Woodson Receives Walter Camp Award

As Charles Woodson hoisted the Walter Camp Award on Monday honoring the nation’s top college football player, Michigan’s two-way standout hoped his campaign for the Heisman Trophy got a lift.

In its 31 years, the Camp award has been a barometer to Heisman voting in a fashion similar to the way New Hampshire’s primaries have foreshadowed outcomes of presidential elections.

Only five times has the Camp award gone to a player who did not win the Heisman, the last time in 1990 when Notre Dame’s Raghib “Rocket” Ismail won the Camp and Brigham Young quarterback Ty Detmer won the Heisman.

Michigan coach Lloyd Carr also won an award. For guiding the No. 1 Wolverines (11-0) to the Rose Bowl and the brink of their first national title since 1948, Carr won Walter Camp Football Foundation honors as this season’s top college coach.

No more than a half-dozen people are likely to be interviewed for the job of head football coach at the University of Arkansas.

The list probably includes Houston Nutt at Boise State, Gary Crowton at Louisiana Tech, Tommy Bowden at Tulane, Butch Davis at Miami, Tommy Tuberville at Mississippi, and Bob Stoops, the defensive coordinator at Florida.

After letting Michigan State slip away, the Las Vegas Bowl is left with only a handful of other possible opponents for Air Force in the Dec. 20 game.

Bowl officials say they hope to make a decision today on the second team.

The bowl’s selection committee pared its list to five teams, none of them nationally ranked. The finalists are Iowa, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Virginia and Oregon.

Alcorn State football coach Cardell Jones, whose team has had three consecutive 4-7 seasons, was fired.