BOSTON—Backup Kain Colter threw for 197 yards and ran for 71 more with a touchdown on Saturday to lead Northwestern to a 24-17 victory over Boston College in the season opener.Colter completed 17 of 24 passes and Northwestern won for the first time since Dan Persa ruptured his Achilles tendon last Nov. 13. Persa, who had been touted as a Heisman Trophy contender by the school, was a late scratch.Andre Williams, who replaced the injured Montel Harris, ran 22 times for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Luke Kuechly had 19 tackles, two for a loss, and an interception for BC,who brought the ball to the NU 19 with 18 seconds left before a false start moved them back and took 10 seconds off the clock. Chase Rettig was sacked by Vince Browne on the final play and remained on the field for several minutes.Ifeanyi Momah caught eight passes for 157 yards for the Eagles, but Nate Freese missed a pair of field goals. Rettig, a sophomore who took over as the started midway through last season, completed 24 of 44 passes for 375 yards with one interception, but he couldn’t find anyone open on the game’s final play.Persa led the nation in completion percentage and total offense last year before he had surgery on a ruptured Achilles tendon Nov. 13; Northwestern lost its final three games, including the TicketCity Bowl. Boston College was without Harris, the Atlantic Coast Conference preseason player of the year.Neither absence seemed like much of a setback.Harris’ replacement, Andre Williams, broke free for 69 yards on the first play from scrimmage. But BC settled for a field goal, and got nothing on its next trip inside the Wildcat 15 when Freese missed a 31-yard field goal.The Eagles made it 10-3 when Kuechly intercepted Colter and ran it back to the Wildcats’ 3 yard-line. After a penalty, Williams scored on a 6-yard run to give BC the lead. Colter tied it when he ran it in himself from 3 yards out to complete a 10-play, 80-yard drive just before the half and then led Northwestern on another just like it to start the second. Mike Trumpy scored on a 5-yard run to give the Wildcats a 17-10 lead, and they went up 24-10 on a perfect option pitch from Colter to Adonis Smith with 9:24 left.Rettig hit Momah for 38 yards to the 2, and two plays later Williams ran it in to make it 24-17 with 6 minutes left. But Northwestern stopped the Eagles on fourth-and-10 with under 3 minutes left, and by the time BC got the ball back there was 1:37 left and they were on their own 36.After an intentional grounding left the Eagles with third-and-16 from their own 30, Rettig brought them to the Northwestern 19 with 18 seconds left. But there was movement before the snap on the left side of the offensive line, resulting in a 5-yard penalty and a mandatory 10 second runoff from the clock.With 4 seconds left, Rettig rolled right but could not get rid of the ball before Browne steamrolled him to end the game.

CHAMPAIGN—Illinois started slow but used 100-yard receiving days from A.J. Jenkins and Darius Millines to open the season with a 33-15 win over Arkansas State on Saturday.Quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase threw for a career-best 267 yards. His 16 completions went to Jenkins, who had 11 catches for 148 yards and a touchdown, and Millines, who caught five balls for 119 yards and a score.Jason Ford rushed for 86 yards and two TDs for Illinois.The Red Wolves led 8-7 with less than three minutes left in the first half on a safety and a pair of field goals.But Illinois answered with Millines’ touchdown and a field goal before halftime. Jenkins scored his TD early in the third quarter.Arkansas State quarterback Ryan Aplin was 20 of 32 for 290 yards.

SOUTH BEND—Skip Holtz returned to a place that educated and shaped him. As soon as he reached campus, his memories from Notre Dame jumped out. And now he’s created an even more vivid one. Holtz and the South Florida Bulls came to South Bend and upset the 16th-ranked Irish 23-20 Saturday in a wild game that was twice disrupted by heavy storms.

“I don’t know if all that’s hit me yet. Notre Dame’s a special place,” Holtz said. “And it was great to come back.”

His dad, Lou Holtz, wasn’t there Saturday. But there were plenty of family members there to see one of Skip Holtz’s biggest wins.Lou led Notre Dame to its last national title in 1988. Skip graduated from Notre Dame, played a year for his father and then coached with him in South Bend. The weather wasn’t cooperating for this homecoming.Officials asked fans to leave the stadium at halftime because of severe weather, mostly lightning, and the teams then stayed in their locker rooms for 2 hours, 10 minutes until it cleared. South Florida led 16-0 at the time.Then with 4:21 to play, the game was delayed for 43 minutes and again fans departed the stadium with wicked lightning flickering around the stadium.Holtz praised his team’s poise.

