ESPN’s Outside the Lines conducted an examination today of the death of Central Florida wide receiver Ereck Plancher, who collapsed during an off-season workout, and the report calls into question whether head coach George O’Leary took his players’ safety seriously enough.

Specifically, former Central Florida running back James Jamison says the training staff didn’t come to Plancher’s aid quickly enough because they were intimidated by O’Leary.

Jamison said he believes “they ran a player to death. … Every step he [Plancher] took, he was about to fall over .. He was just, literally like everybody was looking at him … pushing his body like past his limit. … Coach is like, ‘That’s a bunch of BS, son,’ like, ‘I expect better from you,’ just dogging him … I’m thinking, ‘Why you, why you getting on him? Everybody’s tired. Like, look around you.’”

The Orlando Sentinel has reported that Plancher had collapsed twice after workouts in the months before he died, but Central Florida officials say they didn’t know that.

Plancher’s family plans to sue the school. O’Leary refuses to comment.

College football has one fewer undefeated team, as Tulsa lost today at Arkansas, 30-23.

Tulsa, which entered the game at 8-0, was never a real threat to earn a BCS bowl berth because neither the human polls nor the BCS computers gave the Golden Hurricane a ton of respect. But they were one of college football’s most exciting teams, scoring more than 55 points five times this season.

Today, however, they just showed how bit a talent gap there is between the SEC and Conference USA. Although Tulsa is the best team in Conference USA and Arkansas is a mediocre team in the SEC, Arkansas was able to march down the field with cool efficiency. Razorbacks quarterback Casey Dick completed 25 of 38 passes for 385 yards.

Tulsa is still the favorite to win Conference USA, and whatever bowl game they play in is likely to be an exciting one. But the Golden Hurricane is no longer among the ranks of the undefeated.

Marshall beat Houston 37-23 last night, and although the game itself won’t garner much national attention, there’s already an enduring image from it.

In the third quarter, Houston wide receiver Patrick Edwards suffered a compound fracture of his right leg as he ran out of the end zone and collided with some of Marshall’s band equipment. ESPN re-played the video of the impact, and it’s already been viewed thousands of times on YouTube.

Although Houston officials are choosing their words carefully, they are clearly unhappy with Marshall. Cougars coach Kevin Sumlin would say only that he has “his opinions,” while Houston athletic director Dave Maggard said he will pursue the subject with Marshall officials, the Houston Chronicle reports.

“It was duly noted and I think we’ll save the conversation for another day,” Maggard said. “I don’t think there is any question that it is a problem. We all noticed it, and we want to find out why something like that would occur. It was a serious injury, no question about it.”

Video of the hit, which several people have e-mailed me but you won’t want to watch if you’re squeamish, is below:

Lost in all of Saturday’s college football action was this score: Navy 34, SMU 7.

And that score would deserve to get lost, as simply a mediocre team blowing out a terrible team, except that when you look at the box score, you see something shocking: Navy didn’t throw a pass. The Midshipmen finished the game with 77 carries for 404 yards on the ground, and 0-for-0 passing.

The weather was terrible, and Navy was down to its third-string quarterback, Ricky Dobbs, and Dobbs ran the option so well that coach Ken Niumatalolo figured he’d just keep the game on the ground. Dobbs finished the game with an absurd 42 carries for 224 yards and four touchdowns.

Navy has almost always been a run-oriented team, but Saturday is believed to be the first time the Midshipmen went through a game without throwing a single pass in the 60 years or so that they’ve been keeping statistics. The last Division I-A college football team to play a game without throwing a pass was Ohio University in a 21-17 win over Akron exactly 11 years earlier, on October 25, 1997.

As for SMU, coach June Jones’ offense was just slightly less effective on the ground than Navy, finishing the game with 11 rushes for minus-13 yards.

“It’s just frustrating,” Jones said. “You have to be able to overcome the conditions. We weren’t able to today.”

Yesterday we noted that East Carolina coach Skip Holtz had suspended the team’s leading rusher, Jonathan Williams, after he was arrested for resisting a public officer.

Now news has surfaced that Williams is facing even more criminal charges after two people said he hit them with a beer bottle last weekend. Williams was arrested and charged on two misdemeanor counts of assault with a deadly weapon and released on bond in connection with that incident. In addition to those charges, he was also arrested for DUI and underage drinking during the spring. Overall, he’s a regular Pacman Jones.

But he’s a good player on the field; on Saturday he had 15 carries for 108 yards in a win over Memphis. East Carolina will miss him on game days.

Overall, the news is the latest sign of the way the East Carolina football team has completely fallen apart in the last month. After starting the season with back-to-back wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia, there was talk in college football circles that East Carolina could play in a BCS game. Now the Pirates are 4-3, plagued by off-field problems, and looking like one of college football’s biggest disappointments.

East Carolina coach Skip Holtz suspended running back Jonathan Williams after news broke that he was arrested early this month.

“Any charge filed against an ECU football player is something that we take very seriously, but since this is a legal matter, and further comment on our part would be inappropriate at this point,” Holtz said.

Williams, who leads the team with 380 rushing yards and five touchdowns, was arrested for resisting a public officer on October 5, but reports of the arrest didn’t surface until this week, and Holtz himself apparently didn’t know about it until a member of the media asked for comment. During the spring, Williams was charged with driving while impaired and underage consumption of alcohol.

Holtz also suspended wide receiver Jamar Bryant for the rest of the season for a violation of team rules.

Through the first three weeks of the season, East Carolina looked like it might just be the non-BCS team that could crash the BCS party.

So much for that.

North Carolina State beat East Carolina, 30-24, in an overtime thriller today, ending any chance the Pirates might have had of going to a BCS bowl game. East Carolina looked great in previous wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia, but after taking a late 24-17 lead today at North Carolina State, the Pirates couldn’t put the Wolfpack away.

N.C. State’s Russell Wilson threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to George Bryan with just over a minute left in the fourth quarter to tie the score, sending the game to overtime. When East Carolina fumbled in the first overtime possession, North Carolina State took over and an Andre Brown 10-yard touchdown run ended the game — and East Carolina’s BCS hopes.

As the West Virginia University Mountaineers prepare to play at East Carolina on Saturday, the guy on the other sideline (to the extent that they can see the other sideline) is a guy who could have been on their own sideline.

According to Chuck Finder of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, WVU formally launched a flirtation with Pirates coach Skip Holtz on the same day that the Mountaineers would later trounce Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

“The morning after the bowl game, we were done with that,” Holtz said this week.  ”About an hour after the game, that selection committee was done with their issues.

“They made a great hire in Bill Stewart.  I’m excited for him.  He’s been there a long time.  It’s in his blood.  He’s been very loyal to that program.  You could just see, as the game went on, that was the best hire for West Virginia.  And I’m excited for them.”

Holtz agreed last week to a contract extension through 2013, which as we’ve learned over the years is essentially meaningless if/when a bigger school wants a guy and the guy wants the bigger school.

And that means that, a year from now, Skip Holtz might not be at East Carolina.  Especially if he beats West Virginia.

“Doesn’t matter who his father is,” Stewart said of Skip Holtz, the son of Lou Holtz.  “This guy can coach ball.  Probably could beat his dad.  Tell Lou I said that.”

We’ll tell him, Coach.  But we can’t guaranteed we’ll be able to relay Lou’s response back to you.  Frankly, we can’t understand a word the guy says.

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