QBs Tagovailoa, Murray, Haskins await Heisman news
Tua Tagovailoa rolled across the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on a black scooter with a little Alabama sticker on the front, his sprained left ankle in a gray plastic boot, safely propped up as he pushed off with his right foot.
The Crimson Tide quarterback and fellow Heisman Trophy finalists Kyler Murray of Oklahoma and Dwayne Haskins of Ohio State were on Wall Street on Friday to ring the closing bell on a day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 558 points.
Stock for the three firstyear starters has been soaring this season. A year ago they were second on their team’s depth chart. On Saturday, one of them will win the Heisman Trophy.
Tagovailoa picked up where he left off in the second half of last season’s national championship game victory against Georgia to lead the top-ranked Crimson Tide back to the playoff as a sophomore.
Haskins, a third-year sophomore, stepped in after the departure of a four-year starter and smashed Ohio State and Big Ten passing records.
Murray, a fourth-year junior, replaced last season’s Heisman winner and had an even better season than his predecessor. Murray waited the longest to finally Heisman Trophy finalists, from left, Dwayne Haskins, from Ohio State, Kyler Murray, of Oklahoma, and Tua Tagovailoa, from Alabama, pose with the trophy.
take over a team, transferring from Texas A&M after a rocky freshman season, taking a redshirt year to satisfy NCAA transfer rules and then backing up Baker Mayfield in 2017.
TECH TURNS TO COLLINS >> Georgia Tech hired Temple coach Geoff Collins on Friday, choosing a Georgia native with a background in defense to replace Paul Johnson as the Yellow Jackets coach.
Collins, 47, is a former Florida and Mississippi State defensive coordinator and Georgia Tech assistant who was 15-10 in two seasons at Temple.
Georgia Tech announced plans for a news conference on Friday to introduce Collins.
Before his time at Florida (2015-16) and Mississippi State (2011-14), Collins was a graduate assistant and tight ends coach at Georgia Tech under coach George O’Leary from 1999-2001. He returned to serve as recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech under coach Chan Gailey in 2006. FREEZE GETS SECOND CHANCE AT LIBERTY >> Hugh Freeze has enjoyed the highs of football, such as winning the Sugar Bowl and beating mighty Alabama. He’s also known embarrassment and shame following a personal scandal that cost him his job at Mississippi.
The 49-year-old Freeze believes those experiences will serve him well as the head coach at Liberty, where he’s been given a second chance.
“I believe in teaching young men on our team all of the lessons of when I got it right and when I got it wrong and what the consequences are,” Freeze said.
He was introduced as Liberty’s football coach on campus Friday, calling the opportunity an “unbelievable day for me and my family.” He was emotional at times during a press conference, thanking his family and calling them his heroes.
Freeze will replace Turner Gill, who resigned after his seventh season to spend more time with his ailing wife. The Flames finished 6-6 this season, their first competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, and were 47-35 under Gill.
Liberty will have full status for FBS bowl eligibility in 2019. The Flames are not part of a conference and are playing as an independent.
Freeze spent five years at Mississippi and led the Rebels to a 39-25 record and four bowl games. He resigned in the summer of 2017 amid a scandal in which school officials discovered a “pattern of personal misconduct” starting with a call to an escort service from a university-issued cellphone.
Ole Miss was also mired in an NCAA rules investigation during much of his tenure that eventually resulted in a two-year postseason ban.