Campus Confidential

Rutgers keeps adding to its impressive list of non-conference opponents in the coming years.

The Scarlet Knights have already announced future home-and-home games with Penn State and Miami (Fla.). Now Rutgers has announced a two-game series with UCLA.

UCLA comes to New Jersey on Sept. 1, 2016, and Rutgers goes to California the following season, on Sept. 2, 2017.

The Senate will hold a hearing next week to look into antitrust issues involving the Bowl Championship Series.

Also, check this week's Sports Illustrated, which includes an essay by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch has been leading the push to get a hearing on the BCS.

According to the Associated Press story, Hatch wrote in his SI essay: "One thing is clear: No changes will take place if Congress does nothing."

No surprise that the BCS rejected the Mountain West Conference proposal for an eight-team playoff that gave teams outside of the six power conferences a legitimate shot to play for a national title.

In all, the 10 conferences and Notre Dame agreed to current postseason set-up and current television contract.

What will be interesting is when ESPN takes control of television rights for all of the top BCS games. If ESPN wants a playoff, you can bet there will be a playoff sooner or later.

Photo: Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard

I can never quite tell what Nike is trying to accomplish with their Oregon Ducks project. I've yet to meet anyone outside of the state of Oregon that actually likes the outlandish threads the Ducks wear on Saturdays. I've never been to Oregon, so that means I've never met someone who likes Oregon's uniforms.

The picture above is the uniforms planned for this year. The Register-Guard has more here.

In a similar note, Darren Rovell, who writes an awesome sports business column for CNBC, gave us a look at Boise States new unis.

Photos courtesy of broncosports.com

I also hear 10 teams will be wearing special Nike uniforms this year -- so keep an eye out for that announcement.

Nick Montana, son of Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, committed to Washington, according to The Seattle Times.

Montana is a senior quarterback at Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village, Calif.

According to The Seattle Times, Nick Montana was very impressed with new Washington coach Steve Sarkisian. Not a bad guy to be impressed with. Sarkisian worked with NFL quarterbacks Carson Palmer, Matt Leinert and Mark Sanchez at USC.

The Seattle Times reported that Montana was also considering Notre Dame (his dad's alma mater), LSU, Ohio State, Alabama, Stanford and Georgia. Not a bad list of schools. And a great get by Sarkisian.

Quarterback Dominique Davis is transferring from Boston College after he was suspended for academic reasons.

The problem for new head coach Frank Spaziani is who does he pick to be his starting QB? Redshirt freshman Justin Tuggle or junior college transfer Codi Boeck, who played fullback last season?

That's not a good problem, especially since the ACC should be competitive again in 2009. Not many easy games in the conference.

There is a great column from Kurt Streeter of the Los Angeles Times about the deafening silence at USC since the school has come under fire and an NCAA investigations began looking into improper benefits for student-athletes.

Will anything come out of all this? Should USC be worried?

Lee Corso, the man who has coined "Not so fast, my friend!" as a staple on fall Saturday mornings is recovering from a minor stroke, according to reports.

Corso, 73, of ESPN's College GameDay, is expected to be on the air this fall.

"This is just a small bump in the road," Corso said in a statement issued by ESPN. "A 'not so fast, my friend' in my game of life. I look forward to making a full recovery and returning to ESPN for my 23rd season analyzing the greatest sport in the world -- college football."

The SEC coaches and athletic directors got together for a joint meeting in Florida on Wednesday. Click here to read a detailed account of what went down.

Basically, SEC commissioner Mike Slive told the coaches and ADs he doesn't want anymore public verbal sparring. This became even more of an issue after South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier and new Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin had a public exchange in front of media members on Tuesday.

Most of what has gone on lately has involved Kiffin.

The Associated Press caught up with Penn State head coach Joe Paterno at an alumni event in Allentown, Pa., on Wednesday evening.

Paterno said he would like to see an Eastern team, one that plays well in the New York market, added to the conference. The coach mentioned Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse as possibilities.

But Paterno did not endorse Notre Dame, which rejected an invite to the conference 10 years ago. "They've had their chance," Paterno said.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has said recently that the Big Ten had no plans to expand.

The American Football Coaches Association has a press release out today announcing changes to the USA Today coaches' poll.

The AFCA asked Gallup to study the poll and offer recommendations. The one major change that will take effect in 2010 is that the coaches' final regular-season votes will be confidential. This was something the AFCA did before 2005.

There are some other areas that are being looked at. One major change we could see in the future is a poll of only 10 or 15 teams. Also, the preseason poll may disappear.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday afternoon that the NCAA gave its Committee on Infractions another week (June 2) to respond to Florida State's appeal of sanctions for an academic cheating scandal.

The biggest part of this story is whether Bobby Bowden will lose 14 victories as part of the sanctions. That would put Bowden well behind Penn State's Joe Paterno in the race for most career coaching wins.

Kentucky defensive end Jeremy Jarmon has been ruled ineligible for his senior season after taking a dietary supplement that contained a substance banned by the NCAA.

The news was reported on the school's athletic Web site.

Jarmon, who held a press conference on Saturday morning, tested positive for the banned substance during a random and routine drug test by the NCAA on Feb. 24. The penalty is the loss of on year of eligibility. Thus, that ends Jarmon's collegiate career.

He had 17.5 sacks in his career, third most in school history.

Jarmon said he was trying to lose weight, which prompted him to use the dietary supplement.

Jarmon's lengthy statement, read at Saturday's press conference, is below if you want to read it.

Continue reading "Kentucky's Jarmon tests positive for banned substance" »

Mississippi head coach Houston Nutt and some of his assistants may have broken NCAA violations by speaking publicly about recruits before they had signed their national letters of intent.

The Clarion-Ledger has the story here.

This all stems from an article posted to Rivals.com by Tom Dienhart back in late January that detailed a day in the life of recruiting for Nutt.

The violations are said to be minor and no one knows who turned Mississippi in to the NCAA.

This will continue to be an interesting and much-watched aspect in college football as things like Twitter, Facebook and text messages become more and more popular.

BY ARTHUR STAPLE

Army once had a tradition of playing football in Yankee Stadium, one that ended roughly 60 years ago. There's a new Yankee Stadium, and Army wants to start a new tradition along with it.

On the heels of a published report Thursday that Notre Dame is interested in playing a football game in the new stadium, an Army official said the military academy has held talks since March with Yankees officials about having a game, or multiple games, in the Bronx as well.

"We've had preliminary discussions with the Yankees about playing there, and we do have interest in playing a game or games in Yankee Stadium," said Bob Beretta, Army's senior associate athletic director for communications. "We met with them on a couple different occasions, toured the new facility. There's significant interest in forming a partnership to play there."

The Yankees declined to comment.

Beretta said Army has not had discussions with Notre Dame about playing a game at Yankee Stadium. In the report Thursday, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick expressed interest in playing at the stadium, and continuing the school's series with Army in the Bronx.

"It would be of great historical significance for us if it would be Army," Swarbrick told The New York Times. "We would love that. Some of the most significant games in the history of college football involve those two schools and Yankee Stadium."

Swarbrick said he hoped the 100th anniversary of Notre Dame's 35-13 win over Army, a game played in West Point in 1913 that revolutionized the game after the Fighting Irish employed the forward pass to great success, could be played at Yankee Stadium.

The 1930 and 1931 Army-Navy games were played at the old Yankee Stadium, and in 1928, Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne gave his "win one for the Gipper" speech at halftime of a game there against Army.

"It's a big part of the tradition of college football to have Army games at Yankee Stadium," Beretta said. "We can't say right now that it's going to happen. But we would like it to happen and we hope the Yankees feel the same way."