Catching up ain't come to play school

OK, Big Ten: There won't be any suspension for the Michigan State eye-gouging thing because, according to the Big Ten, there was no Michigan State eye-gouging thing:

Michigan State offensive lineman Jack Allen will not face disciplinary action after an incident with an Ohio State player and is free to play Saturday against Indiana.

"Michigan State values and respects the Big Ten's sportslike conduct policy, and both parties take any alleged violations of the agreement very seriously," Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis said in a statement. "There are procedures in place to review any alleged violations of the policy. After a thorough review, the Big Ten has determined that MSU offensive lineman Jack Allen didn't violate the conference's sportslike conduct policy.

"As athletics director, I had an opportunity to be involved in this review process, and while his actions 'weren't a football play,' this clearly wasn't an eye-gouging incident."

OK, Mark Hollis. I saw what I saw. BTW, why is Mark Hollis (a) part of the review process and (b) making this announcement on behalf of the Big Ten?

Nick Saban loves offense: You've probably seen at least some part of this quote, which came out of the SEC coaches' teleconference this week and pretty much encapsulates Nick Saban:

"I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety," Saban said on today's SEC teleconference. "The team gets in the same formation group, you can't substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive and they're snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can't even get lined up. That's when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt when they're not ready to play.

"I think that's something that can be looked at. It's obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we're averaging 49.5 points a game. With people that do those kinds of things. More and more people are going to do it.

"I just think there's got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking is this what we want football to be?"

A few thoughts here. First: Yes. It's not what you want football to be but is definitely what some people (read: Chip Kelly) want football to be. Second: About 0.6 percent of all drives this season have featured 16 or more plays, and that has nothing to do with pace; players are actually gonna be on the field longer against an Alabama-style offense than an Oregon-style offense, albeit with more substitutions. Third: How can that "be looked at"? There's no way to put a limit on play frequency without mandating a specific amount of stoppage time before the ball is whistled ready for play, which would totally alter fourth-quarter playcalling in any hypothetical game that isn't a blowout and significantly alter the actual amount of football being played in all games. I mean, players would be safer if there were only one series per quarter, but that wouldn't constitute much of a game. Fourth: I'm skeptical that Nick Saban is legitimately concerned about player safety or "fairness." That is all.

Woo Los Angeles football: T.J. Simers (of the L.A. Times, which isn't even covering USC practices anymore since Lane Kiffin is either a giant douche or a turd sandwich) put on his snarky hat for this column that verifies the Times' desire to never have a credential to a local football game ever again:

You have to admire the way Mora sent the traditional "it's us against them" football message to his team. ... He berated an unassuming sports information assistant in front of the whole team for allowing a TV cameraman to stand in the wrong place.

In doing so, he gave the sports information assistant an earful of some very impressive obscenities, which of course the young players would expect from their demanding leader.

Then Mora forced the guy to make the walk of humiliation off the practice field.

It's what we've come to expect from our really good college coaches as they set out to make men out of the kids in their programs.

And you know the Bruins had to just love it, with UCLA fans no doubt also admiring Mora's drive to be the very best at whatever the cost of human dignity.

That's when a program knows it has the right guy, or as Mora put it: "I'm not going to jeopardize what we're doing as a football team because of the incompetence of some people."

I think it's pretty well understood football is the most important thing going on at UCLA, and every man, woman and child needs to understand that.

It continues along the same vein for about another thousand words, most of which are hilariously snarky and all of which are correct.

No way! Five Missouri players, including uber-freshman Dorial Green-Beckham, were suspended Thursday for this week's game against Vandy for getting caught smoking pot. Details:

The players were sitting in a white Lincoln Navigator in a parking lot near Memorial Stadium shortly before midnight when a patrol officer approached and smelled marijuana. Green-Beckham was the driver, Capt. Brian Weimer said.

That story is every story about every football player ever charged with pot possession.

Maybe if your team wasn't so bad: Charlie Weis is shocked and appalled that Kansas is getting coverage representative of its suckiness:

Team slammed by our own school newspaper. Amazing! No problem with opponents paper or local media. You deserve what you get! But, not home!
— Coach Charlie Weis (@CoachWeisKansas) October 4, 2012

Critical? Yes. Inaccurate? No.

The best tweet ever: Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones' inability to spell his own first name largely explains this tweet, which has since been deleted along with his entire account:

Ummm ... yeeeaaahhh. Classes are probably pointless for Braxton Miller. Classes are not pointless for third-stringers who will almost definitely actually need a degree at some point yet apparently lack basic grammatical and decision-making skills. Exception: the SEC, where classes aren't really classes and thus probably are pointless.

The best picture ever: This is almost a week old now. It doesn't matter.

I have nothing to add.