College Football Capsules: 'Bama history changed on handshake, and trip to LA

Bear Bryant of Alabama and John McKay of Southern California were friends because they could be — two coaches who enjoyed a round of golf, a good joke and didn’t have to worry about stepping on each other since they worked on opposite sides of the country.

Back in the late 1960s, presumably over 18 holes, they shook hands on a home-and-home series that would change Alabama football forever.

The first game, in Birmingham in 1970, is widely viewed as one of the critical steps in bringing black players onto the Alabama roster. The second game, in Los Angeles in 1971, is widely viewed as the start of a renaissance in Bryant’s storied career with the Crimson Tide.

The Tide is heading West again this week, making a rare trip back to Los Angeles with more history on the line. This time, it’s the BCS title game, with top-ranked ‘Bama playing Thursday against No. 2 Texas.

"Back then, the thought of going to Los Angeles was viewed as sort of a rare opportunity," said Ken Gaddy, director of the Bear Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa. "Obviously, it was a travel issue for everyone, going that far. But Coach Bryant had played in the Rose Bowl, so he was familiar."

Indeed, Alabama has been to the Rose Bowl six times — all before 1946, and before the Southeastern Conference became what it is today — and the game is mentioned in the Crimson Tide fight song.

But until this week, the Tide’s most substantial L.A. connection was that series in 1970 and 1971, when Bryant, the Alabama football program and the Deep South all found themselves at a crossroads.

Integration was slowly seeping into big-time football programs in the region, but Alabama was a last bastion. Bryant, who had tried to bring a black player onto the Kentucky team he coached in the 1950s, wanted to integrate his team.

But George Wallace, and his wife, Lurleen, were Alabama’s governors through most of the ‘60s. George Wallace built his following thanks in part to his famous stand in the schoolhouse door — when he attempted to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling on the Tuscaloosa campus.

Bryant was, by almost every account, more popular. But he was a state employee with a good sense of which fights to pick, and he didn’t want to mix it up with the governor.

"He was afraid they’d cut funds for the university and make it a tough situation for everyone — academically, financially and socially," said Clem Gryska, a longtime assistant for Bryant. "He was never against blacks on the team. But he was scared of the governor. Well, not scared of him, but he respected him."

Though most Alabama football historians say the legend is overblown, the boilerplate story is that Bryant wanted that game against USC to show to the Crimson Tide faithful the kind of football a roster filled with great athletes, black and white, could really produce.

USC fullback Sam "Bam" Cunningham did most of the explaining that night at Legion Field.

He scored two touchdowns in the first quarter and finished with 135 yards. USC ran for 485 yards and won 42-21. And regardless of whether Bryant specifically acknowledged after the game that Alabama could use a few players like Cunningham on the team — as the old story goes — the point had been proven: To win at the highest level, teams needed the best players, and picking from a whites-only talent pool was no longer a realistic option.

"The reality was that guys wanted to win," said John David Briley, author of "Career in Crisis, Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant and the 1971 Season of Change." "It didn’t matter what color the players were, they wanted to win. I think that game gave Bryant, if he needed any, it gave him some cover."

As much as that game, however, USC’s biggest contribution to Alabama football may have been the tip McKay gave Bryant about a promising player out of Mobile, Ala.

His name was John Mitchell. He was playing junior college ball at Eastern Arizona Junior College and was being heavily recruited by USC.

Soon after hearing about Mitchell, Bryant had his recruiters scouring the Mobile phone books, calling all the Mitchells to find out where the player lived.

A few weeks later, Mitchell and his mother were in the Bear’s office.

"In the midst of the conversation, I almost crawled under my chair, my mom stopped and said, ‘Now, what’s your name again?"’ Mitchell recalled. "He said ‘It’s Paul Bryant."’

Mitchell’s mom was not a football fan — but even if she had been, the idea of her son playing at Alabama seemed a little farfetched. Quite simply, if you were a black kid playing high school ball in Alabama in the ‘60s, you dreamed of playing at a historically black school such as Grambling State or Florida A&M, or maybe a USC or Michigan State. You didn’t dream of playing for Bear Bryant.

