The review released Friday was done by an attorney hired by the university and recommended better communication between team physicians and the athletics department administration, an extra athletic trainer for football and an increased exposure to a nutritionist for players among other things.

UCF President John Hitt ordered the review after the death of receiver Ereck Plancher last spring and the collapse of running back Brandon Davis in December.

Attorney Mike Glazier, a former NCAA investigator, conducted the inquiry. The review did not investigate Plancher’s death nor Davis’ collapse, only the current state of the football program.

“I will take the recommendations that Mike did make and speak with the administration and see how we can improve ourselves,” UCF coach George O’Leary said, reading from a prepared statement.

Plancher died after taking part in the team’s “mat drills” during an offseason conditioning workout last March on the UCF campus. The workout was supervised by O’Leary and his staff.

Hitt said he was pleased with the results of the review and again stood by the practices of the football program.

A report from the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office showed Plancher had a sickle cell trait that caused problems with his red blood cells during physical exertion. The examination showed Plancher’s heart began beating abnormally, and blood flow to the wide receiver’s muscles and organs slowed or stopped.

Plancher’s parents filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking damages in excess of $15,000, not including interest, costs and attorney’s fees. The UCF Board of Trustees and the UCF Athletics Association are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

“We’ll answer their lawsuit,” Hitt said.

The report compared UCF’s football program to other schools, reviewed workout and training activities and had complete access to the university’s records, Glazier said. Coaches and football players were interviewed for the report, including Davis, but Glazier declined to disclose what the running back said.

Glazier said he recommended going from three to four athletic trainers dedicated solely to football, which he noted is the national average for a program UCF’s size. He also recommended more frequent meetings with local paramedics.

“Our overall findings of the university’s football practices and conditioning programs, sports medicine policies, procedures and practices are more than adequate and are within industry standards,” Glazier said.

O’Leary has a 26-36 record in five seasons at UCF, including a 4-8 record this past season. He signed a 10-year contract extension in May 2006 that pays him $1 million annually. He also has a buyout clause that would cost UCF $5 million to change coaches unless there was just cause.

UCF athletic director Keith Tribble again stood by the coach.

“This is just a report that confirms what we already knew,” Tribble said.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

The contract runs through February 2014 and makes him the sixth-highest paid coach in the Big 12. When Pelini was hired by the Cornhuskers in 2007, his five-year contract called for a salary of $1.1 million a year.

Athletic director Tom Osborne announced the extension, praising the progress the team has made under Pelini in such a short time. The Huskers tied for first in the Big 12 North and beat Clemson 26-21 in the Gator Bowl.

“We are confident he has our program moving in the right direction,” Osborne said.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

Yup, Joe Paterno’s back. No cane in sight, the 82-year-old Hall of Famer paced the Penn State practice field Friday, the second day of spring drills.

Four months after hip replacement surgery, Paterno pronounced himself back at 100 percent, with the continued goal of returning to the sideline when the season opens this fall. Paterno spent the last eight games of the 2008 campaign coaching from the press box.

“I feel great. I’m not sure about from the neck up, but from the neck down, I’m OK,” he joked before practice in his first meeting with reporters since the Rose Bowl. “I’m fine, really. That’s a dead issue.”

As for the Rose Bowl, that’s a different story.

The 38-24 loss to Southern California on Jan. 1 made for bitter offseason memories in the minds of the Big Ten champions.

“Absolutely,” Paterno quickly replied when asked if the loss lingered over the winter. “We didn’t play well, we didn’t coach well. I walked away from it not feeling good about anything. I think we can do better.”

No break for the returning players when they returned to Happy Valley. They went right into what fifth-year linebacker Sean Lee described as one of the toughest winter workout regimens he’s been through in his career.

“We want to get back to a situation like that, if not better,” said Lee, who missed last season because of a right knee injury.

To do so, though, Paterno will need to patch many holes. Just five starters return on offense and four on defense. The entire secondary must be replaced.

Paterno has been especially fond in the past of using the spring to shuttle younger players into different positions to see if they’re a better fit elsewhere.

“I think we got a lot of work ahead of us, but I don’t think it’s situation where we can’t be a good football team,” he said.

Gone, at least, is last spring’s drama about Paterno’s expiring contract, a distraction that hung around the program until JoePa and the university finalized a three-year extension last December.

Now, the focus is seemingly just on football as Paterno heads into his record 44th season as head coach, and his 60th on the Penn State staff counting his days as an assistant.

There’s a solid footing of leaders next year with Lee back from injury and quarterback Daryll Clark ready to take charge on offense.

