John Clay's Sidelines

While we wait impatiently for Alabama-LSU come Saturday night on CBS, there are a few games to occupy our time. Tonight’s featured attraction is Florida State at Boston College. The Seminoles have bounced back from a three-game losing streak to string together a three-game win streak. Jimbo Fisher’s team was wildly overrated when it made the top 10, but two of its losses were to Oklahoma and Clemson. Boston College earned its first ACC win last week, beating Maryland in College Park.

Here is the chart of college games tonight, Friday and Saturday.

Continue reading ‘College football on TV tonight, Friday and Saturday’

Apparently, Mitch McConnell’s last-minute lobbying didn’t work.

Brett McMurphy of CBS Sports is reporting that the Big 12 has decided on West Virginia over Louisville.

Excerpt:

West Virginia has been invited to join the Big 12 Conference, college football industry sources told CBSSports.com Friday.

The Mountaineers will accept the invitation, sources said. The Big 12 is expected to officially announce the invitation later today.

The Big 12′s board of directors voted Friday morning and chose West Virginia over Louisville. They will stay at 10 schools, a source said.

On Tuesday, West Virginia had received a verbal offer to join the Big 12, but then the league put the Mountaineers on hold because the league’s board of directors wanted to perform “due diligence.”

The league was split between adding West Virginia or Louisville to replace Missouri, which is expected to leave the league for the SEC.

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Neal Brown

Former Boyle County star and ex-Wildcat Neal Brown is receiving some positive pub for Texas Tech’s 41-38 upset of then No. 3 Oklahoma in Norman on Saturday night. Brown is Texas Tech’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Says Matt Hinton of Dr. Saturday:

The Raiders got off 94 plays, picked up 28 first downs and finished with a ten-minute advantage in time of possession. In 53 attempts, the most sack-happy defense in the nation put Doege on the ground once. The same defense that ate Texas’ young passers for lunch two weeks ago suddenly found itself being served as the main course.

And:

For Texas Tech, the upset is the first milestone of the Tommy Tuberville era, the first big win that might convince Raider fans to past the Mike Leach fiasco and stop fretting over what Tuberville and offensive coordinator Neal Brown are doing to the offense. Brown comes from the Leach tree, and certainly delivered Leachian numbers tonight in Tech’s toughest test of the season — and in Norman, no less, where Leach’s teams (like most teams) were beaten by an average of 25 points in five trips. For Oklahoma, it’s just another disappointment, the fourth time the Sooners have lost a top-five ranking to an unranked team in the last five years.

Brown played three years at UK under Hal Mumme before transferring to UMass. He was the offensive coordinator at Troy — the youngest in FBS — before being hired by Tommy Tuberville at Tech.

Updated with video showing the would-be streaker.

Thankfully for those of us who snoozed out, or were paying more attention to Cards-Rangers, Rich Brooks and Matt Hinton of Dr. Saturday were paying close attention to Arizona’s contribution to the Rick Neuheisel’s pink-slip parade, which included an inventive fan who dressed as a ref, then undressed, and somehow started a fight.

A fight between the two teams. The score was 42-7 at the time.

Click the continue line to see the video.

This video was shot from the stands.

After a surprising and winning debut season at Georgia State, former Kentucky head coach Bill Curry has encountered a sophomore slump. His Panthers won their 2011 season opener, but have lost five since.

Writing on Curry for the Atlanta Journal-Constiution, Jeff Schultz points out that no one has thrown a brick through Curry’s office window, a la what happened during his three years at Alabama.

“I don’t think they know where my window is,” said the coach, smiling.

Curry was hired four years ago to start a football program at GSU. He spent two years laying the foundation before last season’s 6-5 premiere year. The competition has stiffened this year and the Panthers have yet to rise to the challenge. But Curry, who turns 69 on Friday, is not about to quit, of course.

The UK coach from 1990-96, Curry has a former Cat on his current team. Donald Russell is second on the team in rushing, gaining 272 yards in five games.