NCAA Football News

National Signing Day is just days away, with a number of top recruits already declaring their intentions for Feb. 6. There are still some top recruits that remain uncommitted as the final week of recruiting winds down. 

This is a look at all 100 recruits in the 247Sports.com Composite Rankings and where they will sign when signing day Wednesday rolls around. 

Some teams will make dramatic moves in the team rankings when they pick up top recruits, and others will tumble. The final week of recruiting is always full of action with this year looking to follow the lead of years past. 

***All rankings provided by the 247Sports.com Composite Rankings 

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It may seem like the college football season just came to an end, but the 2013 preseason poll will be released before you know it. The same way the regular season flew by is exactly how the remaining months of the offseason will play out, and it will soon be time for the kids to take the gridiron once again.

So there is no better time than now to predict what the 2013 preseason poll will look like. But instead of mentioning those teams that weren't able to hold their own last year, we are only going to mention the Top 25 teams that finished in the final AP Poll. Unfortunately for some clubs, the rankings are going to be turned upside down.

Some of the programs that were ranked will no longer have a spot in the Top 25 and there are a handful of teams that will climb up the ladder. Due to rosters changing and media hype, things quickly change when it comes to the preseason poll.

Last year doesn't mean much when voters get together for the new upcoming season.

Here is where every Top 25 team from a year ago will be ranked once the 2013 preseason poll is released.

Note: The current rankings are in order of the final AP Poll.

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Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini was apparently not happy when he received the news that 3-star wide receiver Dominic Walker had flipped his commitment from the Cornhuskers to Auburn.

Bo Pelini crossed the line with the way that he reportedly reacted.

According to Chris Hays of the Orlando Sentinel (h/t cfbsection.com), Pelini was not too happy when he received the call from Walker:

It was hard for Walker to make that call to Nebraska on Friday, but he knew he had to do it. He said he didn't handle the Vanderbilt situation as well as he could have back when he decommitted from the Commodores in October and he wanted to make sure and do the right thing this time.

Even his mom was afraid for him when he made the call to head coach Bo Pelini and his staff on Friday.

"It was a very tough decision. They were [mad]. They were very mad. But I thought I had to call them like a real man should," Walker said. "But yeah, they were mad. Coach Pelini said, 'Best of luck, you're going to need it.' "

This was an unprofessional reaction from Pelini, and he wasn't the only one who was upset. Hays also reports that Nebraska's wide receivers coach gave the recruit some backlash:

Wide receivers coach Rich Fisher also was in on the call. 

"Coach Fisher said, 'I can’t believe you,' " Walker said. "It was really awkward."

To be clear, I completely understand where Pelini and Fisher are coming from, but they still crossed the line.

As a coaching staff, there have to be few things more frustrating than losing a commitment—especially so close to national signing day (Feb. 6). Walker was a player that Nebraska was planning on moving forward with, and now Pelini and his staff may have to scramble to try to replace him. If they're not going to replace him, his decommitment still creates negative momentum in the all-important days leading up to national signing day.

Pelini had plenty of reason to be upset, but he had zero reason to lash out and make a snarky remark to the recruit. Simply put, that's not how the head coach of a major college football program is expected to act.

Frankly, that's not how a head coach at any level is expected to act.

He knows better, and he knows the game of recruiting. Nothing is final until signing day, and until then any decommitments or flips are fair game. This shouldn't be surprising to Pelini, and it's certainly not something to lose his composure over.

The fact of the matter is, Walker handled this in the right way. He could have very well Tweeted his decommitment or texted it in to a graduate assistant or someone else he knows on the team. He could have gone about it in a hundred different, much easier ways, but he chose the right way.

More often than not, the right thing to do is often the harder thing to do. I commend Walker for handling this the right way.

He owned up to his decision and called Pelini. In that process, he showed incredible maturity and humility. That's more than we can say about some head coaches who have left programs high and dry in the past, let alone a recruit changing his verbal commitment.

Despite all of that, Pelini has the audacity to throw Walker's maturity back in his face and treat him in a disrespectful manner?

No matter how upset you are, you just can't treat a high school kid that way when it comes down to him making arguably the biggest decision of his life. This choice for him is much more than football, and that's a fact that gets lost all too much in the recruiting process.