"Growing up in the state, I knew quite a bit about Alabama," Mitchell said. "In the back of my mind, you’re thinking, that’s where I want to go. A lot of kids wanted to go there. But you didn’t know, deep down, if you’d be able to cut the mustard if you got the chance."

Though other black players had tried to walk on at Alabama in the 1960s, Mitchell was the first to suit up for the Crimson Tide.

That was in 1971 — a year when another revolution took place within the program, one that wasn’t socially significant but is widely credited with pulling Bryant and the Crimson Tide out of the doldrums.

After going 28-15-2 — mediocre by his standards — over the previous four seasons, Bryant spent the summer of 1971 learning the wishbone from another good friend, Darrell Royal of Texas.

He first used it in the rematch with USC in Los Angeles.

Johnny Musso scored two touchdowns and the Tide rushed for 302 yards in a 17-10 win over the Trojans — a game that was not televised in Alabama, back in a day when TV games were more of a treat than an expectation.

"Coach Bryant had implied to Darrell Royal that if things didn’t work out in 1971, he was either getting out of coaching or going to the pros, because he had really had it," Briley said. "They went in there, they surprised USC with that offense. Their defense was much better than what it had been. And as the old cliche goes, defense wins championships."

Bryant’s teams won at least nine games every season from 1971-1981. They won AP national titles in 1978 and 1979. Briley estimated about a third of the Alabama roster was black by then.

Bryant retired in 1982, the same year that Wallace, the hard-line segregationist, won the governorship after seeking forgiveness from blacks he had discriminated against in the past.

Race, of course, has never gone away as an issue in America, but on the Alabama football team, there’s nothing groundbreaking about having a black player on the roster anymore.

Since 1971, Alabama has only returned to play in Los Angeles two times, once against USC and once against UCLA. The third will come Thursday, when 15 of the 22 starters in the title game against Texas will be black.

"Coach Bryant and his coaches knew that integrating the team was the thing to do," Gaddy said. "They were just waiting for the opportunity. Sometimes, you’ve got to take advantage of opportunities when they come. It worked out pretty well for us."

Florida turns attention to Meyer’s health, future

NEW ORLEANS — With orange and blue confetti falling and a Sugar Bowl trophy being passed around, Florida coach Urban Meyer reiterated his plans for the future.

Tentative plans, anyway.

"In my gut I feel like I’ll be back," Meyer said after Florida’s 51-24 victory over No. 4 Cincinnati on Friday night. "I just want to make sure my family and health are No. 1. I’ve just got to get that right."

Until then, the fifth-ranked Gators (13-1) will be surrounded by uncertainty — the latest and greatest distraction for a team coming off a chaos-filled season.

Talk about Meyer’s chest pains, hospital stay, brief resignation, indefinite leave of absence and potential return will linger throughout the offseason.

Sure, there will be news about juniors leaving early, staff changes and offensive tweaks following the end of quarterback Tim Tebow’s tenure. But nothing will garner as much attention as Meyer’s situation.

How long will he be gone? How will his absence affect recruiting and his assistants? What happens if he decides he doesn’t want to coach again?

"It’s very hard," offensive coordinator and interim coach Steve Addazio said. "You don’t want to see anybody you care about go through what he’s going through right now. That’s why it’s so very important to give him this peace, this stability, that he knows this program is in good shape and in good hands and going well.

"That’s what we’re going to do. We owe him and we love the guy. That’s all that matters, just keep it going that way."

The Gators headed back to Gainesville, Fla., on Saturday with a championship trophy, commemorative hats and T-shirts and some redemption after a humbling loss to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference title game last month.

Florida dominated the Bearcats from the start. Tebow threw for a school-record 482 yards and finished with a Bowl Championship Series-record 533 total yards, breaking Vince Young’s mark set in the 2005 title game against Southern California.

