Sam Keller's whirlwind week found him with new teammates on the Nebraska practice field Thursday. A week ago Keller was Arizona State's starting quarterback. Thursday, he was wearing a green No. 5 practice jersey and preparing to lead the Cornhuskers' scout team. "A lot of things happened really fast, back-to-back-to-back," Keller said. "It came at me really quick, so I had to have my head on straight. It's been fun, though. Once I get settled in here, it's going to be a nice deal."

Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter abruptly changed his mind and decided to make sophomore Rudy Carpenter the Sun Devils' starting quarterback. Senior Sam Keller, named the starter Friday, was excused from the Sun Devils' practice Sunday night and is considering transferring to another school. "It's simple. I made a mistake on the quarterback situation and I'm changing my mind," Koetter said after Sunday's workout. "We're going to start Rudy Carpenter. I've excused Sam Keller from practice to consider his options."

Notre Dame is looking into whether student-athletes, including football and basketball players, violated NCAA rules with comments promoting a local sports talk show on the CBS affiliate here. John Heisler, Notre Dame's senior associate athletic director, said Saturday he became aware of possible violations when contacted Friday afternoon by a reporter for The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne. Heisler said the school has not seen the spots, promoting "Sports Dogz" on WSBT-TV, so it does not know if it violates NCAA rules. "We're just trying to figure out what this is," he said. "I don't know if we know for sure it's an NCAA violation."

For the first time since 1998, Ohio State is preseason No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25. "Around here, whether you're high in the polls or not, the expectations are still the same," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said in a telephone interview.

USC receiver Dwayne Jarrett will not miss a game for failing to pay full rent on an apartment he shared with Matt Leinart after the NCAA on Wednesday reinstated the All-American's eligibility. Jarrett was declared ineligible earlier this summer when the NCAA determined he received an extra benefit because Leinart's father paid the balance of the rent on an apartment that cost $3,866 a month.

Despite having to replace nine starters on defense, Ohio State on Friday was named the No. 1 team in the USA Today preseason college football poll. Coming off a 10-2 record and a Fiesta Bowl victory over Notre Dame, the Buckeyes received 28 of 63 first-place votes and 1,487 points from Division I-A coaches. Ohio State has to overhaul its defense with the graduation of several stars, including the entire starting linebacking trio of A.J. Hawk, Bobby Carpenter and Anthony Schlegel. Defending national champion Texas (13-0) is second after receiving 11 first-place votes and 1,378 points.