Latest Sport News:COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Brent Beard’s ACC Notebook
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by BRENT BEAIRD
www.jaxsportsnews.com
Six months after undergoing ligament surgery on his right thumb, Miami’s Jacory Harris conceded that the pain of missing spring practice was even worse than the pain of playing much of the season injured. Harris said he began throwing again in late May and acknowledged that the rehabilitation process has been gradual. Always an issue for Harris: His weight. He says he weighs 195. “I’m trying to get to 205, trying my best - eating every day, doing the things it takes,” Harris said. Harris said he’s found a common theme in his interception problems of 2009.
NUETRAL SITE GAME: Speaking to the Philadelphia Daily News, Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw confirmed that his school has been in discussion in recent months with his counterpart at Miami for a future neutral site game. One of those potential neutral site venues is slowly becoming a go-to destination for college football. Yankee Stadium, which will host both a bowl game and the Notre Dame-Army clash this year — and rumored to be in the mix for a Colorado-Army match-up — is rumored to be at the top of the neutral-site list for the schools. “We would always be interested in playing a game like that at a neutral site,” Bradshaw told the Daily News.
HENDERSON UPDATE: Sentrel Henderson is finally in the process of becoming a Cane. “He’s in the process of enrolling, will be on campus Aug. 3,” Henderson’s father, Sean, told CaneSport.com. Sean Henderson said since his son hasn’t been admitted to UM yet, “he can basically be considered a verbal commitment right now.”
Sean Henderson also said, contrary to some rumors, the pair has not visited the campus. He said they have only spoken to one UM coach so far - that was Jeff Stoutland for “just a couple of minutes” yesterday.
“That was our first contact with Miami,” Sean said. “We haven’t met or talked to coach (Randy) Shannon yet. Coach Stoutland, he was pleased. He gave me assurance that they had a scholarship waiting for Seantrel. And we felt it would be the best fit for Seantrel at Miami.”
Sean Henderson also said his understanding is that Seantrel has gotten through the Clearinghouse. Henderson was released from his USC letter-of-intent July 6 in the wake of severe NCAA sanctions on the school. Now the 6-foot-6 behemoth will be playing ball in Coral Gables.
During the recruiting process Henderson also gave serious consideration to Florida, Notre Dame and Ohio State. After he was granted his release by USC, Miami became his top choice. Now he is working through the process of being accepted to the school, and sources also say he isn’t yet through the NCAA Clearinghouse. Assuming he is cleared, Henderson would be eligible to play right away at Miami. (canesport.com)
NORTH CAROLINA: While the details are very scant right now, a report emanating from a website dedicated to covering North Carolina is reporting that the NCAA is investigating certain aspects of the school’s athletic programs.
Including a certain program that’s expected to challenge for an ACC title this fall.UNC athletic director Dick Baddour confirmed to Inside Carolina.com that the governing body of collegiate athletics has been sniffing around the school but, again, refused to get into any of the specifics of a probe that’s apparently in its infancy.
“I can acknowledge that representatives from the NCAA have been to Chapel Hill to speak with some of our student-athletes,” Baddour said. “One of the things that they instructed us in very clearly is that we are to maintain the confidence of their visit and their review. They’ve requested that we not discuss it publicly. Obviously, we’re going to fully cooperate with the NCAA in every way that we can by making things available to them and in particular by following their instruction on discussing it publicly.”
While Baddour would not confirm that the football program is part of the investigation, a source told the website that is indeed the case. The only confirmation from the website as far as the scope of the NCAA’s look is that it’s not related to academics.
ESPN.com’s Joe Schad has provided further details into the situation, including the fact that it’s only the football program the NCAA is looking into. Specifically, the NCAA is poking around sports agents and their interaction with UNC football players. One source told Schad that the NCAA was questioning players — including defensive tackle Marvin Austin, who had flirted with leaving for the NFL early — about gifts or extra benefits, ostensibly “to make sure no Reggie Bush stuff is going on.”
A second source said that the NCAA asked all of UNC’s projected NFL draft picks to provide phone records so investigators could see which agents they had spoken with.
