CFB notebook: Zorich named Chicago State AD

Chris Zorich, who played defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears and Notre Dame, has been hired as athletic director at Chicago State. The 49-year-old Zorich, a native of Chicago, played on Notre Dame's 1988 national championship team and was with the Bears from 1991-96 before playing his last NFL season with the Washington Redskins in 1997. Zorich replaces interim athletic director Tracy Dildy and will start work next week, school officials said. Chicago State has been hit hard by budget problems in recent years and is looking for two new basketball coaches. Chicago State fired Dildy as men's basketball coach after a 3-29 season. Angela Jackson was let go after the women's basketball team suffered through an NCAA Division I record 59-game losing streak before beating Utah Valley on Feb. 8. Zorich most recently was athletic director at Prairie State, a community college in Chicago Heights. Zorich ran into financial difficulties after his NFL career and was sentenced in 2013 to three years of probation following a federal tax evasion conviction. --The New Era Pinstripe Bowl announced on Wednesday the ninth edition of the game will be played on Thursday, Dec. 27 at 5:15 p.m. at Yankee Stadium. This will be the fifth consecutive year that the game will feature teams from the Big Ten and ACC Conferences. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN and broadcast nationally and locally by ESPN Radio. The New Era Pinstripe Bowl was first played in 2010, when Syracuse defeated Kansas State, 36-34, and last year Iowa defeated Boston College, 27-20. Tickets for the game will go on sale to the general public later this summer at www.pinstripebowl.com and www.ticketmaster.com. --The University of Massachusetts extended the contract of football coach Mark Whipple through the 2020 season, the school announced. The 2018 season will be Whipple's 11th coaching the Minutemen and the fifth at the FBS level. "Mark is a true Minuteman having served our program as head coach in two different eras, for a combined 10 years," UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford said in a statement. "He has guided our young FBS program, through some challenging times the last four years but has positioned us well for our future." Whipple, 61, led Massachusetts to the NCAA Division I-AA (now FCS) title in 1998 and is the program's winningest coach with 61 victories. UMass entered the FBS level in 2014 in the Mid-American Conference but became an independent in 2016, finishing with a 4-8 record last season.