“To have the kind of adversity they had to battle through and all the highs and lows of this day,” he said. “The weather, the two-hour halftime and everything we went through as a football team. It’s hard enough to come in here and play the tradition and for me a very emotional day to have the opportunity to come back, but to throw everything on top,” he said.

He also pointed to former South Florida athletic director Lee Roy Selmon, who is in a Tampa hospital after a stroke.

USF’s Kayvon Webster returned a fumble return 96 yards for a TD four minutes into the game, taking all the momentum from the Irish. They couldn’t recover. The score came after Notre Dame took the opening kickoff and drove smartly to the USF 1.What followed was a nightmare first half for the Irish that included two fumbles, a holding penalty that nullified a Cierre Wood TD run and then an interception of Dayne Crist by USF’s Devekeyan Lattimore in the end zone.
“The first half just a disaster. Period,” Wood said.Maikon Bonani kicked three field goals and the Bulls had a 16-0 halftime lead.Then things got even stranger.With the crowd getting restless over Notre Dame’s erratic play as the teams left the field for halftime, the storms moved in and officials asked fans to evacuate Notre Dame Stadium. The teams were kept in their locker rooms.When the Irish finally emerged, they had switched quarterbacks from Crist to Tommy Rees, who led them to four straight victories as the starter at the end of last season. Crist was 7-of-15 for 85 yards.

“We didn’t expect to have to make this move, obviously, so it’s going to require us to obviously evaluate the quarterback situation and make another decision,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said.

“This was a step back for us as it relates to where we thought we were going. We certainly did not believe or think that we would have to make the decision that we made today. ”

Right after the second delay late in the fourth quarter Jerrell Young intercepted Rees – Notre Dame’s fifth turnover of the game.Rees threw an 8-yard TD pass to Michael Floyd to cap a 99-yard drive with 21 seconds left as the Irish closed to 23-20. But USF recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock. Rees went 24-for-34 for 296 yards.With the delays, the game lasted 5 hours, 59 minutes.Rees also hit Floyd with a scoring pass in the third quarter and Cierre Wood’s 1-yard scoring run with 7:35 left made it 23-13 before the Irish failed to convert a 2-point attempt. Floyd, reinstated to the team last month following his suspension for drunken driving, made 12 catches and became the Irish’s career leader in receptions, passing Jeff Samardzija (179). Floyd now has 183.USF’s B.J. Daniels completed 18-of-30 for 128 yards and also carried 12 times for a net of 37.After a pass interference call in the end zone on Irish defensive back Gary Gray, Daniels threw a 2-yard TD pass to Evan Landi that opened up a 23-7 lead with 11 minutes left, capping a 14-play, 80-yard drive.The Irish moved from the 20 to the South Florida 1 on the opening drive as Wood went 31 yards with a swing pass from Crist on the game’s first scrimmage play and Floyd later grabbed a 26-yarder.Wood had four carries for 21 yards to get the ball to the 1, but his backup Jonas Gray fumbled near the goal line as USF’s Young stripped the ball. Webster picked it up and ran 96 yards down the sideline, a score upheld by video replay.Bonani hit a 49-yarder to put the Bulls up 10-0 and then USF threatened to pull way ahead. After back-to-back facemask penalties on Notre Dame safety and captain Harrison Smith, the Bulls had a first down at the Irish 5.But the Irish defense held and when Daniels was stopped on a third down from the 1 for no gain, the Bulls sent in Bonani for a 17-yarder that made it 13-0.Later in the first half, Riddick fumbled a punt and Victor Marc recovered for USF. Bonani hit again from 36 yards out and the lead was 16-0.After another Notre Dame series ended with an incomplete pass, Kelly could be seen on the sidelines in an animated discussion with the struggling Crist.Rees completed a 15-yard pass to Floyd early in the third to put the ball at the 5, but once again the Irish couldn’t convert. Rees’ pass intended for TJ Jones hit the receiver and deflected in the air, resulting in an interception by South Florida’s Michael Lanaris.That sent Kelly into a rage on the sideline as he lectured Jones.

“Danks wasn’t around the plate, and he was facing a pretty good hitting club that is swinging the bats well,” Ozzie Guillen said.The White Sox also trail second-place Cleveland by a game.

“We’re running out of games,” Danks said. “We have to at least win out against the Tigers and we’re still going to need some help.”