Walker is choosing his future, and he has every right to change his mind without the fear of backlash from the head coach of a program.

Sure, you expect it from fans on message boards. You expect it when you hop online and read your emails, and you definitely expect it on Twitter.

You don't expect it from the head football coach at Nebraska, though. He has to be above that, at least for his reputation's sake on the recruiting trail.

This is not a good look for Pelini.

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Bob Bowlsby, the commissioner of the Big 12, is looking for a dance partner for his league, as reported by Kirk Bohls from the Austin American-Statesman. While two other unspecified conferences are on the table, it is the ACC that seems to be the clear leader at this stage in the process.

Unfortunately for fans who want this happen, there's no point in putting too much stock in this moving forward. It's just not something that is going to work in the current landscape of the collegiate athletic world. We've already seen the Pac-12 and Big Ten alliance fall apart before it ever had a chance to start, and this Big 12-ACC venture will be no different.

In theory it would be a blessing to fans. They'd get another guaranteed game against a big-time draw from a BCS conference—Florida State-Texas and Clemson-Oklahoma and the like. Those are games that would get fans pumped up and help fill up stadiums. In the current climate of full stands being hard to come by, one would think that would be a deciding factor.

Except that is not the only matrix by which this decision shall be made. Full stadiums are nice; flexibility in scheduling is better. The ACC is a league that already dropped its nine-game conference schedule plan due to the addition of Notre Dame to the conference slate.

The Fighting Irish are not going anywhere. Florida State, Clemson and Georgia are not about to drop their in-state rivalries, and overall flexibility is not going to be compromised.

The ACC lets its members pick their own nonconference games and then works around those dates to help teams maximize what they do outside of the league. A partnership with the Big 12 would dry up a lot of open dates in the league and really stack the deck for the conference's members.

A team like Florida State, with eight ACC games plus Florida on the docket, has to be smart in its future scheduling. It cannot control when it ends up with Notre Dame on the schedule, but it can oppose the addition of a Big 12 team before it happens. A Big 12-ACC alliance would put Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech in the crosshairs of 11 BCS-caliber opponents with just one game of flexibility.

That is not something any team in college football is signing up to undertake.

It is not just the schools with in-state rivals to play that will push back at the idea of the partnership. North Carolina is set to play Ohio State in 2017. Adding another major date with the Big 12 would put the high-profile Buckeyes date in jeopardy.

The same goes for Virginia Tech in this regard. The Hokies have Alabama (2013), Ohio State (2014, 2015) and Wisconsin (2016, 2017) on their schedule already. Throw in their dates with East Carolina in the future, and being locked into a game with the Big 12 just will not serve the Hokies well from a flexibility standpoint.

So, while it works for fans and would get their enthusiasm up, they are not the folks making the hard decisions about scheduling. The four-team playoff is on the horizon, and while it's been said that "strength of scheduling matters," how much it will matter to the selection committee remains to be seen. Wins are the currency that college football trades in, and overstocking a schedule is not the way to grow a portfolio.

Flexibility and getting wins are what the ACC both wants and needs. The teams that want to schedule a Big 12 game are free to do just that, while the other ACC members can enjoy their dates with the Big Ten, SEC, Big East or Pac-12. Rooting for the alliance makes sense for fans, but ultimately do not expect teams to compromise their scheduling freedoms to make it come to fruition.

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4-star tight end Durham Smythe has committed to Notre Dame.

This is a great pickup for Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish, and there is no doubting the fact that they've received a commitment from one of the better recruits in the 2013 class.

Smythe has the chance to be a star tight end at the college level. He's 6'5'', 233 pounds and he runs a 4.75 40 according to 247Sports. He's also ranked as the No. 8 tight end in the 2013 class according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings.

Max Olson of ESPN.com reports on Smythe's commitment:

Durham Smythe (Belton, Texas/Belton) pulled the trigger on a verbal commitment to the Irish at the end of his official visit this weekend. Smythe is Notre Dame’s 23rd commit of 2013. 

Long considered a Stanford lean, Smythe chose Notre Dame over the Cardinal and made his decision before taking an official visit to Michigan next weekend. 

