College Football Capsules: SMU finds new life under pass-happy June Jones
DALLAS (AP) — June Jones watched four quarterbacks take simulated shotgun snaps while four receivers scattered across the SMU practice field. Moments later, four footballs went flying.
Route after route and throw after throw, the drills went on for more than two hours, Jones surveying all the while. He talked to one receiver or another after nearly every pass-and-catch quartet, fine-tuning the heart of an offense that is pumping life into a football program many had given up for dead.
The SMU coach has followed his record-setting turnaround at Hawaii a decade ago with an equally improbable revival of the Mustangs, who endured a quarter-century of losing after the only "death penalty" shutdown for cheating in NCAA history. The formula, boiled down to its simplest form, was the same each time: Score points. Lots of them.
"A lot of guys take these jobs that have lost forever and it's old school, you gotta be tougher, you gotta be more physical," Jones said. "But to come to this school and build a team on defense is not going to happen. The turnaround stuff to me is playing an exciting brand of football where you go and try to win the game on every play."
It worked right away in Hawaii, where Jones set the NCAA mark in 1999 with a nine-game improvement from 0-12 to 9-3. It took a year at SMU, where the Mustangs matched the 1-11 record of Phil Bennett's final season in the first go-round for Jones.
A year ago, though, SMU went 7-5 to qualify for its first bowl in 25 years. The Mustangs were the biggest underdog of bowl season but had the largest margin of victory, 45-10 over Nevada in the Hawaii Bowl. Their eights wins were the most since 1984, three years before the program went dormant for two seasons.
The Mustangs almost never tackle during practices that are so quiet, a librarian could be in charge. ("We're positive reinforcement rather than cursing, yelling, hollering and screaming," Jones says.) He believes in establishing the offense first, then bringing the defense along later — the opposite of the championship formula so many coaches follow.
Then again, SMU needed different. Twenty-five years of the same carved a path to nowhere for the school made famous by running backs Doak Walker and Eric Dickerson, plus a pay-for-play scheme that included a six-figure slush fund and involved Bill Clements, the once and future governor of Texas and a former chairman of the SMU Board of Governors.
SMU's football program was killed for two seasons. The Mustangs were reborn on Sept. 3, 1989, and got clobbered by a Rice team that had lost 18 consecutive games. It wasn't until 1997 that the Mustangs had another winning season, going 6-5.
"I have to admit that because of the way that I do it, these are the only jobs that I really want to take. Because they've tried everything else," Jones said. "If I went to Florida and tried this approach, there would be 42 coaches in the press box saying, 'This guy screwed up. We can't do this and be SEC champions.'"
Critics said similar things when Jones coached the Atlanta Falcons in the 1990s, dismissing his pass-happy offense as trickery that would never win a Super Bowl. He was fired in Atlanta and passed up a chance to lead the San Diego Chargers, heading to the islands instead. Hawaii fans fell in love with the offense — and the coach — in Jones' nine seasons.
"He could have been governor of Hawaii," SMU athletic director Steve Orsini said. "I'm not sure I'm even being a little facetious."
A similar infatuation is brewing at the small private school in one of the most exclusive parts of Dallas, a place with enough rich donors to raise $10 million in a matter of weeks so that Orsini could offer Jones $2 million annually over five years and give his assistants competitive salaries. The Mustangs have replaced the first two years on that contract with an extension, although Orsini declined to discuss specifics.
Suffice it to say SMU wants to keep the 57-year-old Jones, and has the means to do it.
"He's not a flash-in-the-pan kind of guy," said booster Paul Loyd, who played for SMU in the 1960s. "He's got a systematic approach that leads to winning over the long term. It's like a successful corporation that's got a good strategic plan. If it works, it'll work over the years."
Jones says the demands on his workers are simple: Go to class, come to practice and give maximum effort.
"It's not that hard," he said. "If you can't play for me, you can't play for anybody."
As for those who can't, Jones will suspend them or kick them off the team. He doesn't care who they are. He did that to a pair of his best players before his first year at Hawaii, and he did it to a couple of his best receivers late in his first season at SMU.
