Two Rams have eligibility cleared

l Two Winston-Salem State players who were awaiting NCAA clearance on eligibility have received it and most likely will play Saturday against N.C. A&T.

Jermaine Kesler, a freshman defensive lineman from Lumberton, had a strong preseason and most likely will start, Coach Connell Maynor said. Linebacker Antonio Gates, a junior transfer from Atlanta, also was cleared.

"When we played that first game (a 47-13 win over Virginia Union), we thought we had some guys that we needed out there, but they will be able to play this week," Maynor said. "So that's good that we played as well as we did without those guys."

Maynor said that defensive lineman Akeem Ward, the only returning starter on the line, has not yet been cleared. Ward was declared ineligible in July but is appealing.

-- John Dell

l Winston-Salem State's Connell Maynor loves the atmosphere surrounding the rivalry with N.C. A&T, where he played for three seasons. The game is big, but how big?

Coach Alonzo Lee of A&T said it would be like the Super Bowl for WSSU.

Maynor said: "It's not the Super Bowl to us, it's just a nonconference game to us, but to them it's probably more important because it's their first game of the season."

Maynor also had a message for A&T fans on his return to Greensboro.

"It's nothing personal, its just business," he said. "So don't hold it against me when we beat you guys."

-- John Dell

l Junior Stephen Garcia will start at quarterback for South Carolina in tonight's season-opener against Southern Mississippi, Coach Steve Spurrier said yesterday. Spurrier had hinted through much of the preseason that Garcia was in a tight battle for the spot with freshman Connor Shaw and also said yesterday that Shaw will play early in tonight's game. Garcia ranks behind only Ryan Mallett of Arkansas in passing yards by returning Southeastern Conference quarterbacks after throwing for 2,862 yards and 17 touchdowns last season.

l Linebacker Mark Herzlich of Boston College is back on the practice field and planning to play Saturday against Weber State.

Herzlich, the ACC defensive player of the year in 2008, missed last season while recovering from Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He was pronounced cancer-free by doctors last fall but sustained a stress fracture in his right foot during camp this month.

He returned to practice on Tuesday and was back on the field yesterday.

Coach Frank Spaziani said he's not sure what to expect from Herzlich on Saturday but that the only issue is his conditioning, not his health.

l Miami has started talks with the New York Yankees about playing a football game at Yankee Stadium in 2013.

Athletics Director Kirby Hocutt met with the Yankees about the possibility Tuesday. Miami already has five home and five road games scheduled that season, leaving two slots on its schedule.

"I think it's great for college football and the University of Miami," Coach Randy Shannon said yesterday, adding that the school is "going through negotiations" with teams and trying to find an opponent for the Yankee Stadium matchup. Miami played in the old Yankee Stadium in 1962, losing to Nebraska in the final edition of the Gotham Bowl.

l For one game only, West Virginia will forgo blue and gold.

For the long-running rivalry known as the Backyard Brawl -- the Nov. 26 game at Pitt -- the Mountaineers will suit up in black-and-white uniforms that pay tribute to the 29 men killed in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion.

Nike is footing the bill for the gear, dubbed Pro Combat. The white is a shade that appears as if it's covered in a fine layer of coal dust, and the numbers are in smudged black. Accents and footwear are brilliant gold, which doubles as a reference to the canaries miners used generations ago to signal trouble.

l The Big South and Stony Brook have announced a four-year extension that will keep the Seawolves as a football-only member of the conference through 2015.

Stony Brook joined the Big South in 2008 after rejecting the Northeast Conference's new scholarship restrictions. The Big South needed to expand to have enough teams to get an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. Stony Brook, which competes in the America East in other sports, shared the 2009 Big South title with Liberty after upsetting Liberty in a season finale.

l Running back Derrick Washington was dismissed from the team at Missouri yesterday, two days after being charged with sexually assaulting a former tutor in her bedroom over the summer.

The school released a two-sentence statement that said Washington, the Tigers' leading rusher the past two seasons and a team captain, had been "permanently suspended" from the football program. He is accused of entering a former Missouri tutor's closed bedroom while visiting her roommate and assaulting the woman while she slept. The woman obtained a court order of protection that expired in July.

Washington, who faces a single felony count of deviate sexual assault, will remain on scholarship as long as he meets his academic requirements. He declined comment when reached on his cell phone.

l The man behind Penn State's mascot, Clint Gyory, was issued an underage drinking summons in State College, Pa., on Aug. 24 and also was cited for public drunkenness and criminal mischief Aug. 1. Gyory was supposed to wear the Nittany Lion costume for Saturday's opener against Youngstown State, but athletics-department officials said he has been suspended for a month.