Carl Franks and Lawrence Dawsey officially joined the South Florida coaching staff Wednesday, giving USF two jolts of name recognition from opposite ends of the experience spectrum.
Franks, 43, was an assistant at Florida for nine seasons in the 1990s. He has recruited the state, particularly the west coast, extensively. He will coach running backs and be recruiting coordinator.
"He's got a lot of credibility," USF coach Jim Leavitt said. "He's going to carry a lot of weight. He will oversee all of our recruiting. He's going to be an extension of me. He'll travel everywhere."
Among the players Franks recruited and/or coached at Florida are NFL standouts Jevon Kearse, Jeff Mitchell and Fred Taylor. Franks was 7-45 as coach at Duke, his alma mater, from 1999 through the middle of last season.
Dawsey, 36, was an All-American receiver at Florida State and caught 206 passes in five seasons for the Bucs. He was a high school assistant in Tampa for two seasons and entered college coaching last fall at LSU as a graduate assistant. He has maintained a home in Tampa since getting drafted in the third round in 1991.
"I started at the bottom as a GA (at LSU) to get all the ins and outs and try to work my way to this position," said Dawsey, who was at FSU when USF linebackers coach Wally Burnham was a Seminoles assistant. "I didn't think it would happen this fast but I'm thankful. It was like prayers being answered."
USF's leading returning receiver, Brian Fisher, has moved to running back, but Dawsey is eager for spring practice, which begins Tuesday.
"I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what I have to work with," Dawsey said. "I want to get them to play at a championship level."
MIAMI: Coach Larry Coker conceded he was partly aware the school's prized recruit had a criminal background.
Parade All-American linebacker Willie Williams was arrested and charged last month with violating probation, his 11th arrest since 1999.
"I was aware and not aware," Coker said. "I was aware that he had some issues in his past. The specifics? No. But I was encouraged with the people I talked with. I was also very impressed with his transcript and his test score. I was very confident with what I saw with Willie."
Coker said he had no regrets about recruiting the Carol City High star but plans to revisit the program's policies and practices before next year.
"We were as thorough as we possibly could have been," he said. "Will we do things differently? Sure. Anytime you have other things that are there, you do have to take it another step."
Williams is free on bond and wearing a monitoring device. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
GA. SOUTHERN: Vance Pike, a star on the 1985 Division I-AA national championship team and later an assistant coach, died of a heart attack at his home in Marietta. He was 41.
LSU: A 2005 game against Arkansas State was moved to Sept. 11 this year.
NORTHEASTERN: Rocky Hager, the Temple assistant who led North Dakota State to two Division II championships, took over as coach. Hager, 52, replaces Don Brown, who left to become coach at Massachusetts.
WASHINGTON: The school avoided major Pac-10 sanctions when the conference dropped a significant charge in the gambling investigation that opened after coach Rick Neuheisel was fired.
The Pac-10 issued its final report in the case and accepted most of Washington's self-imposed penalties while adding some additional lesser penalties.
Most significantly, Pac-10 investigators dropped the "failure to monitor" charge from a preliminary report issued late last year.
The university still faces a separate NCAA investigation after being cited last month for "lack of institutional control" over the gambling issues.
- Information from Times wires was used in this report.