Another key returnee is defensive line assistant coach Larry Johnson, who interviewed for the Illinois defensive coordinator job but ended up staying at Penn State. Paterno said he had been worried about losing Johnson, one of his top recruiters, but told him he didn’t need to be a coordinator to eventually take a head-coaching job.

Paterno also weighed in on the situation facing his friend and Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden, who may have to forfeit as many as 14 of his 382 career wins as part of NCAA sanctions over an academic cheating scandal. JoePa is the leader for victories among major college coaches with 383.

Florida State has accepted some of the NCAA sanctions, but has said it will appeal the punishment to strip the school of victories.

“I don’t think that should have anything to do with Bobby’s record. I don’t think Bobby had much to do with what happened,” Paterno said when asked if he had spoken to Bowden. “I just hope people don’t distort what a great coach Bobby Bowden has been, which he has been.”

Otherwise, an affable Paterno traded his usual friendly jabs with reporters, and put a pitch in for the Penn State basketball team. He plans to watch the Nittany Lions in New York when they play Notre Dame in the NIT semifinals.

A native New Yorker, Paterno said he played basketball in the old Madison Square Garden in high school, and told stories of watching big men like George Mikan play there in the NIT.

Then, hamming for the camera, Paterno displayed his free-throw technique from his youth — a two-handed underhand shot that started between his knees.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

Bellotti, who has coached the Ducks for the last 14 seasons, takes over his new position July 1, replacing athletic director Pat Kilkenny. Kelly becomes coach on March 30, the opening day of spring practice, the school announced Friday.

The moves first were announced in December, but no timetable was set for the transition.

Bellotti will serve in the interim as senior counselor to Kilkenny, who will step down June 30.

Oregon’s athletic department scheduled a news conference Saturday to discuss the transition. Bellotti would not comment until then.

Bellotti, 58, has gone 116-55 as coach of the Ducks. This past season Oregon went 10-3 with a 42-31 win over Oklahoma State in the Holiday Bowl. The Ducks finished the season ranked No. 10.

The announcement Friday came as a surprise. Many assumed Bellotti would coach for at least one more season. As recently as the national letter-of-intent day for recruits, he said he had not made a decision but hinted it could come this month.

Bellotti said he had to sit down with Kilkenny and Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer to discuss what the position entailed.

“I have an understanding to a degree but I really don’t know some of the inner workings,” Bellotti said at the time.

Frohnmayer is retiring at the end of June after 15 years at Oregon. On Friday the university announced that University of Kansas provost Richard Lariviere will succeed him.

Bellotti informed the team of his decision Friday morning.

Under Bellotti, the Ducks have gone to 12 bowl games. In 2001 Oregon won 11 games, including a 38-16 victory over Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl to finish ranked No. 2.

Bellotti joined the Ducks as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Rich Brooks in 1989.

Kelly, who has been at Oregon the past two seasons and designed the team’s spread-option offense, becomes the Ducks’ 30th coach, and the third in the last 33 years.

Kelly, 45, made an immediate impact when he arrived at Oregon, helping turn quarterback Dennis Dixon into a Heisman Trophy contender.

“I feel like I’ve been put in a great situation. Basically a lot of this was at my suggestion, because of Chip’s popularity and the job he’s done for us,” Bellotti said back in December.

This past season, Kelly adjusted the offense through a series of quarterback injuries. Oregon lost its projected starter, Nate Costa, shortly before the start of the season. Backup Justin Roper took over, but injuries forced the team to turn to junior college transfer Jeremiah Masoli and true freshmen Chris Harper and Darron Thomas.

Masoli eventually landed the starter’s job, finishing with 1,744 passing yards for 13 touchdowns. He ran for 718 yards, breaking the Oregon’s quarterback record of 644 yards set by Reggie Ogburn in 1979.

The Ducks last season were ranked second in the nation in rushing, averaging 280.1 yards a game, and seventh in both total offense (484.9 yards per game) and scoring (41.9 point per game).

Kilkenny was named AD in February 2007 and said at the time he planned to serve in that position for two years.

A prominent booster, Kilkenny has spearhead plans to build a new basketball arena to replace venerable McArthur Court.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

The coach who led the Miami Hurricanes to the 2001 national championship was introduced Friday as the first head coach of the Texas-San Antonio football program, which is expected to begin play in the 2011 season.

Coker was met by a raucous ballroom filled with students and supporters, and promised to “build the program the right way, as a marathon.” Coker called San Antonio a great opportunity in the ultra-competitive Texas recruiting landscape.

It’s the first coaching job for Coker since being fired by Miami in 2006.

UTSA has about 28,000 students in a city that is the nation’s largest without an NFL or Division I team.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

The Seminoles will have to give up two scholarships this recruiting season and one the following year. Other sports will lose scholarships and have victories — including three NCAA national championships in track and field — threatened.