“Going into the visit, I felt like I had a pretty good relationship with the staff and I was really excited about visiting,” he said. “When I got out here and experienced everything first-hand, there really wasn’t a doubt in my mind.” 

Smythe is bringing a lot to the table for Notre Dame. 

He has good size and terrific speed for a tight end. He'll be able to use his speed to stretch the defense vertically in the seams as a receiver.

He's a terrific commitment for Notre Dame, especially considering the loss of Tyler Eifert. Replacing Eifert's production and role in the Fighting Irish's offense is not going to be an easy task.

Smythe joins 4-star tight end Mike Heurman as another elite 2013 tight end commitment for Notre Dame. Much like Smythe, Heurman has good size at 6'4'', 220 pounds, and he runs a 4.76 40 according to 247Sports. He's the No. 9 ranked tight end in the 2013 class according to the 247Sports composite.

Both players are talented enough to come in and compete with Troy Niklas and Ben Koyack for the starting job as freshmen, but this could also be an excellent platoon group as well. Both Niklas and Koyack are bigger than the two incoming freshmen, thus they would be great in two-tight or unbalanced situations as blockers.

Smythe and Heurman are fast and will both be great receivers, so Kelly and his staff can utilize those two players in passing situations. They're also big enough to stay home and block though, so Notre Dame wouldn't be giving away anything by bringing either of them in.

We'll most likely see Smythe used situationally as a freshman, especially in passing situations. In fact, I also wouldn't be surprised if Notre Dame split him out and created a few mismatches in the slots or flats. The same could be done with Heurman as well.

Either way, Kelly and his staff will have a lot of options in regards to how to best utilize Smythe. He's a very talented recruit, and he'll play a big role as a freshman.

With the tight end position becoming more and more versatile, having options and different personnel to use is a huge advantage.

Smythe will be one of those options in 2013, and he'll create a ton of mismatches for Notre Dame.

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One of the biggest fish left in the recruiting pond heading into the weekend was running back Derrick Green from Richmond, Va. The 247Sports.com Composite 5-star prospect narrowed his choices down to Michigan, Auburn and Tennessee, and made his decision known on Saturday

Unfortunately for the Tigers and Volunteers, as the 6'0", 220-pounder chose the Wolverines over the two SEC contenders.

So where does Auburn go from here?

The Tigers have already signed junior college running back Cameron Artis-Payne, a 3-star prospect who will have three years to play two seasons. He rushed for 2,048 yards and 25 touchdowns for Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, Calif.

But there's still room for a high school running back in this class.

The Tigers hosted 5'11", 190-pound running back Johnathan Ford from New Hope, Ala. Ford is rated as a 4-star prospect according to 247Sports.com, and has been a commitment to Vanderbilt since April 2012.

But according to 247Sports.com national recruiting director JC Shurburtt, Ford is very much in play for Auburn despite his commitment to the Commodores:

One player I haven't mentioned when talking #Auburn is four-star RB Jonathan Ford, who is committed to #Vandy. He's in play. Excellent RB.

That's good news for the Tigers. Ford has been gaining a lot of momentum late in the recruiting process, picking up offers from Auburn and Georgia, and visited Tennessee on Jan. 11 according to 247Sports.com.

The Tigers are also hot on the trail of current Notre Dame commit Tarean Folston.

The 5'9", 185-pounder from Cocoa, Fla., committed to the Fighting Irish on Jan. 2, but took an official visit to Auburn on Jan. 18. Auburn's late push to land Folston can be tied to Auburn's hiring of Dameyune Craig as its co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach. Craig had been recruiting Folston when he was coaching at Florida State, according to AL.com.

With rising junior 1,000-yard rusher Tre Mason returning, Auburn is set at the running back position. But first-year head coach Gus Malzahn loves to spread the football around to various running backs in different formations, so it's important for Auburn to have options.

Green may be out of the picture now, but don't be surprised to see Malzahn and Co. flip a top running back between now and national signing day.

Follow @BarrettSallee

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The LSU Tigers are still in the running for 5-star defensive end and No. 1 overall recruit Robert Nkemdiche.

The odds may be stacked against them, but all it takes is one good visit on the recruiting trail to drastically change those odds. A week ago, we weren't sure if LSU was going to land an all-important official visit.

That's not the case anymore...

