Irish confirm injury to star LB ‘significant’ … Updating the story on Notre Dame junior LB Jaylon Smith, a top 10 prospect who some teams actually have rated as the best player overall in the 2016 draft class, who had to be helped off the field with a potentially nasty knee injury during the Irish’s loss to Ohio… Read More »
Two more juniors enter … A couple of more underclassmen announced earlier today that they would be entering the 2016 draft. No surprise, for example, that Indiana junior RB Jordan Howard decided to head to the pros after just one season with the Hoosiers. Howard, who transferred from Alabama-Birmingham last year when the UAB football program was shut… Read More »
RUSSELL ATHLETIC BOWL; BAYLOR (9-3) vs. NORTH CAROLINA (11-2); 5:30 PM ET; ESPN Both of these teams had Final Four aspirations in November but BAYLOR lost its top 2 QBs and UNC had to face Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. But this still looks like a very attractive match-up to watch which probably deserves to be played… Read More »
MILITARY BOWL: PITTSBURGH (8-4) vs NAVY (10-2); 2:30 PM; ESPN … Pitt and Navy will play in the Military Bowl in Annapolis in a renewal of an old-time eastern football rivalry. What makes this version of Pitt-Navy a bit unusual is that it is the 10-2 Midshipmen, who came within a game of possibly qualifying for a January… Read More »
All-star game roster tweaks … The Senior Bowl added another 11 players including veteran QBs Dak Prescott of Mississippi State, Southern Cal’s Cody Kessler and Stanford’s Kevin Hogan. Penn State DE Carl Nassib, the unanimous All-American who won the Lombardi Award awarded to the nation’s best lineman after he lead the country with 15.5 sacks and 6 forced… Read More »
Huge USC OT to return … Southern California junior OT Zach Banner has announced via twitter that he intends to remain in school for his senior campaign. There had been some speculation that the 6-8, 360-pound son of former NFL OT Lincoln Kennedy was leaning toward leaving school early.
Browns’ win brings top pick back in play … Just when one thought that Cleveland was about to wrap up the #1 pick at the 2016 draft, the Browns played one of their best games of the year in the process of knocking off San Francisco 24-3. And with Tennessee getting crunched by the Jets in New York,… Read More »
Buckeye DT suspended from bowl … After being charged with solicitation earlier this week, Ohio State DT Adolphus Washington, a second day prospect for the 2016 draft, has been suspended from the team’s Fiesta Bowl date with Notre Dame on January 1st. Turns out Washington was also carrying a gun, but did have a carry permit. Washington is… Read More »
Browns reclaim top pick … With Tennessee holding off Jacksonville in a 42-39 thriller earlier today, Cleveland left nothing to chance by losing 37-3 to Cincinnati -at home – to move back into the proverbial #1 pick were the 2016 draft to be held this week. Tennessee, which was in a statistical dead heat with the Browns for… Read More »
Lions lose again; keep top week for another week … Detroit remains the lone winless team in the NFL after the Lions were trampled by Arizona at home on Sunday. As a result, the Lions would have the #1 pick were the draft held this week. On the other hand, the rest of the top 10 early picks… Read More »
Crazy day to be a USC head coach … Amazingly, on the same day that Southern California fired head coach Steve Sarkasian for personal reasons, legendary South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier announced that he is retiring effective immediately; an interim replacement will be named in the next couple of days.
Worst unis ever!! … We don’t usually comment on much outside the purview of the draft, but this on has kind of been rattling around our craw the past day or so since we checked in on the Georgia-Tennessee game for awhile yesterday afternoon. Great win for the Vols who finally had things go right for them at… Read More »
LBs feeling the pain … Oklahoma State senior LB Ryan Simmons is tweeting that he requires season-ending surgery after tearing both an ACL and PCL in the Cowboys’ game with Kansas State. Because Simmons is a senior, and this is his final season of eligibility, the end of his 2015 season would also mean the end of his… Read More »
Pigskin ranks the pros … With the NFL at the quarter pole, GBN Associate Editor Pigskin Paul Guillemette has run the tapes, scanned the schedules and deconstructed the stats in the process of power ranking the 32 teams in the league. and just to make it more fun, we’ll be using the inverse of the rankings as the… Read More »
Sparty LT to return – sometime – and other college notes … For what its worth Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio told local reporters that the Spartans have no new season-ending injuries to report. The implication is that the Spartans’ standout junior LT Jack Conklin, who left Saturday’s game with a knee injury, will play again sometime… Read More »
College Football is over for the month of September, which means it is time for PIGSKIN PAUL’s initial Top 25 rankings. This is my ranking list to reward teams that have gotten off to a fast start and posted all victories for one month. No doubt some of these programs have been beating up on weak sister teams… Read More »
College football notes … Auburn has announced that star sophomore DE Carl Lawson will be out for “an extended period of time because of that hip injury. Lawson, who missed the entire 2014 season with a torn ACL, hurt his hip late in the first half of the Tigers’ season opener against Louisville. Lawson has been listed as… Read More »
College football notes … UTEP junior RB Aaron Jones, one of the best runners in the country, will miss the rest of the year after undergoing surgery to repair torn ligaments in his ankle; Jones was injured in last weekend’s game with Texas Tech. The 5-9, 205-pound Jones, who also plays with the Miners basketball team, ran for… Read More »
Cowboys trade for Raiders WR … With star WR Dez Bryant sidelined for as much as the next two months, Dallas has acquired veteran WR Brice Butler from Oakland for a conditional 2016 draft pick. If Butler is on the 53-man roster for six games, the Raiders will get a 5th round pick from Cowboys, while Dallas will… Read More »
Bucks-Hokies wrap first week of college football … The first week of the college football season wraps up with a really intriguing match-up later this evening with a special Monday nighter between defending national champion Ohio State and Virginia Tech at 8 PM ET on ESPN. Normally, there wouldn’t be a ton of intrigue in any game between… Read More »
2015 draft passes test … Back in the spring, the consensus around the NFL was that the 2015 draft, and especially the later rounds, just wasn’t all that strong in comparison to other recent draft years. However, while its hardly a perfect measure, at least based on the number of players selected this past spring who are still… Read More »
Pair of college QBs done for the year … BYU QB Taysom Hill suffered a Lisfranc fracture early in the Cougars’ dramatic last-play Hail Mary win at Nebraska and will miss the rest of the year. In fact, its the third time in the last four years that the athletic Hill will have his season ended prematurely. Meanwhile,… Read More »
Pair of trades on cut-down date … As teams made moves to get down to the opening day 53-man roster, there were a couple of minor trades. Kansas City gets a 5th round pick from Seattle in exchange for SS Kelcie McCray, while Baltimore gets a conditional pick from San Francisco for C Nick Easton, an undrafted rookie… Read More »
Everybody kind of got their feet in the opening week of the college football season. And now the heavy lifting starts with a number of key intra-sectional games with none bigger than Oregon at Michigan State. Indeed, both the Ducks and Spartans have post-season playoff aspirations and the loser of Saturday’s game will find itself behind the 8-ball… Read More »
Pigskin picks/previews the colleges … Each week this fall, GBN Associate Editor and Chief Scout Pigskin Paul Guillemette will be previewing the college games – and prospect – he’ll be watching with an eye toward the 2016 draft. Here’s this week’s edition.
