Baylor acting head coach Jim Grobe has disputed the universitys account of how Jeremy Faulk was kicked off the football team in June, saying the defensive lineman had been suspended by the team but not dismissed?after he was accused of sexual assault.Faulk, a junior college transfer who reportedly has won an appeal to be reinstated, has said he was ousted after he was questioned about a sexual assault that allegedly occurred on campus in April and about an incident that occurred when he was enrolled at Florida Atlantic.The circumstances of Faulks departure remained unclear Monday night, illustrating a level of dysfunction that continues to ruffle the Baylor football program and keep the school under the cloud of a sexual assault scandal that has dragged on for more than a year.Last week, KWTX-TV in Waco, Texas, reported that Faulk won an appeal to have his scholarship reinstated in July. But because a Title IX investigation has remained open for four months, Faulk hasnt been allowed to re-enroll at Baylor and rejoin the football team.Grobes comments were met with widespread support from eight of the Bears current assistant coaches, as well as several staff members and a handful of former players, who nearly simultaneously tweeted a link to the story containing his comments on Monday night, along with the hashtag #TRUTHDONTLIE.Baylor executive associate athletics director Nick Joos told ESPN on Monday night that the university addressed the issue of the Baylor coaches tweeting about the case.Weve handled that internally and were not going to comment any further on it, Joos said. Weve handled that here tonight.On Tuesday, Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades appeared on ESPN Central Texas AM 1660 and confirmed the situation is being handled internally and no Baylor coaches will be suspended.During his weekly news conference with reporters on Monday, Grobe said he made the decision to suspend Faulk after he was accused of sexual assault. According to KWTX, he later called the station to clarify his remarks and said he didnt make the decision to dismiss Faulk from the university and strip him of his scholarship.I think thats the way most coaches deal with problems if youve got kids that have issues. They may come back to the football team, but they may not temporarily be able to represent the football team, and thats not just Jeremy -- its any kid on our football team, Grobe told reporters on Monday.Faulk, who transferred to Baylor after playing at Garden City (Kansas) Community College, told ESPN on June 10 that he was dismissed from the Baylor team after he was questioned about a sexual assault that allegedly occurred on campus in April, and also about an incident that occurred when he was enrolled at Florida Atlantic.Faulk, from Palatka, Florida, told Outside the Lines that police never questioned him about the April 21 incident and he wasnt arrested. Baylor police provided ESPN with a heavily redacted incident report.On Friday, Baylors Joos said in a statement that Faulk was dismissed from the school on June 3 based upon violations of the university and athletic department Code of Conduct. Joos also said in the statement that Grobe and the interim athletics director made the decision to dismiss Faulk and did not require other Executive Council members nor Title IX staff involvement.Grobe, who has guided the No. 11 Bears to a 5-0 record going into Saturdays home game against Kansas, didnt respond to phone calls from ESPN.com.Grobe, a former Wake Forest coach, was hired on May 30 to replace former Baylor coach Art Briles, who was fired three days earlier in the wake of the universitys sexual assault scandal.For the past several months, Baylor has been at the center of nationwide attention over its handling of sexual assault allegations and investigations, including several that involved athletes. After the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton issued a scathing summary of its findings from a monthslong investigation, Briles was fired, former university president and chancellor Kenneth Starr was demoted and later resigned, and athletics director Ian McCaw resigned.Last week, Baylor Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford resigned and alleged that the universitys leadership wouldnt allow her to fulfill her responsibilities and that the school continues to violate Title IX. Crawford, who was hired as Baylors first full-time Title IX coordinator in 2014, also filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights about the way Baylor is handling Title IX complaints.Faulks dismissal from Baylor angered Jeff Sims, a former Florida Atlantic assistant and head coach at Garden City. He said Baylor officials wanted to rid themselves of Faulk even before it was proved if he committed sexual assault. Sims also alleged that Grobe told him during a phone call in June that the allegations would go away if Faulk left Waco.Grobe says to me, Listen, if he just leaves, he can go on, and we wont stop him from playing anywhere, and this investigation will stop, Sims told ESPN.To me, thats the whole reason they got in trouble -- either Jeremys innocent, and they should go through the process, and he should get his scholarship back and play. Or hes guilty, and this girl should get some