College football notebook: Louisiana Tech hires Skip Holtz as coach
BY Associated Press
Saturday, December 15, 2012
12/15/12 at 5:20 AM
Louisiana Tech officials say they have hired Skip Holtz as their new football coach.
Holtz, whose hiring was announced Friday, replaces Sonny Dykes, who left to accept the head coaching job at California last week.
The 48-year-old Holtz is the son of Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz, who is best known for his long and successful stint at Notre Dame.
The younger Holtz most recently coached at South Florida, which fired him this month following a 3-9 finish to the 2012 season. Holtz was 16-21 in three seasons at South Florida.
Temple reportedly offers coaching job to Rhule: Temple has made an offer to New York Giants assistant Matt Rhule to become the Owls' new head coach, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on anonymity Friday because Rhule had not yet formally accepted the position. Rhule was one of the final two candidates for the job.
The person said University of Miami defensive coordinator Mark D'Onofrio withdrew from consideration.
Texas Tech's Kingsbury gets rousing reception: Kliff Kingsbury is finally back where it feels like home.
Kingsbury was formally introduced Friday as the new head coach at Texas Tech, where he starred as the quarterback of some of Mike Leach's high-flying offenses. The former offensive coordinator at Houston and, most recently, Texas A&M, said those jobs were purely business.
Kingsbury, a mentor to Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel this year and the first in a string of record-setting Red Raiders quarterbacks, was hired Wednesday to succeed Tommy Tuberville, who left unexpectedly for Cincinnati less than a week ago after logging three losing Big 12 seasons in West Texas.
The 33-year-old Kingsbury has never been a head coach. He's the youngest head coach of a BCS school and the second-youngest in the Football Bowl Subdivision behind Toledo's Matt Campbell.
Kingsbury has a four-year deal that averages $2 million a year - not bad for a guy who just five years ago was making less than $30,000 a year as a quality control assistant at Houston.
UNC TB entering NFL draft as sophomore: North Carolina tailback Gio Bernard is eager to make his early jump to the NFL.
The sophomore announced Friday he would enter next spring's draft after a big year in which he ranked among the nation's top rushers and punt returners to earn All-America honors.
The 5-foot-10, 205-pound tailback led the Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing, scoring, all-purpose yards and punt-return average. He was a first-team all-ACC selection the past two years, and was a third-team All-American by The Associated Press earlier this week.
A native of Boca Raton, Fla., Bernard is draft-eligible because he has been out of high school for three seasons. He missed the 2010 season with a knee injury and also missed almost three full games this year with another knee injury, but said fear of another injury wasn't a major factor in his decision.
