up from the bottom or down from the top," Wake Forest running back Josh Adams said.
For now, first place belongs to the Demon Deacons, who along with Maryland (52-13 losers to California) are the Atlantic’s only teams with just one ACC loss. Bringing up the rear are preseason contenders Florida State (0-3) and North Carolina State (0-2).
All six teams in the division went to bowl games last year will while this season only two teams are above .500.
The silver lining: The gap between first and worst in the Atlantic appears narrow, at least compared to the Coastal Division, which is dominated by No. 4 Virginia Tech, No. 9 Miami, No. 19 Georgia Tech. And North Carolina, a team that spent much of the season in the polls before dropping out, is lurking in the wings.
Not that the Coastal teams are caught up in any our-division-is-better chatter.
"It just kind of happens that’s the way it is maybe this year and there’s still a lot of football to be played," Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson said. "Who knows? That could change in a week, too. All the Atlantic teams could beat the Coastal teams this week. ... You’re dealing with 18- to 20-year-olds. No one knows what to expect one week to the next."
Still, whoever wins the Coastal Division figures to be a considerable favorite in the league title game.
"You’ve got a side that’s kind of beating each other," Wake Forest quarterback Riley Skinner said.
Maybe, but they’ve had trouble beating anybody else lately.
Atlantic teams are 0-5 against the Coastal. And while the Coastal has claimed its share of marquee wins so far, with Miami beating Oklahoma and Virginia Tech topping Nebraska, the Atlantic’s best victory might be North Carolina State over Big East favorite Pittsburgh — the Wolfpack’s only win against a Bowl Subdivision team.
"Just because you lose a game doesn’t mean you’re a bad team," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "Just because you lose a couple games doesn’t mean you’re a bad team."
So, who stands the best chance to claim the Atlantic’s spot in the winner-take-all title game and play for an Orange Bowl berth?
— Wake Forest? The Demon Deacons’ two overall losses have come by a combined six points, but their two rotating Coastal opponents are Miami and Georgia Tech.
— Clemson? The Tigers might have the most talent in the division, with speedy C.J. Spiller and Jacoby Ford, but with two ACC losses already, they can’t afford many more slip-ups.
— Boston College? The Eagles have won the division the last two years, but their most recent showing — a 48-14 loss to Virginia Tech — perhaps best illustrates the gap between the divisions.
— N.C. State? Even with last year’s ACC rookie of the year, quarterback Russell Wilson, the defense gave up a combined 820 yards passing and 79 points in consecutive losses to Wake Forest and Duke. The Wolfpack are 1-3 against the FBS.
— Florida State? The preseason favorite desperately needs a quick turnaround after calls for coach Bobby Bowden’s job surfaced during the program’s 0-3 start to league play.
— Maryland? The Terrapins were the Atlantic’s last unbeaten team in ACC play before last week’s loss at Wake Forest, but their out-of-conference performance — a 39-point loss at California, an overtime victory over a Championship Subdivision team and a close loss to Middle Tennessee State — have raised questions.
Terps quarterback Chris Turner says he’s happy to be in a division that everybody still has a shot at winning. As the season hits the stretch run, one thing is certain: The second half of the season in the Atlantic might not be pretty, but it will be tight.
"As strange as things are ... here we are at 2-4," Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said. "All I know is we’ve still got a chance. That’s all I care about. I’ll let you (media) guys figure all that stuff out. I’m still in it, as far as I’m concerned. I’m going to keep battling."
-- Joedy McCreary
Cancer in the past for UCF defensive end
Darius Nall was 19, a 6-foot-3, 249-pound chiseled, happy-go-lucky kid who had everything he wanted, attending college in Orlando and playing defensive end for Central Florida.
So imagine his surprise when heartburn turned out to be cancer.
"Right there," Nall said, "that changed everything."
A year and a half later, Nall is back on the field and contributing for the Golden Knights (3-2), who host No. 9 Miami (4-1) Saturday night in Orlando. Nall missed last year after doctors removed a baseball-sized lump on his right lung, leaving a scar snaking from his chest around to his back.