justice, Sims said.Faulk told Outside the Lines in June that he was initially told he was expelled from the university. At the time, Baylor officials would only confirm to Outside the Lines that he was no longer enrolled in school. In June, Faulk provided to Outside the Lines an email from a Baylor academic support official stating that his withdrawal had been finalized, but Faulk said he never asked to withdraw from school.The same morning Faulk received the email telling him his withdrawal from the university was final, he received another from the athletic department compliance office saying there is not a Title IX report at Baylor involving him. Faulk responded a few hours later by sending an email requesting a hearing and a chance to defend himself anyway. Only then did the Title IX office send him -- two hours later -- an email stating hed been named as a respondent in a case and had been accused of violating the schools sexual discrimination, violence and harassment policy. The email provided no further details of an incident.No ones given me a reason why Ive been released, Faulk told Outside the Lines. If I just leave, it will look like Im guilty, and I didnt do anything.Outside The Lines reporter Paula Lavigne contributed to this report. Authentic Custom Soccer Jerseys . The 28-year-old from Calgary matched his career best after missing just one shot in his two rounds of shooting in the mens 10-kilometre sprint competition. Smith finished in 23 minutes 15. Wholesale Custom Soccer Jerseys . Murray beat Sam Querrey 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-3 to clinch Britains opening-round victory against the United States on Sunday at Petco Park. "Im proud of the way Im playing just now, because I had to do a lot of work to get back to where I want to be," Murray said after celebrating with his teammates on the red clay court in a temporary stadium in left field of the downtown home of baseballs San Diego Padres. http://www.cheapcustomjerseyssoccer.com/ . JOHNS, N. Custom Soccer Shirts .Y. -- Sabres forward Drew Stafford has witnessed plenty of turmoil during his eight seasons in Buffalo. Custom Soccer Jerseys . Now, correct me if Im wrong but I saw one official distinctly pointing at the net indicating a good goal but after an inconclusive review they overturned the goal. Shouldnt the ruling on the ice (good goal) stand after an inconclusive review? Why was this overturned? James Veaudry Pembroke, ON -- Hey Kerry, Youll get a lot of these, but why was the Montreal goal against Nashville Saturday night overturned? Eller puts the puck on net and the on ice ruling from the ref behind the net is a Montreal goal. This story appears in ESPN The Magazines Dec. 12 NFL Chemistry Issue. Subscribe today!YOU HAVE TO be all in. Were all in times 10.Its a chilly October Saturday. In his suite at Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium, University of Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich is talking about the schools commitment to its football team, which will rise as high as third in the country before losing to Houston in November. He keeps talking while Lamar Jackson, the sophomore quarterback who won this years Heisman Trophy, squirts through an opening and gallops over half the field before someone brings him down. Its nothing Jurich hasnt seen before.Louisvilles opponent is no patsy. The previous week, NC State had nearly upset Clemson. The week before, it beat Notre Dame. Still, the Wolfpack have as much chance of halting Bobby Petrinos offense as grounding the UPS planes that seem to leave nearby Louisville International every two minutes. At halftime, Louisville leads 44-0.When Jurich arrived at Louisville in 1997, football was an embarrassment. The Cardinals were in the midst of a 1-10 season. The last AD had imported Howard Schnellenberger to work the magic hed worked at Miami, but after more than 100 games and a losing record, Schnellenberger fled for Oklahoma. Thered been talk at one point of dropping football, says Billy Reed, the former Courier-Journal columnist and unofficial U of L historian.Instead, Jurich went all in. He scheduled games for Tuesdays and Wednesdays to get on television. He courted wealthy donors, with or without school ties. He hired Petrino, whod concocted a powerhouse offense at Auburn. And then, after Petrino left for a succession of jobs -- one of which ended with his being fired following an illicit relationship with an employee -- Jurich hired him again.Thats one way to succeed at college football, where field houses can feel like luxury hotels and the offensive coordinator often earns more than the governor. The other? Get real. Know who you are. Of the 128 universities in the NCAAs Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, perhaps a hundred have no shot at No. 1. Even in the Power 5 conferences, says Jim Livengood, the former AD at UNLV, Arizona and Washington State, there are teams that will eventually struggle to keep up.If those schools cant devote the necessary resources to FBS football, Livengood insists, they need to wean themselves from it before it bankrupts them. Football has brought dozens of FBS athletic departments to the precipice of fiscal mismanagement as they try to compete with the 16 percent of athletic departments