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News Nuggets, 09.02.04
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Walker panel picks Pirate-less group from C-USA

East Carolina has a pair of prolific running backs but neither is on the preliminary roster of players under consideration for the prestigious Doak Walker Award.

Pirate seniors Art Brown and Marvin Townes, each of whom has logged a 1,000-yard rushing season, were curiously absent from the list that includes a quartet of other players from Conference USA.

Senior Lionel Gates of Louisville joins juniors Anthony Evans of Houston, Lonta Hobbs of Texas Christian and DeAngelo Williams of Memphis as C-USA's representatives among the 42 players named to the Walker watch list earlier this week.

Among Carolinas teams, junior Chris Barclay of Wake Forest, sophomore Ronnie McGill of UNC-Chapel Hill and junior T.A. McLendon of N.C. State were nominated.

Four players from schools slated to join C-USA in 2005-06 also placed players on the list. Senior Earl Charles of Marshall, senior Alex Haynes of Central Florida, senior Howard Jackson of Texas-El Paso and senior Foy Munlin of SMU, the alma mater of the award's namesake, made the cut.

Tye named Top Gunn at TCU

FORT WORTH — The competition to be Texas Christian's starting quarterback came down to a Tye.

Coach Gary Patterson had to choose from one of his two quarterbacks that have a combined 15-2 record as starters. Junior Tye Gunn will start Thursday night's season opener against Northwestern.

"He is the starter because we can't play 12 guys," Patterson said. "We had to make a decision, and we felt like Tye was the guy right now."

It would have been hard for Patterson to make a bad choice.

The Horned Frogs have won all eight games started by Gunn, four each in his first two injury-plagued seasons. When Gunn was out for a separated right shoulder and then a groin injury last year, TCU was 7-2 and averaged 32 points a game with Brandon Hassell, who threw for 2,039 yards and 10 touchdowns.

And Hassell, a senior, won't be stuck on the sideline just because Gunn got the starting nod.

"We plan to play both quarterbacks each game, every three or four series," Patterson said. "Now, if one of them leads us to three touchdowns in the first three series, then the other guy may not come in until the offense is stopped. But, we'll still use both of them."

Besides the winning quarterbacks, TCU returns two 1,000-yard rushers. The Frogs were one of just six Division I-A teams that averaged more than 200 yards passing and rushing per game last season.

After starting last season as a third-teamer, Robert Merrill set a TCU freshman record with 1,107 yards rushing. That broke Lonta Hobbs' record 1,029 yards set in 2002 before he was hampered by a nagging ankle injury most of last season, when he still ran for 659 yards.

Northwestern shared the Big Ten title in 2000, the only other time it traveled to TCU - and lost 41-14. The Frogs, opening the season at home for the first time since 1999, won 48-24 in Evanston two years ago.

While TCU climbed as high as sixth in the Bowl Championship Series rankings last year, it ended the season with a loss to Boise State in the Fort Worth Bowl. That snapped the Frogs' record 13-game home winning streak that dated to a loss to East Carolina on Oct. 30, 2001.

ECU and TCU are not scheduled to meet this season, which will be the Frogs' last in Conference USA before departing for the Mountain West Conference.

Satellite radio company 'Sirius' about college football

NEW YORK — Southern California, Notre Dame, LSU and Nebraska are among the 23 major
college football teams that will have their games carried on Sirius Satellite Radio as part
of a deal with cable network College Sports Television.

Sirius carries NFL radio and more than 140 other channels of commercial-free music, talk and
sports programming.

Its latest deal will carry the home broadcasts of football, basketball and other sports, as
well as other programming from CSTV, which also runs a college sports Web site.

Terms of the deal, reached earlier this week, were not disclosed.

News Nuggets are compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member schools, and from Associated Press and other reports. Copyright 2004 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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