College football news: Lane Kiffin backs Ed Orgeron, injuries hit Notre Dame and Virginia Tech

There is a great deal of debate and speculation about whether USC interim head coach Ed Orgeron has earned the right to be a top candidate for the permanent position at Southern Cal, but Orgeron’s former boss believes it to be a settled question. When asked who should be the Trojans’ next head coach, Lane Kiffin Told ESPN 710 AM in Los Angeles, “That’s easy. It’s Ed Orgeron. How can you even possibly think of anyone else?” Rick Neuheisel did Kiffin one better by singing a song about Coach O.

Notre Dame will be without star defensive tackle Louis NIx for the balance of the 2013 season after the 6’2, 342-pound lineman underwent surgery on a torn meniscus in his knee. The loss of Nix is a tough blow for the Fighting Irish, who will have ahead of them the difficult task of slowing down the potent BYU rushing attack this Saturday in South Bend. This effectively end’s the senior’s career with Notre Dame.

After information was released stating that DNA connected Jameis Winston to a woman accusing him of sexual assault, the Florida State quarterback’s attorney spoke publicly and said that his client and the accuser had “absolutely” consensual sex.

Two other games took place Thursday night, with two bowl teams squaring off against teams who have already knocked themselves out of contention for postseason play. In the first game, Rice beat UAB 37-34 in an overtime thriller that saw the Blazers come back from a ten point, fourth quarter deficit. In Mountain West action, UNLV jumped out to a 27-0 lead over Air Force and never looked back, winning the game 41-21 in Colorado. The Runnin’ Rebels certainly lived up to their name Thursday, with 330 yards and six touchdowns coming on the ground.

Virginia Tech cornerback Kyle Fuller will miss four-to-six weeks as he recovers from surgery to repair a “core muscle injury” suffered in late October. Depending on how quickly he recovers, this might mark the end of Fuller’s career as a Hokie.

Nick Saban’s singular focus on coaching football likely has a lot to do with why he has had such a successful career. At his Thursday press conference, it was discovered that Saban doesn’t even take a break from work to, say, notice that his quarterback is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Saban chided the reporter who brought it up for the poor quality of his question-asking and facetiously invited him to “follow me [Saban] around for a week,” presumably to get a better sense of which kinds of questions Saban is interested in answering.

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