A now-disassociated Mississippi State booster allegedly made cash payments to a recruit and arranged for complimentary lodging and meals for the recruit's seven-on-seven coach, Yahoo! Sports has learned.

In an interview with Y! Sports, Nashville-based seven-on-seven coach Byron De'Vinner – recipient of the lodging and meals – explained in detail how former Mississippi State booster Robert Denton Herring broke multiple NCAA rules in 2011 and '12 in an effort to land Memphis East High School defensive back Will Redmond.

Will Redmond signed with Mississippi State, but hasn't played. (Rivals)De'Vinner said he also told his story to NCAA enforcement representatives, who have been investigating the allegations jointly with Mississippi State's compliance department over the course of several months. In July the school sent Herring, who lives in Roswell, Ga., a letter informing him that he had been disassociated from the athletic program for "impermissible contact" with a recruit. In August, Bulldogs assistant coach Angelo Mirando resigned for what the

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Just back from the new frontier, Mike Slive came off the private jet laden with tribute from his adoring Southeastern Conference add-ons.

There were two commemorative game balls – one from the Florida-Texas A&M game in College Station, one from the Georgia-Missouri game in Columbia. There were Lucchese cowboy boots from the Aggies brass as well, complete with an SEC logo. And a box of sandwiches from the Tigers for the flight home.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive was given a pair of boots upon his visit to Texas A&M. (Special to Y! Sports)It was nearly midnight Saturday, and the 72-year-old commissioner had tugged loose the knot in his tie. At the end of a 32-hour trip to the inaugural conference football games for the two newest members of America's premier athletic league, Slive was exhausted but elated. He had gotten a glimpse of the future, and it looked even more powerful, profitable and passionate than the present.

He had seen a total of 158,118 fans at Kyle Field and Faurot Field – and thousands of others tailgating outside who never even walked through the

Kent State's Andre Parker heads the wrong way.Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (directions to the correct end zone sold separately at Kent State, where linebacker Andre Parker tried like crazy to score on his own team by running the wrong way with a muffed punt):

CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS … CAN'T SELL TICKETS

Maybe not everyone was as excited as The Dash for the start of college football season. Judging from attendance figures, there were some surprisingly soft tickets for the opening weekend of 2012.

There was exactly one announced capacity crowd in eight Southeastern Conference home openers. Before the Labor Day Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game, six out of seven Atlantic Coast Conference schools had smaller crowds than their openers last year – some of them much smaller. Attendance was down at six out of eight Big 12 home openers from 2011. Five out of eight Pac-12 schools had smaller crowds as well, and Oregon's 13-year sellout streak was in jeopardy until game day.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Of all the situations that can make a quarterback’s pulse race, third-and-nine at your own 2-yard line ranks high on the list.

Especially when it’s the initial third down of the game. And of the season.

That’s the precise predicament Louisville sophomore Teddy Bridgewater found himself in Sunday afternoon against hated rival Kentucky. Not ideal.Teddy Bridgewater showed why he was such a highly touted recruit by shredding Kentucky. (Getty) 

Given the youth of the quarterback and the high-risk, low-reward down and distance, that might be a give-up down for a lot of offensive coordinators. But Shawn Watson is a Bridgewater believer, and the feeling is mutual. So the call was a pass from the end zone for receiver Damian Copeland.

Bridgewater then executed like the five-star recruiting coup he was billed to be when Louisville snagged him out of South Florida in 2011, beating out powers like LSU, Florida, Miami and Tennessee. He threaded a smart pass to Copeland, who made a nifty catch for 23 yards along the sideline. The largest crowd to ever see a

ARLINGTON, Texas – The achingly earnest Alabama fans clustered on the other side of a window from the interview room. Cell phones pointed at the podium, they waited anxiously.

They were ready to film and photograph Nick Saban as he addressed the media after Alabama’s 41-14 mauling of Michigan. Maybe he would make their night by glaring in their direction. But it didn’t really matter – just a glimpse of their hero coach would be the proper capper to their rapturous opening Saturday.

True freshman T.J. Yeldon topped 100 yards on the ground. (US Presswire)Saban is beloved to an unsettling degree in Alabama because of what happened Saturday night in Cowboys Stadium. He coached the Crimson Tide to a 41-14 mauling of Michigan, a result that sent a clear distress signal to the rest of America: ‘Bama is back and fully armed to defend its national title.

“I think we showed the nation this is not the complacent Alabama people were expecting,” center Barrett Jones said. “We’re hungry and we want another national championship.”

Saban spent the offseason

If you want to know who journalists root for, I'll tell you: We root for ourselves.

We root for stories and storylines. We root for whatever interesting outcome makes for the best column. We root for controversy, conflict and characters.

And that's why I'm rooting for USC to be as good as advertised, and for the Southeastern Conference to do what it does best. Because that would bring Lane Kiffin in direct contact with the league that absolutely despised him during his 12-month tenure there. With the national championship on the line.

And yes, we could work with that.Lane Kiffin is the kind of controversial coach that makes for great stories. (Getty) 

That's why Kiffin is the most interesting man in college football in 2012. He's got a jerk streak as wide as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and no amount of attempted image rehabilitation has been able to convincingly change that. He's also being paid a reported $4 million a year at age 37 with a 30-28 career head-coaching record at three esteemed addresses.

Yet the Eddie Haskell of the sport can

Y! Radio: Forde sizes up opening week

It’s been a busy month for playing that favorite college football parlor game, “What’s Wrong with Notre Dame?”

In the first half of August, my friend and former colleague Rick Reilly said everything is wrong with Notre Dame – that the football program is such a disgrace it should give up its NBC contract, give up its seat at the BCS proceedings and basically apologize every time someone in the media says a kind word about the Fighting Irish.

Brian Kelly is 16-10 in his first two seasons as head coach at Notre Dame. (AP) On Wednesday, former Irish running back and current Irish radio analyst Allen Pinkett says Notre Dame is too law-abiding. He says the Irish need “bad citizens” and that championship teams have “criminals” on the roster. He actually is heartened by the fact that Brian Kelly’s third team in South Bend starts the season with several players suspended for either one or two games.

Pinkett’s comments were so absurd that they elicited a swift statement all the way from Ireland, from athletic director Jack Swarbrick: “Allen Pinkett’s suggestion