ASU's Riley honored as 2011 football season approaches

Wetumpka, AL - Wetumpka High graduate and current Alabama State University standout Kejuan Riley has become a player to watch in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Over the course of the week, Riley - who finished the 2010 season with seven interceptions, one behind FCS leader Moses Ellis (Prairie View A&M) tied for second in the nation - has been awarded a host of preseason honors.

"It's a great accomplishment," said Riley, a junior defensive back for the Alabama State Hornets. "I put god first and I always want to thank Him. I accomplished this because of my teammates. They really helped me, along with (defensive coordinator) Cedric Thornton, to put me in a position to make plays."

Riley also extended thanks to ASU head coach Reggie Barlow for "allowing me to be a Hornet." At Southwestern Athletic Conference media days to start the week, Riley was one of seven Hornets named Preseason All-SWAC.

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Five-a-Side: Jackson State's Casey Therriault

FCS Walter Payton Award

Jackson, MS - The timing would be impeccable if Jackson State senior quarterback Casey Therriault wins the 2011 Walter Payton Award.

This season marks the 25th anniversary of the most prestigious award in the FCS - the Heisman Trophy of the division which is presented by The Sports Network and sponsored by Fathead.com.

The legendary Payton, of course, played at Jackson State, which this season is celebrating its 100th year of football. Of course, the Casey Therriault story isn't ordinary regardless.

It was just over two years ago that Therriault was released from jail, having served a six-month sentence for his minor part in a January 2008 incident in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., in which a 21-year-old man was killed at a bar and restaurant. At the time of the altercation, Therriault was home from junior college.

The man, who was intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of 0.27, harassed one of Therriault's friends before the incident escalated to ...

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S.C. State-Claflin basketball series to be revived this year

Orangeburg, S.C. - There was a time in the mid-1980s and '90s when Claflin and South Carolina State battled annually for on-court hoops supremacy in Orangeburg.

For a 10-year period, the Garden City Classic featured an evening of hard-fought men's and women's basketball. Whether at Smith-Hammond-Middleton Memorial Center or the Jonas T. Kennedy Center, the games saw passions raised to a fever pitch for the two Orangeburg fan bases which in turn produced funds to cover scholarships.

"I thought it was great," said Claflin athletics director Tim Autry, who served in the same position at S.C. State at the time of the final Garden City Classic in 1996.

A mandate by then-Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference commissioner...

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No respect: Virginia State University picked to finish sixth

ETTRICK, VA - Even though Virginia State reached the CIAA championship game last season — the Trojans lost 14-7 to Shaw — VSU is ranked sixth in the conference preseason poll, which was released Thursday at the CIAA kickoff press conference at Virginia State University.

"I thought we'd get a little bit better recognition," said VSU coach Andrew Faison, who was named CIAA coach of the year after guiding the Trojans to an 8-3 record.

But VSU was predicted to finish eighth last year, so exceeding expectations is nothing new to Faison or the Trojans. He said he'll just use the preseason ranking as motivation for his players, just as he did a year ago.

"It's preseason," Faison said. "It's no big deal."

The top four teams in the preseason poll — defending champion Shaw, Winston-Salem State, Saint Augustine's and Fayetteville State — come from the Southern Division. Even though VSU is predicted to finish sixth overall, the team is ranked second in the Northern Division.



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Fayetteville State coach Kenny Phillips not buying preseason predictions for his Broncos

Fayetteville, N.C. - Perhaps it was unintentional. But Fayetteville State football coach Kenny Phillips stole a page right out of Yogi Berra's book.

Thursday during CIAA Media Day festivities at Virginia State. Asked about the upcoming season, with his Broncos pegged in the preseason poll to finish fourth in the league's Southern Division, Phillips delivered a calm, if somewhat confusing, aphorism.

"If the prediction goes as the predictions go, they never do," he said.

Phillips has recent firsthand experience with the unreliability of preseason polls. Last season, for example, his Broncos were picked to win the CIAA, yet they sputtered to a disappointing 5-5 season and a fourth-place finish in their division.

"Where you're picked at is where you start," Phillips said. "But it's where you finish at (that matters)." So will FSU exceed expectations this season?

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The Predicted Order of Finish and Preseason All-CIAA team are being formally announced. To see a list of those, go here and here.

Southern University handles scholarship loss

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Southern football coach Stump Mitchell on Monday confirmed the loss of nine full scholarships spread among 19 players - the result, he said, of NCAA penalties brought forth because of SU’s substandard score in the Academic Progress Rate. Mitchell, however, said the team had yet to lose any players because of the predicament.

The blow was announced on the eve of this year’s Southwestern Athletic Conference media day and less than two weeks before his team starts practice, Aug. 4. Southern was susceptible to harsh penalties because its football team had a history of substandard APR scores.

The APR is a rolling four-year system that measures classroom performance of student-athletes on every Division I team. Teams scoring below 925 can face penalties, and teams scoring below 900 are subject to “severe” penalties.

According to data released...

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Williams preparing to make another run with Grambling

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Asked why he returned to coach football at his alma mater, Alabama’s Bear Bryant is famously supposed to have replied: “Mama called.” For Doug Williams, his whirlwind return to Grambling was for similar reasons.

“I always feel responsible for Grambling because Grambling was good to me,” Williams said as he faced a barrage of interviews Tuesday at SWAC football media day. “I hope that by coming back I’m giving back.”

The Zachary native was set to take a front office job with the Washington Redskins - the franchise he led to victory in Super Bowl XXII with a virtuoso MVP performance - when former Grambling coach Rod Broadway abruptly resigned on Feb. 3 to become head coach at North Carolina A&T.

Almost immediately, Williams said, his phone started ringing. At the other end of the line were ...

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