Nkemdiche just took his official visit to Ole Miss, and it was a visit that went very well, according to Kipp Adams of ESPN.com:

As for the top prospect in the country, Nkemdiche enjoyed himself too. 

"The Ole Miss official was awesome," Nkemdiche said. "I enjoyed hanging with my brother and showing that me and him have a bond together. It is a special thing." 

While that is terrific news for Ole Miss, Nkemdiche did also say that he's going to set up his official to LSU, per Adams:

"Ole Miss is up there –- and then there is Florida and LSU," Nkemdiche said. "I am going to set my LSU official up this week.

Right now it seems as if both Florida and LSU should be considered outliers for Nkemdiche's commitment considering his strong family ties with the Rebels and the tone of his recent official visit. That said, though, at the very least, LSU and head coach Les Miles will be able to put the Tigers in a great position to have a chance.

With literally days left until National Signing Day (Feb. 6), a chance is all LSU can ask for at this point.

The pitch is simple for the Tigers. It comes down to playing time at defensive end—which LSU can offer—and the chance to play for a nationally relevant program. LSU will be a contender in the SEC for the next few seasons, and the Tigers are always getting attention from the national media. Factor in the incredible home atmosphere of Tiger Stadium, and you've got yourself a strong pitch if you're LSU.

The question now becomes, is that enough to propel LSU over Ole Miss in Nkemdiche's mind?

Frankly, if that were to be the case, it would be a major upset. Nkemdiche may not claim a leader publicly, but the Rebels have held the upper hand ever since he decommitted from Clemson. 

Family is not always a factor, but in Nkemdiche's case it seems to be the factor.  It's a strong bond, and it very well could be stronger than playing time at LSU, national relevance and immediate contention within the SEC.

All that said, upsets are possible, especially in college football recruiting, so the fact that LSU looks like it's going to secure the final visit for Nkemdiche is huge for the Tigers.  

It's going to take a buzzer-beater of epic proportions for LSU to come away with Nkemdiche's commitment on February 6. In fact, this is more like a half-court shot down by two with seconds left.

Just like any half-court shot, the chances of LSU banking it in off the glass are rather improbable, but at the very least, the Tigers still do have a chance.

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While most of the national media has been focused on how the news of the NCAA's "improper conduct" in the Nevin Shapiro scandal could affect the University of Miami's potential punishment, another school that has already received punishment from the NCAA could thrust itself in the spotlight as well.

The University of Southern California. Football's pariah.

In June 2010, USC was sanctioned by the NCAA with a two-year postseason ban, the loss of 30 scholarships over a three-year period and a four-year probationary period due to the school's lack of institutional control regarding student athletes in multiple sports. 

The NCAA's Infractions Report is lengthy (65 pages!) and goes so far as to mention that the committee considered a television ban—which is just shy of the death penalty in college athletics—as part of the punishment it could dole out. Why the NCAA felt the need to add that in the report is mystifying but it certainly shows its level of pissivity, if nothing else.

Robert Swanson, a former USC Associates board member and current season-ticket holder, told me that some alumni (including himself) viewed that television ban mention as a proactive threat from the NCAA to USC—if the school sought relief via the appeal process, the NCAA could reconsider the initial penalties it imposed and add in a television ban.

Paranoia? Perhaps, but the NCAA is an association which answers to no one. USC did file a meek appeal but to no one's surprise, lost without further repercussions.

To understand why USC fans and alumni were so upset with the NCAA's final decree, you have to go back over the last 18 years and compare what other schools received in penalties for far more serious violations. 

In 2002, Alabama received a two-year bowl ban and the loss of 21 scholarships over three years stemming from a pay-to-play scandal involving Albert Means, a recruit out of Memphis. That particular case involved payment for a student-athlete to sign a letter of intent with Alabama—that violation is what the NCAA views as the most egregious of all violations involving student-athletes. Nevertheless, Alabama's sanctions were considerably lighter than the sanctions slapped on USC.

Some college football analysts believed USC's sanctions were too heavy-handed, considering the thin amount of evidence the NCAA's Committee of Infractions (COI) used to prove USC knew or should have known that Reggie Bush was receiving impermissible benefits. 