Tebow completed 31 of 35 passes, accounted for four touchdowns and capped his storied college career with his finest performance.

"All those critics, take that," running backs coach Kenny Carter said.

Tebow accepted the Most Valuable Player trophy, sang the fight song with Meyer and then took one final victory lap. He even spent a few minutes with Boomer Hornbeck, an 8-year-old from Atlanta who’s confined to a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy.

"To finish it off like this was special," Tebow said.

It wasn’t quite what the Gators wanted, though.

Tebow and his teammates openly talked about wanting to lead the program to its first perfect season and repeat as national champions. Sky-high expectations ensued, and Florida faced varying levels of adversity just about every week. Meyer even called it the "year of stuff."

It included flulike symptoms that ravaged the team; Tebow’s concussion; hijacked cell phone numbers; linebacker Brandon Spikes’ eye-gouging incident; Meyer’s $30,000 fine for criticizing officials; defensive end Carlos Dunlap’s drunk-driving arrest; some close games; a few controversial calls; and what seemed like a season-long offensive slump.

Meyer’s ordeal topped it all.

Meyer, Addazio and athletic director Jeremy Foley plan to sit down this week and discuss how things will be handled during the coach’s leave of absence. When asked what his role would be over the next month, Meyer sounded as though he expects to stay involved.

"I’m going to do everything I can to keep this train going in the right direction," Meyer said.

It starts with recruiting. Meyer and Addazio hope to salvage a signing class that is sure to hear about Florida’s unsettled coaching situation.

Florida might not be able to afford too many defections, not with seven seniors and maybe just as many juniors leaving Gainesville.

Tebow, receiver Riley Cooper, defensive end Jermaine Cunningham, kick returner Brandon James and linebackers Spikes, Ryan Stamper and Dustin Doe are NFL-bound seniors. Cornerback Joe Haden, defensive end Carlos Dunlap, tight end Aaron Hernandez, running back Chris Rainey, safeties Ahmad Black and Major Wright, and offensive linemen Mike Pouncey and Maurkice Pouncey could leave school early and join them.

Haden, Dunlap, Hernandez and the Pounceys are likely to turn pro. Underclassmen have until Jan. 15 to declare for the draft.

Meyer’s plans could take considerably longer to sort out.

"We’ll address the future when it’s the appropriate time," he said.

-- Mark Long

Football only: A distraction-free year for JoePa

ORLANDO, Fla. — His health is fine, his contract is secure and his players stayed out of trouble.

Joe Paterno just wrapped up a season relatively free of non-football issues that could distract him from the job he’s had a record 44 years — head coach at Penn State.

"Maybe we’re just doing a better job of trying to cover it up," Paterno quipped Saturday, drawing chuckles during his annual end-of-season session with reporters.

The round-table meeting is a glimpse at Paterno at his most relaxed, a brief respite before the calendar begins anew when he returns to Happy Valley to concentrate on recruiting.

The campaign began five months ago with the anticipation of JoePa’s return to the sideline after spending most of 2008 in the press box with a balky hip.

It ended with Paterno pacing the soggy turf at the Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium, leading the No. 11 Nittany Lions (11-2) to their best victory of the year in beating No. 13 LSU 19-17 at the Capital One Bowl.

The hip is fine, Paterno said Saturday, though he’s a bit tired from the nonstop schedule this year. A revised academic calendar, plus a lack of a bye week, wore out players and coaches and made bowl prep a challenge.

"It was not easy," Paterno said. "This is one of the toughest ballgames that we’ve ever had to prepare for because" of final exams.

Paterno won his 24th bowl game in his 36th appearance — both records — and won his record 394th game overall.

The extension signed at the end of 2008 keeps him under contract another two seasons. Paterno, who turned 83 on Dec. 21, is a dinosaur in the coaching ranks for his longevity, especially now that Bobby Bowden has stepped down at Florida State.

Paterno called the 80-year-old Bowden a "great asset to college football" and recalled a conversation in which the Hall of Famers discussed setting up a series at neutral sites.