Just last week, Nall got his latest test results: All indications are he’s been cancer-free for nearly a year.
"I don’t know if a kid that didn’t have the passion for football would have came back like he did, because of what he went through with radiation and all that stuff when he had the tumor removed," Central Florida coach George O’Leary said. "We’re happy to have him back. He’s playing well this year. He’s just a kid that always has a smile on his face and he’s very grateful for what was done for him."
Even in a backup role, Nall is tied for the team lead with three quarterback pressures through five games and has recovered a fumble this season. Slowly, he’s regaining the form that made him an Conference USA all-freshman player two years ago.
"It seems like it almost never happened," said Nall’s mother, Wanda Willis. "It seemed like it happened so very long ago. This time last year, he was preparing to go through radiation treatments. It’s kind of unexplainable, because what can you really say, as a parent, when you go through something like that?"
When she heard that her son was having chest pains, Willis’ best guess was indigestion or a stomach ailment. After all, she had just seen her son, noticing nothing wrong.
Willis deals with cancer and other serious illnesses all day at work. From her desk at an Atlanta hospital, she helps arrange and obtain authorizations for patients to have certain procedures done, MRIs and CT scans and things of that nature. Then one day, her office phone rang with the stunning news.
"When they said a baseball-sized tumor, I almost dropped the phone," Willis said. "The initial shock was kind of terrifying. He was just 19. We’d just seen him. No idea. But I knew I had to be strong for my son. He’s a big kid, but he’s a kid."
The kid would be all right.
"They got it all," Nall said. "Nothing had spread or anything like that. I was 19 years old and yes, the first time I heard it, I was afraid. Then I talked to my mom, we decided to let God take over and I went through it all with a smile on my face."
Three surgeries and months of radiation later, Nall was back with the Knights last fall, albeit in a very limited capacity.
"The biggest thing that we had to watch was just getting him back, as far as conditioning, into contact-type shape," O’Leary said. "We took our time, getting it done right as far as giving him so many reps and taking him out. Doctors just last week gave him another clean bill of health and everything’s gone really well."
The Knights have had more than their share of problems in recent years.
Linebacker Cory Hogue was diagnosed with compartment syndrome — tissue in both of his legs was swelling and had nowhere to go, causing intense pain — last season. Nell got cancer, and that blow came less than four months after freshman Ereck Plancher died during a conditioning session.
How much could one team take, anyway?
"When it first happened to Darius, it was a shock," Hogue said. "Our prayers were out for Darius and when he came back, everyone was relieved, really. Everyone was excited."
The excitement is there this week, too.
Central Florida’s on-campus stadium will be sold out Saturday night. The Knights almost beat the Hurricanes last year, and had two near-misses at home against AP Top 25 teams since 2007, giving both Texas and South Florida all they wanted before eventually losing close games.
"If we win this game, it’d mean everything," Nall said. "It’d finally show what we are capable of doing."
-- Tim Reynolds
Marshall, W.Va. features 2 of nation’s top rushers
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Darius Marshall has a blueprint for life after college — the management major wants to build a grocery store for his mom and dad in Georgia and a five-star hotel to be run by his sister.
He's aiming high, and why not? Marshall has been proving doubters wrong since recruiters told him he was too small to play college football.
The running back who shares his last name with his school, Marshall, couldn't have envisioned his season would turn out this good, especially considering how it started. The junior points to offseason strength training for helping him become the nation's second-leading rusher at 147 yards per game.
"I'm blessed to be in the situation I'm in right now," Marshall said.
He'll face his stiffest test of the season on Saturday when Marshall (4-2) plays at West Virginia (4-1). The Mountaineers have the nation's 10th best defense against the rush, limiting opponents to 85 yards per game.
The 5-foot-10, 190-pound Marshall simply shrugs off big challenges, just as he seems unconcerned about playing for a Conference USA school in a small market and getting little outside recognition.
"Hopefully I can make a name for myself," Marshall said. "It doesn't bother me. My father and all the coaches around me keep telling me that hard work is going to pay off."