After Verlander needed just six pitches in the top of the first, Detroit staked him to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the inning.Austin Jackson led off with a single, took second on Ordonez’s groundout and scored on Delmon Young’s triple. Young came home on Cabrera’s RBI single, and Cabrera then stunned the sold-out crowd of 42,352 by stealing second base.That put him in position to score on Alex Avila’s single.Against the overwhelming favorite to win the American League Cy Young award, Guillen knew the game was almost over after one inning.

“When it is 3-0 in the first inning against that guy, you’ve got a pretty rough slope to climb,” he said.

Guillen was right, as the score remained 3-0 until the bottom of the fifth, with the White Sox only putting one runner in scoring position.Brandon Inge led off Detroit’s fifth with a single, and scored on Jackson’s ninth homer of the season.A single and two walks loaded the bases with two outs, and Guillen pulled Danks in favor of Josh Kinney. The move didn’t pay off, as Jhonny Peralta lined a bases-clearing double to give the Tigers their eight-run lead.Tyler Flowers broke up Verlander’s shutout with a 425-foot homer on the first pitch of the eighth, and the Sox loaded the bases with one out before Joaquin Benoit came out of the bullpen. Paul Konerko flew out to left, and A.J. Pierzynski lined out to Cabrera at first.

NOTES—Leyland joined Sparky Anderson (1,331), Hughie Jennings (1,131), Bucky Harris (516) and Steve O’Neill (509) as 500-game winners with Detroit. “That’s something you focus on more with your family, but it is something I’m proud of — being only the fifth person to do that in over 100 years of baseball in Detroit,” Leyland said….Tigers reliever Alberto Alburquerque is expected to throw an inning for Triple-A Toledo on Saturday before rejoining Detroit. Alburquerque has been sidelined with a concussion since being hit with a liner in batting practice on August 12….Eduardo Escobar made his major-league debut, replacing Alexei Ramirez at shortstop in the seventh inning. Shane Lindsay, the first Australian to play for the White Sox, started his career by pitching the eighth…..Verlander has thrown at least six innings and 100 pitches in all 30 starts this season….The teams play again Saturday afternoon, with Detroit’s Brad Penny (9-10) against Gavin Floyd (12-10).

Brian Burres failed to make the Pittsburgh Pirates out of spring training, then struggled in the minors. He kept working, and was rewarded Friday.Burres pitched into the sixth in his first start of the season and Alex Presley had two triples, leading the Pirates to a sorely needed 3-1 victory over the Cubs.Presley reached four times and scored twice as Pittsburgh snapped a five-game losing streak. Josh Harrison doubled, singled and scored twice.Burres (1-0), who was promoted from Triple-A Indianapolis on Thursday, allowed one run and five hits over 5 1/3 innings. The left-hander started on short notice after Jeff Karstens was scratched with what the team is calling “fatigue.” It’s been a rough season for Burres, who went 4-5 with a 4.99 ERA in 20 games, 13 starts, for Pittsburgh last year. He had a 5-9 record and a 4.66 ERA with Indianapolis when he was promoted.The 30-year-old Burres said it was nice to get a win in his return to the majors.Four Pirates relievers combined for 3 2/3 perfect innings, with Joel Hanrahan picking up his 33rd save in 36 chances. Jason Grilli got the last two outs of the sixth, Chris Leroux pitched the seventh and Jose Veras worked the eighth before Hanrahan struck out two in the ninth.Carlos Pena went deep for the Cubs, who have lost nine of 12. The first baseman now has at least 25 homers in five straight seasons and six times overall in his career.Ryan Dempster (10-11) worked out of a couple of early jams and held Pittsburgh to three runs and seven hits over 6 1/3 innings. He struck out nine, two shy of his season best, and threw a season-high 121 pitches.Pena connected in the second, hitting a drive to the deepest part of center field to give the Cubs the lead.Pittsburgh responded with two in the third. Presley led off with a triple off the right-field wall and Harrison followed with a single to right. Garrett Jones added a two-out RBI double.Neither team mounted much offense after that. The Cubs stranded two runners in the third and fourth. The Pirates didn’t threaten again until Presley’s one-out triple in the seventh chased Dempster. Presley scored on Jose Tabata’s two-out single off Kerry Wood.Presley became the first Pirate to record two triples in a game since Andrew McCutchen on June 8, 2009. He has five triples on the season.The only damper on the day for the Pirates came when McCutchen was hit in the left hand in the first inning. He remained in the game to run the bases, but was replaced by Tabata before the Cubs batted in the bottom half.The team said McCutchen does not have a fracture and is listed as day to day.

