6 p.m. kickoff set for game moved due to TS Hanna
SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Officials have set a 6 p.m. start time for Saturday's Charleston Southern-Wofford football game.
The contest was originally set for Charleston Southern's campus but was moved to Wofford as Tropical Storm Hanna approached the South Carolina coast.
On Wednesday, athletic officials at Coastal Carolina moved its football game against Colgate to 1 p.m. in Conway, S.C. It had been scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday.
Forecasters say Tropical Storm Hanna could affect the state as a hurricane by Friday evening.
Several high schools across the state have moved football games from Friday because of the possibility of bad weather.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
Buffalo coach Turner Gill given contract extension
AMHERST, N.Y. (AP) -- Buffalo coach Turner Gill received a contract extension on Tuesday that could keep the former Heisman Trophy finalist with the Bulls through 2012.
Gill, who had been a candidate for the Nebraska head coaching position in December before the Cornhuskers chose Bo Pelini, was entering the third year of his original five-year deal that paid him about $190,000 per season, before bonuses.
"I am extremely pleased to reward Turner's outstanding efforts in this way," Buffalo athletic director Warde Manuel said in a statement released by the university. "He has brought to our football program a winning mentality, stability, confidence, and a true vision for excellence both on and off the field."
In two years, Gill has turned around one of the worst programs in the country. The Bulls finished 5-7 in 2007 -- including a school-record 5-3 Mid-American Conference mark -- the most wins they've have since moving up to Division I-A in 1999. They had won just 12 games overall since '99.
Gill, chosen as the MAC coach of the year, directed an offense that scored 291 points, the most in its I-A history and just 28 points shy of the school record.
"I am grateful to President John Simpson and Warde Manuel for extending my contract and their commitment to both myself and the football program," Gill said. "It is great to know they are as committed to the staff as we are to them. I feel very honored to be at this outstanding university."
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Gill's new salary is expected to put him in the top tier of MAC coaches.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
New Mexico State quarterback Chase Holbrook will return for senior season
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) -- Chase Holbrook, New Mexico State's record-setting quarterback, said Wednesday he will return for his senior season after considering whether to enter the NFL draft.
Holbrook consulted a draft advisory board, which projected him as a sixth-round selection, and decided he would rather continue trying to help lead the Aggies to their first bowl game in 48 years.
"I feel like I have some unfinished business in Las Cruces and with the Aggies," Holbrook said. "This will be a great opportunity for me to come back and help the team reach its goal of making a bowl, and I plan to do everything I can to make that happen."
Coach Hal Mumme has said he didn't expect Holbrook to leave. Just the same, he welcomed the decision.
"I understand his want to explore the NFL and the draft, but we are glad he will be an Aggie one more year," Mumme said. "He is a great leader and will be a big part of our success next season."
Holbrook, from Hurst, Texas, started 12 of 13 games this season, passing for 3,866 yards, 26 touchdowns. He averaged 322.2 yards passing per game and completed 70 percent of his attempts.
He also set New Mexico State career records for total offense (8,412 yards), passing yards (8,485), attempts (1,110), completions (778), passing TDs (60) and completion percentage (70.1).
During the 2006 season, Holbrook set NCAA single-season records for a sophomore with 4,619 yards passing and 4,541 total yards. He broke Ty Detmer's marks at BYU, set in 1989.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Football lifer Connor set to cap stellar career at Linebacker U.
SAN ANTONIO -- Dan Connor got into football at an early age -- as in 18 months old, when his football coach father had him lining up in a three-point stance in the backyard.
He's been on the field ever since. No wonder he turned into the latest All-America linebacker at Penn State.
"I've been a football player my whole life," Connor said Thursday at the Alamodome. "I've been around it forever. Football is the main thing."
Before he heads to the NFL, there's one more collegiate game to play -- Saturday against the Aggies at the Alamo Bowl.