Emmanuel Sanders wasn't offended. He came back for his senior season and led the Mustangs with 1,339 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted him in the third round in April.
"It definitely woke up the whole team," said Sanders, who missed two study halls and was late to practice once. "I think that's part of the reason why coach Jones turned the program around because so many guys knew that from then on, he wasn't playing any games. If you didn't have your act right, you weren't going to be on the team no matter who you were."
Jones isn't expecting another 12-0 BCS-busting season like he had in 2007, when Hawaii lost to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. He says it's tougher to go undefeated in Conference USA, so right now he has his players shooting for a league title.
Quarterback Kyle Padron will be the key. He took over at midseason as a freshman last year and went 5-1 as a starter, throwing for a school-record 460 yards and two touchdowns in the bowl win. He's the star of those relentless passing drills.
"We're trying to be perfect out here," said Padron, who learned a similar spread offense nearby at Southlake Carroll High School. "Coach Jones expects nothing less."
The Mustangs are closer to perfect than they've been in a generation.
Tide set to showcase upgraded Bryant-Denny Stadium
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's Dre Kirkpatrick and Chris Jordan trotted onto the field and couldn't stop smiling about the upgrades to Bryant-Denny Stadium shortly after the latest expansion was completed.
"This is nice," said Kirkpatrick, a sophomore Crimson Tide cornerback.
"Man, this is going to be loud," agreed Jordan, a junior linebacker.
Indeed. One of college football's biggest programs now has a stadium to match.
A $65 million expansion has pushed capacity to 101,821 and made Bryant-Denny the nation's fifth-largest stadium. The South end zone work added 9,683 seats, including 36 luxury boxes.
"We're all just very proud and pleased as to how it has turned out," Tide athletic director Mal Moore said. "If you sit on the 50-yard line and look North, then look South, they're identical."
Now, the defending national champions' stadium stands behind only Michigan (109,901), Penn State (107,282), Tennessee (102,455) and Ohio State (102,329) in seating capacity. It features new video boards, along with a wrought-iron fence and brick-lined avenue along the sidelines. Red and white camellias are expected to bloom in the fall.
The "nosebleed" seats are 158 feet high. All told, the project took 22,380 cubic feet of concrete, 175,000 bricks and 16 months.
"I think the stadium looks fabulous," Tide coach Nick Saban said. "I think we had one of the best venues in college football before we made the addition of the end zone. Now we're over 101,000 people, and I think now that we may be among the top two or three venues in terms of a place to play college football of anywhere in the country. I think it's a beautiful stadium, I think it's a great place to watch a game."
Fans will get their first experience inside the bigger Bryant-Denny on Saturday against San Jose State.
It's the second expansion of the last four years following a fundraising campaign that has at the least allowed Alabama to catch up with most of its rivals.
This expansion comes at a time when Saban is vaulting the program back to the top of college football. Alabama's football fortunes were up and down, with coaching changes, athletic leadership in flux and NCAA troubles, when the money-raising campaign started in 2002.
"At that time we had reached a real low," Moore said. "We had fallen way behind. There had been uncertainty with our turnover at the AD position, and changing of the coaching staffs and so forth. Problems with the NCAA. It was very tough on this department, but we simply felt that we couldn't wait until all of that ended to see where we were and decide what to do.
"We thought we had to do something to correct facilities to give our coaches a chance to recruit the great players, to develop competitive teams, and to support athletes to reach their potential in every sport here. I think what we've done has done exactly that."
The program didn't really turn around until Saban's hiring before the 2007 season.
The South end zone includes a massive area called "The Zone" where ticketholders can hang out and eat before, during and after games for $500 a year. They can't see the field, unlike the pricier area for luxury box holders above.
Alabama officials offered up 1,000 tickets, 500 below capacity as a trial run.
"It sold out in two weeks," said Thad Turnipseed, the Tide's director of athletic facilities.
With both end zones filled out, lead architect Courtney Puttman doesn't see much room for further growth in the stadium.
