by Michelle Richardson

Florida (2-1, 1-0) 31 vs. Tennessee (2-2, 0-1) 17: Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel who broke his leg Saturday will be out for the rest of the season. Injuries are tough and that’s college football and you have to be prepared for that and it was a win for Florida 31-17 over the Tennessee Vols. Tennessee didn’t look horrible especially for playing on the road and Vols quarterback Justin Worely threw one interception but a tough loss for the Vols. It was tough for Florida quarterback Driskel who went down and was replaced by the rarely used back up Tyler Murphy who threw for 8-14, 134 yards and one touchdown.

I would give Murphy the season for him to fully understand what he’s doing because Murphy hasn’t taken a snap this season and this will be interesting in the least and for Murphy you can only go up. For Driskel this is part of football and it’s part of the game and it’s unfortunate and he was in the game and he was really out to make this happen this time. It was a good FCC match up and we’ll learn more about these two teams as the season progresses on the schedule.

Right now were just too early in the season and we just completed week four and their just now starting their conference schedule so when they have to play Georgia, Alabama, LSU, South Carolina and we’ll definitely know by the time the schedule gets harder how they’ve progressed

Michigan (4-0) 24 vs. UConn (0-3) 21: To be honest if the Wolverines lost this game this might not have been an embarrassing loss and when you have to throw a coin up and you have to meet Ohio State and your in the Big 10 and you have to face the Buckeyes in the final game of the season on November 30th that will be a true test for Michigan. Michigan’s embarrassment would be if they lost to Akron two weeks ago in a close game they won by four points.

I would not say that Michigan was the better team because obviously they weren’t, you got these young men at Akron who gave them a run for their money in that game and they came in prepared to play. The Wolves didn’t win in a blow out money game. For Michigan your number 18 in the AP polls and your in the Big 10 and your allowing teams like UConn and Akron to come into your house and give you a really bad beating.

In this game you saw Michigan fumble twice and they can’t hold onto the ball and Wolves quarterback Devin Gardner threw two interceptions and UConn was able to take advantage of that not so much in the win but UConn came within three points and it’s going to give UConn a lot of confidence in the future playing a lot of teams and UConn is home for the Big East or for the American Conference.

Cincinnati mourns the loss of Ben Flick: Cincinnati offensive lineman Ben Flick died in an auto accident right after the Bearcats win 14-0 on Saturday. He and two others receivers Mark Barr and Javon Harrison were airlifted with an unnamed driver in critical condition to the University of Cincinnati Medical Hospital. Flick became the second student athlete to die in September, UCLA’s Nick Pasquale was killed on September 8th when he was crossing the street when he was ran over and killed in San Clemente and his jersey now hangs in the school gym.

Flick will more than likely be honored at the Bearcats next home game the three were redshirting for the team and did not travel with the team and were in the accident 25 miles north of Cincinnati at the time. I tell young people be careful I know people at the University where I work at that are 18, 21, 22, 24, you think your bullet proof but your not and whatever your doing when your not on campus please be careful.

NCAA players make statement about getting paid will there be a revolution? This argument started years ago but more recently a former UCLA athlete said to AP that all players should stand united. This is something that’s been going on for years Ed O’Bannon a former UCLA basketball player said that the players should be paid and O’Bannon has filed a suit and demanded that their should be a fairer system the lawsuit now is in class action status. O’Bannon saw his likeness on a video game that the maker and the NCAA was making money from and O’Bannon was not receiving any royalties from it. O’Bannon was in the NCAA Championship game in 1995 and had his number 31 retired by the school.

You can say that the NCAA is corrupt but please understand what the NCAA is made of it’s made up of members of institutions and the NCAA two way committee. Look to your NCAA University presidents they are the NCAA. It’s not the NCAA president Mark Emmert he’s the fall guy, he’s kind of passing to the NCAA members and institutions. It’s the University presidents that sit on the board of the NCAA that have to tell Emmert to make legislation or make this rule.

So the players shouldn’t blame the NCAA, blame your university trustees and demand more from your university administration. For people who don’t understand this I’m glad that people or the student athletes are speaking up for themselves and most of the time you have a players who don’t say anything they go through their four years and they don’t get involved in student government and they don’t get involved in anything that would possibly jeopardize their college scholarship because coaches have told these athletes that if they do anything like that they will be cut.

These scholarships are one year renewables so every year by a certain day of the year they would have to tell the player whether they’re bringing the player back or not. I’m telling the students to watch yourself out there because these contracts are not renewable and there has to be a reason not to renew your contract and this is what the general public understands the athletes are not contract workers the coaches are.

So to the student athletes don’t go and yell at Emmert he is a patsy, the responsibility of change in a matter like this lies within your university presidents.

Michelle Richardson does NCAA commentary each week