Marshall has changed his approach to running the ball from last year's slasher style to a more all-around game that includes getting the ball on short-yardage situations. He's also averaging 23 yards on kickoff returns this season.
Still, he's not even considered the best running back in his own state. He's never met West Virginia's speedy Noel Devine, who rushed for 1,289 yards in 2008 — nearly 200 more than Marshall — and is the nation's third-leading rusher with a 126-yard average.
Saturday's game has prompted many questions about the two running backs.
"I don't really compare too many people to (Noel) because he's special in his own kind of way," said West Virginia defensive back Sidney Glover. "Of course most backs have quickness and speed, but Noel's is different. (Darius) has a little more weight that Noel, but he's not as quick or as fast. He's a good back. I just don't think he's Noel."
Marshall actually began the season on the bench, having been suspended by coach Mark Snyder for the season opener against Illinois State for a misdemeanor drug arrest in May.
A 109-yard effort at No. 4 Virginia Tech was followed by career highs of 186 yards against Bowling Green and 203 yards against Memphis. It was enough to get Marshall added to the watch list for the Maxwell Award, given to the outstanding collegiate player by the Maxwell Memorial Football Club of Philadelphia.
A 98-yard performance last week at Tulane knocked Marshall less than a yard behind Fresno State's Ryan Mathews, who now has the nation's best average at 148 yards per game. Marshall's two touchdowns against Tulane gave him nine for the season, nearly double his TD production for all of last year.
Marshall wouldn't mind overtaking Mathews, as long as it doesn't cost his team any wins.
"At the end of the season I would like to be the nation's leading rusher, but right now I'm happy where we're at," he said. "A bowl victory is more important than individual achievements. I just look forward to playing the rest of the season no matter what happens, I'm going to give my team all I've got in every situation.
"I'd keep my composure and stay loyal to my team — and try to make us conference champs."
West Virginia's players wish Marshall all the best, except for this Saturday.
"One guy is not going to tackle Darius Marshall," said West Virginia defensive back Nate Sowers. "We've got to get a bunch of guys on the ball."
-- John Raby
Florida State releases NCAA documents
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — NCAA documents released Wednesday as the result of a news media lawsuit explain the thinking behind a proposal to strip Florida State coaches and athletes of victories for academic cheating — even those not implicated.
The release also pierces the NCAA's veil of secrecy in disciplinary cases for the first time due to court rulings saying certain documents involving state schools are public records.
Football coach Bobby Bowden is among those who stand to lose wins — 14 in his case. That would further diminish his already dwindling chances of overtaking Penn State's Joe Paterno, who leads Bowden by four victories as major college football's winningest coach.
Most of the 695-page transcript of an Oct. 18, 2008 hearing by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions is a rehash of information previously made public by the university.
It does, though, show the idea of vacating wins is based on the belief an athlete is ineligible from the time he or she committed academic fraud, even though it may not have been discovered until some time later.
That drew an objection from Atlantic Coast Conference Associate Commissioner Shane Lyons. He joined Florida State officials for the hearing at a hotel in Indianapolis, where then NCAA is based.
"This has never been discussed with the (NCAA) membership," Lyons said. "I don't think the membership has been applying it that way."
"I'm pretty sure the committee has," replied committee member Josephine Potuto, a constitutional law professor at Nebraska.
Florida State, which itself reported the violations to the NCAA, has accepted self-imposed penalties including loss of scholarships and player suspensions. The school is appealing only the plan to take victories away from coaches and more than 500 athletes in 10 sports.
The university and NCAA staffers also previously agreed 61 athletes implicated in the cheating, mostly on exams for an online music course, would be suspended for 30 percent of a season under an agreement between the university and NCAA staffers. That included about 25 football players who served their suspensions in 2007 and 2008.
Athletes' names, though, were removed from transcript and other documents released earlier by the university.
The Infractions Committee has no control over student eligibility, but vacating victories is a way it can penalize Florida State for using ineligible athletes even though school officials were unaware they had cheated under after the fact, Potuto said.
