Around The Dog Park: Enter the SWAG Coordinator Era

Around the Dog Park is our daily round up of G5 football news around the internet. Feel free to submit any news we may have missed in the comments section.

General G5 Football

• The AAC leads the way among Underdogs with 18 NFL combine invites while CUSA follows with 11. The Sun Belt had five players invited. We’ll have more on combine participants in the coming days.
• Former LSU starting quarterback Brandon Harris has been granted a full release from LSU. ULL and UTSA look to be two options for Harris. UTSA head coach Frank Wilson was Harris’ lead recruiter at LSU while ULL is a local option with a huge need for an experienced quarterback.
• This excellent interview with NFL star running back David Johnson gives a good insight into the mindset of the type of players that we cover here at Underdog Dynasty. Johnson ended up at Northern Iowa after being passed up by in-state FBS programs. Now he’s a Pro Bowler for the Arizona Cardinals.

American

• The biggest news of the day: Temple has hired a SWAG coordinator (specialist with advanced graphics). Other programs have folks in similar roles but none have had the foresight to name it a SWAG COORDINATOR. I like this Geoff Collins guy.
• Former ECU quarterback Shane Carden was let go from the Montreal Alouettes and will play for the Arena Football League’s Baltimore Bridage next season.
• Memphis is increasing their ticket prices. That’s to be expected since they have seven home games this season and host UCLA of the Pac 12.

Conference USA

• Southern Miss wide receivers coach and special teams coordinator John Wozniak is on the move. He’ll join Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State as the Cowboys’ running backs coach.
• Lane Kiffin will hold his first FAU spring game on April 22nd. FAU fans will get their first look at the anticipated starter De’Andre Johnson.
• Conference USA suddenly has a super fun roster of exciting coaches. We decided to rank them by their celebrity status.

Sun Belt

• Georgia Southern head coach Tyson Summers doesn’t seem thrilled about adding an early-signing period for college football. That seems odd to me since an early-signing period would only help G5 schools as it should minimize late-season poaching by Power Five programs.
• We take an extensive look at Appalachian State’s four seasons under Scott Satterfield.
• Texas State has a pretty nice out-of-conference schedule lined up for 2017.
• As expected, the drop down to the FCS level is already putting a pinch on Idaho’s checkbook. The Vandals are looking to secure more university and state funding to make up for losses in body bag games against FBS opponents.