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FSU football loses seventh assistant

 
Published Feb. 22, 2013

Colleges

FSU football assistant exodus continues

After less than a month on the job, Florida State tight ends coach Billy Napier has left to be receivers coach at Alabama.

Napier is the seventh assistant coach Jimbo Fisher has lost from his 10-man staff since the Seminoles won the ACC Championship Game in December. The news came 22 days after Napier signed his contract with FSU.

At Alabama, Napier replaces Mike Groh, who is leaving to be an assistant coach for the Chicago Bears. Napier was an offensive quality control assistant at Alabama in 2011 before taking the offensive coordinator job at Colorado State last season.

Fisher now has two positions to fill. He is in the process of hiring a quarterbacks coach to replace James Coley, who took the offensive coordinator job at Miami last month.

Cannon released: Former LSU great and 1959 Heisman winner Billy Cannon, 75, has checked out of a hospital, two days after being admitted for treatment of a stroke, the university reported.

More colleges

Three ex-UM coaches want NCAA case tossed

Three former Miami assistant coaches filed a motion with the NCAA asking that their infractions cases be dismissed because of the mistakes the NCAA made in its long investigation of UM, the Associated Press reported.

Ex-football assistant Aubrey Hill and ex-basketball assistants Jake Morton and Jorge Fernandez believe the NCAA's alliance with an attorney for the former booster at the center of the UM scandal has created a scenario in which they cannot "get a fair and reasonable proceeding," the AP said. A conference call on the matter was scheduled for today with the NCAA.

The NCAA believes Hill and Fernandez provided them with misleading information and Morton, among other things, accepted at least $6,000 from the former booster, Nevin Shapiro.

UM faces a charge of lack of institutional control, resulting from an alleged decade of improper conduct involving Shapiro. Up to 20 percent of the case against it was tossed after the NCAA learned its enforcement staff worked with a Shapiro attorney to ask NCAA-related questions to witnesses under oath. The NCAA doesn't have subpoena power.

More UM: Florida state Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, wrote a letter to the State Attorney General's Office requesting an investigation into what he called the NCAA's "corrupt" investigation of UM. Attorney General Pam Bondi's office said it was reviewing the request. Abruzzo graduated from Lynn University in 2003, his webpage says.

Louisville: Assistant football coach Clint Hurtt will remain on staff for now while he answers NCAA allegations of ethical misconduct while a UM coach, athletic director Tom Jurich said.

Charges dropped against Gator: The Gainesville State Attorney's Office has dismissed a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge against Florida junior cornerback Louchiez Purifoy due to lack of evidence, it said. Purifoy, in the starting rotation last year, was a passenger in a car in which police said marijuana was found during a stop for a traffic violation Feb. 3.

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Et cetera

Tennis: Petra Kvitova overpowered defending champ Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-4 to set up a semifinal against Caroline Wozniacki in the Dubai Championships. Wozniacki beat Marion Bartoli 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Roberta Vinci beat 2011 U.S. Open champ and Tampa resident Sam Stosur 6-2, 6-4 in their quarterfinal. She faces her doubles partner, Sara Errani.

Soccer: U.S. goalie Hope Solo will miss next month's Algarve Cup because of damaged ligaments in her right wrist and may need surgery, U.S. Soccer said.

Wrestling: Americans lost six of seven bouts to Iranians on the first day of a freestyle World Cup meet at Tehran. The U.S. winner was 2012 Olympic champ Jordan Burroughs at 74 kilograms.

Antonya English, Times staff writer; Orlando Sentinel; Times wires