It's a move that would've made Deion proud. Just six days after he and his Mississippi State Bulldogs lost to Texas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Michael Gholar donned football pads and made five tackles in MSU's first spring scrimmage. Not bad considering the 6'5", 215-pound small forward had last played football five years ago in the Alabama/Mississippi All-Star Classic.

Two days after his basketball season -- and career at MSU -- ended, Gholar met with Bulldog football coach Jackie Sherrill, who had been trying to goad the defensive standout onto the gridiron for two years. This time, though, Gholar wasn't a tough sell.

"It is something I always wanted to try," says the 24-year-old, who retains one year of football eligibility. "The coaches just weren't sure when I'd be ready for contact. But I was ready. I knew I could deal with it. I miss the hitting."

So with one practice under his belt and a limited knowledge of the Bulldogs defense in his head, Gholar suited up at free safety and surprised the coaches with how easily he made the transition. "We like him a lot," says secondary coach Curley Hallman. "He's got excellent range and some real explosion. He is a little bit of a long strider and he has a ton of fundamentals to work on, but he is a guy who just naturally takes to the work and he bubbles over with character."

Hallman's instructions to Gholar were pretty simple: "You'll either be playing cover-3 or you'll be in man, so just figure out who you're supposed to have. Just react and play."

Gholar showed the agility you'd expect from a guy who made 28 steals this season and was talented enough to get invited to the NBA draft camp at Portsmouth, Va. "I have to play D on a lot of quick guards so that helps me move my feet and making tackles," he says. Now, he'll need to dive into the playbook because at blitz-happy MSU, free safeties not only need to know their role, they need to understand which Dawg safety or linebacker is blitzing so they can pick up that defender's man. "He'll have to know a lot of trigger words that'll tell him who's blitzing and recognize the formations," explains Hallman.

Gholar was planning on competing in the NCAA slam dunk contest this weekend in Atlanta at the Final Four, but he decided to skip it because of his budding football career. "We have another scrimmage right before and I think my legs would be real sore," he says.

· Year II for Dennis Franchione at Alabama has gotten off to an encouraging start on the field. Fran moved Marvin Brown, a punishing blocker who struggled to pick up the system, to MLB, where the 6'0", 259-pounder has been levelling anything that moves this spring. He also has created the A-back position to take advantage of the Tide's depth at TB, while covering up some of the team's dearth of proven receivers. The tweak means Texas Tech transfer Shaud Williams and speedster Ray Hudson will both see action as a hybrid slot back-tailback. Fran says he hopes the A-back will create matchup problems because of its dynamic nature.

"The vogue defense of the year last year was that 30-front (three down linemen) with six DBs and guys blitzed out of it. We think if we disguise things of where the A-back's lining up we should have some success," Franchione says.

Another positive sign has been the development of former hotshot QB recruit Brodie Croyle. The 6'3", 200-pound redshirt freshman probably won't overtake Tyler Watts -- at least not when Bama opens the season -- but by midseason, things could be interesting in Tuscaloosa. "He can be a great one," says Franchione. "He's got a live arm and is very athletic. He's a natural. I think he'll be ready sooner than we expected."

For now, Franchione says Croyle still needs to get a better grasp of the offense and develop a better internal clock. "I tell him, 'You've got three alligators and then you better do something with it because I'm a lot better calling plays at 2nd-and-10 than I am with 2nd-and-18."

· Darian Durant -- who played brilliantly as a freshman QB for North Carolina, and then stunned everyone by announcing he was transferring from UNC because he was unhappy -- is still in Chapel Hill. The South Carolina native is finishing up the semester and weighing his options. As of now, he's considering a move to South Carolina or Central Florida, although a return to UNC is still a remote possibility.

Durant says he really misses not being out there with his teammates. "My dorm is right beside the practice field, so I hear all the horns and the whistles and the pads popping," he says. He plans on attending the Gamecocks spring game on April 13 and is still hoping to get an offer from Lou Holtz' staff.

· With Arkansas on the eve of its spring football season, Jeb Huckeba is a guy who has Hog coaches jumping for joy. The former blue-chip recruit, who had a solid rookie season as a strongside OLB, has hit the weights hard and added 26 lbs onto his 6'4" frame -- he's no up to 233.

The added bulk should help Huckeba handle the move to MLB, where Hog DC Dave Wommack thinks he can be a superstar. "He's so instinctive and has so much range," says Wommack. "This is his natural position."

Huckeba, despite the weight gain, has actually trimmed a tenth of a second off his 40 time, clocking a 4.58.

·The bone spurs that plagued Texas star WR Roy Williams last season are gone. Williams, who still was one of the nation's 10 most dangerous wideouts even at 75% last season, had surgery in January and is already jogging and expects to be running at full speed by June.

Even though Williams never publicly complained about the ailment, it was pretty obvious he was struggling. One of his calves looked like a bowling pin. The other resembled a broomstick.

Bruce Feldman covers college football for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at bruce.feldman@espnmag.com.