Read the Article »

Read the Article »

• Tide will fall. In general, the odds advise against projecting pretty much any specific team to run the table to a perfect season, no matter how dominant it happens to look on paper. That goes double in a season that appears ripe for chaos, where there is no dominant team on paper. And it goes triple for an outfit that’s already flouted the odds over the course of a frequently harrowing, 24-game regular-season win streak. For lack of an obvious successor, Alabama opens the season where it ended the last one, as the consensus No. 1 in every major poll. But down nine starters, six draft picks and three All-Americans from the nation’s best defense – not just the core but almost the entire group responsible for a 12-0 regular season in 2008 and the perfect, 14-0 run to the BCS championship last year – and now facing some uncertainty surrounding two of its best players, if ever an undisputed frontrunner has been vulnerable to an unexpected lump or two, ‘Bama is it.

• Democracy is coming to the Rose Bowl. Whatever its other concessions to evolving realities over the year, clearly the Granddaddy has never been for the little guy: Even since the Rose Bowl relinquished its 50-year-old death grip on the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions to join the BCS in 1998, only five teams have won their way into Pasadena without a major conference championship, and only one of those (No. 13 Illinois in 2007) came into the game ranked lower than No. 8 in the AP poll. The Fiesta or Sugar bowls might be willing to descend to some mid-major upstart, but never the Rose. It’s just not done, you see.

Like all barriers, though, the gate guarding one of the most exclusive venues in sports from the barbarians has been chipped away just enough – most recently by ESPN, which mandated as part of the BCS’ new broadcast contract that the Rose Bowl replace a Big Ten or Pac-10 champion bound for the BCS Championship Game with a qualified outfit from a non-”Big Six” conference –

Filed under: Dolphins, AFC East, NFL Training Camp

ARLINGTON, Texas — When David Buehler’s 31-yard field goal sailed through the uprights as time expired to give the Dallas Cowboys a 27-25 preseason victory over the Miami Dolphins at Cowboys Stadium, it started the official clock counting down to the regular season. And there were plenty of intriguing developments from Miami’s end to follow as the team boarded the plane bound for Fort Lauderdale, chronicled here by me on MiamiDolphins.com before we took off.

Normally, the attention is centered around those position battles that will help determine the last few spots on the final 53-man roster, and there were some good ones in the game. But it was something that happened early in the second quarter that had Dolphins beat reporters scrambling with deadline fast approaching. On the same play that starting quarterback Chad Henne was sandwiched by Cowboys’ linebackers Victor Butler and Brandon Williams, turning the ball over on a fumble, Pro Bowl left tackle Jake Long was shaken-up.

The 6-foot-7, 310-pound pillar of the Dolphins offensive line was holding his left knee and first had it examined on the sideline before heading inside to the locker room for a closer examination. Dolphins’ Head Coach Tony Sparano and the rest of the team and their fans held their collective breath, but when Long came back out for the second half still in uniform and with no visible protection on the knee, those fears were put to rest.

After the game Long deflected all questions about the knee to Sparano and did say he’ll be all right. Sparano said he did not know what Long’s status is, but being as he was able to leave the stadium under his own power and was not wearing any protective brace, it appears that whatever the injury was it is minor and he should be ready for the opener at Buffalo a week from Sunday.

]]> http://www.flasports.net/2010/09/03/dolphins-preseason-finale-filled-with-suspense/feed/ 0 http://www.flasports.net/2010/09/03/never-mind-72-hours-later-masoli-is-in-the-clear-again/ http://www.flasports.net/2010/09/03/never-mind-72-hours-later-masoli-is-in-the-clear-again/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:36:23 +0000 admin http://www.flasports.net/2010/09/03/never-mind-72-hours-later-masoli-is-in-the-clear-again/
Ole Miss’ first kickoff against Jacksonville State is still roughly 24 hours away, so it’s entirely possible the situation could somehow change again. But as of this afternoon, three days after denying quarterback Jeremiah Masoli a waiver to play for Ole Miss this season, the NCAA says Masoli can play, after all:

University of Mississippi football student-athlete Jeremiah Masoli may compete immediately, according to a decision today by the NCAA Division I Subcommittee for Legislative Relief. The subcommittee’s decision overturns the staff decision to grant the graduate student transfer waiver with the condition that Masoli could not compete until the 2011-12 academic year.