The players were also asked who paid for the travel, who paid their rent and which agents they had met with and when, according to the second source. Austin recently tweeted about a trip to Miami.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, defensive tackle Marvin Austin and wide receiver Greg Little have been interviewed, the paper writes, in connection with improper involvement with sports agents.
Davis is preparing for his fourth season in Chapel Hill and has guided the program to consecutive eight-win seasons, which includes the program’s first back-to-back bowl seasons since the late 1990s when Mack Brown left for Texas.
Davis has a 20-18 record with the Tar Heels, including 11-13 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He inherited the program from John Bunting. The Tar Heels have gone to just two bowl games in six seasons, during which they were a woeful 27-45.
The Tar Heels are expected to contend for the ACC’s Coastal Division title with a defense that returns nine starters from a unit that ranked among the nation’s best last year. North Carolina opens the season against LSU in Atlanta on Sept. 4.
FLORIDA STATE: (Interview with AD Randy Spetman) The football indoor practice facility is still in the infancy of the design phase. It will eventually be built on one of the three practice fields. We’ve made design changes, which took the budget from 25 million down to 16 million dollars.
- The student / football dorm doesn’t have any new news, but we are actively raising funds for the facility.
- We have a 3 year project on the table to renovate Doak Campbell. The steel structure under the stadium will be completely sandblasted and painted. The entire budget for the project will be 6 million dollars.
Q: What is the current state of football ticket sales?
A: As of today, I’m pleased to say that we’ve reached the 2009 total level of ticket sales.
Q: There were rumors of ESPN wanting to televise our spring game. Why did that not happen?
A: ESPN wanted to do the spring game gratis, and they wanted to take over all the logistics. How the game was run, and the time of the game. We would have received no cash, and people would have stayed home to watch the game on TV rather than come to Tallahassee. It would have defeated Jimbo’s goal of a record spring game crowd.
Moreover, ISP pays us 5.6 million dollars per year, and they need to generate revenue to pay us. They’ve turned Seminoles.com from a zero moneymaker into a 200K annual return. They have a goal of a 1 million dollar annual return from the site, and the PPV spring game helps that.
Q: Have you found a replacement for the cancelled Air Force game?
A: We have not as of yet. We’ve contacted no less than 65 schools to fill the vacancy, and we’re going to have to pay more money to buy an opponent. However, whatever we make is more than if we’d have travelled out to Air Force.
Q: Will the Thursday night football games be in the new ESPN TV contract, and will we have a home game for any of them?
A: They will be. It’s something that ESPN wanted in the negotiations. As far as us playing at home, the number of classes in the Moore would compel FSU to have a fall break for a home game. However, we’ve found that home teams win 83% of Thursday night games, so we’ve presented thoughts to President Barron.
Q: Are there any plans to have Coach Bowden come back to be honored this season?
A: We do not expect Coach Bowden to be back for a game in 2010. It’s still emotional for him, and he wants to give Jimbo space to coach the football team. We’ve inducted him into the FSU Hall of Fame, but we will wait until at least 2011 to honor him at his request.
Q: What are the thoughts of Samford at noon, and will this be routine for a noon season opener?
A: The TV rights dictated that the game would be at noon, not FSU. As far as future openers, we’ve explored a number of options, including an ACC Conference game as an opener.
Q: Are there any talks of future neutral site games?
A: Unless we have a 2 million dollar guarantee, which is our revenue for a home game, we won’t consider it. Atlanta and Jacksonville have approached us, but there is nothing on the table. Orlando has not approached us at all.
CLEMSON: The recruitment of Cortez Davis has taken another twist. The Daytona Beach (FL) Mainland product had originally committed to Clemson on October 17, 2009. Then he switched to Florida State on February 27. Now the four-star recruit has switched back and re-committed to Clemson, as first-reported by Tigerillustrated.com. “I just recommitted back to Clemson. I’m back,” Davis first told Tigerillustrated.com Sunday afternoon. “I’ve known I was going to do this for a few days.”
The defensive back indicated that he told recruiter of record, defensive ends coach Chris Rumph, head coach Dabo Swinney, recruiting coordinator Jeff Scott and defensive backs coach Charlie Harbison about his decision. (tigerillustrated.com)
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