Lorenzo's Blog

According to the Chicago Tribune's Brian Hamilton, Theo Riddick will move to wide receiver this spring.

After rushing for 167 yards in his freshman season, Riddick was poised to become one of Notre Dame’s secondary running backs behind Armando Allen.

However, with the logjam of talent at the position, including Cierre Wood, who redshirted his freshman season last year, there aren’t enough touches to go around, according to Kelly.

The reason why Riddick was the player chosen for the switch is because the freshman is the most adept at filling the skill set the wideout requires.

“So if you assume that the other guy we have to find room for is Cierre Wood, then if you have Cierre and Theo, somebody's not going to get a chance to get touches,” Kelly told Hamilton this morning. “So somebody had to go to wide receiver. And Theo has the best overall skills. So he's going to get a chance to compete for that inside slot receiver (spot) right away.”

Riddick will likely play out of the slot position in Kelly’s spread offense. As spring football is less than a month away, the 15 practices will offer the Irish coaching staff a preview to see if Riddick can transition into the role.

“He can catch the fly sweep, you can get screens to him, you get him to run the ball, he can be out in the slot, he can do a lot of things,” Kelly told Hamilton.

Although many Notre Dame fans were critical of how long it took Brian Kelly to name his assistant coaching staff, USC’s Lane Kiffin isn’t exactly putting up top marks for speed either.

After being named the program’s head coach January 12^th, Kiffin brought Tennessee assistants Ed Orgeron and Monte Kiffin, his father, with him to Los Angeles. Initial reports were that longtime Trojan assistant Norm Chow was also headed to USC, but those reports proved to be false.

Wednesday, a source close to the program told ESPN’s Bruce Feldman that John Baxter, an assistant from Fresno State will become the Trojan special teams coordinator.

Baxter will join former Tennessee offensive line coach James Cregg and the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebackers coach Joe Barry, each of whom will occupy their same positions with USC.

Additionally, a third member of the Kiffin clan will join the USC coaching ranks, as 28-year old Chris Kiffin, a former offensive intern on Bo Pelini’s Nebraska staff, has joined the Trojans as a defensive administrative assistant.

Chris is Lane’s brother and will also work closely with his father, who is the squad’s defensive coordinator.

“The No. 1 thing for me was going to work for my father,” Chris Kiffin told Steve Sipple of Husker Extra. “That's what made it an easy decision for me. Obviously, leaving Nebraska is the tough part, because it's been so great here. Working for Coach Pelini has been so great. I loved the atmosphere created in the athletic department. And it doesn't hurt that I met my wife here.”

The most intriguing news of USC’s staff additions is that Lane Kiffin is yet to have hired an offensive coordinator.

On the other hand, Charley Molnar officially signed on as Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator January 7^th, 30 days after Kelly was introduced as the Irish coach December 10^th, 2009.

Kiffin, however, has gone 51 days as the Trojan head man without an offensive coordinator.

Although Notre Dame wanted to have a staff in place before National Signing Day in the first week of February, USC also needed to address its offensive philosophy and is yet to have done so.

NOTRE DAME, Ind. - This evening's pre-game ceremony inducting Luke Harangody into Notre Dame's Ring of Honor begins a new tradition here at Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center.

A banner honoring Harangody's number 44 was unveiled tonight prior to the start of Notre Dame's BIG EAST matchup against Pittsburgh and now permanently will hang in the rafters of Purcell Pavilion.

Beginning in 2010-11, the Notre Dame Athletics Department plans to honor annually additional former and present men's and women's basketball and volleyball players who have made distinguished and noteworthy contributions during their career while student-athletes at the University. A committee that will consist of Irish coaches and administrators will be formed to determine future inductees.

As the first player in Notre Dame basketball history with 2,000 career points and 1,000 rebounds, Harangody becomes the first individual to earn a spot in the Ring of Honor. The two-time All-American ranks second all-time with 2,425 career points and 1,198 rebounds. He also stands third all-time in BIG EAST Conference history with 1,324 career points and second in rebounding with 660 boards. The 2008 BIG EAST Player of the Year has been a two-time first-team all-conference honoree and garnered league all-rookie team honors in 2007. As a junior and senior, he led the conference in both scoring and rebounding and became the first player in league history to stand atop the rankings in both of those categories in back-to-back seasons.

Rich Rodriguez will be back with Michigan despite the NCAA's accusations of noncompliance Tuesday afternoon.

