JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (December 30, 2014) - This week's news and notes from the National Football Foundation.
College Football Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez, now Wisconsin's athletics director, will return to the sideline to coach the Badgers in the Outback Bowl against Auburn on New Year's Day.
Scheduling: Southern Miss and Troy have scheduled a home-and-home series for 2016 and 2019…
Bowl Games: Coach David Bailiff’s Rice Owls became the first football team in school history to play in three consecutive bowls when they played Fresno State in the Hawaii Bowl…
FCS National Championship: Three-time defending champion North Dakota State will play Illinois State in the 2014 NCAA Division I Football Championship on Jan. 10 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. The game is set for 1 p.m. ET and will air on ESPN2…
People: Pat Narduzzi was named the new head coach at Pittsburgh… Florida State and head football coach Jimbo Fisher have agreed to a new eight-year contract through the 2022 season…
Academics: Stanford, which will play Maryland Dec. 30 in the Foster Farms Bowl, had a graduation success rate, or GSR, of 99 percent, the best of any team headed to a bowl game. Rice (95 percent), Notre Dame (94 percent) and Air Force (93 percent) completed the top four. The annual study found that the overall GSR for bowl-bound teams is 73 percent, one percentage point higher than a year earlier…
Awards and Honors: TCU's Gary Patterson has been voted college football coach of the year by The Associated Press, joining Nick Saban as the only two-time winners… Former football player Bill Walter was elected to the Missouri State University Athletics Hall of Fame… Former football player Mitch Hoban will be inducted into the Ball State Athletics Hall of Fame the weekend of Jan. 23-24… Fordham running back Chase Edmonds received the Jerry Rice Award as the FCS freshman of the year… New Hampshire coach Sean McDonnell received the Eddie Robinson Award as the FCS coach of the year…
Media: DIRECTV will begin carrying the Longhorn Network starting this January… ESPN Radio will showcase 30 postseason college bowls, including the inaugural College Football Playoff… An impressive 221 college football teams from every FBS and FCS conference appeared on an ESPN platform in 2014...
Community Service: The Fiesta Bowl announced the organization is donating $10,000 to Amy's Army, a charity founded by Amy Van Dyken-Rouen…
Miscellaneous: The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) announced the creation of The NACDA Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Leadership Summit presented by Learfield Sports, which will take place Jan. 11-12 in Dallas, Texas…
Obituaries: Sam Mitchell, a former football player at Auburn and assistant coach at Auburn, Georgia and South Carolina, passed away. He was 74… Former Nebraska football player Michael Wynn passed away Dec. 10. He was 67… Former UTEP football player and North Texas athletics director and assistant coach Andy Everest passed away Dec. 21. He was 90… Former Southwest Baptist (Mo.) football player Jarred Schumpert died Dec. 22. He was 28… Former Pacific football player Al Irwin passed away Dec. 22. He was 96… Mike Treps, the longtime University of Oklahoma radio voice and sports information director, passed away Dec. 23. He was 81… Belhaven (Miss.) football player Trey Rich died Dec. 24. He was 26… Former West Virginia football player Pete Wood passed away Dec. 26. He was 63…