USC had always maintained that it didn't know student-athletes were receiving impermissible benefits—that's key in cases where institutional control is being questioned. But Paul Dee, the chair of the COI, didn't see it the same way. Dee admonished USC by saying it had to do a better job in compliance because "high-profile athletes demand high-profile compliance." 

Paul Dee's long tenure at Miami perhaps suggests he has had experience in compliance issues—and he has, but unfortunately it wasn't of the positive kind.

Dee was Miami's athletic director from 1993 to 2008 during which time the school's football program was hammered by the NCAA.

In 1995, the school was reeling from a Pell Grant scandal in which 57 players received over $200,000 in federal financial aid stemming from falsified applications. There's a lot more than just that but the point should be made that the university was deemed to have lacked institutional control while Paul Dee was in charge.  

Sports Illustrated columnist Alexander Wolff wrote an article via an open letter to Miami president Edward Foote II regarding his disgust over the Pell Grant scandal. An excerpt from that letter:

Fifty-seven players were implicated in a financial-aid scandal that the feds call "perhaps the largest centralized fraud upon the federal Pell Grant program ever committed." And among numerous cases of improper payments to players from agents was one in which the nondelivery of a promised installment led a Hurricane player to barge into an agent's office and put a gun to his head.

Miami, according to CBSSports columnist Dennis Dodd, received a 24-scholarship reduction over three years, a one-year postseason ban and a three-year probationary period. Massively defrauding the federal government is apparently not as bad as a booster paying for a kid's parent's rent, judging by the NCAA's comparative sanctions on the two schools. 

Like Alabama, Miami's sanctions were lighter than USC's sanctions. You would think Miami would have learned a valuable lesson after the Pell Grant scandal, wouldn't you? 

Miami booster Nevin Shapiro allegedly showered Miami recruits and players with access to cash, gifts, sex, booze, drugs and parties from 2002 through 2010—the long, mind-boggling report by Yahoo! Sports can be read here. The athletic director who oversaw all but two years of Miami athletics during that time period was, you guessed it, Paul Dee. 

Dee's response to Nevin Shapiro's alleged involvement was a stunning display of hypocrisy.

"We didn't have any suspicion that he was doing anything like this," Dee said in 2011. "He didn't do anything to cause concern."

Dee—the same man who allegedly allowed Shapiro to lead the Hurricanes on to the field before a game—plead the "we didn't know" defense on behalf of Miami despite his previous beatdown of USC for not knowing what was going on with Bush.

ESPN's Ted Miller even pointed out Dee's hypocritical statements regarding USC's violations while more severe violations were being committed under his watch while serving as Miami's athletic director:

Here he waxed sell-righteously -- and inaccurately -- over the USC case: “This case strikes at the heart of the principles of amateurism.” ("Inaccurate" because booster pay-for-play strikes at the heart of amateurism, not agents trying to lure players AWAY from amateurism). 

Columnists Stewart Mandel (Sports Illustrated) and Dennis Dodd (CBS Sports) would only have to wait one year before they too could express their ire over the COI's inept and beleaguered leadership. 

Even more compelling is that Dee's former employer (Miami) benefited from the sanctions he oversaw as the COI's chair—the No. 1 prospect in USC's 2010 recruiting class (according to Scout.com, among others), Seantrel Henderson, decommitted from USC after the sanctions were doled out and eventually signed with Miami.

The NCAA's COI has maintained that because every one of its cases is different, there is no precedent for sanctions. But that's also a convenient way to not have to answer to any institution that cries "unfair" after receiving its punishment. 

That may change shortly.

Former USC running back coach Todd McNair filed a lawsuit last year against the NCAA charging libel, slander and breach of conduct. McNair had been punished by the NCAA with a one-year show-cause penalty which required any school attempting to hire him in a coaching capacity must get NCAA approval.

The NCAA determined that McNair knew or should have known of Bush's relationship with a would-be sports marketer and thus, a lack of institutional control existed within the compliance department which enhanced the school's penalties. 

The presiding judge in McNair's civil suit against the NCAA, Frederick Shaller, recently ruled that the NCAA was "malicious" in its investigation of McNair. That ruling is now under appeal.