Connor has already built an impressive resume, including the Bednarik Award as the nation's best defensive player and Penn State's career tackles leader (410).
All at a school dubbed Linebacker U. for producing players such as Paul Posluszny, Lavar Arrington and Shane Conlan, just to name a few.
Football for Connor started at the home of his parents, Jim and Carol Connor, in suburban Philadelphia, where Dad got Dan and his two older brothers into stances at early ages.
"I was standing in the kitchen and said, 'I don't know if he really has it," Jim Connor joked. "And Carol said, 'He's only 18 months old!"
Jim Connor, a coach at Strath Haven High School, would bring film home to study. His sons would gravitate into the room and used what they saw as a script for mock games around the house.
Those games got fiercely competitive for Connor and the older boys, who didn't go easy on their baby brother.
It didn't take long, though, for Connor to separate himself -- and it had nothing to do with football. The boys were playing basketball in the backyard one day when the ball bounced over a 4-foot fence. Connor, then about in fifth grade, jumped over with ease, never touching the fence, Carol Connor said.
"That's when I knew ... Oh my God, he is a freak," she said.
Connor started as a freshman at free safety on the Strath Haven team that won the 2000 PIAA Class AAA title. In high school, he also played middle linebacker and running back and rushed for 4,500 yards and 77 touchdowns in his prep career.
But linebacker is where is made his mark in college. Again, he impressed early, starting the last three games in his freshman season in 2004 and finishing second on the team with 85 tackles.
Then came a stint in coach Joe Paterno's doghouse in 2005. Connor missed the first three games of the season as part of punishment for making prank phone calls against a retired assistant coach close to JoePa.
School administrators and Paterno debated Connor's status, and whether he should even stay on the team. Having one of his older brothers, Mike, around as a graduate assistant at Penn State helped Connor deal with the situation, his parents said.
Connor is fine with Paterno now, though his parents still question the severity and aftereffects of the punishment.
It turns out it became a great learning experience for Connor in what has been a trying season off the field for Penn State. A team captain, Connor has served as a big brother to Penn State players who have gotten into trouble with police or school administrators.
"Dan, from that experience, really matured," his mother said. "Dan could relate to the guys in that he went through some of that stuff."
Connor's play on the field speaks for itself. His athleticism grew out of all those leaps over the fence in the backyard of the Connor home. The toughness comes from those scrappy weekend games with his brothers and father.
A couple days of relaxation with his family in San Antonio after the bowl game await Connor before he starts training for the NFL draft in April. Linebacker U., though, appears to be in good hands, with junior Sean Lee set to take the starring role in 2008.
"He's had such a great career," Lee said. "I'm hoping we'll go out on a win to send him out."
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Kansas' Mangino wins AP Coach of the Year for guiding Jayhawks to 11-1 season and Orange Bowl
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- It began as a friendly basketball game in Mark Mangino's old neighborhood of New Castle, Pa. One of Mangino's teammates kept making mistakes. Finally, Mangino threw up his hands and let the kid have it.
Those leadership skills 40 years later would steer surprising Kansas into national championship contention and help him become The Associated Press Coach of the Year.
"Mark ran the kid off the court, out of the building and into the street," recalled lifelong friend Tom Tommelleo. "Mark's always been a coach. We just didn't know it then. He would study every sport we played and see things the rest of us couldn't see. The thing that lit his fuse the most was somebody not giving his best effort."
In his sixth season with Kansas, Mangino has gotten an exceptional effort from the Jayhawks. Long-woeful Kansas won a school-record 11 games, had two All-Americans and earned a spot in the Bowl Championship Series for the first time. On Jan. 3 in Miami, the Jayhawks will play Virginia Tech in their first major bowl since 1969.
In voting by AP college football poll voters, Mangino received 28 of a possible 58 votes, easily outdistancing Missouri's Gary Pinkel, who had 11. Hawaii's June Jones was third (seven votes) and Illinois coach Ron Zook fourth (five votes).
