Just because most of the schools are in final exams right now doesn’t mean there isn’t news going on in the college football world.
By far the biggest news is Bobby Petrino announced that he is resigning his job as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and currently is in negotiations for the head coaching job at Arkansas. Frankly, I am not shocked Petrino is leaving the Falcons given all that the organization has gone through this year. He took the job with the premise that Michael Vick was going to be his QB1. For obvious reasons, we know this wasn’t the case and the earliest Vick would have a chance to play again is the 2009 season.
The Hawaii athletic department decided to return 4,000 tickets of there 17,500 ticket allotment for this year’s Sugar Bowl when they thought they wouldn’t sell them all. Ummm, big mistake by the Warriors athletic department. They sold out 13,500 tickets to their 23,000 season ticket holders and tickets never went on sale to the general public. Fans were outraged at the decision. Hawaii did request more tickets and received 500 of the requested 1,500 additional tickets they need to satisfy their waiting list.
Guess who is graduating from the University of Alabama 42 years later? “Broadway Joe” Namath. Seems Namath left ‘Bama 15 credits shy of graduation and finally has fulfilled his graduation requirements. He will receive his degree on Saturday.
The Big Ten will be moving to a 13-week schedule starting in 2009. College football teams are allowed to play 12 games a year and all Big Ten schools played 12 straight games without a week off. The additional week in the schedule for the Big Ten schools will allow the student-athletes a week off. Since some of the Big Ten schools are high on academics, this will bode well for all of them. Also, it could push the Ohio State/Michigan annual rivalry game to the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Two schools who will probably be happy about this are Yale and Harvard, who have been trying to get ESPN College Football Game Day to broadcast from either Harvard’s stadium or the Yale Bowl.
Other coaching changes besides Petrino heading to Arkansas is Navy’s Paul Johnson is the new coach at Georgia Tech, Ken Niumatalolo is replacing Johnson at Navy and Paul Wulff has left Eastern Washington for the Washington State job.
The folks at Eastern Carolina are doing a great thing for our military in Hawaii as their fans are buying tickets for the Hawaii Bowl game featuring Eastern Carolina and Boise State. They know they aren’t going to sell their allotment and the fans who do donate tickets will receive a commemorative Hawaii Bowl ticket.
Bobby Bowden signed a 1-year deal to stay at Florida State. His top lieutenant, Jumbo Jimbo Fisher, will take over whenever Bowden decides he doesn’t want to coach anymore.
And in case you’re wondering, Les Miles still is the LSU coach and not a candidate at Michigan.
