Ohio State might not be done just yet

Question of the day: When ESPN and Ohio State are telling two different stories, which one do you believe? That's particularly relevant given this potentially awesome news/rumor from Pat Forde:

The NCAA notified Ohio State by letter last week that it is still investigating other issues involving the program. The result could be a second notice of allegations and a second trip through the NCAA justice system.

Yay? Maybe:

OSU spokesman Jim Lynch said president Gordon Gee got a letter from the NCAA on Aug. 3 but that it said "absolutely nothing about additional allegations."

"The university has not received any additional allegations from the NCAA." Lynch said. "As a member institution, we are committed to working together with the NCAA to examine any information concerning potential violations of NCAA legislation. We do not anticipate discussing any additional allegations with the Committee on Infractions on Friday other than those self reported in March, 2011."

There's some impressive legalese in there, but before I get to that, let's back up a second: If Forde's right, this will be other shoe we've all been waiting for since ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, the Columbus Dispatch and every other media organization in the Western Hemisphere started uncovering piles of major violations. It didn't make a whole lot of sense when OSU reportedly was told just a couple weeks ago that there weren't "any new violations" and there was "no evidence that Ohio State failed to properly monitor its football program." Words like that seem to indicate a certain sense of finality that was hard to reconcile with what we were seeing with our own eyes.

This mostly buried sentence in the ESPN story provides a bit of explanation:

The July 21 case summary also addressed only the allegations related to the tattoo parlor -- no statement was made in the NCAA's 17-page report about the status of any the other allegations that have come forth since scandal erupted.

So there ya go* -- everything other than the TatGate stuff apparently was put on the backburner during the initial probe, and the July 21 report was referring ONLY to the previously recognized violations and not the overarching investigation.

But getting back to my "legalese" comment, the wording in Ohio State's statement is interesting (reading between the lines FTW). The school says that the letter didn't mention "any additional allegations," but it might have referenced an ongoing investigation, which is what Forde's saying. And the fact that OSU doesn't "anticipate discussing any additional allegations with the Committee on Infractions on Friday" is obvious; if there's more stuff being investigated, it would have to be encapsulated in a second notice of allegations, which would lead to another hearing with the Committee on Infractions and amended/additional penalties.

So the school's not really saying anything that directly disputes the ESPN report. What they're doing is public-relations damage control, which I imagine they've become quite good at over the past six months.

As for the rumored investigation, I'm reserving judgment until we see (a) what happens at the hearing on Friday and (b) if a second notice of allegations is issued in the relatively near future. My skepticism meter is set to "high" with regards to everything the NCAA does nowadays. But if the really shady stuff -- Pryor's loaner cars, all the Dennis Talbott shenanigans, the "missing" equipment, etc. -- ends up getting thrown into the investigation at some point and leads to a dragged-out case with truly meaningful penalties, it will restore about 1 percent of my faith in the oversight of college football. And that will bring it all the way up to 1 percent.

* I'm still a little confused about that "case report" from the TatGate stuff: Sending a letter that basically says "you're in the clear" while still investigating the most severe allegations seems more than a little disingenuous.

Catching up suffers untimely injuries

Travis Lewis has a broken foot: No bueno for Oklahoma, as preseason Big 12 defensive player of the year Travis Lewis broke his foot on the first day of practice in pads and will be out roughly two months.

I suppose it's better to have that kind of injury on the first day of camp rather than the last, but it's still problematic: Lewis has led the team in tackles in all three of his seasons and might be the best outside linebacker in the country (he's easily OU's best defensive player. There will be some significant depth-chart shufflin':

Stoops said sophomore Corey Nelson will take over Lewis' outside linebacker spot on the weak side. An experiment to move Tony Jefferson from the Sooners' hybrid nickelback/outside linebacker to free safety will end, and Javon Harris will move to the top of the depth chart at safety.

That's probably not exactly what Bob Stoops had in mind heading into a surprisingly difficult first month: Oklahoma plays at Florida State on September 17 and at home against Mizzou on September 24, and the Texas game is just eight weeks and four days away. The guess here is that if Lewis is anywhere close to 100 percent, he'll find a way to get on the field in Dallas. But that won't help against FSU, and heading into Tallahassee without one of the best defensive players in the country will be collar-tightening. We'll see how ready some of those young guys on defense are.

JoePa cheats death again, gets out of hospital: In case you missed it, Joe Paterno got bowled over on the sidelines at practice Monday (as he's been known to do) and was hospitalized, reportedly with a hairline fracture in his hip. Sadly, he's at the point where any sort of serious physical situation brings up talk about the end of his life rather than the end of his coaching tenure, but I guess that's the way it goes when you're 84. It sounds like he'll be fine going forward but might need a golf cart or wheelchair or perhaps a Hoveround (which you can now take to the Grand Canyon!).