that actually turn a profit, even as the cost of facilities, coaches and travel grows exponentially.Among the 128, one has waved the white flag. After being booted from the Sun Belt Conference, the University of Idaho announced this past spring that it was taking the unprecedented step of leaving the FBS. In 2018, it will rejoin the Big Sky, which plays in the Football Championship Subdivision, what used to be known as Division I-AA. Its coach? Bobby Petrinos brother.Idaho never fit in the Sun Belt. Trips to the Deep South for Troy and South Alabama bumped rivals Montana and Idaho State off the schedule. But if that was a hard road, staying solvent without bowl ties and TV revenue would be even harder. Idaho has gone 1-11 or 2-10 five times in the past decade. Its fan base is clustered five hours south in Boise. Its corporate donors are nearly nonexistent. Its athletic budget is $15 million, about one-sixth of Louisvilles $94 million. For head football coach Paul Petrino to have a chance of success, AD Rob Spear notes, the school needs to invest $5 million in his program.We cant pay that, he says. And maybe we shouldnt.LETS COUNT THE journalists in attendance for Paul Petrinos Tuesday afternoon news conference. Theres one. And another, the kid in front. Is that a third, in the fleece? Nah, shes the SID. Theyll ask Petrino questions in a 150-seat auditorium, but they could have done it in his pickup on the way to lunch.It isnt that college football is unpopular in Moscow, Idaho. Were passionate, city council member Gina Taruscio says. Some of us to a fault. There just arent many media outlets on the Palouse, as the fertile land that rolls south and east from Spokane is called. There arent many people either. Moscow and Pullman, Washington, separated by 8 miles of nothing and a state line, combine for a population of about 55,000, not including students. Pullman has Washington State, which plays in the Pac-12. And where does that leave Idaho? In a tough spot, Jurich says. Severely handcuffed because of geography.It makes you wonder what the Vandals were thinking when they decided to play Division I football. Boise State, says Mark Schlereth, the ESPN analyst who played football at Idaho in the 1980s. Plain and simple.A junior college until 1965, Boise had the good fortune to be located in the capital, where the people are -- as well as the Albertsons money, from the grocery chain that was founded there. It had a blue turf field and enough ambition for two universities. What it didnt have was a good football team. A dozen straight years, from 1982 to 1993, the Vandals beat the Broncos. I played in the Big Sky, says Jurich, who kicked at Northern Arizona. Idaho was the premier team. Boise State was an afterthought.If Boise State could hang with Americas best teams, the feeling was, surely Idaho could. So when the Broncos announced their intention to join the Big West in 1994, Idaho followed. I thought they were crazy, Schlereth says now. In Boise, you have the community, the infrastructure and the money to make this work. You can recruit a bunch of these kids who would have been Pac-10 players but couldnt get eligible at Cal, at Stanford, at USC. We dont have the facilities. We dont have the infrastructure. We dont have the money. Were doomed to fail. I get why they did it. I just never thought it was a great idea.Paul Petrino was already there in 1994, coaching receivers and running backs, when the announcement was made. Hed been hired on the recommendation of his brother, who worked at Idaho before heading up the ladder to Arizona State. Before that, Paul had followed Bobby, who is six years older, to Capital High in Helena, Montana, as an option quarterback. Then he spurned interest from Air Force and followed him to Carroll College, where their father, Bob Petrino, coached. As a coachs kid, you understand that your family is happy or sad a lot of times based on whether Dads team wins, he says. I knew that by playing for him, we were going to win. So my dad was going to be happy.Bob Sr. hadnt planned on a career at Carroll. He lobbied for the Montana and Montana State jobs, but his own ladder extended only so high. I dont think his ambition was any different than my brothers or mine, Paul says. It just turned out different. Bob planted a flag in Helena, a city about Moscows size. He won 15 conference championships, reached the NAIA semifinals three times with Paul at quarterback and set in motion a program that would win six national titles in a decade. The greatest statement I ever heard my dad make, says Bobby Petrino, was You make the big time wherever youre at.Think those words are echoing now? Paul followed his brother from job to job, Idaho to Louisville to the Atlanta Falcons to Arkansas, working as an assistant when Bobby was a coordinator, a coordinator when Bobby was head coach. They were a great team, the two of them. Hes an unbelievable coach, Bobby says. A great motivator. His style, his aggressiveness, the way he goes about his business on the practice field. I wish I was with him every day. But Paul and his wife, Maya, had a timetable. By the time the twins were ready for high school, hed have a team to run. We missed it by a year, Paul says.When Spear called in 2013, Paul remembered Idaho as the friendly