The South Carolina State University Bulldogs have captured the 2009 SBN Sports Black College National Football Championship. The Bulldogs posted a 10-2 record on the way to winning The SBN Jake Gaither National Championship Trophy for the first time since 1981.

The American Football Coaches Association has selected an All-America team since 1945. The AFCA selects a 25-player team made up of 11 offensive players, 11 defensive players, a punter, a placekicker and an all-purpose player.

The Walter Camp Football Foundation 2009 Football Championship Subdivision All-America team was selected by the head coaches and sports information directors of the Football Championship Subdivision schools and certified by UHY Advisors, a New Haven-based accounting firm.

Sam Houston State director of athletics Bobby Williams has announced the names of the six men he will interview this week for the university’s job as head football coach.

The candidates are New Mexico offensive coordinator Darrell Dickey, Central Missouri head coach Willie Fritz, University of Alabama-Birmingham offensive coordinator Kim Helton, University of Houston co-offensive coordinator Jason Phillips, Klein Oak High School head coach Dave Smith and former A&M Consolidated and Killeen Harker Heights head coach Ross Rogers.

As expected, Armanti Edwards was amazing, and only a break or two here and there kept him from going to his third Division I Football Championship in four seasons.

Edwards ran with authority and passed with accuracy, and he made the final 91 seconds of Montana’s 24-17 FCS semifinal win over his Appalachian State Mountaineers seem like an eternity.

Appalachian State

Head Coach Jerry Moore

Opening Statement

The Wildcats whooped it up last night at Villanova Stadium after one of their most anticipated rematches.

For the first time in school history, Villanova is going to the Football Championship Subdivision championship game.

The second-ranked Wildcats secured that trip by defeating sixth-ranked William and Mary, 14-13, in last night’s semifinal. The FCS final is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Villanova head coach Andy Talley…

Opening statement:

College Sporting News has learned that the “home team” for the NCAA Division I Football Championship game in Chattanooga next Friday, 12/18/09, will be the participant from the lower half of the playoff bracket.

The captains of the William & Mary football team wanted to do more.

Sure, last Saturday’s 24-3 rout of No. 1 Southern Illinois on the road had elevated the Tribe into the semifinals of the NCAA playoff tournament, inched them one game closer to a possible national championship, and tied the school record for victories in a season with 11.

However, something was missing. Senior defensive end and captain Adrian Tracy grabbed one of the footballs used that afternoon, marshaled the other captains, and approached the man standing in the middle of a cold, muddy locker room.

“For you, coach,” he told Jimmye Laycock, extending the ball to commemorate Laycock’s 200th head-coaching victory. It’s one that officially thrusts him into college football royalty as only the 13th coach at the FCS level to experience such unbridled success.

Head football coach Craig Bohl announced that Mike Breske has decided to resign as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at North Dakota State University. Bohl made the announcement today.

“Coach Breske’s efforts and experiences have been appreciated by myself and the entire football program,” said Bohl.

“Coach Breske offers a great background in defense and his body of work is recognized nationally. We wish he and his family the best.”

Senior QB Eric Ward earned more first-place votes, but was runner-up as the Commonwealth’s best Division-I player.

University of Richmond senior QB Eric Ward, who was the runner-up for the Dudley Award, was named Virginia’s top offensive back and senior LG Matt McCracken was honored as the state’s best offensive lineman at the annual Touchdown Club of Richmond awards banquet Tuesday night.

Aggies to play Morgan State for Homecoming

North Carolina A&T’s director of athletics Wheeler Brown announced on Wednesday that the North Carolina A&T football team will play in the 2010 Circle City Classic in Indianapolis on October 2.

It will be the first classic the Aggies have played in since playing in the Angel City Classic in Los Angeles against Prairie View A&M in 2007. They will make their first Circle City appearance in five years. The Aggies are 3-0 in the Circle City Classic, including their 16-3 win over Tennessee State in 2005. Tennessee State will be the Aggies opponent in 2010.

