D1 College Football News

July 2, 2007

Source: The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame, Inc.


Georgia Head Coach Mark Richt Visits Honduras

Georgia head coach Mark Richt, accompanied by his wife Katharyn and their four children, recently set out on a weeklong mission trip to Guaimaca, Honduras.

Richt and family spent their time by giving testimony, devoting time in a day-care center and playing soccer with the locals. Each afternoon, Richt and his sons would travel to the village for an afternoon soccer game, giving them a chance to have fun with the men in the fellowship. The trip allowed Richt to step out of the coach/celebrity status he holds in the States and develop relationships based purely on his life experiences and ministry.

By week's end, Richt assured the Honduran villagers that he and his family would return for another visit. He also hopes he can talk some of his Bulldogs into the trip, believing that it would give them a feeling of giving to a cause greater than Georgia football.

Richt's schedule has not slowed down since his return. He recently threw out the first pitch at an Atlanta Braves game, visited Camp Sunshine to interact with children battling cancer and participated in Habitat for Humanity with 30 of his players.

Two-Minute Drill

College Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Dooley has recuperated enough from recent throat surgery to headline speaking engagements in Dalton, Ga., and Savannah, Ga., last month... Nevada student-athletes and staff helped collect a trailer full of food and clothing donations to area victims of the Angora fires at South Tahoe, Nev... Illinois has posted a "hard" sellout for all its season tickets in end zone areas and extensions at Memorial Stadium in Champaign... Army is offering "Brock's Brigade" discount season tickets in Sections 5-8 of Michie Stadium for its six home encounters, including the home opener with Rhode Island on Sept. 8 at West Point... Over 45,000 tickets have been sold locally and between the schools for the first Kansas-Missouri game played in Kansas City since 1945. The 2007 renewal at Arrowhead Stadium is set for Nov. 24 and is the regular-season closer for both Big 12 members... LSU fans requested a school-record 33,000 tickets for the Nov. 3 LSU at Alabama contest. Tiger enthusiasts also sent in orders for at least 7,000 tickets for every LSU road game in '07 - a composite all-time high... Rivals.com has pinpointed the five best "emerging" national rivalries for 2007 as Louisville-West Virginia, Auburn-LSU, Texas A&M-Texas Tech, Florida-South Carolina, and Nebraska- Kansas State... Stephen F. Austin is sponsoring its annual "Take a Kid to the Game" contest on Oct. 13 against Nicholls State in Southland Conference activity... Georgia Tech is offering a special flex ticket purchase plan for three of its seven games in 2007 and will celebrate "Georgia Tech Day" at Braves Stadium in Atlanta on Aug. 17 with cheerleader, mascot and GT coaches' appearances as well as half-price tickets for Tech fans.

2005 NFF Chris Schenkel Award winner Tony Roberts will emcee the second annual Notre Dame Coaches Kickoff for Charity... Several Louisiana colleges and football programs will benefit from increased scholarship and budget funding after a vote by the Louisiana College Board of Trustees... 2007 Super Bowl MVP and '97 NFF Draddy Award recipient Peyton Manning attended a players- only throwing session last week and tossed some footballs at Southern California last week. Kara L. Seat of Nashville, Tenn., was named the 10th annual recipient of the Peyton Manning Scholarship, a freshman scholarship grant to a deserving student-athlete scholar at Tennessee... Former Southern California RB Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints has donated an additional $50,000 to 19 different teams and youth football leagues in the New Orleans area... Riley Dodge of Southlake, Texas, has committed to North Texas where his father Todd Dodge is new head coach for 2007... Justin Tuggle, son of 2007 College Football Hall of Famer Jessie Tuggle of Valdosta State, has committed to Boston College for 2008... Georgia's Bulldog mascot, Uga, has been voted the nation's most lovable college mascot by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as part of its Top 10 Most Lovable National College Mascots Contest.

Auburn-Clemson and Air Force-North Carolina have finalized future series games. The AU-CU series will resume in 2010 after the teams met for the 45th time in 1998... West Virginia and Colorado have agreed to a home-and-home series starting in 2008... Wyoming has added Boise State, Missouri, Oregon, and Weber State to its future schedules.

Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald and the voice of Wildcats' football Dave Eanet will be featured speaker and master of ceremonies for Special Spectators, the Chicago-based nonprofit organization that creates magical days for seriously ill children and their families at college games nationwide. The second annual gala is on July 12 at 5:30 p.m. (CDT) at Fulton's on the River in Chicago. For more information and tickets, please access www.Special Spectators.org... First-year Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun was the leadoff guest speaker at the Colorado Springs Sports Corporations football kickoff luncheon along with Colorado's Dan Hawkins, Northern Colorado's Scott Downing and Colorado College's Bob Bodor joining in the festivities... SMU coach Phil Bennett spoke at the Dallas Chamber of Commerce's Young Professionals Breakfast Series "Life Lessons: Leadership in Business, Leadership in Sports" last week... Portland State head coach Jerry Glanville hosted the inaugural Jerry Glanville Youth Camps on the PSU campus... Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville had outpatient surgery in Florida to remove his appendix and is recovering well at his home.