"I think this was meant to be the final touch to the stadium," she said, "the final statement about Crimson Tide football."
-- John Zenor
South Carolina ready to end preseason drama
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It hasn't been the peaceful, drama-free South Carolina camp Steve Spurrier hoped for.
Standout tight end Weslye Saunders has been suspended for almost a week with no indication when he might return. There's been the missed practice time of players who Spurrier told to move out of a local hotel where they had stayed. And there are the lingering injuries to key performers like fullback Pat DiMarco, a team captain, and linebacker Shaq Wilson, the Gamecocks' leading tackler last season.
But Spurrier says his players have put all that aside and worked to make sure they're ready for action when they open against Southern Miss at Williams-Brice Stadium on Thursday night.
"We really haven't been distracted," Spurrier said late last week. "Things happened all the time and some unforeseen things happened this year at preseason practice."
The biggest has involved Saunders, a solid tight end considered a high NFL draft pick next spring. He has met with the NCAA about a party in Miami last May and was among those players living at the hotel.
Spurrier suspended him Aug. 23, two days after he led all South Carolina receivers during a scrimmage. The coach said Saunders' suspension was not connected to NCAA issues or his hotel stay.
Saunders issued a statement through a local radio station Friday saying he had done nothing wrong and had smoothed out his misunderstanding with Spurrier. Still, Saunders, the team's third-leading receiver with 32 catches last year, was nowhere on South Carolina's depth chart for the opener.
"I'm not going to talk about his situation," Spurrier said after practice Saturday. "We're still on hold with him."
Also on hold is what, if anything, may happen to those players who lived at the hotel at discounted rates, which the NCAA could consider an extra benefit. Spurrier told those involved to pay their bills and get out.
However, several have missed practice time or arrived late to workouts as they handled the situation.
Defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward, in charge of the secondary, worked Tuesday without starting safety Akeem Aguste and backup cornerback C.C. Whitlock. Defensive lineman and captain Ladi Ajiboye was late to that session because of what assistant coach in charge of defense Ellis Johnson said were issues about the hotel.
Ward didn't know if Aguste and Whitlock would play Thursday night, although both are on the depth chart.
Spurrier expected a decision about potential penalties before game time. He said last week that typically in such cases a player is forced to miss a game or two and South Carolina would accept the decision and move on.
He stressed he had not heard anything from the NCAA. And Spurrier said he wouldn't hold out anyone from playing against Southern Miss in fear of a ruling not yet made
"If we don't hear any news, we'll play everybody we've got," he said. "Well, almost everybody we've got."
Spurrier could've meant Wilson, the fiercesome linebacker who's worked out with the team just once since Aug. 3. Spurrier did not want to risk using Wilson unless he was healthy. If Wilson can't go, South Carolina would most likely use senior Tony Straughter or sophomore Quin Smith.
At tight end, senior captain DiMarco is listed as the starter in place of Saunders with untested sophomores Justice Cunningham and Mike Triglia as backups.
Spurrier says he'll go with the guys eligible to play and won't worry about those who aren't.
"It's just like a guy got hurt in practice, he can't play this week," Spurrier said. "And if something happens, some guys can't play this week, well we've got other guys and you keep moving on."
-- Pete Iacobelli
Mealers bounce back from tragedy that took 2 lives
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Brock Mealer is going to lead Michigan's football team onto the field before its opener against Connecticut in a way few thought was possible.
He'll be walking.
The brother of Wolverines offensive lineman Elliott Mealer was severely injured in a car accident that killed his father and his brother's girlfriend. Elliott and their mother were also hurt in the accident, but neither as badly as Brock.
"My surgeon, less than a day after my surgery, gave me the news that the best we could hope for is that eventually the pain sensations would go away with time and medication," Brock Mealer recalled recently. "They always just wanted me to accept it, rather than fight it, and be in denial."
He had other plans.
Mealer has endured relentless rehabilitation with the football program's strength and conditioning coaches in a quest to become mobile on his own two feet.
"Everyone around here believed in the idea that I was going to walk," he said. "It was never a question of if, but a question of when."
