Colorado OC to Interview at Oregon

The Colorado football program could be looking for a new offensive coordinator as early as next week. Mark Helfrich, who has served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in Boulder since 2006, will interview for the same position next week at the University of Oregon, according to a release published on the CU athletic department Web site. Helfrich would be the second member of the coaching staff to leave Colorado this offseason and the fourth member to at least entertain the idea. If offered a job at Oregon, he would be the second member of the CU staff to be courted by the Ducks this year. Helfrich was born in Medford, Ore., and played college football at Southern Oregon. He served as a graduate assistant at Oregon in 1997. Meanwhile, there is no support at the top of the University of Colorado for multi-year contracts for assistant coaches. – Daily Camera

Snyder: K-State turnaround will ‘take some time’

Asked Tuesday during the Big 12 football coaches’ spring teleconference call how close Kansas State was to being where he hopes it will be, Bill Snyder was candid. “I can’t see there from here,” he said. He clarified. “It’s a long ways away from where I would like for it to be for a lot of different reasons,” Snyder said. “It’s nothing that has anything to do with anything other than trying to get young people to accept responsibility to do the things we need to do and be able to practice with the same intent as their coaches.” Hope is alive in Manhattan, but Snyder is cautioning against expecting too much — even though he was rehired to replicate some measure of the success he experienced during his first 17 years and to snap a string of consecutive losing seasons, which is also how his initial run at K-State ended. “It’s just going to take some time,” said Snyder, 69. “I have concerns about every facet of our program.” – Kansas City Star

Ole Miss Player Says He Can’t Read

Jerrell Powe apparently was joking. But the Ole Miss defensive tackle’s statement to police that “he couldn’t read” certainly raised eyebrows and has heated up the Internet message boards today, considering his lengthy history of eligibility concerns with the NCAA, including questions about his ability to read. Powe’s conversation with police took place early Sunday morning, when the rising junior was cited for a noise violation for playing loud music at his apartment at The Exchange in Oxford. Coach Houston Nutt said to him the police report made it obvious that Powe was joking when he said he couldn’t read. “Of course he can read, how do you think he’s getting through college?” Nutt said. “Now he just needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.” – Clarion-Ledger

Brewster’s Tweets Too Loud

Word has it that Gophers football coach Tim Brewster was ordered to delete a Twitter.com entry that took a large shot at Strib sports columnist Patrick Reusse. By the time I heard about this, the alleged tweet from Brew was gone from “Play4brew.” But an e-mailer name Ron claims that Brew posted this: How would you like to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror…… if your [sic] Fat Pat. At 12:41 p.m. Thursday I posted this on Twitter: “Trying to find that alleged ‘Fat Pat’ post from Coach Brewster.” Not a tweet. Friday afternoon I tracked down Reusse, who had heard all about this, and he said, “Coach Brew has detected that I’m overweight and that makes him an astute observer. And this situation could in no way lessen my opinion of him.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune

West, Memphis Give Troubled Players Fresh Start

Lance Smith finds holes, then — zing! — rockets his way upfield. A junior running back, he has the sort of high-end acceleration that has long impressed coaches and scouts, a unique talent who could make an enormous difference for the University of Memphis this fall. But as smooth as he can look on a football field, few players traveled a bumpier road to Saturday’s Blue-Gray Game at Christian Brothers High. A promising career at Wisconsin was derailed when he found himself spending 10 days inside a jail cell last August. But now he has a fresh start — and he is not alone. Two other high-profile transfers, junior linebacker Jamon Hughes and sophomore linebacker Derrick Odom, made their debuts for the Tigers on Saturday. Hughes had been arrested twice at Mississippi State, Odom three times at LSU. But at Memphis, there is new hope and a clean slate. And if his program is gaining a reputation as a halfway house for reclamation projects, coach Tommy West said these players understand the stakes. “These guys know there’s no margin for error,” West said. “But nobody’s perfect. We get another chance and make the most of it.” – Memphis Commercial Appeal

Kiffin Wrongly Accused?

Tennessee denied Friday that it had self-reported a secondary violation to the NCAA concerning contact between football coach Lane Kiffin and South Carolina signee Alshon Jeffery after national signing day on Feb. 4. On Thursday night, WBIR-TV confirmed a story on The State newspaper’s Web site that Kiffin’s phone call was indeed a violation. Coaches are not allowed to contact athletes after they have signed with other schools. UT officials weren’t aware until told Friday afternoon that UT associate sports information director John Painter had confirmed the secondary violation report to The State, the daily newspaper in Columbia, S.C. However, UT director of public relations Tiffany Carpenter, after consulting UT’s compliance department Friday, said the contact “is not an NCAA violation,” but rather what she called a “national letter of intent infraction.” Kiffin called Jeffery after ESPN.com reported in March that Kiffin told Jeffery he would be “pumping gas for a living” if he signed with South Carolina. Kiffin denied the ESPN.com report. He also said that in his second call to Jeffery the player confirmed the coach did not make the comments about “pumping gas.” – govolsxtra.com

Rutgers to play Penn State, Miami in 2018

Rutgers has announced Thursday that that TBD would be Texas Southern, the team’s second Football Championship Subdivision (formerly 1-AA) on next season’s docket. But as Pernetti promised, he’s making sure that the TBD situation doesn’t show up again. Which is why after Thursday’s news of Texas Southern being the Scarlet Knights’ 12th and final game of the schedule, he backed up his statement with some news about future Rutgers schedules. The Scarlet Knights will play a two-game series with Penn State, starting in 2014 with a game at Rutgers Stadium. Rutgers will then head for Happy Valley the following season. But he didn’t stop there. Beginning in 2018, the Scarlet Knights have a tentative agreement for a home-and-home series with Miami, with Rutgers hosting the first year then traveling to Florida in 2019. – Newark Star-Ledger

Kiffin Violates NCAA Rules with South Carolina Signee

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin’s failed attempt to recruit Calhoun County player and USC recruit Alshon Jeffery continues to generate headaches for the Volunteers. A Tennessee official confirmed Thursday the school has self-reported Kiffin to the NCAA for a secondary violation, which took place when the coach called Jeffery after the Feb. 4 national signing day. Coaches are not allowed to contact athletes who sign with other schools after that date. – The State

Weis confirms talk with family about leaving ND

Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis confirms he talked with his family about quitting at the end of last season, though he says he never thought he’d leave. Weis says he would have been negligent to his family if he hadn’t talked about the possibility of leaving. He says it was in the context of discussing ‘what ifs.” The comments Wednesday were in response to a story in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday. The newspaper reported Weis thought about leaving Notre Dame and returning to the NFL as a coordinator. But Weis says he needed to have a plan just in case. Following a 38-3 loss to USC in the regular-season finale, athletic director Jack Swarbrick took several days before announcing that Weis would return as coach. – AP

Fulmer: “I’m not retired”

Don’t say the word retirement to former UT football coach Phillip Fulmer, because he isn’t saying it. “I’m not retired,” Fulmer said. “I’m doing some different things right now like working with an investment firm with one of my former players in Knoxville, and I’ve done some work with (TV). “And I want to coach again, but I am not retired.” … Fulmer said his next move is still up in the air. “I’m Episcopalian, and before a priest can become a bishop, the church wants him to take a year’s hiatus to go out and try other things and rest,” Fulmer said. “I wanted to do the same thing after the end of last season. “I told myself I wasn’t going to do anything for six months, but that lasted about six weeks.” – Jackson Sun

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