Bowden’s suggestion wasn’t quite neutral enough for Paterno.

"I said, ‘What are you thinking about?’ and he said, ‘Jacksonville,"’ a smiling Paterno recounted.

Bowden ended his career five wins behind Paterno for most victories among major college coaches, and was replaced by Jimbo Fisher, who was already on Bowden’s staff as the eventual successor.

Don’t look for a such a publicized succession plan any time soon at Penn State, even though JoePa’s staff includes longtime assistants like defensive coordinator Tom Bradley who could ease into a head position.

"I’ve said many times, that’s not the way to do it. ... It wouldn’t be the way to do it at Penn State," Paterno said.

It should be noted, though, that Paterno got the Penn State job after 16 years as an assistant at the school.

Paterno’s time-tested formula includes a focus on finding recruits with character who don’t want to shirk academics. Penn State’s graduation success rate for football players is 85 percent, trailing only Northwestern’s 92 percent in the Big Ten, according to the NCAA.

This year’s senior captains, linebacker Sean Lee and quarterback Daryll Clark, might have been the perfect examples of Paterno’s blueprint. Lee was the finance major with a polished and polite off-field demeanor.

Clark, who struggled with academics early on, got his grades on track and transformed into the charismatic and record-setting face of the offense. Coach and quarterback had such good interactions that the 23-year-old senior often called Paterno his friend.

Not to say that Penn State players don’t run into trouble at times. The program went through a particularly rough patch off the field from the spring of 2007 through the first half of the 2008 season.

"You guys made too much out of the problems we’ve had," Paterno said. "They’re not that bad ... that didn’t affect my attitude about whether I enjoyed coaching or not."

The drive and determination don’t appear to have waned after all these decades. Barring major health concerns, Paterno seems to have the energy to remain on the sideline well into the new decade.

Just give Paterno a break before asking him about 2010. With several key seniors like Clark and Lee done, next season might be a rebuilding campaign.

"Oh geez, you guys," the coach lamented. "I got about four hours sleep last night and you’re talking to me about rebuilding a team?"

-- Genaro C. Armas

And now, it’s Jimbo Fisher’s turn at FSU

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jimbo Fisher hails from a blue-collar upbringing, has deep ties to West Virginia, relies on his faith and insists football isn’t the driving force in his life.

Sound familiar?

Florida State’s next football coach — the official transition is Tuesday — is not Bobby Bowden, nor does he profess or aspire to be Bobby Bowden. Yet there are plenty of similarities between the outgoing and incoming occupant of the head coach’s suite overlooking Doak Campbell Stadium, which figures to help smooth the transition between eras.

"The thing I was blessed with, all through my life, was I had two parents who loved me and who sacrificed everything they had for me to have the opportunities I’ve had," Fisher said. "We were not rich by any means. We were a very average middle-class family. Dad was a coal miner, Mom was a schoolteacher. ... Hopefully, I remember all that."

Fisher’s life won’t be average ever again.

He’s about to enter a $9 million, five-year contract that could pay him more than $12 million if all incentives are met along the way. He’s one of the lucky ones, since in his town, you pretty much either worked in the coal mines — like his father, who died in 1994 — or taught school like his mother, who’s still teaching chemistry and physics after half a century at Robert C. Byrd High in Clarksburg, W. Va.

And now Fisher — the offensive coordinator when LSU won the national title under Nick Saban — has control of one of college football’s most revered programs, even after finishing 7-6 three times in the last four years, including this one. Bowden’s era ended Friday with a 33-21 win over West Virginia in the Gator Bowl, giving the 44-year-old Fisher a nice springboard into a 2010 season of great expectation.

"Anybody that has coached as long as I have, the next guy coming in has got to be very careful," Bowden said. "I really have a lot of confidence in him. He is one of the sharpest coaches, young coaches I have seen. He will hire well and he will recruit well. I think he will do good."

