NCAAF - Sports Rumors

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USC might have lost more than a game Thursday when Oregon State upset the top-ranked Trojans, 27-21, at Reser Stadium.

Senior linebacker Rey Maualuga suffered a knee sprain in the fourth quarter and will be examined further Friday.

Junior safety Taylor Mays was forced to leave the game after suffering a chest injury that caused him to cough up blood.

Senior linebacker Brian Cushing suffered a broken bone in his hand and guard Zack Heberer suffered a toe injury

Source: Los Angeles Times

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Will Yeatman won't see another snap of game action until his legal matters are resolved, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis announced Tuesday. Now it's a matter of figuring out who's left to take his place, because tight end is a position with baby-pool depth.

"We'll find guys from other positions and put them in the right place at the right time to have success," offensive coordinator Mike Haywood said.

Yeatman is out after a weekend arrest for underage alcohol consumption, false informing and resisting arrest in an incident that possibly violates a plea agreement for his operating a vehicle while intoxicated arrest in January.

First it was sophomore Mike Ragone going down to a torn ACL. Now Yeatman is in limbo. So fullback/tight end hybrid Luke Schmidt, who missed Tuesday's practice with headaches, "could be a major contributor," according to Weis. The plan to preserve freshman Joseph Fauria's eligibility could be out the window, while freshman Kyle Rudolph already is a starter.

"We still have the numbers at the position to get done what we need to get done," tight ends coach Bernie Parmalee said. "It just happens we have freshmen."

As for Yeatman, Weis declined to say if he was disappointed, in light of the thin ice the junior walked upon after his January arrest.

"I'm not here to play judge and jury," Weis said.

Source: Chicago Tribune

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It's a good thing college football's first Bowl Championship Series standings of the season will not be released for a few weeks. If they came out now, the ridicule would crash the hard drives.

The Los Angles Times' Chris Dufresne checked in with a few of the folks who — for want of a better word — operate the half-dozen BCS computers, and found that one of them would have Utah and Wisconsin playing for the national title, with USC down at No. 14.

Another has USC at the top of the heap, but up against Boise State for all the marbles. The same pile of metal and flashing lights has Oklahoma ranked 32nd, Duke 39th and Florida, yes, that Florida, 40th.

Come Oct. 19, it should all be sorted out.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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If the teams' records and rankings don't sufficiently establish the magnitude of this week's Georgia-Alabama game, the Bulldogs and ESPN left no doubt Sunday. Georgia coach Mark Richt deemed the game worthy of a "blackout" of Sanford Stadium, and ESPN deemed it worthy of the sports giant's popular "College GameDay" show.

Richt, at the behest of his senior players, said the Bulldogs will wear black jerseys for the game, rather than their traditional red home jerseys. And he called on Georgia fans to wear black clothing to the game as a show of support.

It's a reprise of a psychological ploy the Bulldogs used last year for a big win over Auburn in Athens and a Sugar Bowl win over Hawaii in New Orleans. When the Dogs wore black jerseys against Auburn on Nov. 10, it was the first time in modern history they had done so.

Richt said the team's seniors approached him about the possibility of wearing black for Alabama on the flight back from this past Saturday's win at Arizona State. He also said he was asked by fans, "in every Bulldog Club I went to" during the offseason, when the next blackout would be.

"Fans were writing letters trying to say which one it should be," Richt said. "You wouldn't think it's that big of a deal, but it really is."

Source: Journal-Constitution

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Syracuse coach Greg Robinson is as good as gone. It's astonishing how bad the Orangemen have become over the last couple of years. The latest rumor has embattled Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin as a potential replacement.

Kiiffin could be fired at any time by owner Al Davis, who feels his 33-year-old coach has been guilty of insubordination. Kiffin has told the media in the Bay Area that he is being undermined by Davis and his defensive coordinator, Rob Ryan. But, as an NFL source pointed out to us later in the day, there's a potential obstacle.

Raiders owner Al Davis went to Syracuse. And he has been a significant contributor to the school.

Source: Buffalo NewsCollegeFootballTalk.com

The Cotton Bowl at Fair Park is thick with the past, a place of names such as Doak Walker and Bear Bryant, of championships that will be long remembered and games that are all but forgotten. Still, in the morning sun Tuesday, with the light shining off the benches of its newly constructed upper decks, the Cotton Bowl's past didn't seem to hold all the sway for once.

Instead, its future as one of the nation's largest stadiums was having a say.

Wednesay, city officials are set to reveal the biggest transformation in the Cotton Bowl's 78-year history, a $57 million upgrade that added more than 16,000 seats to its end zones, finishing out the ends of its oval bowl with upper-level decks and bringing its total capacity to 92,200.

It's a change Cotton Bowl backers hope will mean a brighter future for a facility that many have dismissed as having its best days behind it.

The renovation comes at an important time. The stadium will lose its namesake game, the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, after 2009. With the new upper decks, capacity is not a problem anymore. The Cotton Bowl is now the ninth largest stadium in the country, city officials said. It's estimated to have about 2,200 more seats than its local rival, the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, will have.

Unlike that stadium, the Cotton Bowl won't have luxury boxes or other high-dollar amenities.

Source: Dallas Morning News

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Before last season, the Michigan State-Notre Dame rivalry was getting frayed around the edges. For example:

• The Fighting Irish did not bring the Megaphone Trophy they won from MSU at Spartan Stadium in 2004 to the rematch at Notre Dame Stadium a year later. The Spartans felt disrespected because losing to them obviously never crossed Notre Dame's mind.

• With no Megaphone to hoist after their emotional 44-41 overtime victory in '05, some of the MSU players planted their school flag in the hallowed turf of Notre Dame Stadium. The Spartans were accused of lacking class.

• A year later, Irish coach Charlie Weis appeared to add insult to injury when he alleged that he was slapped by a MSU player during a sideline scuffle. The charge came after Notre Dame overcame a 17-point third-quarter deficit to hand the Spartans one of the most acidic losses in school history, 40-37.

• The following week, then-MSU coach John L. Smith took a swipe at Weis by slapping his own face in a new conference after losing to Illinois. Then, the Spartans' season unraveled, Smith was fired, and months later Weis allegedly told an alumni group that the Irish were done losing to the Spartans.

• An endless barrage of insults from Michigan State faithful aimed at a certain coach in South Bend ensued and the storied rivalry, which reached the high-water mark with the historic 1966 "Game of the Century," had sunk to previously unknown depths.

Source: Mlive.com