The athletes could have faced complete ineligibility, but received a reduced penalty because Florida State accepted most of the blame for what happened due to failures by faculty members and academic officials and tutors in the Athletics Department.
As the hearing ended, committee chairman Dennis Thomas, commissioner of the Mid-East Athletic Conference, warned participants "to refrain from revealing what was discussed ... especially with the media, until the public release of the infractions report."
That's now a moot issue, but the NCAA is appealing to the Florida Supreme Court to keep such documents secret in the future.
It filed a notice of appeal shortly before Florida State released the transcript to comply with a final decision Tuesday by the 1st District Court of Appeal.
The appellate court upheld a trial judge's earlier ruling the transcript and another document Florida State previously released are public records under the state's open-government "sunshine" laws. The decision came in a lawsuit by The Associated Press and other media organizations.
Other details in the transcript:
— Former academic adviser Brenda Monk, who resigned after being implicated, said one athlete she was accused of helping cheat had an IQ of 60 and couldn't read the test questions.
— Florida State President T.K. Wetherell told the committee the university was "embarrassed," but pointed out the school reported the violations itself and has cooperated with the NCAA. He also argued no coaches, boosters or donors were involved but blamed academics who failed to follow university policy.
— While several staffers were fired or resigned after the scandal broke, Wetherell said that doesn't include former Athletics Director Dave Hart. Wetherell said he told Hart several months before that his contract wouldn't be renewed but did not make that public at Hart's request.
— Florida State tracks how many athletes sign up for classes, which should have tipped officials to a dramatic increase in the music course, but that information never got passed up the chain of command.
Rodriguez mum on QB Forcier’s status for Saturday
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Tate Forcier may be feeling better, but Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez won’t take any chances with his dazzling freshman quarterback.
Forcier sustained a mild concussion on his final snap in the Wolverines’ 30-28 loss at Iowa last Saturday. And after headaches for two days following the game, Forcier was kept out of practices on Monday and Tuesday.
Michigan’s team trainers told Rodriguez that Forcier, who’s also nursing an injured right shoulder, was feeling better Wednesday.
Whether that’s enough to land Forcier the start in Michigan’s game against Delaware State on Saturday isn’t yet clear.
"We’ll see how he does," Rodriguez said. "I think (Tuesday) he felt a lot better and I don’t think there’s any issues — or many at all — with his shoulder. With those concussions, no matter how severe it is, you want to be 100 percent sure it’s cleared up."
Rodriguez had said he would give Forcier until Wednesday to be medically cleared to play on Saturday. Rodriguez said doctors were still finalizing that on Wednesday.
Rodriguez said he also expected tailbacks Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown to be cleared. Brown missed the Iowa game with a concussion while Minor, who scored a pair of touchdowns on 22 carries in the loss, has been dealing with a high ankle sprain for much of the season.
Regardless of how players say they’re feeling, Rodriguez won’t allow a non-conference game to sway his thinking on players who may not be 100 percent.
"We like to be careful with them all the time," Rodriguez said. "From a medical standpoint, and I think any coach would be the same way, the trainers and the doctors will tell us who will play and where they’re at."
Georgia’s Cuff arrested, suspended 1 game
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia defensive back Vance Cuff has been suspended for Saturday’s game at Vanderbilt following his arrest on misdemeanor charges, including driving with a suspended license.
Cuff was riding a scooter as he left the Georgia football facility on Tuesday and drove down a street which has been closed for construction. He was stopped by University of Georgia police for riding down the closed road, and he was found to be driving with a suspended license.
Georgia coach Mark Richt suspended Cuff for one game, saying Cuff "used poor judgment first in the route he took and also for being on the scooter at all with a suspended license."
Cuff is a backup at cornerback.
Meineke Bowl extends Big East deal through 2013
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Meineke Bowl has renewed its deal with the Big East that will send the conference’s third selection to the North Carolina bowl through the 2013 season.
The agreement announced Wednesday comes as bowl officials continue discussions with the Atlantic Coast Conference about extending its tie-in with the game.
