Tuberville, Bsu’s Nutt Head Arkansas Coaching Choices

Arkansas officials have Mississippi’s Tommy Tuberville at the top of their list for a new head football coach, but the Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year could be swayed by an Ole Miss counteroffer.

The Razorbacks’ search committee and Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles met with Tuberville in New York on Tuesday and quickly returned to Fayetteville to report to a larger committee late Tuesday.

There were reports the committee would recommend Tuberville and one or two others in case Tuberville decides to stay in Oxford.

Certain to be on that list is Boise State coach Houston Nutt.

There was at least one published report Tuesday that Tuberville would be offered the job and would accept.

If Tuberville remains at Mississippi, Broyles is expected to turn to Nutt. Broyles said he hoped to name a coach today.

Eddie Robinson, college football’s winningest coach who recently retired from Grambling, was among four coaches and 12 players inducted into the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in New York.

The other coaches inducted were Washington’s Don James, Georgia’s Wally Butts and Bowden Wyatt, who coached at Wyoming, Arkansas and Tennessee from 1947-62. Butts and Wyatt were honored posthumously.

George Rogers, the 1980 Heisman Trophy winner from South Carolina, along with Nebraska center Dave Rimington and Arizona State quarterback Danny White were among the dozen former college stars who entered the Hall of Fame.

The other players inducted were: guard Ray Beck (Georgia Tech, 1948-51); quarterback Randy Duncan (Iowa, 1956-58); defensive back Dave Elmendorff (Texas A&M, 1968-70); fullback Charlie Flowers (Mississippi, 1957-59); linebacker Ricky Hunley (Arizona, 1981-83); center/linebacker Alex Kroll (Rutgers, 1960-61); tight end Ken McAfee (Notre Dame, 1974-77); tackle Bob Reifsnyder (Navy, 1956-58); and end Dave Robinson (Penn State, 1960-62).

Martin Gramatica of Kansas State, who missed only one field-goal attempt this season, has won the Lou Groza Award as the nation’s best placekicker.

Gramatica, a junior from LaBelle, Fla., made 19 of 20 field-goal tries. He made a Big 12 Conference-record 55-yarder.

Texas Tech defensive tackle Stoney Garland will be permanently paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a Thanksgiving weekend car crash, doctors said in Lubbock, Texas.

Keith Piper, whose Denison University teams ran the single-wing offense 40 years after it went out of fashion, died of congestive heart failure while on a cruise off the coast of California. He was 76.

Nebraska coach Tom Osborne said he won’t discipline defensive end Grant Wistrom after the player was ticketed for disturbing the peace in a crowded pizza restaurant.

Jermon Jackson, a reserve tailback for Ohio State, has been arrested on marijuana and traffic charges, Columbus, Ohio, police said.