College football roundup: Penn State trustees expected to ratify decree
The Penn State Board of Trustees has called a special session Sunday evening to consider ratification of the binding consent decree imposed by the NCAA.
The board is expected to formally ratify the consent decree of NCAA sanctions agreed to last month by university president Rodney Erickson and the NCAA, ESPN.com reported.
The decree, accepted by the university and school officials including president Rodney Erickson and athletic director David Joyner, is a binding agreement between Penn State and the NCAA in which the university accepts blame for lack of institutional control and acknowledges the cover-up by late coach Joe Paterno and former school officials in the Jerry Sandusky case.
The special session, to be held Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, will be a conference call. The public can listen to the audio of the conference, presumably live, at WPSU.org/live.
Two board members filed an appeal of the NCAA sanctions, which bans Penn State's football program from the postseason for four years, lowers scholarship limits and calls for direct compliance with the NCAA with an imbedded intermediary who will track the university's progress in all NCAA-related matters.
Coach Bill O'Brien said Thursday he discourages any broad rejection of acceptance of the NCAA sanctions.
"We need to move forward," he said.
---Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips will retire when his contract expires in June 2013.
President James Barker said he plans to have a replacement in place before Phillips' deal ends. Phillips was hired in 2002.
Barker said Thursday he's looking for someone who "fits Clemson" and understands the importance of fundraising. Clemson will use a search committee to find a new athletic director.
--Former Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino said he wakes up thinking 'Why?' and wonders every day how he could have gone so wrong.
"I just don't understand how I could do it," he told ESPN in an interview near his childhood home in Helena, Mont.
Petrino was fired in April after a motorcycle accident uncovered his extramarital affair with a 25-year-old former volleyball player he hired for a job in the football office. Petrino said he's still working to repair the wounds caused by the tryst, and has a ways to go with his wife, Becky, and their four children.
Petrino was fired as Arkansas head coach shortly after the relationship became public.
