Powlus to Return to Notre Dame

Quarterback Ron Powlus said he will take advantage of his fifth year of eligibility and return to Notre Dame next season.

Powlus said he would not have come back if Lou Holtz had returned as coach. Holtz was replaced by Bob Davie, the Irish defensive coordinator. Former Purdue coach Jim Colletto is Notre Dame’s new offensive coordinator.

“I would have come here under coach Holtz and been a three-year starter. . . . It would have been time for me to move on,” he said. “[Davie and Colletto] are people I want to work with.”

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Woody Widenhofer was promoted from defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt to head coach, succeeding Rod Dowhower, who resigned last week after consecutive 2-9 seasons.

Widenhofer, 53, was head coach at Missouri from 1985-88 and compiled a 12-31-1 record.

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Southern Methodist hired Mike Cavan as coach, replacing Tom Rossley, who was fired after compiling a 15-48-3 record in six seasons.

Cavan, 48, led Division I-AA East Tennessee State to a 10-3 record last season.

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Kiernan Speight is leaving Boston College for Division I-AA Hampton University, but his family remains determined to learn how he came to be wrongly accused in the school’s gambling scandal.

Speight said he demanded but never received an apology from the school.

Speight was one of four players confronted by the team’s captains and former coach Dan Henning during a contentious meeting after the Eagles’ Halloween night loss to Pittsburgh.

Thirteen players were suspended for the season’s final three games, but Speight was not among them.

“I put my trust in the system,” Speight said. “But when it came time for me to depend on the system, the system failed me. It failed me in a way that could have easily been avoided with an apology, but it never happened. . . . I never did anything wrong.”

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Former Citadel coach Charlie Taaffe sued the school for firing him after his second drunken-driving arrest, alleging that school officials actually were angry that he recruited too many black players. . . . Utah’s $50-million plan to renovate and expand aging Rice Stadium received a boost when the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation donated $5 million, with the pledge of $5 million more in matching funds.