The TCU athletic program was placed on probation for one year by the NCAA after a self-reported violation revealed work-compensation irregularities among athletes from multiple sports, ESPN reported. The NCAA’s probation period will extend to Dec. 19, 2020.
The report said a total of 33 football and women’s basketball players received excessive pay for an on-campus job with the maintenance department.
The error occurred when student-athletes failed to clock out of work, triggering overpayments that were estimated to be a collective $20,000 over a four-year period from 2015 to 2018.
“I’m proud of TCU’s culture of compliance that led to these issues being identified, promptly disclosed, and corrected,” TCU chancellor Victor J. Boschini Jr. said in a statement. “I also am thankful for our team who successfully collaborated to ensure that we not only resolved this issue but continue to send a message of strong ethical leadership at TCU.”
—LSU’s Ed Orgeron was named the recipient of the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award, the Football Writers Association of America announced.
Orgeron has guided the top-ranked Tigers to a 13-0 record entering their College Football Playoff semifinal matchup with No. 4 Oklahoma on Dec. 28. LSU is led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Joe Burrow.
Orgeron is the third LSU coach to win the Eddie Robinson award. The others are Paul Dietzel (1958) and Nick Saban (2003) and both those coaches went on to win the national championship in those seasons.
—The school board in Athens, Ohio, decided the stadium at Athens High School will be renamed to honor Burrow, the LSU quarterback who is a 2015 alumnus.
In his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech last Saturday night in New York, Burrow didn’t forget his hometown, which is located about 150 miles east of Cincinnati.
“It’s a very, very impoverished area,” Burrow said on Saturday with tears in his eyes. “The poverty rate is almost two times the national average. There are so many people there that don’t have a lot, and I’m up here for all those kids in Athens and Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table, hungry after school. You guys can be up here, too.”
—Stanford tight end Colby Parkinson announced that he is bypassing his senior season to enter the NFL draft.
Parkinson, who caught 48 passes for 589 yards and one touchdown this season, said he feels he is ready to take the next step.
The 6-foot-7, 251-pound Parkinson is considered one of the top five prospects at his position. He finishes his college career with 87 receptions for 1,171 yards and 12 touchdowns in 31 games.
—Arizona hired former Iowa State head coach and UCLA assistant Paul Rhoads as its defensive coordinator.
Rhoads is replacing Marcel Yates, who was fired by head coach Kevin Sumlin in October after the Wildcats allowed 41 or more points in three consecutive games.
Rhoads, 52, was Iowa State’s coach from 2009-15, and compiled a 32-55 record, leading the Cyclones to three bowl games, including a win in the 2009 Insight Bowl. He was the defensive backs coach at UCLA the past two seasons, with the team allowing 34.4 points over that time, and over a two-year period (2016-17) was defensive backs coach, defensive coordinator, then interim head coach at Arkansas.
—Field Level Media