Saturday papers

I didn't find a thing Friday. but here's what was in the papers around the OVC Saturday:

The Murray Ledger & Times says Matt Griffin got busy right away when he showed up as Murray State's new Head Coach. He's now almost done with project #1: a complete renovation of the the team locker room. It apparently also was a way to work on a couple of other projects: Griffin and his staff raised $90,000 for the new lockers from alumni and fans, and players helped demolish the old metal lockers over the summer, as a pride- and team-building exercise. The Murray players report for camp this weekend.

Jacksonville State held its media day Friday on campus. That generated a lot of ink from The Anniston Star, and a little from The Gadsden Times. Both of those cities are about a 20 minute drive from Jacksonville. I found little mention of JSU in any other state papers. That's got to be a little disappointing, but the attention they did get was good:

The Anniston Star had a main story centering on linebacker LeMarcus Rowell returning to the team and cornerback Montavis Pitts transferring to the Gamecocks from Auburn. Looks like both will be there when the rest of the players report for camp on Sunday.

Star Sports Editor Scott Adamson had a column about the love, or lack of it, for JSU AD Jim Fuller. The piece centered around the recent removal of "firejimfuller.com" from the Internet by the site's owner, one disgruntled JSU fan. Adamson wrote, incorrectly, that the site was being turned into an online booster club. Actually, it's fans over at gojaxstate.com (one of who happens to be the firejimfuller.com guy) that are talking about doing that, Scott.

There was also a bunch of stuff from the media day in The Star's "college notebook." One of the items was the most detailed explanation we've gotten yet of something that's been hinted at a couple times elsewhere: JSU may face Georgia Southern in a season-opening guarantee game at Atlanta's Georgia Dome in 2007. The Gamecocks apparently would get $100,000 from the game. Not sure what GSU would get. It looks like someone's trying to apply the HBCU formula of classic games to non-HBCU I-AA football. Weird. Also in the notebook, head coach Jack Crowe said he's not settled on redshirt freshman Shea Allen as the #2 quarterback, and may give the job to WR Taurean Rhetta instead.

The Gadsden Times had one story, which, like The Star's main piece, centered on Pitts and Rowell.

The Birmingham News had short items on both JSU and Samford. Samford's players report Sunday for camp. Coach Bill Gray says there are some freshman who will see early playing time. The JSU item was about Pitts.