the recreational game. On Toumazis watch last November, Sussexs pr

STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Fred Ross is confident Mississippi States offense is going to be productive this season.Just dont ask the senior receiver what it might look like. Truth is, he doesnt know.Thats because the Bulldogs have an unorthodox four-man quarterback race when preseason practice opens on Tuesday. Even though much of Mississippi States offense will stay the same no matter who is under center, theres no doubt the finished product will be tailored to the man taking the snaps.The skys the limit, Ross said Monday. But weve got to work at it during camp and get everything fixed. I dont know how this offense is going to be, but I do expect it to be good.Sophomore Nick Fitzgerald is one of the early favorites to win the quarterback job after several successful cameo appearances in 2015.As a redshirt freshman backing up senior star Dak Prescott, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Fitzgerald completed nearly 80 percent of his passes for 235 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.But that performance wasnt good enough to earn him the starting job this fall. Instead, hes in a competition that started last spring and will almost certainly be the hottest topic of preseason camp.For the four quarterbacks -- Fitzgerald, sophomore Elijah Staley, junior Damian Williams and redshirt freshman Nick Tiano -- every snap they take during practice will be precious and heavily scrutinized. Coach Dan Mullen said they will all receive about 25 percent of the snaps in the opening days of preseason camp.The Bulldogs opener is at home against South Alabama on Sept. 3.Mullen said hell make a decision on the starting quarterback as soon as it defines itself. Hed like to do that during preseason practice but acknowledged the competition could last deep into the season.The eighth-year coach has been clear about the most important trait the eventual starter will possess: consistency.Who has made the improvements over the summer to be the most consistent performer to help us win football games? Mullen said. I think if you watched (all four) you say, `Wow, these guys can make some extraordinary plays.But the biggest thing we need is the guy who can make the play every single snap.The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Ross figures to be one of the most important players on Mississippi States offense no matter who is playing quarterback.Ross led the team with 88 catches for 1,007 yards and five touchdowns last season. Mullen said Ross could be a threat at several different positions because his versatility allows Mississippi States coaches to move him around the field and find good matchups.Another veteran playmaker is senior Brandon Holloway, who was second on the team with 413 yards rushing last year while catching 33 passes for 396 yards and five touchdowns.Mississippi State also returns a handful of experienced offensive linemen who will be charged with protecting the new quarterback.Now its just a matter of finding out exactly who that will be. Holloway didnt sound concerned.I think its going to be good, Holloway said. Im waiting to see the outcome as well.---Follow David Brandt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidbrandtAP---AP College Football website: www.collegefootball.ap.orgAir Max 97 Outlet Clearance . Hamelin, who triumphed in the 500 on Saturday, edged out Victor An of Russia by 0.021 seconds to maintain his lead in the World Cup standings. Russias Vladimir Grigorev was third. In the relay, Canada took control six laps from the finish line to beat Russia and the Netherlands. Cheap Balenciaga Shoes China . -- If this was Aaron Gordons final home game at Arizona, and it almost certainly was, then he went out in style. http://www.outletsneakersclearance.com/fake-air-max-95.html .J. Jefferson has been charged with assaulting his girlfriend. Discount Jordan Shoes Wholesale . 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Forward Eduardo gave Ajaccio the lead in the sixth minute after being set up by right winger Benjamin Andre, and the Corsican side looked comfortable in the first half, with the lively Johan Cavalli causing problems with his probing runs from midfield.Forty minutes into Rob Andrews first press conference as Sussexs surprise new chief executive, after a bruising decade in the boardrooms of the Rugby Football Union, and it is abundantly clear (as if there had been any doubt) that he is not about to pull up a deckchair and settle for a sinecure among the seagulls and seasoned cricket fans at Hove.I thought people came to the South Coast to take it easy! he jokes, as the questions from the floor turn from the prosaic to the political, with Sussexs adversarial stance in the ECBs brave new world of city-based cricket right at the forefront of the topics.Sussex, after all, were one of three counties - Surrey and Kent being the other two - who, back in September, stood firm in voting against the ECBs move towards a solitary option for the future structure of Englands revamped T20 competition. And for that reason, and regardless of the initiatives that the club themselves might prefer to showcase - most particularly their county-wide commitment to the grassroots game - no-ones in any doubt about the issue that will dominate Andrews tenure.We are not Luddites, insists Jim May, Sussexs chairman, waving an arm towards the pavilion window to emphasise his point. We were the first county ground to install floodlights: fact. We were the first county ground to have a dedicated academy; this year we were the first county to have a dedicated womens academy. We are not looking in the rear-view mirror all the time. But we do have doubts about the city competition.Sitting alongside him, Andrew is understandably diplomatic in fielding enquiries about a role that he will not officially be taking up until January 3. But if, in the course of his RFU career, he gave off the impression of being the ultimate insider - seemingly above reproach as five England coaches passed below him through the corridors at Twickenham - hell be discovering soon enough how the land lies now that hes on the slippier side of a club v country divide.I knew, right from the start, that this was going to be full-on, he says. But the one thing I have been very close to in the last 20 years is politics in sport. Sport is big business now and Ive seen how people try to manage that mix. Ive seen it when it goes quite well, Ive also seen it when it goes badly. Understanding those issues, and trying to pick your way through and get to a solution, is really challenging but very rewarding.According to May, it was Andrews range of transferrable skills from rugby to cricket that propelled him to the top of a list of 50 applicants for the job - and he transferred plenty of those back in his playing days as well, representing Cambridge University and Yorkshire 2nd XI in the mid-1980s before the demands of his rugby career took over from his passion for leather and willow. But it is Andrews status as an unequivocal household name that is surely every bit as valuable to Sussex in crickets uncertain current climate.In his 12-year England career, Andrew amassed 71 caps at fly-half and featured in three World Cup campaigns and as many Grand Slams. And, as a man who has been immersed in administration ever since, with seven years as director of rugby at Newcastle prior to his time at the RFU, his views can be expected to resonate beyond the sometimes cloistered walls of English domestic cricket. By extension, they will tackle at source that thorny issue of relevance that stalks the sport in general but the smaller clubs in particular.Rugby and cricket are at similar levels in the public consciousness, Andrew says. The funding from the ECB into the counties is very similar to that from the RFU to the clubs. And the question of how do you get players through the system to produce a successful England team is very similar too. When Hugh Morris [former director of England Cricket] was at the ECB and I was at the RFU, we shared a lot of thoughts.So, when Andrew points out - as he does - that one of the greatest strengths of English cricket is the fact that its 18 first-class counties are spread from the tip to the toe of the country, or states that there are kids all over Sussex who are dreaming of being the next Haseeb Hameed, and its our job to make that possible, his words are music to the ears, not only of his chairman sitting alongside him, but to the representatives of the other non-Test grounds who may at last have hit upon their spokesman for the disenfranchised.Against a complex backcloth, and with people taking positions, it will be extraordinarily helpful having Rob, says May. He will provide a safe environment for the cricket management, but not an unchallenging one, and his profile will undoubtedly help us in the commercial world.Much of that commerce will inevitably depend on the ECBs vision for the future of itts domestic T20 competition.dddddddddddd As an upshot of Septembers meeting, the plan as it stands is to replicate the compact schedule and structure of Australias Big Bash League, even if the current travails of Australias Test team serve as a timely reminder of the dangers of becoming over-reliant on short-form gains.Though the details differ, the somewhat shrill tone of the T20 debate is one to which Andrew believes he can relate, given that his focus for the past two years has been the new long-term agreement between the RFU and Englands leading clubs over the release and funding of the elite player squad. The original deal, which he was instrumental in brokering back in 2008, had been a similarly watershed moment for English rugby, given the bad blood and suspicion that had coloured so much of the landscape since the dawn of the professional era.In rugby we found an English solution to an English problem, says Andrew. I think the same has to apply to cricket. I dont want to point fingers elsewhere but has Australia cricket gone too far in one direction and impacted the long-form side of the game?May, for his part, isnt so concerned about holding back, warning (with perhaps more mental imagery than he had intended) of a Hinckley Point-style meltdown if the ECB insists on driving through changes to the domestic structure when, in his opinion, there is insufficient evidence that they are either necessary or suitable.There are at least three big differences between here and Australia, he says. Number one, nearly all the population of Australia is in a few cities by the coast. Number two is that the weathers guaranteed, which it isnt here. And the third thing is, its a very different media landscape in Australia. All their major sports are on free-to-view TV.Our anxiety is that if we go down that route, would non-host counties like Sussex be marginalised in the long-run? Its a really difficult trade-off, because were trading off whats best for English cricket, whatever that is, against whats best for us.And to Sussexs credit, notwithstanding their relegation in 2015, the club has been one of the genuine powerhouses of the two-division era precisely because it has known how to make the best of its relatively straitened circumstances. Last years departure of coach Mark Robinson may have severed the final link to the side that won three County Championships in five seasons, including their maiden triumph in 2003, but in Mays opinion, the seeds of regeneration have already been sown.It is with justifiable pride that May points out that the club has no external debt, unlike several of the Test-match grounds - most notoriously Durham, but the likes of Yorkshire and Warwickshire too. Much of that is a legacy of the work put in place by Andrews predecessor, Zac Toumazi, who announced his intention to step down last month after four years in charge, but equally it stems from a trenchant recognition that top-down business models lack sustainability in a crowded market.Looking around Hove, with its rows of well-appointed flats peering over the boundary from the neighbouring streets, it is clear that Englands oldest county never had an option but to cut its cloth accordingly. Not for them the notion of build it and they will come, as advocated by the old ECB hierarchy. Besides, as May freely admits, theres a degree of wealth in the ever-expanding conurbation of Brighton and Hove that makes looking after existing markets more relevant than might be the case the further north you travel of London.But if there is one tenet of the boards new regime with which the Sussex hierarchy wholeheartedly concur, then it is their new Cricket Unleashed strategy, launched this summer with a view to driving participation in the recreational game. On Toumazis watch last November, Sussexs professional club and its cricket board, which represents 245 clubs throughout the county, were merged to create a new centralised body. It is a change that Andrew plans on embracing.Sussex is probably the first county to put whole of their cricket under one umbrella, and that is really important to me, he says. All sports have to build from the bottom up, because eventually thats how you get the right group together for long enough with the right talent. I first saw Jonny Wilkinson when he was 11 years old. George Ford and Owen Farrell were once seven-year-olds dreaming of playing for England. Thats what sport is about for me.Teams take time to build, it will take a bit of time for this new Sussex team, after a successful period, to grow. But theres nothing better than watching young players grow and fulfil their potential. ' ' '