COLLEGE FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK

Kansas State QB Ertz needs surgery on knee, out for season

Kansas State quarterback Jesse Ertz needs surgery on his ailing knee and will miss the remainder of the season, while backup Alex Delton remains sidelined after sustaining two concussions.

Wildcats coach Bill Snyder said it’s possible Delton could return for a bowl game.

That means the Wildcats, who are 6-5 after last week’s upset of Oklahoma State, will lean on freshman Skylar Thompson against Iowa State on Saturday. He was the Big 12’s newcomer of the week after throwing for 204 yards and three TDs and running for 93 yards and another score against the Cowboys.

Thompson was also banged-up during the game, briefly leaving with a knee injury. But he returned to the field and said afterward that he would be ready for the Cyclones.

UCLA interim coach trying to get Bruins to bowl game

Jedd Fisch moved his family to the West Coast last winter with plans to build a powerhouse alongside UCLA coach Jim Mora.

Instead, Fisch is spending the next few weeks trying to make sure Mora’s last Bruins team ends its season with some measure of pride.

Fisch is UCLA’s interim head coach this week after Mora was suddenly fired last Sunday. The Bruins (5-6, 3-5 Pac-12) need a win over California in their regular-season finale on Friday night at the Rose Bowl to secure bowl eligibility for the fifth time in Mora’s six seasons.

The 41-year-old Fisch has called every play this season for the Bruins, and he aspires to be a head coach. Just not under these circumstances.

“We all know how much our players love Coach,” Fisch said. “Whether you’ve coached with him just for nine months or all the six years he was here, he makes a tremendous impact on you.”

Speculation on Mora’s replacement immediately centered on former Oregon coach Chip Kelly and other big names. Fisch has been coaching long enough to know how the process works.

“I think that anybody would like to be the head football coach at an extremely prominent university,” Fisch said when asked directly if he wanted UCLA’s full-time job.

This is not what Fisch had in mind when he left Michigan to become Mora’s offensive coordinator, taking charge of a unit that had an embarrassing 2016 season while the Bruins went 4-8.

Although Fisch rebuilt the Bruins’ offense into a productive, entertaining unit ranked fourth in the conference with 34.1 points per game and third with 466 yards per game, UCLA didn’t produce enough wins to protect Mora’s job. Instead, a terrible defense doomed Mora, a longtime defensive coach.