"That's awesome for coach (Mangino)," Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing said. "He's earned all the recognition he gets. I don't think anybody realizes how hard coach works for us."
Mangino is the first Kansas coach to win the award since the AP started handing it out in 1998 and the third Big 12 coach, joining Oklahoma's Bob Stoops (2000) and Kansas State's Bill Snyder (1998). Stoops and Mangino were both assistants for Snyder during the mid '90s.
Things have turned out well for Mangino, the studious kid who always demanded the best back on the playgrounds of Mahoningtown, the working-class Italian-American community in western Pennsylvania where his character was shaped.
There'll be a Mahoningtown reunion at the Orange Bowl. Tommelleo and a number of others are meeting in Miami to cheer on an old friend who's made good.
"He's at the top of the conversation in this entire area," said Tommelleo, who moved back to New Castle several years ago and works in the biotech medical industry. "We are very, very proud of Mark."
Kids played hard in the close-knit neighborhood of mostly first- and second-generation Italians where fathers worked 12-hour shifts in the rail yards and steel mills. Moms and dads had full authority to correct other peoples' kids, and often did.
"In our neighborhood, arguing and fighting were an expression of affection," Tommelleo said. "Mark was always at the top of the chain.
"Sometimes," he added with a chuckle, "Mark could be a gigantic pain in the butt. We were just playing the games. But he was always a stickler for detail. He was 10 years old and he was out there trying to figure out the right strategy, where you should stand, how you should use your hands."
The late Tom Mangino, who went to Penn State on a football scholarship and played for freshman coach Joe Paterno, was one of the few adults in Mahoningtown at the time who had a college degree. A standout high school football player and a very large man, Mark Mangino's father was affectionately known as "Bear."
When Mark came along and looked just like his pop, the adults nicknamed him "Little Bear."
"To parents and grandparents in the old neighborhood, he's still Little Bear," Tommelleo said. "It's been a long road for him. There were plenty of bumps in it. I'm sure there were times he didn't think he was going to make it."
Some of the toughest times were when his two children were very young and he was working days as a high school coach and nights as an emergency responder on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
"I got tired of accidents, being witness to peoples' suffering," he said.
He kept seeing things he could not accept.
"I would wonder, `Why did this person fall asleep at the wheel? Why did this person pass somebody at this construction site?' I worked a few really bad accidents that I don't like to recall. It was disturbing. That was when I decided to go back to college and get my degree and do my best to become a coach."
He got his first big break in 1991 when Snyder brought him to Kansas State as an assistant. When Stoops become coach at Oklahoma, he brought Mangino with him as an assistant. Two years after the Sooners won the national championship and Mangino, as offensive coordinator, was named the country's top assistant coach, he agreed to take over the Jayhawks.
"Coach has been around. He really knows people," Kansas defensive tackle James McClinton said. "When he gets after you, he really gets after you. But I thank the Lord I have him in my life."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Bruin pledge gets Miami offer
There is no doubt that Bruin pledge four-star cornerback Aaron Hester (6-1, 190, 4;4) from Compton (Calif.) Dominguez is one of the plums that many D-I schools would love to pick off of UCLA's very abundant recruiting tree for the class of 2008.
So far, so good if you are a Bruin fan, but it appears that Hester is has confused as the rest of the UCLA faithful.
"I'm still committed to UCLA, but I must admit I don't know what is going on over there (UCLA)," Hester said. "I haven't heard any rumors of whom they going to bring in.
"I haven't set any new visits, but I did get a new offer from Miami," Hester said. "I haven't had any home visits, but Oregon State, Arizona State, Miami and Cal have been by the campus.
"I heard that Coach Karl Dorrell was going to be fired so I kind of prepared for it," Hester said. "There is nothing really I can do about it.
"Coach DeWayne Walker, Coach Todd Howard and Coach Eric Scott are keeping me posted," Hester said. "I guess that's I can ask for right now.
