Bowden delivers the knockout punch

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden didn’t wait to see a police report before suspending five wide receivers for their role in a midweek campus brawl.

Taiwan Easterling, Richard Goodman, Cameron Wade, Bert Reed and Corey Surrency sat out Saturday’s game. And the Seminoles missed them, losing to Boston College, 21-17, at Tallahassee, Fla.

Florida State (7-3 overall, 4-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) needs to win out in league play and Wake Forest would have to lose to give the Seminoles a chance at winning the ACC’s Atlantic Division and qualify for the conference title game.

But for now, Florida State has other matters to worry about.

Nineteen players have been held out of games this season, mostly for academic reasons. The Seminoles are also awaiting the NCAA’s response on sanctions from a 2007 academic cheating scandal.

“If I’m sitting up there [at NCAA headquarters] in Indianapolis looking at this, I’d say ‘Those guys down there aren’t taking this thing very serious,’ ” said Jim Smith, a former Florida attorney general who chairs the school’s board of trustees.

JoePa getting hip?

After spending the last seven weeks coaching from the press box, Penn State Coach Joe Paterno said he may have hip replacement surgery after the regular season.

The No. 7 Nittany Lions’ (10-1) regular-season finale is Saturday against No. 18 Michigan State, with Penn State probably earning an invitation to the Rose Bowl with a win.

“I’m probably going to have to get something done with this thing,” Paterno said.

Paterno has coached from the press box since Penn State’s Sept. 27 home win over Illinois. He was injured while demonstrating an onside kick in a practice two days before the season started. Since then, he has monitored practice from a golf cart and walks with a cane.

Paterno’s contract ends after this season and school President Graham Spanier has been noncommittal about the coach’s future.

Paterno brushed off a question of whether he thinks the next game might be his final one at Beaver Stadium.

“Haven’t even thought about it,” said Paterno, who has coached at Penn State for 43 years.

Playoff backer

It may not be exactly his top priority, but President-elect Barack Obama said he will push to create a college football playoff to determine a national champion.

“If you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear, decisive winner,” Obama told CBS’ Steve Kroft in an interview on “60 Minutes” that will be broadcast tonight. “We should be creating a playoff system.”

Even if the current BCS model is planned to continue at least through 2013, Obama has other ideas.

“You could trim back on the regular season,” Obama said. “I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Pulling rank

Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen admitted feeling perplexed about his team. The Terrapins’ have defeated six top-25 teams in a row, a school record. That feat included a 17-15 victory over No. 17 North Carolina on Saturday.

“If we played the unranked teams the way we play ranked teams, we’d be in really great shape,” Friedgen said.

The ranked teams were California, Clemson, Wake Forest and North Carolina this season and Rutgers and Boston College in 2007.

Records, streaks

Arizona State’s 31-0 win over Washington State was its first shutout since a 19-0 win over top-ranked Nebraska on Sept. 21, 1996, a span of 153 games. Yale recorded its first shutout against Princeton since 1937 in a 14-0 victory. . . . .

Arizona State quarterback Rudy Carpenter moved into third place in the all-time Pacific 10 Conference list for touchdown passes with three against Washington State. His 80 touchdowns are five shy of Andrew Walter for second place. Carpenter passed Stanford’s John Elway and Oregon State’s Derek Anderson. . . .

Indiana State’s 28-0 loss to Northern Iowa extended the Sycamores’ losing streak to 25 games spanning three seasons. It’s the eighth time this year they failed to score a touchdown. . . .

Mississippi became bowl-eligible for the first time since 2003 with a 59-0 win over Louisiana Monroe. . . .

Clemson tailback C.J. Spiller set the program’s single-game record for a running back by catching seven passes for 108 yards in a 31-7 victory over Duke. . . .

With its 17-13 victory at Auburn, Georgia improved to 30-4 in opposing teams’ stadiums under Coach Mark Richt. . . .

With Texas’ 35-7 victory against Kansas, the Longhorns haven’t lost to the Jayhawks since 1937. They have had double-digit margins-of-victory for eight straight years. . . .

Vanderbilt’s 31-24 victory over Kentucky gave the Commodores their fourth SEC win -- a total they last reached in 1982.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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mark.medina@latimes.com