The NCAA said 61 Florida State athletes cheated on an online test from the fall of 2006 through summer 2007 or received improper help from staffers who provided them with answers to the exam and typed papers for them.

The NCAA said the school must vacate all wins in contests in which athletes involved in the cheating participated. That could involve up to 14 football victories.

Florida State President T.K. Wetherell said the university would consider appealing any efforts to strip it of wins or titles.

“We did not allow anyone who we knew was ineligible to compete,” Wetherell said in a statement from the school. “Our position throughout the inquiry was that as soon as we knew of a problem, they didn’t play.”

The 79-year-old Bowden, who has often stated he wanted to reach 400 wins before calling it a career, was not available to comment on the NCAA report.

The men’s basketball program will lose one scholarship for two years and the women’s program will be down two for two years. Other programs were hit with fractional reductions.

The cheating took place in football, baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s track and field and men’s golf.

The committee called the Florida State case “extremely serious” because of the large number of athletes involved, and cited unethical conduct by three former staff members and a failure to monitor by the university.

The cheating occurred mainly through online testing for a single music history course in the fall of 2006 and the spring and summer semesters of 2007. It included staffers helping students on the test and, in one case, asking one athlete to take it for another.

Florida State played in the 2007 Music City Bowl without two dozen players, including several starters. The Seminoles were defeated by Kentucky. Many of the same athletes were held out of the first three games last fall as part of their punishment.

Dennis Thomas, commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, said the infractions committee didn’t consider the venerable Florida State coach when contemplating penalties.

“The committee does not get into whether or not you have a famous athlete or a famous coach or if a record is involved,” Thomas said. “The committee adjudicates the facts.”

Thomas said the school would decide which athletes were ineligible in which games, in effect determining what games it might have to forfeit.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

West Virginia athletic director Ed Pastilong said Thursday that the Mountaineers will travel to Baton Rouge, La., in 2010, and the Tigers will come to Morgantown in 2011.

LSU went 8-5 last season, beating Georgia Tech 38-3 in the Chick-fil-A Bowl a year after winning the national championship. West Virginia finished 9-4 by beating North Carolina 31-30 in the Meineke Bowl.

Pastilong also announced WVU will play Championship Subdivision schools Liberty in 2009, Coastal Carolina in 2010 and Norfolk State in 2011.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

Athletic director Bill Martin told the Associated Press on Thursday a season-ticket holder will pay $50 on average for a ticket after paying $53.57 last year.

“In this challenging time economically, this is our way of thanking our fans who have supported us for decades,” Martin said. “Unlike most schools, we had an opportunity to lower prices for football tickets.”

Ohio State and Michigan State both announced earlier this month they were slightly increasing ticket prices for 2009.

Tickets for Michigan’s eight-game schedule will cost $400, the same price as 2007 when Michigan hosted eight games. Student tickets will cost $200, a decrease of $1.43 per game compared to 2008.

The school plans to mail renewal applications to season-ticket holders in April with a May 8 deadline.

Tickets for individual games will cost $65 for marquee games against Ohio State and Notre Dame and as low as $50 for other matchups at the Big House.

Michigan opens the season Sept. 5 against Western Michigan. The Wolverines lost a school-record nine games in Rich Rodriguez’s debut with college football’s winningest team.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

Leach signed the contract shortly after he and Kent Hance, the university’s chancellor, met for about two hours Thursday afternoon to hammer out an agreement. Hance said the negotiating part lasted only about 15 minutes.

“Me and my family are thrilled to death that we’re going to be in Lubbock for another five years,” Leach said at an evening news conference. “I appreciate Chancellor Hance and Gerald (Myers’) efforts to allow us to stay here and the opportunity to be here to coach the Red Raiders for many years to come.”

Weeks ago, Leach and Tech essentially settled on the financial terms of a five-year, $12.7 million deal. But Leach took issue with several clauses the school added when the sides were trading proposals. The provision that bothered Leach the most would have triggered his firing and a $1.5 million penalty if he interviewed for another job without getting permission from Myers, the athletic director. Leach’s existing contract had no such restriction.

He was prepared to keep coaching under the remaining two years of a five-year, $10 million contract.

In the new contract that keeps Leach at Tech through 2013, Leach only needs to notify Myers in writing to interview at another school.

The contract also includes a $250,000 bonus if Leach and Tech win the national championship, a $75,000 bonus if Tech participates in a BCS Bowl and a $50,000 bonus if Leach is picked as national coach of the year

If Tech terminates the contract, the school must pay Leach $400,000 for each year remaining on the agreement. And there is no buyout amount.

