The college football bowl season began with a bang as BYU’s furious comeback attempt versus Utah fell just short, while Appalachian State won in dramatic fashion on a last-second field goal. There is, no doubt, the focus for college football fans was on those games, but in addition to the bowl fever there was also some important news that made the wire. Here is a look at the most important news and notes from across the college football world this past week.
Michigan Hires Defensive Coordinator
It certainly didn’t take long for Michigan to find its man, as the Wolverines settled on Don Brown as their defensive coordinator in 2016. Brown, who coached the nation’s top-ranked defense at Boston College, replaces D.J. Durkin after the Durkin took the head coach job at Maryland. Michigan proved it can contend in the Big Ten in its first season under head coach Jim Harbaugh and bringing in an experienced, veteran coordinator that can help take their defense to another level should only help make them a better team moving forward to next season.
Georgia Southern Turns To Summers As Next Head Coach
Georgia Southern found its next head coach in former Colorado State defensive coordinator Tyson Summers, who will replace Willie Fritz after he left to become the head coach at Tulane. Summers is familiar with the program after spending time as an assistant coach at Georgia Southern back in 2006, and the consensus seems to be that he is a perfect fit for the job. There will be plenty of head coaching changes throughout this off-season, but with so much work to do before next season it’s no surprise a team like Georgia Southern made sure they got their man as soon as possible.
UCLA’s Offensive Coordinator Suffers Scare
UCLA could be without its offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone for this year’s Foster Farms Bowl after he was hospitalized last week because of an undisclosed health issue. All we know is that head coach Jim Mora said it was a ‘serious deal.’ The team has not provided any details for what happened to Mazzone and he was back at practice on Thursday, but he was not on the field for practice on either Friday and Saturday. There were reports that if he traveled to San Francisco for the game, he would have to drive because he couldn’t fly. The Foster Farms Bowl is on Saturday so depending on Mazzone’s status there should be an update from the team sometime early this week.
It’ll be interesting to see how this affects the Bruins and their offense, which has been inconsistent at times this season. They’ve been building around first-year quarterback Josh Rosen and this will be one of the biggest stages of his young career. He’d much rather have his main offensive coordinator on the sideline with him.
Winfree Transfers To Pittsburgh
Pitt got some good news in terms of its depth at wide receiver looking forward to next season with the announcement that they had added transfer wide receiver Juwann Winfree from Maryland late last week. Winfree is a former four-star recruit that had 11 catches for 158 yards and two touchdowns as a freshman, but keep in mind that Maryland was a disaster this past season. He really wasn’t in the optimal situation to succeed. However, he still has the potential to put up better numbers with a bigger role for the Panthers next year. Pittsburgh has not confirmed whether or not Tyler Boyd will leave for the NFL this year and, if he does, it will make Winfree’s addition from Maryland that much more important with the potential for him to be a key piece for their offense moving forward. If Boyd stays, this could be one of the best one-two punches at wide receiver in the ACC.