NOTES—The Cubs promoted 1B Bryan LaHair from Triple-A Iowa. LaHair’s 38 home runs for Iowa were leading the minor leagues.. The Cubs announced that Carlos Zambrano will not pitch for them again this season, even though his time on the disqualified list expires on Sept. 11.. Pirates 1B Derrek Lee (left wrist) took batting practice and the team hopes to activate him from the 15-day disabled list on Sunday if all goes well.. The Cubs will send RHP Casey Coleman to the hill on Saturday to face Pittsburgh RHP Ross Ohlendorf. Coleman has an 11.34 ERA in 19 2/3 innings at Wrigley Field this season.

Johnny Knox came up with an over-the-shoulder touchdown catch, and if he keeps it up he might regain his starting spot with the Bears.Either way, he figures the competition with fellow receiver Roy Williams won’t end soon. Knox made his scoring catch early on, backup quarterback Caleb Hanie looked sharp and the Bears closed out the preseason with a 24-14 victory over the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night. Jay Cutler watched from the sideline along with Williams and the rest of the skill-position starters, and the first-team offensive line joined them there after one series. Brian Urlacher and Julius Peppers never made it back onto the field after the pregame introductions, and the few defensive first-teamers that did play joined them there after one possession. The Browns went mostly with reserves, too, holding out quarterback Colt McCoy and pulling top pick Phil Taylor after the first quarter. Now, both teams can focus on the opener.The Bears will face a big challenge right from the start against Atlanta, with Cleveland going against Cincinnati. With both teams taking the cautious approach, this was a night for backups to shine and Hanie and Knox took advantage.They connected on a 19-yard touchdown on the Bears second possession, with Hanie lofting the ball over two defenders and Knox making the catch in the left corner of the end zone, drawing an ear-to-ear grin from coach Lovie Smith while boosting the lead to 10-0. Hanie started the game by leading the reigning NFC North champions on a 76-yard drive that ended in a 22-yard field goal for Robbie Gould, and he wound up completing 7 of 10 passes for 83 yards on two possessions before Nathan Enderle took over.Knox made the most of his brief appearance, with two catches for 33 yards – not bad for a guy who got dropped from the No. 1 spot. That happened after the Bears signed Williams, hoping he could show some of the form that made him a Pro Bowl receiver in Detroit under Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz. Instead, he’s struggled in the preseason after failing to deliver in Dallas the past 2 1-2 years.Former Ohio State star Dane Sanzenbacher did little to hurt his case for a roster spot with four catches for 50 yards. An undrafted rookie, he did muff a punt but recovered it. For Chester Taylor, it wasn’t a great night. Widely believed to be on the way out, he started and carried 10 times for 27 yards in what might be his last appearance for the Bears. He didn’t play the previous week at Tennessee and left Bears headquarters on Monday after a meeting with Smith thinking he had been cut.The deadline to cut the roster to 53 is on Saturday, and there’s a good chance Taylor will be gone. Smith quickly walked away from the podium before a follow-up question could be asked.Whether he stays or goes, it’s been a wild week for Taylor. He appeared to get a possible reprieve when Kahlil Bell left the game with a right ankle injury in the first half, but Bell insisted it was only minor. He expects to practice on Monday.Where Taylor will be is another issue. He still thinks he can play, though. For Cleveland, Seneca Wallace started at quarterback for McCoy and struggled, going 4 of 9 with 52 yards.Jarrett Brown looked good, though, completing 10 of 15 passes for 92 yards. He hit Rod Windsor on a 38-yard TD early in the fourth quarter that pulled Cleveland within 17-14 but also threw an interception. Armond Smith, trying to make the roster, had a 6-yard TD run late in the first half and finished with 47 yards on 11 carries. Quinn Porter, who’s also hoping to survive the cut, had 17 yards on five attempts.

NOTES—Besides Bell, the Bears also lost backup safeties Craig Steltz (hip) and Chris Conte (concussion) to injuries. They expect to be ready for the opener. … Even though he had four penalties, Browns CB James Dockery got an endorsement from Shurmur. “I like the way he plays and I like the way he challenges and at times when you are challenging receivers those kind of things happen,” Shurmur said.