College football notebook

MIAMI: Miami running back Javarris James is expected to play Saturday against Duke after missing four games with a high left ankle sprain. James, the Hurricanes’ first-string tailback entering the season, had 84 total yards and two touchdowns in the season-opening win against Charleston Southern. He got hurt after just two carries for 4 yards the following week at Florida and hasn’t played since. James practiced with tape over the outside of his cleat Tuesday, helping to protect him from rolling the ankle again.

OHIO STATE: Ohio State defensive end Lawrence Wilson will undergo surgery for torn ligaments in his left knee and will miss the rest of this year. Coach Jim Tressel announced Wilson’s injury during his news conference on Tuesday. Wilson missed all of last season with a broken right leg. The 6-foot-4, 274-pound junior from Akron, was injured in the Buckeyes’ 16-3 victory over Purdue on Saturday. He was the sixth-leading tackler for the Buckeyes (6-1, 3-0 Big Ten) with 18, including 2½ tackles for a loss with one sack.

PENN STATE: For weeks, Joe Paterno has called the injury that has kept him off the sideline a problem with his right leg. On Tuesday, he suggested it might be an issue with his hip. “Can’t we talk about the football team and not me for crying out loud?” Paterno implored Tuesday after the last of the now-weekly inquiries about his health. He walked into the Beaver Stadium media room quickly with the help of a cane but still with a pronounced limp, as he did last weekend after the win at Wisconsin. There’s little time for rest with tricky games against Michigan, Ohio State and Michigan State still looming, so the 81-year-old Paterno is dealing with his sore body on the fly. Instead of barking at players or offering encouragement by jogging all over the field at practice, he now surveys practice from a golf cart. Instead of pacing the sidelines in his trademark khakis and black sneakers, Paterno has spent the last two contests in the press box, communicating via a headset.

TOLEDO: Two Toledo players arrested outside a bar just hours after the Rockets beat Michigan on Saturday will not start this weekend against Northern Illinois. Wide receiver Nick Moore, who caught 20 passes for 162 yards in the 13-10 victory over the Wolverines, was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Police said the senior and team captain was involved in a fight. Defensive end Albertson Alexandre was charged with obstructing official business, also a misdemeanor.

NEBRASKA: It’s been a long time since Nebraska coach Bo Pelini has been part of a team that lost three games in a row. He doesn’t like the feeling. The Cornhuskers (3-3, 0-2 Big 12) go into Saturday’s game at Iowa State with consecutive losses to Virginia Tech, Missouri and Texas Tech. Three-game losing streaks are nothing new for the Huskers in the 21st century. They lost five in a row in 2007 and three in a row in both 2005 and 2004. But Pelini, in his first year as Nebraska coach, hasn’t been with a team that’s lost three straight since he was linebackers coach with the New England Patriots in 1999.

BRIGHAM YOUNG: At first glance, BYU-TCU looks like a bad scrabble hand. But when the ninth-ranked Cougars take on the Horned Frogs Thursday night, it will have implications far beyond Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth. In terms of the Bowl Championship Series, it’s bigger than Florida State-Miami and Notre Dame-Michigan. Way bigger. BYU-TCU is another sign of a season that grows crazier by the week. TCU has already lost, at Oklahoma. That left the Mountain West with two cards to play in the BCS: BYU and No. 14 Utah. Those longtime rivals meet in the regular-season finale on Nov. 22 in Salt Lake City. If both the Cougars and the Utes are unbeaten heading into that game, it will amount to a BCS play-in. Winner probably goes to the Fiesta Bowl — or maybe the Rose.

GEORGIA: This used to be the laugher on the schedule, the game that was assigned to the win column before the season even began. But No. 10 Georgia is hardly expecting a walkover when it hosts Vanderbilt on Saturday, and that sense of caution has nothing to do with the number in front of the Commodores’ name. Vandy upset the Bulldogs in 2006 with a last-second field goal — between the hedges, no less — and Georgia needed a crucial defensive stop and a late kick of its own to knock off the Commodores a year ago. This time, the Commodores come in with a rare national ranking (No. 22) and looking to get over last week’s ugly loss at Mississippi State, which cost them a chance at matching their best start in 80 years.

Associated Press