"I would like to see Coach Walker get the job," Hester said. "I like the way he coaches.
"Coach Walker's players get better as the season goes on and they play with energy," Hester said. "You can tell that by the way the defense plays.
Hester has other visit scheduled besides UCLA this weekend (Dec. 14). He will trip Miami (Jan. 18).
Hester broke 14 passes up, picked off three and four touchdowns as a senior. He scored as a wide receiver, one on an interception return and one a on a fumble return.
Hester is a member of the Rivals.com Rivals100 for the class of 2008 ranking as the nation's No. 52 player at any position. Rivals.com ranks Hester as the nation's three cornerback prospect and was selected to the Rivals.com California Top 100 for his senior season, landing at the Golden State's No. 8 prospect at any position.
Copyright 2007 Rivals.com. All Rights Reserved.
Hawaii dealing with a shortfall of Sugar Bowl tickets after relinquishing 4,000 tickets
HONOLULU (AP) -- Georgia's apparent home-field advantage at the upcoming Sugar Bowl just grew by 4,000 fans -- thanks to Hawaii.
The University of Hawaii decided against taking its full 17,500-ticket allotment for the Jan. 1 game because it was concerned it could not sell them all, so 4,000 tickets were gladly accepted by Georgia.
With Hawaii quickly selling out its reduced allotment of 13,500 tickets by Tuesday, many angry Warriors' fans and season-ticket holders were left scrambling to find tickets to the school's first bowl game outside the Aloha State since the 1992 Holiday Bowl.
Tickets, ranging from $125 to $145, were first made available to the Warriors' 23,000 season-ticket holders and sold out quickly. Tickets were supposed go on sale to the general public Wednesday, but that never happened.
The university has created a waiting list and is offering to buy back tickets if purchasers were unable to make travel arrangements.
Warriors athletic director Herman Frazier was traveling and unavailable for comment Wednesday.
Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson said Hawaii elected to take fewer tickets based on its best estimate of how many it could sell, "and at the suggestion of the Sugar Bowl, who was trying to accommodate the SEC team with more tickets to satisfy their demand."
Sugar Bowl officials say it was Hawaii's decision.
"They chose not to take their full allotment. That was Hawaii's decision," Sugar Bowl spokesman Duane Lewis said. "We definitely didn't tell them not to take it, it was their choice."
Scalping apparently was also a concern.
"No one in this business wants to see tickets dumped in the secondary market," Benson said.
The 10th-ranked Warriors earned a BCS berth to face the fourth-ranked Bulldogs (10-2) after finishing as the nation's only unbeaten team at 12-0, led by quarterback and Heisman Trophy finalist Colt Brennan.
Despite the team's unprecedented season, taking fewer tickets may have seemed logical. The 50,000-seat Aloha Stadium was only soldout for two of Hawaii's seven home games this year.
At the 1992 Holiday Bowl, Hawaii's last appearance on the mainland, the school was only able to sell about 4,000 tickets.
John McNamara, Hawaii's associate athletic director, said a major concern was the possibility of losing money from the bowl payout.
"Georgia has been to multiple BCS games. They know what they're capable of doing. We had no frame of reference or history to fall back on," he said.
The good news is, help may soon be on the way for Hawaii fans.
"We're looking to help them get more tickets," Lewis said. "We understand there's great demand and we'll do everything we can."
Brennan was puzzled at the move to take fewer tickets.
"Why did they do that?" he said. "You know what, it's no surprise to me."
Georgia is also dealing with a ticket shortage and has had no problem drawing fans. All of its games at 92,746-capacity Sanford Stadium were sold out this year. The Bulldogs have about three times as many season-ticket holders as Hawaii.
"Our waiting list is less than 100," McNamara said. "Georgia's is more than 5,000. ... Georgia is dealing with disappointed fans. We're dealing with disappointed fans."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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