Britton Banowsky

Presidents of 16 universities are set to challenge the Big East's geographically diverse conference with a potential conference that would span five time zones, including Hawaii.

This past Sunday, independent of either conference, the 16 university presidents from the teams in Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference met in Dallas and discussed what will now be an all-sport merger for the schools involved. Hawaii will be the only football-only school.

In October, university presidents from both conferences announced their intentions to form a new football-only conference in an effort to keep the Big East and other likeminded conferences from nabbing their programs.

"We think this is an exciting proposition and after this past Sunday, it took a very positive turn with everybody in the room showing a 100 percent commitment," Dr. Neal Smatresk, president of UNLV, told Yahoo! Sports. "I'm very confident this will be done soon and there's lots of paperwork and legal stuff and conference agreements still to be done."

Danny O'Brien and Randy Edsall (Patrick Semansky/AP)

In a move that came as a surprise to no one, quarterback Danny O'Brien has decided to leave Maryland and leave a trail of uncertainty in his wake.

Since Randy Edsall became the Terrapins head coach, 24 players with eligibility remaining have left the program, including 12 since the season ended. Those 12 players have taken 48 starts with them and a lot of the meager confidence Edsall had from the fanbase as the Terrapins leader.

"I'm disappointed by Danny's decision," coach Randy Edsall said in a statement released by the school. "Danny told me that he's not committed to our program, that he's not 'all in.' I want what's best for all of our players. Danny wants a fresh start elsewhere. I wish him well."

Not sure why Edsall is so disappointed. He set O'Brien's transfer in motion against Georgia Tech back in October when he benched the 2010 starting quarterback in favor of C.J. Brown, who is now the only quarterback on the roster with any experience.

Tennessee's new football facility (Michael Patrick/AP)

When Derek Dooley started molding plans for Tennessee's new football facility to fit what he thought would give the Vols the "Wow" factor, he thought outside the box. And with $45 million and 145,000-square feet at his disposal, it allowed the third-year coach to add the little things every program needs.

Like a mixed martial arts cage.

No, seriously.

Dooley took the Knoxville News Sentinel on an exclusive tour and pointed out all of the wonders of the facility, including the grand team meeting room, hydro therapy room, eating area and, of course, the weight room where the MMA cage is located.

Players will be able to walk straight from the 120-yard practice field into the new weight room — a 22,000 square foot "multilevel thunderdome of power," as it's called in UT's promotional video for the facility. Along with the standard free weights, machines, cardiovascular training equipment — which will be situated on a deck that overlooks the weight room — and a nutrition bar, it will feature a mixed martial arts cage "so we can go in and fight and all that stuff," Dooley said.

Pat Fitzgerald (Nam Y. Huh/AP)Pat Fitzgerald learned a quick and harsh lesson this weekend about what not to say on Twitter.

Fitzgerald, the head coach at Northwestern, was watching New York Knicks' sensation Jeremy Lin throw down a career-high 38 points against Kobe and the Lakers on Saturday and decided to comment on the former Harvard player on Twitter.

Bad idea.

@coachfitz51: There's finally a NBA player who plays hard and says the right things off the court

What may have seemed like an innocuous compliment to Lin, the Asian-American player who has certainly become the toast of New York, drew the ire of many NBA fans, who proclaimed Fitzgerald to be a racist among other things. Fans also took issue with the perceived diss of Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose, who is widely considered one of the hardest working players in the NBA and one of the overall good guys in the league.

Nevin ShapiroNevin Shapiro, the former Miami booster who orchestrated a $930 million Ponzi scheme, isn't done with his allegations and rants against the University of Miami athletic department and is determined to see several players pay for what he determines to be a betrayal against him.

"I'm more of a victim than a Ponzi schemer and assailant," Shapiro wrote in an email to the Miami Herald.

Shapiro told Yahoo! Sports in August that he provided extra benefits, including meals, prostitutes and trips to Shapiro's million-dollar Miami Beach mansion, to 72 Miami student-athletes and provided the financial documents and sources to back up his claims. The story took 11 months to report.

[Video: Jerry Sandusky's wife tries to run down reporter]

While the NCAA remains mum on its ongoing investigation, Shapiro continues to light fires in an attempt to burn the entire athletic department down.

This time, it was the wife of former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky who was nearly flagged for illegal contact in the latest odd twist of the disturbing story.

Dottie Sandusky, wife of a man who has been accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct with young boys, took out some of her frustrations on unsuspecting reporters who were trying to do a report near the Sanduskys' driveway.

