Catching up prefers the 45-yard line

Oh what a surprise: Former big-time QB recruit Paul Jones is done at Penn State:

Paul Jones, a quarterback-turned-tight end, has left Penn State's football team for personal reasons, according to coach Bill O'Brien.

"He will no longer be on the Penn State football team," O'Brien said before Wednesday's practice.

Jones was a top-10 quarterback recruit a couple years ago, redshirted as a freshman, was academically ineligible as a redshirt freshman and then got passed on the depth chart at the end of fall camp by freshman Steven Bench, which resulted in a move to tight end that probably wasn't a great sign for his future. That said, he and Bench were the only quarterback-type guys on the roster; when Matt McGloin leaves after this season, the depth chart will consist of Bench, incoming freshman Christian Hackenberg (a borderline five-star) and air. So the quarterback depth will be basically like every other position's depth at Penn State, which is to say nonexistent.

Standard Penn State-departure-upshot paragraph: They're now down 13 scholarship players, none of whom can really be replaced in recruiting since the classes are limited to 15 guys and about that same number will be graduating each year. According to Black Shoe Diaries, they'll be at 56 returning scholarship players (plus recruits) entering 2013, and they'll probably be under the NCAA-mandated 2014 limit of 65 just due to standard attrition (like what happened with Jones). In other words, Penn State might have about 50 players by 2017.

Speaking of Penn State: Matt McGloin NO LIKE STANDARD QUESTION:

McGloin took … well … offense to a question about the offense near the end of his weekly teleconference with reporters Wednesday.

The exchange went as follows:

Reporter: “Matt, is this offense better than last year's?”

McGloin: “(Laughs.) What kind of a question is that, man? You can't compare the two. It's two different philosophies. The coaches have done different things. All I'm saying is that I'm happy to be in this offense this year. This is where I'm at and we're doing a great job with it so far.

“Who asked that question?” he added. “Who asked that question?”

Reporter: “Josh. Josh Moyer of Nittany Nation.”

McGloin: “Come on, dude, asking stuff like that. (Pause.) All right, we're done here.”

I don't get it. "Is this offense better than last year's?" seems like a totally reasonable and answerable question that can't possibly be the most outrageous thing Matt McGloin has been asked in the past six months considering ... well ... ya know.

No more Paddle People: The crazies in the Oklahoma State student section with ginormous paddle-type things haz a sad:

@bchatmon Big 12 has passed a new rule and will not allow us to paddle once QB is set.
— OSU Paddle People (@OSUPaddlePeople) September 28, 2012

Also disallowed by the Big 12: clapping, yelling, hollerin', standing, sitting, etc. Lame.

Playoffs playoffs talkin' bout playoffs (kind of): There's apparently been some progress on that hypothetical seventh BCS-type bowl, which will probably part of the playoff rotation and will definitely provide some additional access for everybody outside the five major conferences since that was the point of adding it:

Industry sources told CBSSports.com that the as-yet unsold, unnamed bowl would be worth approximately $20 million in the TV market, $60 million less than the top tier Rose and (pending deal with the) Champions bowl. But the money is less of a factor than the new bowl's creation itself, which will give access to the five current non-BCS conferences, including the Big East, beginning with the first playoff year in 2014.

BCS commissioners said last week they would consider adding a seventh bowl to the current six-bowl rotation.

It hasn't been determined how the $20 million would be split between the highest-ranked non-BCS school and a supposed runner-up from a major conference. What the commissioners are considering is essentially legitimizing the reconfigured Big East going forward with a bowl that sources say will be part of the national semifinal rotation as well.

Upshot: The Big East, Mountain West, etc., will have direct access to something resembling a BCS bowl (with the opponent being a major-conference runner-up) but will get less money than the legit conferences since the bowl itself will be worth less via its partnership with a bunch of non-legit conferences. Fair enough. It's probably appropriate that the Rose Bowl and Champions Bowl will be pulling in way more than the Orange Bowl (which will have the ACC champion and either Notre Dame or a major-conference runner-up), which in turn will be pulling in about twice whatever this new bowl will be pulling in. BTW, assuming the Champions Bowl ends up rotating between the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar Bowl (as rumored), the Chick-fil-A Bowl (probably) and Unnamed New Bowl will represent the remainder of the seven-game field. It's unknown as of right now whether either of the latter two games will have contractual tie-ins with specific conferences for their runners-up, although ESPN is reporting that Unnamed New Bowl will "likely" feature a team from either the Big 12 or Pac-12.

Also unknown: How is a two-semifinals-into-seven-sites rotation gonna work? I'm guessing the Rose Bowl and Champions Bowl will end up hosting a game one of every three years or something since they've both indicated that they'd prefer that in order to make more money from their non-playoff TV deals, which is absurd.

Of course: Harvey Updyke surrendered this week for psychological testing after a bond hearing was requested due to his "confrontation" (presumably with an eagle or perhaps an oak tree) at a hardware store. I'm far less surprised that he needs psychological testing than that the state of Alabama just figured out that he needs psychological testing. I mean, seriously. Srsly.

Way to paint: This is the field at Minnesota-Crookston:

Derp.

It's funny because it's true: This is from The Onion but could be from anyone who has watched ESPN in the last two years:

It remains unclear whether ESPN college football analyst Lou Holtz went on a lengthy, bigoted tangent against Muslims during an on-air segment, sources at the network reported earlier today.

“From what I could tell, he either said something derogatory about Muslims or just told me how much he likes roast beef,” said fellow analyst Mark May, who noted that Holtz kept spitting — apparently out of anger — throughout the incomprehensible diatribe.

The Onion wins. The Onion always wins.

The most disturbing thing ever: This is (a) Washington defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox and (b) now burned into my retinas:

I don't know, man. I don't even want to know.