COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEWS & NOTES

GEORGIA BULLDOGS

ATHENS, GA.

Rodrigo Blankenship will be the starting placekicker when No. 15 Georgia opens its season against Appalachian State on Saturday. Blankenship beat out David arvin, a graduate transfer from Wofford. Coach Kirby Smart says Blankenship won the job with his consistency through preseason practice. Blankenship made 14 of 18 field goal attempts as a freshman in 2016. Smart also announced redshirt freshman outside linebacker Chauncy Manac will transfer to Garden City (Kansas) Community College.

FOX SPORTS HIRINGS

NEW YORK

Fox Sports has added former LSU coach Les Miles, former Oregon coach mark Helfrich and former Florida State quarterback Danny Kanell to its lineup of game analysts for college football. Miles, whom LSU fired last year after 11-plus seasons, will be teamed with play-by-play announcer Tim Brando and analyst Spencer Tillman for select games this season, starting Sept. 16 when Northern Illinois visits Nebraska. The game will air on FS1. Helfrich, who was fired by Oregon after last season, will call games weekly. He joins the announcing team of Justin Kutcher and analyst Petros Papadakis. Helfrich’s first game will be Maryland at Texas on Saturday, airing on FS1. Kanell, who was laid off by ESPN after eight years there, will join play-by-play announcer Eric Collins and analyst AJ Hawk.

SYRACUSE ORANGE

SYRACUSE, N.Y.

Syracuse University is honoring the late Dick MacPherson during the 2017 football season. A blue patch with “Mac” inscribed in orange will be sewn on the team jerseys, and the logo will be painted on the Carrier Dome field to celebrate his life. MacPherson, who resurrected a program in the 1980s that had fallen from the upper echelons of college football’s top division, died in early August at 86. MacPherson was named Syracuse coach in 1981 and produced a 66-46-4 record, including a 3-0-1 mark in bowl games during his 10-year tenure. He also had just the second unbeaten team in program history when the 1987 squad went 11-0 in the regular season and then tied Auburn 16-16 in the Sugar Bowl to finish the year ranked fourth. He was the consensus pick for national coach of the year that season. After the 1990 season, MacPherson was named head coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009.

Associated Press