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News Nuggets, 10.19.04
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Utah earns lofty spot in BCS poll; Louisville, UAB on list

SALT LAKE CITY — As happy as Utah coach Urban Meyer was to hear his team was ranked seventh in the first Bowl Championship Series standings, he didn't want to talk about it much.

And he definitely didn't want to hear about it from his players.

``If I hear it, I'll squelch any discussion about that,'' Meyer said Monday.

Meyer has been critical of the BCS in the past, mostly because it doesn't include Utah's Mountain West Conference among the six leagues that are guaranteed a spot in the four elite bowl games.

A team like Utah has to win an at-large berth in the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta or Rose bowls and no team from a mid-major conference has done that since the BCS was adopted in 1998. To get in as an outsider, the Utes most likely need to go unbeaten and see where the complicated combination of the AP and coaches polls and computer rankings have them at the end of the season.

``Those rankings don't mean anything unless we do win out and that's a long way off right now,'' quarterback Alex Smith said. ``It's different when a computer is telling you where you're ranked. It's not polls. It's not people. It's not opinions. It's some computer spitting it out, so who knows?''

Another league without a locked in spot in the BCS bowls, Conference USA, placed two teams in the poll: Louisville at 17th and UAB at No. 24.

The top six teams in the BCS standings are guaranteed a bowl bid and only the top 12 are eligible to play in one of the big games. The biggest this season is the Orange Bowl, which will feature the No. 1 vs. No. 2 teams in the standings.

Utah trails No. 1 Southern California, Miami, Oklahoma, Auburn, Florida State and Wisconsin in the BCS standings, but Monday's rankings were only the first. Utah's seventh-place start in the BCS standings is best ever by a so-called mid-major conference team.

The Utes remained unbeaten with a 46-16 win over North Carolina on Saturday, improving to 3-0 against teams from BCS leagues this season. The Utes also have victories over Texas A&M, ranked No. 16 in Monday's standings, and Arizona.

Utah hosts UNLV on Saturday and finishes the season against San Diego State, Colorado State, Wyoming and rival Brigham Young. Winning out would mean the best season in school history, but one loss along the way would quickly end any mention in the BCS.

``I actually hope this team realizes a little bit about that — what our potential could be,'' Smith said. ``But I hope they just don't forget how we got here and that was preparing better than the team we played each week.''

Bad back hounds Marquette basketball coach

MILWAUKEE — Marquette coach Tom Crean is hoping spine stabilization exercises and physical therapy will allow him to make it through the upcoming season.

Crean, 38, is under the care of orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Clay Frank, who said Crean recently had an ``internal disc disruption'' common to men of his age, which usually heals in 4-to-6 months.

``The prognosis for long-term recovery is good and the therapy is not expected to interfere with his abilities to coach,'' Frank said in a statement Wednesday.

Crean, who is starting his fifth season at Marquette, has been undergoing physical therapy for two weeks.

ACC rolls out new seal, future division names

The Atlantic Coast Conference unveiled Monday the future 12-member league's seal and disclosed the divisional names that will take effect July 1, 2005.

"The seal and divisional names adopted by our schools really embrace the geography of the ACC while maintaining its heritage," ACC commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. "The new look of our seal projects the fact that our conference truly encompasses the `Atlantic Coast'."

The ACC seal was designed by Steve Luquire of Luquire-George-Andrews, an advertising agency in Charlotte, according to the announcement from the league's Greensboro office, which said the two divisions will be called the 'Atlantic' and Coastal' divisions.

                    A listing of the new divisions:

                    ATLANTIC             COASTAL
                    Maryland             Virginia
                    Clemson              Georgia Tech
                    N.C. State           North Carolina
                    Wake Forest          Duke
                    Boston College       Virginia Tech
                    Florida State        Miami

Compiled from an Atlantic Coast Conference report.

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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