If 10,000 area residents attend next Friday night’s Football Championship Subdivision title game at Finley Stadium, the event has a much better chance of returning.

That’s the opinion of Greater Chattanooga Sports and Events Committee president Scott Smith, who said 7,241 tickets had been sold locally as of Wednesday afternoon. Chattanooga has hosted the FCS title game since 1997 but will vie with the Dallas suburb of Frisco for the 2010-12 matchups.

Each location will present its case to the NCAA football championship committee in late February.

For Andy Talley, familiarity has bred, if not contempt, then a definite unease.

Talley’s Villanova Wildcats (12-1) take on fellow Colonial Athletic Association member William and Mary (11-2) in Friday night’s FCS semifinal at Villanova, and Talley’s not overjoyed to be facing the Tribe for the second time this season.

“I would prefer to play a nonconference team, not anybody in the CAA, and most definitely not William and Mary,” Talley said. “It’s not the team that I want to see. They know us very well.”

Mythical creatures, royalty, a four-legged friend and a bird whose name fits nicely within the history of the nation’s second oldest college. The search for a new William & Mary mascot is down to five finalists and there’s something for everyone ­ a Griffin, King and Queen, the Phoenix, a Pug and the Wren.

The Portland State Athletics Department has announced the hiring of Nigel Burton as its new Head Football Coach in a press conference today on the PSU campus.

Burton, who has been the Defensive Coordinator for the Nevada Wolf Pack the past two seasons, returns to the school for which he was an assistant coach during the 2001 and 2002 seasons. He will be the 13th head coach in the history of Portland State football, and is charged with returning the Vikings to prominence in the Big Sky Conference and nationally at the NCAA I Football Championship Subdivision level.

In a week of stunning announcements – from Tom Suozzi’s concession to ‘Junior’ Gotti’s mistrial – nothing compared with the sudden death of Hofstra University football.

School president Stuart Rabinowitz made the announcement to immediately terminate the football program at a hastily-called press conference Thursday morning, and the news struck the Long Island sports community like a punch to the gut.

CARBONDALE, Ill. - As his teammates jogged to the locker room, Jonathan Grimes lined up one last celebratory chest-bump with safety David Caldwell at the 20-yard line.

After a running start, Grimes, William and Mary’s sophomore tailback, got pretty good air on the victory leap. It was a feat made all the more impressive given that, for an entire quarter, the Tribe’s offense couldn’t get off the ground.

Grimes scored the first of his three touchdowns with 1:37 left in the first half to spark a Tribe offense that managed just 2 yards in the first quarter, then capped an eight-minute, 16-play drive to open the third quarter with another TD as William and Mary pulled away for a 24-3 victory against Southern Illinois in an FCS quarterfinal Saturday at McAndrew Stadium.

Richardson compiled a record of 134 wins and 62 losses in his 17 year tenure at SU

Southern University Athletic Director, Greg LaFleur, has announced that the University has relieved head football coach, Pete Richardson and his staff, of their duties effective immediately.

Damon Nivens, offensive line coach, will serve as interim coach until a replacement is named.

Ten turnovers is amazing, 91 straight playoff points astounding, but the most impressive thing about Montana’s 51-0 beating of Stephen F. Austin was that the top offense in the FCS came to town and couldn’t do Jack.

Junior defensive tackle Tyler Hobbs spearheaded the third-ranked Grizzlies’ defense, which came up with five Lumberjack fumbles and five interceptions and made their Football Championship Subdivision quarterfinal victory surprisingly easy.

Montana, 13-0 and the top seed in the playoffs, will find out early Sunday afternoon whether its nationally televised semifinal game against No. 5 Appalachian State is Friday night or Saturday afternoon. The Mountaineers ousted Richmond 35-31 Saturday.