Mealer's friends and family have seen him walk — sometimes on his own, or with a cane — but he is days away from doing it on perhaps the grandest stage in football.
"I tried to warn him, it's a different feeling when you have 110,000 people watching you," Elliott Mealer said. "It's kind of sinking in for him, the closer it gets."
Their father, David, and Elliott's girlfriend, Hollis Richer, were killed when a 90-year-old man ran a stop sign near Toledo, Ohio, on Christmas Eve in 2007. Their mother, Shelly, who escaped with bruises even though she was the one most directly hit by the other car. Elliott tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder and redshirted his first season at Michigan.
"I questioned why I missed my opportunity to go to heaven," Shelly Mealer said Sunday night in a telephone interview as her voice cracked with emotion. "Still, I have my moments wondering if I can do this. But I know I'm here to take care of the boys because my husband always was the one who led us in his positive and optimistic way."
The Mealer brothers both acknowledge thinking, "Why me?" daily — wondering why they survived — and regularly replay the nightmare in their minds.
Elliott Mealer still feels a sense of regret and guilt for offering his girlfriend the outside seat in the back the car because she was feeling ill.
"It could've been prevented, I guess, and it could've been me," he said softly. "It's kind of a difficult thing to think about."
Elliott Mealer hasn't been able to date since he lost his high school sweetheart and often wears three rings he gave her — along with a cross she planned to give him — on a chain around his neck.
"I've come to a conclusion that there's a reason I'm still alive," he said. "I'm trying to find those reasons, why I'm the one who is still here and to do whatever I can with this life that I've been given."
The Mealers grew up rooting for Ohio State, where Brock has earned an undergraduate degree and is enrolled in graduate school.
Brock Mealer splits his time between Ann Arbor and Columbus, Ohio, where a decal on his wheelchair leads to a lot of conversations.
"I get asked about the Michigan sticker on my wheelchair more often than I get asked about the wheelchair," he said with a grin.
Brock Mealer said it was Rodriguez's idea to have him walk the team onto the field — asking last spring if it was something he wanted to do — and the coach can't wait to witness the moment.
"It's going to be an emotional time," Rodriguez said. "He's dedicated his life to prove he can walk again."
-- Larry Lage
Marlins' infield dirt to provide Miami a challenge
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — When No. 13 Miami opens its season against Florida A&M on Thursday night, the Hurricanes won't exactly be worried about dirty plays.
Plays on the dirt might be the problem.
The start of football season overlaps with the end of baseball season, and since the Florida Marlins also call Sun Life Stadium home, the baseball infield — elbow-chewing, knee-scraping, unyielding dirt — will remain until at least early October. The gritty surface frustrates kickers, can be slippery for runners, and is generally unpleasant for both tacklers and tacklees.
"It's not fun," Miami linebacker Colin McCarthy said.
In 2012, the infield dirt will no longer be an issue for the Hurricanes and Miami Dolphins, because that's the season when the Marlins will move into a baseball-only stadium built on the site of the now-dismantled Orange Bowl near downtown Miami.
Until then, the cutout infield will remain for the first few weeks of football season, impossible for crews to cover with sod until the Marlins' season ends.
"Not fun at all," said Dolphins tight end Anthony Fasano. "Not the way the game should be played."
The Dolphins have already had two preseason games on the dirt this season, one of them marred by rain that turned the infield into a thick clay soup. The infield stretches over much of one half of the football field, while the other side — the outfield grass, if you will — is perfectly manicured to the Dolphins' and Hurricanes' liking.
It has been a thorny issue in South Florida forever. Dolphins players, kickers in particular, have long complained about having to work on the dirt.
"Go Marlins!" former New England Patriots defensive end Richard Seymour famously said in 2003, after Olindo Mare missed two kicks off the infamous dirt and cost the Dolphins a victory. New England ended up prevailing 19-13 in overtime.
Miami coach Randy Shannon tries to avoid discussing the dirt issue with players, not wanting them fixated on something out of their control.