Keep in mind, Bowden wasn’t the one who tagged Fisher with the coach-in-waiting label he’s worn for some time at Florida State. That was a university decision; Bowden said if he was ever asked to endorse a replacement, he would have chosen defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews, who is following his boss into retirement.

That doesn’t mean there’s animosity between Bowden and Fisher, just Bowden being honest and loyal to his longtime lieutenant. And from Fisher’s perspective, the coach-in-waiting period worked as well as could be expected.

"It definitely has," Fisher said. "Being able to hit the ground running, knowing as I call where your land mines are, who can do what for you, who handles what. When you come in to make changes in a program, you’ve got to figure the people there, the administrative end, to see who handles this and controls that. We don’t have to. And the players already know how I coach, how I do things."

Fisher will make changes, of course. A half-dozen coaches aren’t being retained, and some hires are expected to be announced in the coming days. Fisher called for his first new staff meeting Saturday afternoon, saying "we’ve got work to do," and ready to start that work less than 24 hours after Bowden hoisted the Gator Bowl trophy. The defensive philosophy will be considerably tweaked, though the attacking schemes Florida State is known for won’t be abandoned entirely.

Growing pains will likely happen, too. Knowing that, Bowden will give Fisher his space.

"I definitely want to leave town," Bowden said. "I have always said when I finish a job like this, I do not want to hang around and get compared ... have people say, ‘Bobby, what would you have done? What should he have done? How come you didn’t do like what Bobby did?’ I don’t want to go through that. So I’m hightailing it out of here as soon as I can."

There will always be ties, though. Bowden’s name will remain on the field. Fisher has a relationship with Bowden that goes back for decades, and said he always hopes major college football’s second-winningest coach — Bowden retires with 389 wins at Samford, West Virginia and Florida State — remains a resource.

But it’s Fisher’s team now. His time, at long last, has arrived.

"Who ever thought a coal miner’s son from West Virginia who had to drive 6 miles to town would ever be fortunate enough to be where I’m at?" Fisher said. "I’m not patting myself on the back. That’s the way you have to look at it. You have to fight. You have to claw."

Just like Bowden did.

"He’s my hero," Fisher said. "And he’s told me more than once, do it your way."

-- Tim Reynolds

Cal’s Jahvid Best to leave school to enter draft

BERKELEY, Calif. — California star tailback Jahvid Best announced Saturday that he will skip his senior year and enter the NFL draft after a disappointing final college season cut short by injury.

"It wasn’t an easy decision. It took a lot of thought and we got a lot of advice from everybody," Best said on a conference call. "This is an opportunity that I can’t pass up."

Best missed the final four games of the season after a frightening fall knocked him out and sent him to the hospital with a concussion and sore back. Best said the injury played only a small role in his decision and actually made it more likely that he would have stayed so he could have ended his career on a high note.

Best said he has heard projections that have him going as high as the first round and as low as the third round in April’s draft. But he said those are nothing more than guesses and didn’t play much of a role in his decision.

"It was just kind of a gut feeling," he said. "I go with my feelings. That’s how I make decisions. I feel like I’m ready to play in the NFL and I think I’ll be successful."

Best said he’s still not fully healed from the injury that occurred Nov. 8, when he fell on the back of his head from about 8 feet while leaping into the end zone for a touchdown against Oregon State.

He was unconscious after the fall and taken off the field on a stretcher. He was hospitalized overnight and did not return to the field the rest of the season. It was his second concussion of the season, having sustained a mild one the previous week at Arizona State.

"I’m still not 100 percent right now," Best said. "But I’m very optimistic about my ability to come back by the time the combine and pro day come around. I have no doubt in my mind I’ll be able to perform."

Best entered the season as one of the most dynamic running backs in the country and a contender for the Heisman Trophy. He finished with 16 touchdowns and 867 yards rushing before the injury.

In his career at Cal, Best had 2,668 yards rushing, 62 catches for 533 yards and 35 total touchdowns. He had 11 rushes for more than 60 yards and four that went for at least 80.