Joe Schad from ESPN tweeted earlier today that Paterno prefers to be "in the middle of the action" and therefore plans to remain on the sideline, which is a little surprising but probably better for the program. It was an obvious distraction when all the talk was about him being in the booth as an almost-literal figurehead, although that's really all he's been for about a decade. At some point in the future, it'd make a lot of sense to give de facto coach Tom Bradley some sort of appropriate title and contract clause to guarantee that he keeps the job whenever JoePa ... ummm ... does what he's gonna do next.

But I'm under the assumption that he'll be running the program (more or less) until he's literally no longer capable of taking the field, especially as he continues to deflect attention from his health with spectacularly coach-speak-tastic comments like this:

"It's time for everyone to turn the attention to the team," Paterno said in a statement. "We have a lot of hard work ahead in order to be as good as we think we can be."

That's 50 years of media relations right there.

Ahhh, Vontaze Burfict: So ... Sports by Brooks reported the other day that Arizona State's Vontaze Burfict punched walk-on receiver Kevin Ozier last Wednesday as part of a " blindside attack" in the locker room after a pretty mild on-field practice incident between the two. ASU acknowledged that some sort of "altercation" happened but called the report "95 percent false": Their version of events is that Burfict said something to Ozier in the locker room, Ozier said something back, Burfict threw a punch that missed and then a bunch of teammates separated the two before anything crazy happened (which is a legitimate concern any time Burfict is involved).

If you've never met or been around Burfict, I can offer a little insight: He's absurdly intense and honestly wants to hurt people on the field, but he's eerily quiet off the field and has no interest in talking or socializing with anybody outside his small circle of high school buddies. He doesn't care if you want an interview or the school wants him at Event X -- if you're not his friend, you're nothing. The chances of him showing up at media day were zero.

With that out of the way, here's what I think: I wouldn't be surprised if Burfict jumped (depending on your definition of "jumped") Ozier in the locker room if he felt that he got disrespected or whatever. But if he actually landed a punch, it wasn't much of one: Ozier -- a 6-foot, 203-pound guy who's not exactly tiny -- was reportedly knocked "unresponsive" yet hasn't missed any practice time and hasn't shown any physical effects from a hypothetical fight. There's no way he was knocked out, so in that regard, the school's version of events is probably reasonably accurate.

And with that being the case, Burfict won't end up getting punished. Dennis Erickson seemed thoroughly unconcerned about the situation Monday (I think he waved the white flag on Burfict a long time ago), and the Arizona Republic reported via a source -- probably either Erickson or media relations director Mark Brand -- that the incident was "addressed" by ASU's senior leadership panel. If anything happened, we'll never know. The only tangible effect of whatever happened last week will be the official end of Burfict's media availability; I was told earlier this week by somebody who knows stuff that Burfict said he's "done" with interviews and the media in general. The NFL is gonna be rough on this guy.

Michigan to redshirt receiver Daryl Stonum: If you're familiar with the Daryl Stonum saga, you know that this has nothing to do with Stonum's play on the field and everything to do with his shenanigans off it. Stonum has been arrested twice on DUI charges and then failed to submit to probation-required testing in the spring, and that was pretty much the last straw -- he was suspended indefinitely, and it seemed pretty likely that his career was over.

Apparently he's been cleaning up his act since then, but Brady Hoke isn't Mark Dantonio and therefore wants to maintain some semblance of discipline within his program:

“While it would be great to have Darryl on the field this season, we feel it is in his best interest and the best interest of our program for him to redshirt,” Hoke said in a press release.

Stonum, Junior Hemingway and Martavious Odoms -- all of whom have very different skill sets -- rotated into the lineup last year depending on the formation (Roy Roundtree is the one guaranteed starter), so Stonum's absence won't be devastating as long as there aren't multiple injuries. There will have to be some adjustments, though, like Roundtree taking more snaps at wideout rather than in the slot, and depth is now a definite issue. After the obvious top three, there's a drop-off to the talented but inexperienced Je'Ron Stokes, the completely unknown commodity that is Jerald Robinson and a whole bunch of little slot guys.

Stonum is also a pretty good kick returner (just ask Notre Dame), but there a handful of guys who should be able to fill that role at least competently.

The silver lining for Michigan is that the 2012 depth chart at receiver was looking terrifyingly bare, with Hemingway, Stonum and Odoms all set to graduate and just the aforementioned mystery men as potential replacements. If Stonum can avoid doing anything dumb for the next year, he'll take care of at least part of that problem by stepping in as the clear-cut No. 1 guy at outside receiver for the undoubtedly awesome senior version of Denard Robinson.

Given his issues in the past year, the current receiver situation and the aforementioned 2012 black hole, the fact that he's still with the program -- and will be next year -- more than outweighs the disappointment of not seeing him on the field this year, which was basically a given after his string of stupid decisions.