The NCAA said Rodriguez “failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within the football program,” including a failure to file forms tracking how much time players spent performing football-related activities.

After first defending his program in a tearful statement just days before the 2009 season, Rodriguez admitted to making mistakes Tuesday afternoon.

However, incoming athletic director David Brandon stated, “there was no charge of loss of institutional control,” which in the past has led to NCAA sanctions and punishments.

Now, Michigan has 90 days to respond to the allegations and will appear in an NCAA hearing on infractions in August. The program will compare its own internal investigation with that of the NCAA. As a result, Michigan could consider self-imposed sanctions.

Tuesday’s meeting was the result of a report from the Detroit Free Press citing anonymous players who said that the football program exceeded NCAA limits in terms of mandatory time allowed to be spent on off-season and in-season workouts.

Although it was reported that some players spent two to three times the maximum time limit on workouts, the NCAA report from Tuesday claimed that the players most commonly exceeded the time limit by two hours.

As a result, Rodriguez admitted that his program misinterpreted NCAA rules, adding later, “That’s on us.”

“We're looking at it to see why we misinterpreted and why we made mistakes,” Rodriguez added.

The institution’s internal investigation did not find issues of noncompliance and cited a “breakdown of communication” as the main reasons for the infractions.

Now, Brandon and the rest of the Wolverines athletic department is looking to use the incident as a learning experience.

“We will dedicate ourselves to learning from this and doing everything we can to prevent it from happening again in the future,” Brandon said.

Rodriguez is 8-16 in his two seasons at Michigan.

Chances are Bennie Abram was never going to make headlines as a football player.

Tragically, now he’s making them for a far more somber reason.

A junior transfer out of Itawamba Community College, Abram joined the Ole Miss program in January as a defensive back.

Friday morning, Abram collapsed during a team-held conditioning session and was rushed to Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., where he was pronounced dead at 12:11 p.m.

It was Mississippi’s first day of the team’s routine conditioning.

Lafayette County Coroner Rocky Kennedy said that an autopsy will be performed Saturday and that there was no foul play involved.

Trainers noted that Abram was having difficulties during the workout and administered aid, eventually calling paramedics.

Abram’s death is a reminder of the physical sacrifices that collegiate athletes make everyday to compete in their sport.

Tragedies like this overshadow football in what normally would be considered just a game. However, with the more frequent stories of athletes collapsing during training sessions, it has become clear that sometimes the rigors of athletic competition are more than just games.

Abram was 20 years old.

“Bennie was a fine young man and a hard worker,” Mississippi coach Houston Nutt said. “He was a great person to be around and a well-mannered young man.  His loss is so tragic. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and all who knew Bennie.”

Although Pete Carroll is at the center of the NCAA's investigation of USC, he faces little punishment now with the NFL.

Starting February 19^th and lasting through the 21^st, the NCAA Committee of Infractions will meet with officials from USC regarding a number of allegations. The first accusation of wrongdoing came several years ago when then-Trojan Reggie Bush reportedly accepted improper benefits.

Since then, O.J. Mayo has been accused of also accepting additional benefits resulting in the resignation of basketball coach Tim Floyd and a self-imposed sanction on the basketball program. Recently, more reports surfaced that Joe McKnight, who declared for the NFL Draft, drove an SUV provided by a person outside the program.

After the meetings take place later this week in Tempe, Ariz., chances are that not much will be known about the program’s fate.

NCAA procedures state that if sanctions are necessary, they will be determined and made public six-to-eight weeks after the hearings take place.

The results of the investigation could rock the landscape of college football.

A number of things could happen.

USC may be forced to vacate wins and even the 2003 and 2004 National Championships that the program claims while Bush was a student-athlete.

Scholarships may be cut-down.

The school’s athletic department may be put on probation.

Some have even suggested that the NCAA may restrict USC from fielding a football and/or basketball program, although this seems much less likely.

However, whatever the NCAA decides to do with the Trojan program, the governing body of college athletics must get it right.

If the Committee of Infractions indeed has enough evidence to suggest that these improper benefits were allocated to the student-athletes in question, then a message must be sent to ensure that this type of transgression will not be accepted — not only to USC, but also the rest of the nation. The committee has a job that I do not envy. Regardless of what it decides to do, its ultimate decision will be met with criticism one way or another.

However, as I have digested the numerous reports surrounding the program and assuming these allegations are proven to be true, I’ve thought to myself — what is a fair punishment?