The Hurricanes have sent their kickers, snappers and holders to the stadium to get some level of comfort with working on the dirt, but the rest of the team will get a first look on Thursday night.
"We don't even get all that involved in it," Shannon said. "I have this philosophy, and I've learned this by coaching. When you say 'Don't fumble the football,' the guy's not going to run very fast. So you've got to just tell them to keep moving their feet, use little trigger words like that to get them better."
That's not to say Shannon is dismissive about the dirt deal.
Some of the Hurricanes will wear a layer of tape over their forearms and elbows on Thursday night, letting it serve as another layer of skin. Unlike in baseball, where players rarely slide on the dirt with any skin exposed, football players often can't avoid some downright nasty scrapes and cuts when they get driven into the hard-packed surface.
"You can get a lot of staph infections from those burns if you're not careful," Shannon said. "You go up there and you practice, a guy gets a dirt burn or a sand burn, then he can't heal and he might miss the FAMU game or the Ohio State game (the following week). So you don't put yourself in that situation."
When it comes to the dirt, Miami's schedule might provide a break.
After Thursday, the Hurricanes aren't back at home until they face Florida State on Oct. 9. The Marlins play their regular-season finale Oct. 3. Barring a playoff run, the field might be all grass when the Seminoles come to South Florida.
"Depends on the Marlins," Shannon said. "If they get hot, we might be in trouble."
-- Tim Reynolds
New coach inherits many questionmarks at Richmond
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — When he was hired as Richmond's football coach last winter, Latrell Scott inherited a program two years removed from winning its first national championship, and one that has made deep runs into the FCS playoffs a matter of routine.
But in becoming one of the youngest head coaches in Division I football, the 35-year-old Scott also took over a team that had just said goodbye to 15 senior starters, including a four-year starting quarterback and four of its offensive linemen. And it still plays in the Colonial Athletic Association, which has become the pre-eminent league in FCS football.
Villanova last year became the CAA's fourth different national champ in seven years.
"It shows you what the CAA is all about," Scott said.
Thankfully for the first-time head coach, help was on the way.
Aaron Corp, once penciled in as the starting quarterback at Southern California, arrived as a transfer, as did Richard Muldrow, a 6-foot-8, 300-pound offensive lineman from Rutgers.
The school also will open its $25 million, on-campus stadium this season, and perhaps as importantly, was picked by the CAA's coaches and media to finish just sixth in the league.
Not much respect for a defending regular-season league champion.
"It's been placed in a few places around the building," Scott said of the prediction. "I'm not sure how it got there, but it's a tool, something that our kids have to focus on. We don't want to be the sixth-best team in anything we do, be it the conference or the country."
The players also enjoy being doubted in spite of their recent success.
"I think the year we won the national championship, every game in the playoffs we were the underdog," returning All-CAA center Drew Lachenmayer said as camp began. "It's always that little bit of an extra chip you have going into the week when people are doubting you."
And it's not like the cupboard is bare. Not even close.
Six of the seven returning starters were named to the CAA's preseason all-league team, including wide receivers Kevin Grayson (48 catches, 545 yards, 2 TDs) and Tre Gray (51, 713, 4), giving Corp two targets adept at stretching a defense. Also picked was fullback Kendall Gaskins (6 TDs), whose blocking will be key as the new offensive line works to protect.
On defense, lineman Martin Parker led the Spiders with 6½ sacks last year, and linebacker Eric McBride and cornerback Justin Rogers are three-time all conference first-team choices.
In their careers, they've been part of 35 wins and only eight losses, won the national championship in 2008 and advanced to the semifinals in the other two seasons.
Scott expects the seniors to help impart the secret of success to his younger players.
"You have to work to make sure that the younger guys understand and appreciate it," he said of the history, started under Dave Clawson, who left three years ago to become offensive coordinator at Tennessee, and continued under Mike London, now the head coach at Virginia.
Parker thinks the seeds for the tradition, and continuing it, are already planted.
"Once you learn how to win, you learn how not to lose," he said. "The feeling after a game, after the '08 championship, that's a feeling that you want back year after year."