WPXI reporter Courtney Brennan and a photographer went to the Sandusky home Thursday, a day before his bail hearing, to report on complaints that Sandusky has been watching school children from his back porch. Currently under house arrest, the former coach's home is adjacent to a local park and near an elementary school.

In the middle of the interview, Brennan abruptly stopped talking and walked out of the camera shot. That's when Dottie Sandusky's SUV came speeding into frame and went roaring up her driveway.

Brennan told Pittsburgh's WKST-FM 96.1 that Sandusky's wife "revved her

A weeklong grade book for the offseason coaching hires. Previously: Grading the Up-and-Comers. … Grading the Climbers. Today: New head coaches coming from formative years in the NFL.

CURTIS JOHNSON • Tulane
Age: 50 Alma Mater: Idaho.
Replacing: Bob Toledo, who went out last October as the tenth of Tulane's eleven head coaches over the last 60 years to leave with a losing record, a victim list that includes a young Mack Brown. (The only exception: Tommy Bowden, who arrived with innovative offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez in 1997, turned in what must be the most improbable undefeated season in NCAA history in 1998 and booked the first seat on the first plane to Clemson before the bowl game.) Toledo turned in his resignation on the heels of a 44-7 loss to UTEP that marked the Green Wave's fourth consecutive defeat and brought Toledo's overall record in New Orleans to 15-40 in four-and-a-half years; the Green Wave went on to lose six straight after that to finish 2-10.

Previously On: Johnson spent a decade bouncing around various Western campuses (Idaho, San Diego State, SMU, California) before landing on Butch Davis' staff at Miami in 1996, where he'd go on to coach three soon-to-be household names — Andre Johnson, Santana Moss and Reggie Wayne — and pick up a national championship ring as the Hurricanes' wide receivers coach. From there, he caught on as receivers coach with the New Orleans Saints in 2006, the same year Drew Brees arrived in New Orleans as a free agent, and has spent the last six years riding the wave (no pun intended) of one of the most prolific passing games in NFL history.

[ Related: Grading the up-and-coming coaches ]

Best Resumé Line: Johnson has been associated with a lot of big names, none of them bigger than fellow New Orleanians/future Hall-of-Famers Marshall Faulk and Ed Reed, both of whom Johnson is credited with recruiting to San Diego State and Miami, respectively. The simple fact that he's a Big Easy native and knows how to find and connect with local players could open up recruiting channels that Tulane has never exploited before.
Biggest Drawback: At six different stops over 25 years, Johnson has only held one title: Wide receivers coach. He has no experience as a head coach or coordinator.

Grade B: Johnson has national championship and Super Bowl rings, he can recruit New Orleans and he knows full well that the Tulane job is a Bermuda Triangle for head coaches. He also comes aboard just as the university is making a genuine commitment to football for the first time in ages in the form of a new, $60 million on-campus stadium expected to take the Green Wave out of the echoing canyon that is the Superdome by the fall of 2014. Thirty-thousand mostly filled seats in the Garden District is a dramatically better scenario than 50,000 empty seats downtown, and if Johnson can hang on that long, his prospects will be significantly less hopeless.

BILL O'BRIEN • Penn State
Age: 42 Alma Mater: Brown.
Replacing: Joe Paterno, whose unmatched, 46-year tenure at Penn State needs no introduction. In five decades on the job, JoePa set Division I records for wins (409) and bowl games (37), as well as 29 consensus All-Americans, 22 top-10 finishes, five undefeated seasons, three Big Ten championships and two national championships, while also cultivating a reputation as the embodiment of building an elite program while maintaining an emphasis on education, community and fidelity to NCAA rules. His controversial ouster and subsequent death of lung cancer in a span of three months has left deep scars that will probably remain visible throughout O'Brien's tenure and beyond.

The drama between new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and some of his Big Ten coaching brethren might have died down, but Meyer isn't over it.

After national signing day earlier this month Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema and Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio both spoke out about Meyer's recruiting practices and Bielema called them "illegal."

Of the 10 players that committed to Ohio State after Meyer was hired, eight had been committed somewhere else, including four-star offensive tackle Kyle Dodson of Cleveland, who was committed to Wisconsin before signing with Ohio State. Meyer grabbed one player previously committed to Michigan State, four previously committed to Penn State and two former Notre Dame pledges.

Meyer and Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith disputed claims of any impropriety, but Meyer is still fuming that his name was dragged through the mud.