place hed left two decades before. And sure, the students still hang out at the beer bars along Main Street and play Frisbee on the lawn that runs the length of campus. But college football had changed irrevocably, and it left Idaho behind. The Kibbie Domes 16,000 capacity is the FBSs second smallest, about one-seventh the size of Michigans Big House. Ticket sales when he arrived grossed less than $500,000, compared with top programs that were making more than $30 million. Morale was low; the teams GPA was lower. I didnt know it was going to be as hard as it was, Paul says. Its been as hard as anything you ever do in your life.At Louisville and Arkansas, the Petrinos set their sights on becoming No. 1. That isnt happening at Idaho. At best you go to a bowl, which the Vandals have done twice before this season, in 1998 and 2009. Each time, they traveled to Boise for the Humanitarian Bowl, where they dont exactly hand out leis. This year, after an 8-4 finish, the Vandals again headed to Boise, to the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on Thursday. A real bowl experience, the kind you tell your grandkids about, was Pauls goal.So when university president Chuck Staben summoned him to break the news about the FCS, Paul took it hard. Hed come here to be a [FBS] coach, Maya says. Then he heard his fathers words. Pauls own son, one of those twins, is playing for him at Idaho. The other twin, his daughter, plays softball at Montana, which in the scheme of things isnt far.dddddddddddd And although Bobby would hire him back in a heartbeat -- Louisvilles current offensive coordinator makes nearly $200,000 more than Pauls $417,000 salary -- Paul looks in the mirror and sees a head coach.He leaned forward and told his president: Then I will win you a national championship in the FCS.MAKE THE BIG TIME where you are. Jurich understands. They thought hed lost his mind in 1997 when he left Colorado State, and a stable home in the Western Athletic Conference, for Louisville. The phone calls I got, he says, shaking his head. Tom, youre going to the graveyard.When Jurich arrived, the Cardinals played in something called Conference USA, which was a step up after two decades of no conference. In its last home game of 1997, Louisville had drawn 12,850, less than the crowd at the season-ending game at Idaho that year.Now it has a $94 million athletic budget. Earlier this year, it fit a record 55,642 fans into Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium for the Florida State game. Construction on a $55 million addition began as soon as the regular season ended. This past summer, Petrinos contract rolled into a seven-year extension that could pay him more than $30 million.Three years ago, Louisvilles baseball team reached the College World Series, womens basketball played in the NCAA final, the men won a national championship and the football team beat Florida in the Sugar Bowl. The ultimate validation of an FBS title wont happen this year after that unexpected loss at Houston. But this seasons heights -- a lofty ranking, a Heisman for Jackson -- only reaffirm that the Cardinals are on the precipice of college footballs upper echelon. Jurichs vision is confirmed, and the financial commitment will continue to strengthen. Were close, Petrino says. Were right there.At first glance, Idaho seems like the outlier. In reality, its Louisville that has capitalized on a singular situation, one that isnt likely to be replicated. Jurich, who might be the best athletic director in America, saw potential in a metro area of 1.2 million. The city had no big league franchise, which meant that the Cardinals could be the outlet for civic pride. If the NBAs Grizzlies had moved to Louisville instead of Memphis in 2001, notes Larry Benz, the chairman of the universitys board of trustees, there probably wouldnt have been enough oxygen left to start the fire.For years, Louisville had been a commuter school, so the wealthy businessmen and lawyers with U of L degrees had mostly grown up in town. They were locals who stayed local, creating a rich donor base. (One donor alone, John Schnatter of Papa Johns, has given more than $27 million to the school, apart from his pizza chains sponsorship contracts. And he isnt even an alum.)Still, little would have happened if the administration hadnt been set on building a winner, whatever the cost. The president gave me free rein, Jurich says, the flexibility that I needed.He hired John L. Smith, whod made his name at Idaho, beating Boise State all those years. Smith commandeered Petrino to run the offense. With Chris Redman throwing 45 passes a game, the Cardinals lit up Thursday nights. People in this town criticized us severely, Jurich says. What are you doing playing on a weeknight? Saturday afternoons at 4 is when we play. But if you want to build a program, you have to do it this way.Petrino stayed a year, then kept climbing. In 2003, after Smith bolted for Michigan State, Jurich offered to make Petrino a head coach. With Paul as his deputy, Bobby went 11-1 in 2004 and 12-1 in 2006. But soon he was gone again, despite a 10-year contract -- to the NFL and then Arkansas 11 months later.He stayed in Arkansas four years, making a bad team good. He might be there still if a motorcycle accident hadnt uncovered