RICHMOND, Va. - Few expected No. 5 Appalachian State would have an easy time with No. 4 Richmond. Their game, at chilly University or Richmond Stadium, was the third playoff game played against each other in the past three years, and they are two of the top programs in the FCS.

The game matched all of the expectations of what happens when the winners of the past four national championships play each other. Appalachian State reached the third round of the 2009 NCAA FCS playoffs with a heart-stopping 35-31 victory over Richmond after overcoming a 14-point fourth-
quarter deficit with three touchdowns in the final period.

The snow, wet and as wild as CAA football, suddenly turned heavy as game time neared. It seemed to be falling right into the visitors’ hands.

“See, in New Hampshire,” one UNH fan walking up to Villanova Stadium said, her accented smile blinded by the white, “this is a nice day.”

One problem with that dry approach: On New Hampshire’s football roster, there aren’t all that many New Hampshirians. Or whatever they’re called.

The University of Northern Iowa football team wrapped up its 2009 season Sunday with its annual awards banquet. The event was held in the McLeod Center on the UNI campus.

The Panthers completed the 2009 season on the field ranked No. 16 in the nation with a 7-4 overall mark. UNI posted a 5-3 record in Missouri Valley Football Conference play.

Senior safety Quentin Scott (Little Rock, Ark.), senior wide receiver D.J. Hord (Lee’s Summit, Mo.) and sophomore Jordan Smith (Humboldt, Iowa) were named the Most Valuable Players at the banquet.

Nigel Burton will be named Portland State’s new head football coach this week.

The Nevada defensive coordinator is expected to be announced as Jerry Glanville’s successor at a news conference on Tuesday.

Burton served five years as cornerbacks coach at Oregon State before becoming the Wolfpack’s D-coordinator in 2008. Prior to that, he coached cornerbacks for Tim Walsh at Portland State.

London was 25-4 in his two years at Richmond and led the Spiders to the 2008 National Championship.

The University of Richmond announced Monday that head football coach Mike London has resigned in order to accept the position of head coach at the University of Virginia. The Cavaliers have called a press conference and will introduce London this afternoon.

Time, apparently, was of the essence.

Just a day after coach Mike London’s second season at the University of Richmond ended with a playoff loss, the 49-year-old was offered and took little time to accept the vacant coaching position at the University of Virginia The Daily Progress learned.

London will be announced as the school’s 45th head coach at a press conference at the John Paul Jones Arena at 1 p.m today.

Villanova actually was out for revenge.

But all week, the Wildcats had downplayed the talk about redemption against New Hampshire, the team that handed Villanova its lone football loss this season.

Then second-ranked Villanova went out and humiliated 10th-ranked New Hampshire, 46-7, yesterday in the snow to win the Football Championship Subdivision quarterfinal game at Villanova Stadium.

That’s right, 46-7. It was a convincing victory for Villanova, which advanced to its second NCAA semifinal in school history.

A week removed from mounting one of the greatest comebacks in school history, the Montana Grizzlies don’t get a break this weekend as Stephen F. Austin and its high-octane offense arrive in Missoula for the Football Championship Series quarterfinals on Saturday.

After what could have been a disappointing first-round loss to South Dakota State last Saturday, the Grizzlies mounted an astonishing comeback that included 40 unanswered points, surmounting a 27-point deficit with 5:08 remaining in the third quarter to win 61-48.

For the first time in 18 years, Butler will get a taste of postseason football action.

When the Bulldogs play Central Connecticut State on Saturday in Indianapolis, Northwest Indiana will be well-represented on the field, as seven local players – led by Lowell grads Scott Gray, David Lang and Mike Staniewicz – are on the Butler roster.

The fourth annual Gridiron Classic pits the winners of two Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) leagues – the Pioneer Football League and Northeast Conference – in a bowl competition agreement. PFL Butler (10-1) hosts CCSU (9-2) at 11 a.m. Region time inside the storied Butler Bowl.