The bowl at Bank of America Stadium has pitted teams from the Big East and ACC since its inception in 2002. Last year’s game was a sellout as West Virginia beat North Carolina.
This year’s Meineke Bowl is Dec. 26 and will be televised by ESPN.
NAIA powerhouse Sioux Falls moving up
University of Sioux Falls football games have been so lopsided, even the athletic director’s wife tells him she can’t bear to watch.
It’s not what you think: The Cougars, the No. 1 team in NAIA and in the process of making the move to NCAA Division II, win and win big — admittedly almost to the point of embarrassment.
Imagine how these mashed-up opponents from Nebraska feel: Dana College, beaten 76-3; Concordia College, beaten 80-0; Doane College, beaten 64-0.
The Cougars have outscored their six opponents by a combined 347-33. Their closest game was 41-8 over Briar Cliff, when Sioux Falls was held 20 points under its nation-leading scoring average.
The Baptist-affiliated, 1,600-student South Dakota school is bidding for its third NAIA championship in four years. They should be playing a full Division II schedule by 2011.
No one among the Great Plains Athletic Conference football coaching fraternity will be sorry to see the Cougars go.
"We’re all trying to beat them," Dana coach Bill Danenhauer said. "Then we go out there on the field, and we don’t have the same Jimmys and Joes that they have."
The Cougars are preparing for someone a bit bigger this weekend: They play Division I newcomer North Dakota on Saturday for a $60,000 guarantee and a shot at greater glory.
"The percentages are against us to win the game, but I think we can compete," 34-year-old Sioux Falls coach Kalen DeBoer said. "My goal isn’t to walk out of there with our heads between our legs having embarrassed ourselves."
Sioux Falls, which has a 17-sport athletic program, clearly has outgrown NAIA football. The Cougars have won 47 of 48 games the past four seasons and 79 of 80 conference games since 2001.
In the past 20 games, only four teams have managed to score 10 points against the Cougars and just one running back has mustered 50 yards. This season, their defense is allowing an average of 144 yards, 31 rushing, and has given up a total of three touchdowns in 24 quarters.
DeBoer has rarely played his starters in the second half and he worries that they won’t be conditioned to go the distance, either against North Dakota or in playoff games that begin next month.
Athletic director Willie Sanchez said he has cautioned DeBoer about running up the score on overmatched opponents. DeBoer considered, but decided against, having his team line up in victory formation with more than 3 minutes left in one game.
"If you take a knee with 3 minutes," Sanchez said, "are you rubbing it in more rather than letting our second- and third-teams play?"
Predictably, angry e-mail from fans of opposing teams ask DeBoer and Sanchez why the Cougars allow things get out of control.
"My biggest critic is my wife," Sanchez said. "She doesn’t even want to go to the game when it’s like that, and I don’t blame her. The other teams are out there battling as well. We just happen to be a little bit stronger this year, and we were strong last year."
Of the 91 NAIA football programs, only a handful appear capable of competing with Sioux Falls. Among them are Carroll College of Montana, a traditional power that has won five of the last seven national titles and was runner-up to Sioux Falls last year.
Sioux Falls’ star is junior-college transfer quarterback Lorenzo Brown of Bristol, Conn., who is completing 71 percent of his passes for 240 yards a game. He’s thrown 18 touchdown passes and has been intercepted once.
Most of the 115-man roster is made up of players from within 200 miles of Sioux Falls.
DeBoer, in his fifth season as head coach and 10th on the staff, was a receiver on the 1996 Sioux Falls team that won the first of the school’s three NAIA titles. The ‘96 title brought positive exposure and a bump in enrollment, and Sanchez said the administration pours resources into the program because it believes a strong football team enhances the university’s image.
The athletics budget of $4.4 million is robust by NAIA standards, and two to three times larger than most of the other teams in the Cougars’ conference.
If there’s jealousy of the Cougars, it’s hushed. After all, Sioux Falls will have moved on from the league in a couple years.
"They’ve taken it to the next level, so more power to them," said Vance Winter, coach of the Concordia team that was humiliated 80-0. "They’ve committed to being as good as they can be."
-- Eric Olson
