DALLAS - Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State was named the national coach of the year on Thursday by the Football Writers Association of America.
Gundy was chosen as the winner of the Eddie Robinson Award. The other finalists were Michigan's Brady Hoke, LSU's Les Miles, Kansas State's Bill Snyder and Clemson's Dabo Swinney.
Gundy led the third-ranked Cowboys to an 11-1 regular season, their first Big 12 championship and their first BCS bowl berth. They will face No. 4 Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2.
Familiar foes to meet
for Div. III championship
SALEM, Va. - Wisconsin-Whitewater and Mount Union have dominated Division III college football over the past seven seasons and when it comes time to determine the national champion: The Warhawks have been on one sideline and the Purple Raiders on the other.
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The two-time defending champion Warhawks (14-0) and Mount Union (14-0) will meet for an unprecedented seventh consecutive time in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl tonight at Salem Stadium. The teams have split the six meetings, with Whitewater winning three of the last four.
The Warhawks have also won 44 in a row, last losing to Mount Union in the 2008 game.
Opponents of BCS mount new offensive
WASHINGTON - Proponents of a college football playoff launched a new national campaign Thursday aimed at taking down the BCS.
The "We Want a Playoff Now" campaign includes the lobbying firm The Moffett Group, headed up by former Rep. Toby Moffett, D-Conn., and the communications firm New Partners.
Along with that effort, two congressmen are forming the Congressional Collegiate Sports Caucus. The congressmen, Texas Republican Joe Barton and Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, are reintroducing Barton's 2009 bill aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system. The long-shot bill would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff.
Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock said coaches and athletes prefer the bowl system to a postseason tournament, and decisions about college sports are best left to those in higher education, not politicians.
I-Ridge grad Carlson
is NAIA All-American
Ironwood Ridge graduate Nick Carlson of Midland University was named to the NAIA All-America first team this week.
Carlson, a defensive back, was one of 11 defensive players named to the team, along with 11 offensive players and three specialists.
Carlson played in eight games in 2011 and is the school's first All-American since 2000. He had nine interceptions, breaking a school record for interceptions in a season and finished with the most interceptions per game in the nation (1.1).
The team was announced Wednesday by the American Football Coaches Association.
Includes material from a news release