According to NCAA rules, created by member schools, football graduate student-athletes must receive a waiver in order to compete if they enroll at a university other than where they received their undergraduate degree.

Yeah, sorry about all that, man. So does this mean they’re not doing the t-shirts now?

Masoli, of course, completed his undergraduate degree at Oregon in July, four months after being suspended for the season for pleading guilty to second-degree burglary of a frat house, and just weeks after being booted for good following another arrest on a traffic stop.

Dedicated people-helper that he is, Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt decided to overturn his own decision not to pursue Masoli and instead assist in his efforts to enroll in Ole Miss’ graduate Parks and Recreation program –

Editor’s note: Our John Patton has been recuperating from a few non-life-threatening injuries suffered when he fell off a ladder while trying to rescue a few kittens that were treed by a Williston neighborhood door. While he was on doctor-prescribed medication to dull the pains, he put together his futuristic look at Weeks 10 and 11 of the Southeastern Conference football season. In an attempt to get his crystal-ball season wrapped up before the real one begins, here they are:

Read the Article »

But whatever hope remained that Austin would somehow assume the burden for the entire team finally evaporated this morning with word from the university that at least a dozen players will be held out of the LSU game in Atlanta, including a few pretty big names:

Chapel Hill - The University of North Carolina has declared six student-athletes on the football team ineligible for Saturday’s season-opening game for violating school and/or NCAA rules. The University is also withholding at least six other student-athletes from Saturday’s game while the investigation continues.

The six ineligible student-athletes include: defensive tackle Marvin Austin, cornerback Charles Brown, cornerback Kendric Burney, wide receiver Greg Little, defensive end Michael McAdoo and defensive end Robert Quinn.

Six other student-athletes who will be withheld from Saturday’s game include: tailback Shaun Draughn, defensive end Linwan Euwell, safety Brian Gupton, tailback Ryan Houston, safety Da’Norris Searcy and safety Jonathan Smith.

The number of games that those 12 student-athletes may miss has not been determined at this time. The investigation continues to include both agent-related and academic issues.

Three other players whose status remains in question won’t make the trip to Atlanta, until/unless their cases are resolved in time to get them there in time for kickoff: Linebackers Quan Sturdivant and Bruce
Carter and safety Deunta Williams weren’t on the team plane as the Tar Heels
prepared to leave Friday morning. That puts the official number in the “OUT/DOUBTFUL” category to 15, right on par with the staggering 16 players reportedly in question as of Wednesday evening.

In this case, it’s staggering in the quality as much as the quantity: Besides Austin, teammates Brown, Burney and Quinn were all All-ACC picks last year, and were all clearly bound for the draft next spring, where Austin was/is likely to go in the first round and Quinn had (and may still have) a chance to be the first defensive end off the board. If Sturdivant, Carter and Williams aren’t cleared in time, that makes three more
All-ACC veterans and future draft picks watching from home. Searcy is also a returning starter, and McAdoo had been rotating with the first team on the front four. And

Obviously, the celebrated defense that stood to lift the Heels to one of the best seasons in school history is in tatters. But the offense – already an inconsistent, lo-fi effort even at full strength – may be equally bereft without workhorses Draughns and Houston, the top running backs each of the last two years, and especially without Greg Little, another favorite of pro scouts and the only notable playmaker in the entire attack. Quarterback T.J. Yates has certainly shown no signs in his first three years of a starter of picking up that kind of slack.

The only “positive” is that the Tar Heels generally know who’s going to be out 36 hours before kickoff, and have been planning accordingly for more than a week. South Carolina (whose own problems initially stemmed from Marvin Austin’s relationship with Gamecock tight end Weslye Saunders) didn’t get official word on a dozen of its own eligibility questions until 45 minutes before kickoff in last night’s opener against Southern Miss. Ten of those 12 were ultimately cleared in time, including hyped freshman running back Marcus Lattimore, who proceeded to score a pair of touchdowns in his first collegiate game.

There is no indication whatsoever, though, that North Carolina is going to be that lucky on Saturday, where the Vegas line – which opened slightly in UNC’s favor last month –

Read the Article »

Read the Article »

Read the Article »