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The College Football Czar: Week 5 Week four in review: None of the presumptive national contenders played very well last week, although LSU was the only one to be upset. Top-ranked Florida State showed that its problems run a lot deeper than the QB position, while Oregon was exposed for a lack of depth on its OL. Alabama displayed lots of power but no discipline, Oklahoma couldn’t get going until halftime, and Auburn would have lost if not for a series of unforced K-State miscues. The College Football Czar is now waiting to see which overpaid studio show host will...

The College Football Czar: Week 4 Week three in review: Sixth-ranked Georgia was upset by South Carolina 38-35, but don’t count the Dogs out of national championship contention just yet. Aside from an early October trip to Missouri, there’s not that much standing in their way between now and their grudge match against Auburn on Nov. 15th. Heisman-winning Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston has already been nominated for the Lardhead of the Year Award, but if there were also a Banana-Brain of the Year and a Nougat-Noggin of the Year, he could easily challenge for the Triple Crown. Coach Jimbo...

The College Football Czar: Week 3 Week two in review: The Delta House defense has won, as the NCAA has ended the Penn State bowl ban after two seasons. So it’s official, then. A four-year postseason ban is too severe a punishment for knowingly allowing a child-rapist to operate on campus for a decade after his acts are made known to campus police. A good argument can be made that because all parties involved in the scandal have departed, it makes no sense to continue to punish those who are there today. In hindsight, the program really should have been...

The College Football Czar: Week 2 Week one in review: The College Football Czar started the season with a record of 18-8, and a winning percentage of .692 – which isn’t great, considering that the dearth of competitive games over Labor Day weekend provided him a couple gimmes. We have a new nominee for the Lardhead of the Year Award, and a pretty formidable one at that. USC cornerback Josh Shaw suffered high ankle sprains to both legs in an off-the-field incident, the details of which he’d rather not disclose. So, naturally, he made up a story that portrayed himself...

8:00 PM Arizona at UTSA Friday, September 5 TIME (ET) MATCHUP 7:00 PM Pittsburgh at Boston College 10:30 PM Washington State at Nevada Saturday, September 6 TIME (ET) MATCHUP 12:00 PM Florida Atlantic at No. 2 Alabama 12:00 PM No. 4 Oklahoma at Tulsa 12:00 PM Western Illinois at No. 18 Wisconsin 12:00 PM McNeese State at No. 19 Nebraska 12:00 PM No. 20 Kansas State at Iowa State 12:00 PM No. 24 Missouri at Toledo 12:00 PM Arkansas State at Tennessee 12:00 PM Buffalo at Army 12:00 PM Stony Brook at Connecticut 12:00 PM SMU at North Texas 12:00...

Thursday, August 28 TIME (ET) MATCHUP 6:00 PM No. 21 Texas A&M at No. 9 South Carolina 7:00 PM Wake Forest at Louisiana-Monroe 7:00 PM Eastern Illinois at Minnesota 7:00 PM Howard at Akron 7:00 PM Presbyterian at Northern Illinois 7:00 PM Chattanooga at Central Michigan 7:30 PM Idaho State at Utah 8:00 PM Boise State vs. No. 18 Ole Miss* 8:00 PM Cal Poly at New Mexico State 8:00 PM Tulane at Tulsa 9:15 PM Temple at Vanderbilt 10:00 PM Rutgers at Washington State 10:00 PM North Dakota at San Jose State 10:30 PM Weber State at No. 19...

The College Football Czar: Week 1 If you're reading the College Football Czar’s week one picks, that must mean that yet another long summer of terrible TV is about to come to a merciful end. So – if you’ve been keeping a football around the house to talk to, with a face drawn on it like Wilson from Cast Away ... If you’ve gone to an empty football stadium during the offseason, sat there for hours, and told yourself that the reason there was no scoring was that Boston College was playing ... If a genie recently granted you whatever...

More than eight years after he took his last snap as quarterback of the Texas Longhorns, Vince Young is back with the university in a new capacity. The school announced Thursday that Young, who led the Longhorns to the 2005 national championship, will work for the school’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE). Beginning September 1, he will serve as a “development officer for program alumni relations” where his job will be to raise funds for programs “that address the educational challenges” of both first-generation college students and students who come from “low-income backgrounds.”