"I think the sky’s the limit," coach Jeff Tedford said. "I think Jahvid has great potential. The obvious thing is his speed. But I don’t know if everybody appreciates his ability to catch football. I think he’s just going to get better and better."

With Best sidelined down the stretch, Shane Vereen rushed for 566 yards and six touchdowns in the final four games for Cal (8-5). Vereen’s best performance came in the Big Game at Stanford, when he carried 42 times for 193 yards and three scores in a 34-28 victory.

Vereen finished his sophomore season with 852 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns.

"Shane Vereen is very comparable," Tedford said. "Those two guys really did a nice job complementing each other. Shane when healthy has a lot of the same characteristics Jahvid has. We’re very fortunate there."

-- Josh Dubow

Iowa OL Dace Richardson all way back from injury

MIAMI SHORES, Fla. — Dace Richardson rushed to rehab a broken left ankle so he could play in the Orange Bowl.

On Saturday, word finally came down from Iowa’s coaches: The offensive lineman will get a chance to play against No. 9 Georgia Tech in what could be his final game.

"I feel ready; I feel strong," Richardson said. "They just wanted to make sure I was ready to go. From that standpoint, I’m grateful."

Richardson sat out the final month of the season after breaking his ankle Oct. 24 at Michigan State. It was the latest blow to a career almost cut short 16 months ago by chronic knee injuries.

Considering all he’d gone through just to get to South Florida, it would have been tough to deny him.

"He’s done a really nice job to get back to this point in time," offensive coordinator Ken O’Keefe said. "I don’t know that he would be ready to play a 60-minute game if he absolutely had to. But he’ll be ready to do something."

Richardson’s impact may be best measured by the fact that his partial season didn’t keep Big Ten coaches from voting him to their all-conference team. He did it while playing three positions. He began the season at right tackle until Kyle Calloway recovered from injury, moved to left guard for four games, then shifted to right guard to make room for the emergence of Riley Reiff.

But it came to an abrupt halt in the first quarter at Michigan State, getting tangled in a pile on the game’s opening series.

"I definitely knew it was broken," Richardson recalled. "I heard it snap."

It had the potential to be a spirit-crushing injury. Until this season, he hadn’t played a down since 2006, sidelined again and again by knee injuries that had medical staff telling him he might be done.

Richardson fought back from those troubles; he wouldn’t let this one keep him down, either. In fact, his spirits got an unlikely boost when doctors told him the broken ankle would take a month to heal.

That meant he had a chance to play in Iowa’s bowl game.

"I was definitely thinking about being back for the bowl," he said.

Richardson had no plans to tune in when the all-conference team was unveiled on the Big Ten Network during the season’s final week, but he found out soon enough when friends began texting and calling him.

"They’d tell me congratulations and I’m saying, ‘Congratulations for what?"’ Richardson recalled. "It was definitely a pick-me-up from where I was at the time — I was still in a cast at that point."

Rehab would come soon enough.

"That injury against Michigan State, I don’t know that anyone thought he’d come back for this game," tackle Bryan Bulaga said. "To see him back now, I think it says a lot about Dace’s character and resiliency."

Despite all the time lost to injuries during his Iowa stay, Richardson says he never got to the point of asking, "Why me?"

"I just feel like God has a plan," Richardson said. "I’ve become a stronger person because of the injury. It taught me that if I want to be the best, you have to work hard to get there. At first maybe I didn’t appreciate that as much."

Richardson also has a big decision ahead of him — whether to apply to the NCAA for a medical exemption that would give him a sixth season of eligibility or try giving the NFL a shot. As a senior, he doesn’t face the Jan. 15 deadline to declare early entry, but he can’t apply to the NCAA until May.

"(School officials) feel like I have a good enough case where it should be a slam dunk for me," Richardson said, "but the NCAA’s weird. So who knows?"

For now, Richardson will simply enjoy being with his teammates for at least one more game, on a big stage.

"What a great story," Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz said. "From my observations, I don’t think he’s ever enjoyed football any more than he did this year."