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It didn't get a lot of attention last month. After all, it wasn't at a major school and it wasn't some star player. Still, a college football player for the Central Florida Knights collapsed during spring practices and died. And there are a lot of questions swirling around his passing.

Ereck Plancher was 19 and was finishing his freshman year at UCF. During spring practices on March 18, the receiver collapsed at the end of a conditioning drill called the "mat drill." About an hour later, Plancher was pronounced dead. Preliminary reports have proven inconclusive as to the cause of death. The full autopsy results are not yet ready.

According to UCF Coach George O'Leary, the conditioning drill was not particularly strenuous and he did not recall seeing Plancher struggling. Other coaches said similar things. Players, however, are quietly saying different things.

They said those drills, conducted in the Knights' indoor fieldhouse, came after players lifted weights for an hour, also a supervised activity.

"Everybody was struggling at times," one player said. ". . . But he [Ereck] was running, and I could tell something wasn't right. His eyes got real dark, and he was squinting like he was blinded by the sun. He was making this moaning noise, trying to breathe real hard."

The four players said Plancher fell during the final sprint and members of the UCF coaching staff yelled at him to finish the drill.

Plancher did pass 2 physicals that met the NCAA minimum requirements.

John 'Doc' Hussey, a longtime journalist in New Hampshire, died Friday at the age of 65.

Among many other items in a notable career, he broke the story that forced Notre Dame to ditch football coach George O'Leary just days after hiring him.

Hussey provided the Union Leader with one of its biggest scoops when he detected something was amiss in the public-relations biography of University of New Hampshire graduate George O'Leary, named head football coach at the University of Notre Dame.

Seeking to do a local-angle story on the new head of the world's most storied college football program, Hussey spoke with several players and the man who coached the UNH football team at the time O'Leary was said to have earned three varsity letters. None of the men remembered O'Leary playing football.

Hussey shared his information with colleague Jim Fennell, whose reporting ultimately revealed that O'Leary had falsified his resume, and the coach -- since named head coach at the University of Central Florida -- was forced to step down at Notre Dame. The Union Leader's coverage of the story earned numerous awards and national acclaim.

He may not have been a big player in national college football media, but his fact-checking thoroughly tarnished O'Leary's otherwise solid reputation and Notre Dame's football program has yet to settle on a reliable coach since.

Terrible news from Orlando this afternoon as UCF is reporting that redshirt freshman wide receiver Ereck Plancher died shortly after conditioning drills this afternoon.

[Plancher] was pronounced dead shortly before noon Tuesday at a hospital, said Joe Hornstein, UCF's associate athletics director for marketing and communications. He said Plancher took a knee, became unresponsive and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

"We're still gathering some of that information at this point," Hornstein said.

Here's hoping that for both Plancher's family and UCF, the cause of his death can be determined and the parties can move forward. These events sadly happen on occasion in the sporting fields across America. Sometimes they're due to negligence, other times harmful supplements, and other times just a dangerous and undiagnosed condition.

My old high school football coach was fond of saying he couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken... excrement, but there's a reason Sylvester Croom was named SEC coach of the year: he can come close. Not long ago, like a couple of months actually, the only time we'd post about Mississippi State here at FanHouse would be to tally their blowout losses, speculate on the next Crooming, or mention in passing that their next opponent could take the day off. Things change quickly. In Sylvester Croom's fourth season, State ended up being a solid football team on their good days and tough out at worst (OK, at worst they were picked off six times and blown out by LSU, but after that).

The Bulldogs' reward for putting together a pretty good year is a trip a couple hundred miles north to Memphis to play Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl. Many SEC teams see the Liberty as just a little better than the Independence Bowl in Shreveport and overall a pretty "meh" consolation prize. But for MSU fans who haven't seen their boys in a bowl game since 2000 and haven't even won more than three games in a season over the last six years, this trip to Memphis might as well be the Sugar Bowl. State fans have bought more than 30,000 tickets to the game, and many more than that will probably show up in Memphis on Dec. 29. State AD Larry Templeton says Bulldog fans "now look forward to coloring the city of Memphis maroon." Good, Memphis could use a fresh coat of paint.

What the Bulldog faithful might find when the game kicks off, however, could be something completely different than what they expect. Central Florida features the nation's leading rusher in junior Kevin Smith (188 yards/game, 29 TDs), while State gives up a middle-of-the-road 159 yards rushing per game. MSU also gave up over 4.5 yards/carry in games against Auburn, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Arkansas. State's ability to stop UCF's running game could be the main factor in how this bowl game turns out.

Here's a nice moment from the weekend: Tulane tailback Matt Forte has crossed the 2,000 yard threshold this season. Forte entered Saturday with 1813 rushing yards and added another 195 today against Rice for good measure. That leaves Forte with 2,008 yards. For good measure, five touchdowns were among those 39 carries.

Forte was lightly recruited out of high school, with Tulane his only I-A offer. He's made a lot of people look foolish in notching 4,146 yards and counting over his career.