To some, the choice of Scott was curious. He had never climbed to the coordinator level at the top level in college coaching, but was widely respected as an effective recruiter. He also had served as wide receivers coach under some highly accomplished mentors — Clawson at Richmond, Phillip Fulmer at Tennessee and Al Groh at Virginia — all in the past three years.
Plus, athletic director Jim Miller said, one supporter made a compelling argument.
"Some people are going to tell you he's two years away from being a head coach," Miller said Clawson told him. "But in two years, you're not going to be able to get him."
Scott consults weekly with Clawson, now the head coach at Bowling Green, and said he uses things he's learned from all his former bosses in building a staff and an approach.
He admittedly also has taken some time in adjusting to being in charge.
"I think I'm much more involved than I was in the spring," he said. "I have a much better feel for what's going on and kind of when and where to add my opinion. I was given the ability to hire a great staff, so I'm able to stay out of the way a lot, but also kind of insert my own opinion when needed. I'm a lot more comfortable than I was in the spring."
It helps that six of his assistants are holdovers from London's staff, and that defensive coordinator Bob Trott and defensive line coach Chad Wilt came with him from Virginia.
He and London also compared notes this summer as they swapped sides, he said, but those exchanges were limited because the teams open against each other at Virginia on Sept. 4.
It will be, Gray said, their first of many experiences they relish as underdogs.
"We like it," he said. "We like being looked over. It gives us the ability to show up every day, like we're supposed to, take it one week at a time, and handle our business."
-- Hank Kurz Jr.
Missouri reserve tight end arrested for DWI
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A reserve tight end at Missouri has been arrested for driving while intoxicated, the program's third alcohol-related arrest this month.
Beau Brinkley, who is also Missouri's long snapper, was arrested early Sunday in Columbia and charged with DWI by the state Highway Patrol. He was also cited for having improperly tinted vehicle windows. A team spokesman said disciplinary issues would be handled internally.
Reserve linebacker Will Ebner and assistant football coach Bruce Walker have also been arrested in recent weeks for possible drunken-driving violations. Neither has been charged with a crime.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel indefinitely suspended starting tailback and team captain Derrick Washington late last week for undisclosed reasons. Boone County court documents show Washington had been served with a protection order in June and accused of sexual assault by a woman.
Starting QB still undecided at Penn State
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — It's still a three-man race for the starting quarterback job at No. 19 Penn State.
The depth chart released Sunday ahead of next weekend's opener against Youngstown State listed sophomores Matt McGloin and Kevin Newsome along with freshman Robert Bolden on the first team.
They're trying to replace Daryll Clark, who has graduated.
The biggest surprise would be the emergence of the highly recruited Bolden, who has reportedly impressed in preseason camp. Newsome backed up Clark last year as a touted freshman, while McGloin is a former walk-on and third-stringer whose strength is his pocket presence.
Coach Joe Paterno is scheduled to speak Tuesday, when he will likely announce a starter.
Kilgore to start for Middle Tenn vs Minnesota
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) — Sophomore Logan Kilgore will start at quarterback for Middle Tennessee on Thursday night against Minnesota.
Coach Rick Stockstill announced the decision Sunday night after the Blue Raiders' practice.
Kilgore starts in place of Dwight Dasher, suspended indefinitely by Middle Tennessee on Friday for accepting a loan in violation of the NCAA's rules on amateurism. Kilgore was chosen over Jeff Murphy, another junior college transfer.
The 6-foot-3 Kilgore arrived on campus in January as a mid-term signee. He went 10-2 and threw for 2,512 yards and 22 touchdowns as a freshman at Bakersfield College in California as a freshman, and he was 21 of 34 for 322 yards in Middle Tennessee's spring game.
USC safety Hall suspended indefinitely by Kiffin
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California freshman safety Patrick Hall has been suspended indefinitely for failing to meet standards set out by coach Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin said the punishment was not the result of an isolated incident but rather a "combination of everything coming together."
Hall, a member of the 2009 recruiting class, did not see action last season because of injuries and academic issues. He had been limited during the current training camp as he recovered from a torn ACL.