Oklahoma director of athletics and NFF Board of Directors member Joe Castiglione has been promoted to vice president for intercollegiate athletics programs. OU head coach Bob Stoops had his contract extended through the 2013 season... Dan Wallenburg is the new assistant AD for communications at Ohio State... Cheryl Levick has been chosen as athletics chief of staff at Maryland.

Kentucky is nearing completion on a new locker room facility at the Nutter Training Center... Kansas State has begun remodeling its end zone seating and adding loge boxes to Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, Kan., as part of a campus-wide athletics' facilities addition and makeover. KSU also will have a special, two-hour workout in Olathe, Kan., on Friday. Aug. 11, open to the public and with a post- practice autograph session at the College Boulevard Activity Center... Construction began last week on the $31 million Anderson Family Football Complex at Kansas... Northwestern has reached an agreement to replace its current FieldTurf surface with the latest version of FieldTurf.

2007 NFF Hall of Fame inductee Doug Flutie of Boston College joins Craig James and Chris Fowler for ESPN's Thursday night telecasts... Saturday night ESPN games will feature Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge... Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit will take on the ABC Saturday night game of the weeks. Bob Davie has been shifted to ESPN2's Saturday primetime game with Mark Jones... The Friday night games alternating between ESPN and ESPN2 feature Sean McDonough and College Football Hall of Fame nominee Chris Spielman... Former Miami (Fla.) head coach Larry Coker will be an analyst on ESPNU broadcasts in '07... ESPN GameDay will inaugurate its 2007 series at 10 a.m. (EDT) before the East Carolina-Virginia Tech contest on Sept. 1... ABC will televise the inaugural ESPNU High School All-America Game live from Orlando on Jan. 5, 2008, at 2 p.m. (EDT)... CSTV is showcasing Army, Navy and Air Force contests in a special patriotic salute from June 30-July 4 in addition to its regularly-scheduled programming... Chuck Barrett has been selected as the new play-by-play broadcaster for Arkansas for 2007... Westwood One and Notre Dame will complete their 40-year relationship at the end of the '07 campaign... Wasserman Media Group has acquired Gary Stevenson's On-Sport consulting organization... DVSport, Inc. has been named as official digital replay system for the Mountain West Conference... Boise State's 2006 football squad has been nominated for three ESPY Awards - all from the 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl - for "Best Game," "Best Play" and "Best Finish" categories... "Terrapins Rising" is a reality program on Comcast Sports. The 10-episode program takes a full- length, inside look at Maryland's football program... The Washington at Syracuse encounter on ESPN Friday, Aug. 31, starts a series of a season-record 48 telecasts involving Pacific-10 Conference teams on nine different national and regional networks this year... The Colorado-Colorado State Rocky Mountain Showdown will kick off at 10 a.m. (MDT) at Invesco Field in Denver on Sept. 1 with an FSN national telecast... Rutgers debuted a dedicated Web site for Heisman Trophy candidate RB Ray Rice last Wednesday.

FOX & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade's new book "It's How You Play the Game" details inspirational stories about such NFF & Hall of Fame greats as Kansas' Gale Sayers and Colorado's Byron White... Auburn's game program "Auburn Football Illustrated" has been named best in the nation by the College Sports Information Directors of America for 2006 football.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has received the Vanguard Lifetime Achievement Award from the state of Rhode Island... Coastal Carolina WR Anthony Franklin has received one of the Big South Conference's Renaissance Insurance Graduate Fellowships... Mike Pruitt, Purdue's 1975 MVP and an All-Big Ten selection, will be inducted into the Summit County (Ohio) Sports Hall of Fame in October.

NCAA president Dr. Myles Brand was the keynote speaker at the 50th Anniversary College Sports Information Directors of America national workshop in San Diego, Calif., last Sunday... The NCAA Board of Directors will review the complete ban on text messaging at its Aug. 9 disciplinary meeting. Some member institutions have asked to restore text-messaging to prospective student-athletes under certain conditions... The NCAA Championship and Competition Cabinet also rejected a proposal to apply additional testing in 2007-08 for street drugs. Most conferences already have these tests in place for competition... A recent NCAA study indicated that 88 percent of student-athletes who entered school in Aug. 1994 completed their undergraduate degrees. Another 27 percent gained advanced degrees compared to a 23 percent undergraduate rate for the entire U.S. population... The NCAA's "I Chose Division II" program for football and other sports has created renewed interest and attendance in this division since the project began in 2005.

Former Linfield head football coach and Hawaii director of athletics Paul Durham, 93, died on June 23 in Honolulu... Former Rice football lineman and multi-sport announcer J. Fred Duckett, 74, died on June 25 in Houston... Wisconsin senior associate director of athletics Doug Beard, 46, died on June 22 in Madison... Sean Kyle, a redshirt freshman at Pittsburg State (Kan.), died in an accident at a construction site. He was 19.

Correction: Last week's note regarding Boise State's record $19 million in contributions should have read "$19 million in capital athletics improvements." The NFF regrets this error, and we apologize for any confusion