Certainly, I think that the wins and titles should be vacated. However, does that really discipline the program properly? I don’t believe this to be the case.

If this is the course of action or one of the results, the University still undoubtedly cashed in on the profitable revenue stream generated by back-to-back title years.

How do you take that back?

Somehow, the NCAA has to come up with a list of penalties that will get its message across.

Failure to do so will ultimately lead to a perpetuation of the problem itself.

If a school can break the rules and receive a slap on the wrist, then I will guarantee that these infractions will continue.

Another issue to factor into the decision is that the NCAA’s sanctions should not penalize the current student-athletes in the program for the University’s wrongdoings. How the NCAA Committee of Infractions could do this, I have no clue. But it certainly seems like a tall task.

Finally, where are those who had their hands in the wrongdoing?

A quick glance demonstrates that they have all left the program.

Pete Carroll is now with the Seattle Seahawks.

Reggie Bush just won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints.

O.J. Mayo is having a productive rookie season with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Joe McKnight is gearing up for the NFL Combine with the Draft fast approaching.

In an ideal scenario, if each is found guilty of the allegations, they should be held accountable. However, the NCAA has little power over people not under their supervision.

This complicates the issue of delivering punishment even further.

Are fines the answer? A drastic cut in scholarships? Vacation of wins and titles?

Somehow the NCAA has to find a way to make the guilty parties accountable and prevent the pattern of transgressions from occurring once again.

This begs the question, which I now turn over to you — what is a fair punishment?

Erik McKinney of WeAreSC.com believes that Seantrel Henderson will ultimately sign with the Trojans.

The top offensive lineman in the nation eventually committed to USC and the Trojan faithful celebrated the latest star prospect that Lane Kiffin brought to the program.

Hours later, however, news spread that Henderson committed to USC, but had not signed and faxed his Letter of Intent to the institution.

Now, it appears as though the five-star tackle is waiting out the news on the program’s meeting with the NCAA over a number of violations starting February 19^th.

Working on the ‘Irish Opponent Recruiting: USC’ story coming on Monday, I spoke with Erik McKinney of WeAreSC.com and he shared his thoughts on Henderson’s situation.

“It’s one of those things where I think Seantrel Henderson was coming to SC when Pete Carroll was here,” McKinney said. “But when he left, I’m sure that all got thrown in the air. The fact that Lane Kiffin was able to come in with all that stuff circling and still get him to commit, my thought is that Seantrel is pretty dead set on coming to USC.

“I know some people are saying, ‘Well, because he’s not signed, it gives everybody else an opportunity to recruit him,’ the fact is that those other schools have had that opportunity for two and a half years now.

“My thinking is that unless the sanctions or punishments or whatever they’ll find out in the end of February, unless it is something where you can’t have a football program, you can’t play in the post-season — if it’s a post-season ban or if it’s a TV ban or something like that, those are really the only things that I can see making Seantrel not come here.

“If there is the word probation or sanction, a lot of times that means basically nothing. They’ll take away wins from 2005, which has no effect, but a lot of kids hear the word ‘sanction’ and start freaking out. I think it will be real important for Kiffin to get in with Seantrel real quickly and explain everything that does come down, what it means and all that.

“But my thought is, if he committed when he knew that all those other things were happening, he’s still committed and he said he was going to weigh it out and all that, unless it’s something that hurts him directly, he probably isn’t going to look elsewhere.”

For a more in-depth look at USC most recent recruiting class, check back Monday for the ‘Irish Opponent Recruiting: USC’ story.

Greg Auman of Tampabay.com is reporting that there has been a change in Notre Dame's meeting with South Florida scheduled in 2011. The contest will still be taking place at Notre Dame Stadium.

However, the game will be moved from October 1^st to take place on September 3^rd, the season’s opener.

After South Florida named Skip Holtz its new head coach, the son of former Irish coaching legend Lou Holtz, will return to Notre Dame’s campus to lead the Bulls against the Irish.

Skip Holtz was an assistant at Notre Dame from 1990-93 and the program’s offensive coordinator during his last two seasons there.

“It's definitely happening,” USF athletic director Bill McGillis told Auman.

The Irish were scheduled to open up with a pair of road games against Purdue and Michigan. The Purdue and USF dates will be swapped as Notre Dame avoids starting with two road games against Big Ten opponents.

Notre Dame's senior associate athletic director John Heisler said, "We've certainly agreed to it."