Reign of Troy's Trenise Ferreira, a USC blogger, recently contacted attorney Lincoln Bandlow, who is considered an expert in defamation law, for a summary of the case's current status:  

Bandlow explains that when McNair filed a defamation lawsuit, the NCAA brought an anti-SLAPP motion, which means the organization believes its investigation of McNair was thorough and fair and there is no way he could win his case, which will surely be lengthy and expensive. In disagreeing with the NCAA, Judge Shaller is saying that he believes there is enough evidence to show actual malice, which is what McNair’s lawyers need to demonstrate to prevail in this case. Since McNair was a football coach at the time of the investigation, he is considered a public figure, and so the standards of his defense change.

“The judge likely found evidence showing the NCAA shouldn’t believe what they were about to say,” suggests Bandlow. But if it’s just that  [the NCAA] didn’t like him, that’s not enough.”

“All that matters is if they knew the truth and hid it,” said Bandlow, meaning that McNair’s attorneys need to prove there is evidence that the NCAA had no proof of or knew that McNair had no involvement in the situation surrounding Reggie Bush, yet they held him responsible anyway.

McNair's lawyer has maintained that the NCAA knew it had questionable evidence against McNair. In an Orange County Register report, Bruce Broillet, McNair's attorney, reacted to the judge's favorable ruling toward McNair:

[Broillet] said during the hearing that the records showed the agency knew it was relying on false statements about McNair’s conduct and wanted to “nail” the coach, who also played in the NFL.

“They wrote evidence the way they wanted it to be—that’s malice,” Broillet said.

[NCAA attorney Laura] Wytsma rejected that contention in court, saying the evidence in the case show the committee that investigated McNair was trying to get its report right.

“They were struggling to get the right result,” she said, adding that several members of the investigative committee were prominent lawyers and legal scholars.

She also argued that records in the case should not be unsealed, saying it would hurt future investigations. The NCAA does not have subpoena power, she said.

The NCAA appears to be using its lack of "subpoena power" as a strawman defense over its investigative tactics. In the newly released NCAA report in which the NCAA admits to improper conduct in the Miami scandal, the second paragraph is particularly noteworthy:

As it does not have subpoena power, the NCAA does not have the authority to compel testimony through procedures outside of its enforcement program. Through bankruptcy proceedings, enforcement staff gained information for the investigation that would not have been accessible otherwise.

The fact that the NCAA cannot compel witnesses who aren't employed by an institution to testify in investigations—nor can it compel any person who is no longer an NCAA student-athlete—seems to be a recurring theme. 

Can USC sue the NCAA for malice? Possibly.  

If the NCAA decides to settle out of court with McNair, it could stipulate that settlement be sealed from public record and/or McNair sign a confidentiality agreement which could carry heavy financial risk if McNair testified on USC's behalf. 

USC athletic director Pat Haden recently told Los Angeles Times reporter Gary Klein that USC is aware of what is going on with the McNair case's proceedings:

Haden and USC are monitoring a lawsuit filed against the NCAA by former running backs coach Todd McNair in the aftermath of its Bush investigation. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in November that emails between an investigative committee member, an NCAA worker and a person who works in the agency's appeals division "tend to show ill will or hatred" toward McNair and that McNair has shown a probability that he can win his defamation claims. The ruling is under appeal.

"If the facts come out as have been suggested we would probably reconvene and have a look," Haden says.

Haden, for what it's worth, won two national championships (1972, '74) playing quarterback at USC. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and up until 2010, was a partner in the law firm of Riordan, Lewis and Haden.

To say Haden has USC's best interests at heart would be an understatement. Couple in his legal background and there is no doubt Haden fully understands what USC's best course of action will be when McNair's appeal process has run its course.

Taking on the NCAA could be risky since the NCAA is currently investigating USC over whether or not former running back Joe McKnight received impermissible benefits. Then again, the NCAA had been coming off an embarrassing investigation of UCLA basketball player Shabazz Muhammad—an NCAA employee was reportedly dismissed after her boyfriend leaked information about the investigation while on an airplane. And now there is the improper conduct in the Miami case. 

The blood in the water may prompt USC to finally take that beast head on. Kick 'em when they're down. 

USC could ditch its pariah status and unintentionally be crowned college football's messiah.

Because for the first time in college football history, nobody would be rooting against the Trojans. 

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