Forte may not be the only back to notch 2,000 yards this year, as UCF's Kevin Smith has 1947 yards after an impressive 179 yard, three-touchdown performance of his own today against SMU.

It's a passing era in college football, but the days of the 2,000 yard back aren't dead yet. Update: Forte is just the 12th back in D-I history to surpass the 2,000 yard mark, and the first since 2004.

South Florida followed up its huge win over West Virginia and a top-10 ranking with a less than impressive win over Florida Atlantic. In return, BC moved ahead of them in the polls and the talk started about USF being overrated. Some unhinged homers even began suggesting upsets.

Well UCF was in it for the first quarter. Then the Knights offense stopped moving and turning the ball over. What had been a 12-7 USF lead after the first quarter turned into a 29-10 halftime deficit. From there, it became a 64-12 pasting while producing over 500 yards of total offense. The USF defense completely humiliated UCF. Holding them to under 100 yards passing and rushing each -- only 145 total yards.

USF QB Matt Grothe had his typically solid dual-threat game -- 200+ yards passing, 100 yards rushing and 4 TDs in total. Even after QB Matt Grothe was taken out of the game after 3 quarters, USF never stopped pouring on the abuse. The Bulls added 21 more points in the 4th quarter before finally taking a knee inside the UCF 10 in the final seconds.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued subpoenas for 39 collegiate athletic departments in a probe of their relationships with student loan providers. At its most basic, this investigation is asking whether or not cash, kickbacks, gifts and other bribes or misleading measures were communicated between various student loan providers and the cited athletic departments.

Cuomo is investigating whether athletic departments at these universities agreed to promote SFS loans to students in exchange for kickbacks.

"Students trust their University's athletic departments because so much of campus life at Division I schools centers around supporting the home team," said Cuomo. "To betray this trust by promoting loans in exchange for money is a serious issue, especially when Division I schools already generate tremendous revenue from their student athletes. Today's action is an important new step as we continue to examine the unethical conflicts that pervade the student loan industry.

"The Attorney General's office is specifically investigating whether athletic departments evaluated UFS interest rates before recommending their federal loans, or if their endorsement of UFS was based purely on payments from the lender. Such an arrangement would constitute revenue sharing, which is a violation New York state consumer protection laws, as well as a violation of federal law.

D-IA football schools named (prominent schools in bold): Arkansas State, Auburn, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Colorado State, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Georgia Tech, Ohio, Oregon State, Rutgers, TCU, Tulane, Alabama-Birmingham, UCLA, UCF, Houston, Kansas, Louisville, Oregon, Pittsburgh, USF, UTEP. See link for complete list.

Of note: USC and Texas have also been scrutinized in a similar probe, but to my knowledge it has not been linked to their athletic departments but rather the university-wide financial aid offices of the schools.

It's good that athletic departments have an awareness of and working relationship with loan providers, but obviously there's a problem when that relationship gets too cozy and bad loan options are pressed upon students and student-athletes.

(Via: Yahoo!)

The University of Central Florida has instructed area and campus police to disregard open container laws on football game day.

The University of Central Florida's new football stadium has endowed the student body with more than just a sparkling new football field. The new stadium has also led the school to create a new set of game-day rules, one of which calls for police to disregard open-container laws. That means that on days of Central Florida's home games students can walk around campus openly drinking beer.

There are some exceptions to the new rule. Students cannot drink from a common source (like a keg), and beer funnels are not allowed. There will also be no drinking allowed in university buildings, so a pre-game Power Hour in the library is out of the question. The drinking can start at 11 a.m. and last until two hours after the game ends.

The Golden Knights are christening their new stadium with a visit from Texas.

Although there are always concerns about alcohol when disregarding open container laws, the school's fans and students will appreciate the new policy given the area's intense heat and humidity in September.

(Via: SIOnCampus)

Telling Johnny, Ponyboy, and Robert Frost to shove it, Central Florida is dropping "Golden" from its nickname and will be just the plain ol' "Knights" as of June 14. The re-branding ostensibly dovetails with UCF opening new on-campus football and basketball stadia this year after playing home games at the Citrus Bowl for several seasons.

In reality, the move was probably made because some focus group determined that people are more likely to buy t-shirts that plainly say "Knights." Personally, I would be more likely to buy paraphernalia with UCF's original nickname, the "Knights of Pegasus," if for no other reason than uniqueness. Central Florida adopted "Golden Knights" in 1993 under the athletic directorship of Steve Sloan, who had also worked for the Crimson Tide, Red Raiders, Yellow Jackets, and Blue Devils. You see a theme. I would venture a guess that Sloan eats Lucky Charms for breakfast.

UCF will also unveil a new logo as part of its "The Knights Are Coming Home" campaign.

It's Pitt at Central Florida at the old Citrus Bowl in Orlando.

Bracing for bad play-by-play action. Sure enough in pregame, Trevor Matich makes reference to the offseason workouts/conditioning as bonding time for Pitt and how well it worked.

Tina Dixon, the sideline girl, kind of strikes me as Erin Andrews-lite.

Time to see what happens after the jump.