The College Football Czar: 2014 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2014 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

Shelby Osborne: Football is her passion and she joins the thin ranks of women in men's college football. Most women have played as kickers. Is Shelby Osborne creating a new normal?When Shelby Osborne walks onto the football field this fall, she'll be treading on ground few women have dared to walk. Fewer than a dozen women have played college football on a men's team. But this week, Osborne made history when she signed a letter of intent to play football with Campbellsville University in Kentucky – as a defensive back, the same position she played in high school. No woman...

Johnny Manziel to Dallas?

College football players should not be paid. Plain and simple. But there is no reason why any player should not be given carte blanche to capitalize on his chosen sport. Capitalism 101 rides to the rescue once again. In addition to the free education players get, any player, on scholarship or not, should be allowed to sell and hawk his personal merchandise from t-shirt to jockstrap. He or she should be allowed to put his name and school name/logo on his jersey or helmet or whatever - just like the pros do. A player could sell and trade cards with...

The National Labor Relations Board in Chicago has decided that college athletes – who are getting a subsidized education and a shot at a multi-million dollar career – have the right to unionize as employees. The Labor backed effort to unionize college students who play games as an “education”, according to the Chicago NLRB, now have a seat at the “bargaining table” in college athletics… Because, obviously, consumers of higher education (AKA: “students”) don’t currently have any seat at the “bargaining table”. The short story is that pockets of education consumers (which is the technical definition for individuals who voluntarily...

Navy football player Will McKamey, who has been hospitalized since collapsing at practice three days ago, has died while in a coma. He was 19. The academy says the freshman running back from Knoxville, Tenn., died at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore on Tuesday with his family by his side.

Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; Applying to Congress to call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States which impose fiscal restraints on the Federal Government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the Federal Government, and limit the terms of office for federal officials and members of Congress, etc.

On Wednesday, ESPN announced that Brent Musburger will leave his partnership with Kirk Herbstreit on ABC's Saturday Night Football broadcast to join Jesse Palmer to call games for ESPN's new SEC Network. It is believed that ESPN did not want to lose Chris Fowler's services in a contract year, and the GameDay host is the favorite to be in the booth with Herbstreit. There may be a bigger role for Rece Davis as well.

Are you a college football fan? Can't get enough of hit A&E show Duck Dynasty? If so, it looks like you have reason to smile. Duck Commander, the company that makes the famous duck calls of the same name, is reportedly set to purchase the rights to the Independence Bowl, or AdvoCare V100 Bowl as it has been known in recent years.

Alabama hired former Southern California coach Lane Kiffin on Friday as its offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Kiffin returns to the Southeastern Conference after head coaching stints with the NFL's Oakland Raiders, Alabama rival Tennessee and the Trojans. He replaces Doug Nussmeier, who left Alabama for Michigan. "He is an outstanding and creative offensive coach who has great experience both at the college and NFL level," coach Nick Saban said in a statement. "He has a very good understanding of the game and I have always been impressed with what I saw in the games he called. He coaches with...

<p>NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — There will be a funeral amid the celebration after the BCS National Championship Game tomorrow.</p> <p>No. 1 Florida State or No. 2 Auburn will be the last team to hoist the $30,000 Waterford crystal football that goes to college football's champion and has become emblematic of the Bowl Championship Series. Then the BCS will be buried in the Rose Bowl after 16 years of revolutionizing the sport — and frustrating so many of its fans and participants.</p>

Yellowhammer has learned that the female Alabama fan who flew through the air to attack an Oklahoma Sooner fan during Thursday’s Sugar Bowl is Michelle Pritchett, a local photographer from Sweet Water, Ala. Yellowhammer spoke with Mrs. Pritchett on the phone this afternoon in an exclusive interview, becoming the first outlet to get her side of the story. “Everyone’s making me look like such a bad guy,” Pritchett said. “What I did was probably not the thing to do. But they were taunting us. They began by going after me. But then they crossed the line and started taunting my...