Hance said he is confident in Leach will stick around for many years.

“We’ll just make that zero on the buyout,” Hance said, recalling his conversation with Leach earlier in the day. “I know he’s not leaving.”

Myers said he has always wanted Leach to be Tech’s coach.

“I think that got lost with all the rhetoric and speculation,” Myers said. “To put it mildly this has been a tough negotiation, and it’s good to get it behind us.”

On Tuesday, the school’s Board of Regents scheduled a special meeting hours before a second deadline passed without Leach accepting Tech’s “last and final” offer. The board planned to meet Friday but that meeting was canceled once the deal was sealed.

The meeting was to have been in private to discuss Leach’s status, but the coach requested a public hearing late Wednesday. Under state law, the board had to grant his request. Leach then met with Hance to discuss his contract.

The termination clause that led to the stalemate had been added after Leach flew to Seattle to interview for the Washington job in December. Myers wrote to Leach’s agents that he didn’t want the coach interviewing elsewhere, then returning to Lubbock without commenting to reporters. He said he didn’t want to unreasonably withhold permission for Leach to talk to other schools, just that he wanted to know when Leach was doing it.

In their ninth season under Leach, the Red Raiders reached unprecedented heights in 2008. They went 10-0 for the first time and beat top-ranked Texas to secure the highest ranking in school history at No. 2. Texas Tech was knocked out of BCS contention with a blowout loss to Oklahoma, then fell to Mississippi in the Cotton Bowl to finish 11-2.

Public opinion seemed to favor Leach as the drama unfolded. A few dozen supporters rallied on his behalf Tuesday, the day before a Texas Tech alumnus and another fan took out a full-page ad in the Lubbock newspaper blasting the Texas Tech administration for its stance.

Leach was never fazed by the hoopla, even when it was suggested that Friday’s planned board meeting could lead to his firing.

Architect of the nation’s most prolific offense the past decade, Leach is 76-39 and has taken Texas Tech to a bowl game every season. He’s six victories shy of Spike Dykes’ school record of 82.

Hookscenter.com wire report.

It was Nov. 3 of last year, two days after Tennessee’s sixth loss of the season and Phillip Fulmer, shocked and exasperated, sat down in front of a packed room with a prepared speech. Seven and half minutes later, Fulmer told the college football world, against his will, that he had three games left as the Vols head coach and an off-season of uncertainty ahead of him the likes of which he hadn’t seen in over 34 years.

In the world of coaching they say you’re hired to be fired, but Fulmer – even in the midst of one of the Vols’ worst seasons – thought he had earned more time than Tennessee officials were giving him.

They felt differently.

Officially, Fulmer resigned that afternoon. Unofficially, he was nudged out the door and the passing of national signing day Feb. 4 and the rush of emotions and memories associated with it have allowed Fulmer to reflect on his career at Tennessee. And also contemplate his future.

“I’ve never had this much free time in my life,” Fulmer said.

Last February, Fulmer’s schedule was packed. This February it’s wide open. He never could have envisioned that in the winter of 2009 he’d be sitting on the sidelines during one of the more enjoyable times on the football calendar. Recruiting season and national signing day always held a special place in Fulmer’s heart, but this February his perspectives changed.

“You really don’t realize how much you miss it until you’re away from it,” Fulmer said.

And oftentimes you don’t realize how quickly things can change.

A little more than a year ago, Fulmer had just put the finishing touches on the Vols’ 2008 recruiting class, coming off a successful season in which they won the SEC East. Tennessee gave eventual BCS Champion LSU all it could handle in the SEC Championship game that year and parlayed that performance into another New Year’s’ Day bowl bid. Nine months before that Fulmer had received a contract extension that was supposed to keep him in Knoxville until 2013. Back in July, Tennessee added another year to the pact.

Pressure was a prerequisite for the Tennessee job and Fulmer knew it. The heat only increased from year to year, but he handled it. Despite calls from pockets of fans and media members that he had to go, Fulmer expected to fulfill the terms of his contract.

Now he has nothing but time.

Tennessee officials brought in the man who led the Vols to the 1998 BCS Championship and two SEC titles after the Nov. 1 loss to South Carolina and said their peace. With the season seemingly spiraling to levels deemed intolerable around Rocky Top, they asked that he step aside.

They wanted to go in a new direction. They wanted a fresh start. A new voice. For the first time since 1968, when he first set foot on the campus as an offensive lineman, Fulmer was no longer wanted around the Tennessee football program.

“It doesn’t register,” Fulmer said.