an affair with a young fundraiser in the football office. Arkansas fired him. In 2014, after his soft landing at Western Kentucky, Jurich came calling.To keep the engine of Louisville athletics humming, Jurich knew, he needed to win. Every school has to look at their mission statement, he says. What do they want to be? Where do they want to go? He gave Petrino a $3 million annual salary with a $450,000 payout for a national title. It was, everyone conceded, the going rate.ON A FRIDAY afternoon in Wenatchee, Washington, Scott Marboe throws a bag in the trunk and sets off toward Moscow. Its four hours of two-lane across the prairie, he says. But thats better than his friends journey from Boise: What they call the Goat Trail, along the Salmon River through the mountains and the snow.Marboes father played for Idaho. He did too. So did his son, though Louisville -- of all places -- recruited him. Marboe makes the trip for almost every home game. If hes going to travel that far, he wants to see top competition. When the decision was made to join the Big Sky, he felt angry. My friends feel the same, he says. Staben, Idahos president, heard it in the letters and emails he received from alumni: I will never go to another game.But Marboes are rare. Attendance at the Kibbie Dome remains disappointing; last season the Vandals ranked 123rd out of 127 in the FBS. As for road games, imagine the trip from Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport to San Marcos, Texas. Were going to Texas State in November, Staben says. I believe weve sold 28 of our allotted tickets. Even Marboe understands that the current situation is unsustainable. I dont want to see it, but I get it, he says. You cant win the arms race. Not at Idaho.The cost of doing business at college footballs highest level has led athletic departments deep into the red. They compensate by dipping into general funds, taking money meant for academic scholarships or concert halls, or with sponsorships and donations. Marboe and his buddies give and give, but in the end it makes little difference. We dont have a Papa Johns, Marboe says. We dont have a booster like Boone Pickens to come in and write a check, as Pickens did for his own alma mater, Oklahoma State. Wish we did, but we dont.Big Sky schools, Staben argues, dont need Boone Pickens. According to the NCAAs Report on Finances, the median cost of a student-athlete is $110,000 in the FBS but under $40,000 in the FCS. FCS teams sacrifice TV money and the chance for high-payout games at places like USC and LSU. But their competition doesnt pay $1.5 million to offensive coordinators.And with Montana and other regional rivals back on the schedule, the casual fan has incentive to make the journey. Honestly, I couldnt even tell you where Troy State is, says Schlereth, who supports the move back to the Big Sky. Montana, Montana State, Idaho State, those are big to me. Two years ago, the Vandals basketball team won a stirring double-overtime game against the Grizzlies. On the way out, Spear was accosted by a man in a Montana jacket. This is why you need to be in our league, he told Spear. You see how fun this was?Paul Petrino appreciates the emotion inherent in Big Sky showdowns. He just didnt sign up to coach them. Idaho couldnt have landed him, Spear understands, if it already had decided to drop down. Now who knows how long hell stay? Winning under these circumstances is likely to make Petrino a coveted property, especially after making Idaho bowl-eligible. Thats pretty amazing, Jurich says.But if Petrino has national aspirations, he wouldnt have stayed long in Moscow anyway. In that sense, Staben believes, hes doing Petrino a favor. In the Big Sky, he can amass a gaudy record. Hes not going to get the Louisville job by winning half his games at the University of Idaho, Staben says.One recent night, with winter in the air, Paul arrives at a barbecue joint off Main for his weekly radio show. Spear has shown up too, and a few boosters in Vandals sweatshirts, and drinkers at the bar who were there when everyone arrived and will remain when theyre gone.The UL Lafayette game is Saturday. Most of the listeners probably cant envision Lafayette, Louisiana, but Paul plays it up like Ohio State-Michigan. Soon Maya comes in with their 9-year-old, Ava, known for racing down from the stands to give her father a hug, win or lose. Thats part of the payoff, people like to believe, of coaching at a place like Idaho.Idaho was the first university to fully realize the cost of such intimacy. The difficulties of competing in the FBS make it probable that others will follow. Since the WACs Brigham Young in 1984, no school from outside a current Power 5 conference has won a national title. So if they have no chance of winning, why invest so much in the effort?Paul Petrino has no answers. Soon, though, hell need to decide how much those hugs are worth and whether his career path will follow his fathers or his brothers. He spots Maya and Ava and sends them a smile, then looks them toward an empty table. Throughout the course of your life, you end up in different places, not always by your choice, he says. Wherever it is, you make the best of it. If thats a half-full barbecue joint on a cold night in Idaho, well, its his big time for now. ' ' '