Fulmer still questions the logic behind the “decision,” only four months later. He could have easily been let go after a very disappointing 2005 season that saw the Vols go 5-6, but Fulmer got off the mat and elevated Tennessee back amongst the SEC’s upper echelon. He thought, given his track record – given his 152-52 record as the Tennessee head coach – that he should have been given the opportunity to raise the sinking ship one last time.  

“After 17 years, I strongly felt like I deserved a chance to fix it,” Fulmer said. “But that’s not what they chose to do and I chose not to be a bitter guy. I’m going to go and look at other opportunities.”

And the opportunities are starting to present themselves.

When the news came down, Fulmer said to himself that he was going to take six months off to reevaluate things. For the first time since he married his wife, Vicky, he’s actually been able to spend some time with her and have a little fun. But six weeks – let alone six months – turned out to be a longer than he ever could have imagined and Fulmer wanted to do something.

He jumped at the chance to do some television work; most recently for CBS College Sports on its national signing day coverage, and the prospects of becoming a regular contributor to a television network intrigues Fulmer. He would welcome the chance to do it for a season or two.

But when he said he wanted to look into other opportunities, he really meant other coaching opportunities.

Unlike some coaches, Fulmer does have hobbies. He can get away from the game. He likes to fish and he’s been doing his fair share since the season ended. But he’s a coach and a teacher at heart and he misses it dearly. The guy loves to work. A self described workaholic, he’s not ready to hang up his whistle.

“I don’t consider myself a guy who is going to retire and go fishing,” Fulmer said.

The right opportunity – a.k.a. the right head coaching position – hasn’t yet presented itself. Fulmer wants to take over a major college program and he has no preference where. He’d just as soon take a job in the south as he would somewhere out west or up north. But he’s not going to settle for something. With a track record like his, Fulmer feels he doesn’t have to and when the right BCS job becomes available he’ll be listening.

In his mind, it’s only a matter of time.

“I think a guy with 152 wins, 100 more wins than losses, should have a chance to coach again,” Fulmer said. 

At age 58, Fulmer thinks he has at least 7-10 years of coaching left in him. He still feels young and the desire to win another BCS Championship drives him. Not because he wants to prove anyone wrong. He just wants to win that badly. He just loves to compete.

But he can’t right now.  He had those privileges revoked.

It was a frustrating and confusing time for Fulmer when he stepped aside, effective at the end of the season. The decision caught him by surprise and resigning in front of supporters and all of his players was nothing short of miserable, he said, but the consummate coach he is, Fulmer’s trying to make the best of it.

He relates his situation to a friend of his who just happens to be a bishop. Every so often, the church makes the bishop take a sabbatical. And during that time away from the church, he’s expected to do plenty of writing, reading, thinking and praying.

Fulmer, away from college football’s cathedrals, has been doing it all.

“That’s all I’m looking at this is as, as a sabbatical and as a chance to improve as a coach, if I choose to do it again,” Fulmer said.

He could have easily gotten into law or the business world after college and Fulmer gave it some serious thought. But he ended up spending more time in the film room than the library and his coaching career was born at his alma mater in 1973. Nineteen years later, he became the head coach of the Vols, something he never even dreamed about. Sixteen years after that, he’s looking for a new job.

He’s not a bitter man, despite what many think.

“Being bitter is like taking poison and expecting somebody else to die,” Fulmer said.

And he’s still keeping tabs on the Vols. That’s never going to change, but he won’t comment publicly on Tennessee’s hiring of his successor, Lane Kiffin.

“I think they’re progressing and it’s always interesting to see how people do things,” Fulmer said.

Kiffin has some big shoes to fill in Knoxville, and winning the program’s second BCS Championship will be a long and difficult road. It was for Fulmer, who reached the pinnacle of the game when many thought he never would. That game, at the Fiesta Bowl, sticks out more than any in his as he reflects on his Tennessee career. As the seconds ticked off the clock that night, and Fulmer searched for Bobby Bowden to shake hands, a 23-16 victory and first ever BCS Championship in the bag, he felt something come over him.

“Everything stopped, stood still, in slow motion, and I felt his presence,” Fulmer said.

The presence Fulmer felt was that of his father, who at age 69, died nine years earlier.

It was a surreal moment, Fulmer said, one that sent chills up his spine. Plenty of Tennessee supporters should brace themselves for something similar down the road. Seeing Fulmer wearing anything other than orange on the sidelines is going to be shocking for sure. But you can pretty much guarantee it’s going to happen.

A stubborn man like Fulmer, as many in the media have described him, isn’t ready to retire to the lake. He’s waiting for that right job and when it does he’s going to pounce on it. And the next time around, Fulmer plans on going out on his own terms.

Hookscenter.com wire report.