Ohio State needs a quarterback: The realistic choices for OSU at quarterback this year are the following:

• True freshman Braxton Miller
• Senior Joe Bauserman, who has thrown 47 career mop-up-duty passes

When the team opened fall camp Monday, Luke Fickell made the shockingly honest admission that he hasn't seen much of either QB because he was busy in spring ball with coaching the linebackers, which was kinda his job at the time. Beat writer Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said the other day that Miller is "probably the most likely option," but he didn't offer any specific evidence other than this quote from Fickell after being asked whether he thinks Miller will be ready to play early:

"I hope so," Fickell said. "I think he has a lot of similar qualities to (Pryor) in what he can do as a football player."

That seems to be an endorsement, but it's not clear to what degree. And this has to sound utterly horrifying to anybody hoping to see a reasonably dangerous offense this year:

"I'm got most of the running plays down pat," Miller said. "The passing plays, I get confused sometimes on the routes because there's a lot of them."

Talented or not, that sounds to me like a guy who should probably (both for his sake and the team's) start his career on the sidelines. And I found it interesting that senior center Mike Brewster said he has "a good idea of who the quarterback will be" -- given Miller's extremely limited exposure thus far, it seems pretty doubtful that whatever he did in spring ball has been deemed by one of the senior leaders to be more impressive/significant than Bauserman's experience, even if most of it is irrelevant.

If I had to put money on it (and I'm glad I don't), I'd bet that Bauserman gets the starting job coming out of camp and holds onto it until either the offense becomes unwatchable or Miller shows enough potential in a part-time role to warrant handing him the reins.

Speaking of Ohio State quarterbacks: Terrelle Pryor (you know, that one guy who used to be at Ohio State but is now and forevermore a "fake Buckeye") still thinks he's gonna be eligible for the supplemental draft. ESPN reported Tuesday that Pryor plans to hold a pro day Friday -- with the Cowboys (obviously), Redskins and Browns interested in taking a look -- and that there will be a supplemental draft on August 17.

But wait:

Former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor's name was not on the first list of eligible players for the NFL Supplemental Draft, The NFL Network reported Tuesday.

The supplemental draft is the former Buckeye's only shot of gaining entry into the NFL this season after deciding to forgo his senior year in June.

The NFL is still assessing his situation, according to The NFL Network.

So yeah ... nothing has changed. If there's no ruling by next Thursday, the draft will go on and Pryor will be headed to Canada or the Arena League or somewhere equally irrelevant.

As for the supplemental draft, the only guy known to be on the list is Georgia running back Caleb King, who was declared academically ineligible back in June. He's probably a sixth- or seventh-round pick.

Texas is making bank: When the rest of the Big 12 bent over at the conference-realignment negotiating table in an effort to save itself from oblivion, the result was a weighted television contract that gave Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M the biggest chunk of the pie -- a guaranteed annual return of $20 million -- and left each of the other schools with around half that amount.

Then came the Longhorn Network, a looming inevitability and the thing that (according to Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott) kept Texas from bolting to help create the Pac-16 megaconference. Nobody knew exactly what the financial details looked like until this week, when everything came out as part of an open records request. The takeaway:

Texas receives $10,980,000 per year, with an annual increase of three percent. However, once ESPN recovers its initial $295 million investment, Texas receives 70 percent of the profit.

And boom goes the dynamite. Texas gets about $11 million a year right off the bat, and once ESPN recoups its investment a few years down the road, the school rakes in 70 percent (!) of the profit.

For comparison's sake, Notre Dame currently gets around $15 million annually (depending on which numbers you want to believe) from NBC, and the Big Ten Network dishes out about $22 million per school (that's after FOX takes its 50 percent cut but in addition to the $7 million each school gets from the ABC/ESPN deal). In other words, Texas will immediately be making more than any other school ($11 million + $20 million = $31 million) and will have filthy growth potential if the Longhorn Network is anywhere near as successful as the BTN. Hell, even if it's 10 percent as successful (just to pull a number out of my ass) and makes about $50 million a year instead of the roughly $500 million the BTN produces, that $50 million would equal a $35 million annual paycheck to the Texas athletic department on top of the $20 million from the Big 12's TV deal.

If you think this is great for Texas, you're right. If you think it's bad for the long-term viability of the Big 12 that one school can market its own rights and make three times what everybody else does, you're right (I don't think it would take much of a sales pitch from the SEC to get Oklahoma and A&M to jump ship and completely obliterate the conference). If you think Texas cares at all about the rest of the Big 12, you're wrong.

Why Stanford might suck (relatively)

OK, so let's start with a caveat: I didn't think Andrew Luck would be the awesomest quarterback in the history of awesome, and by proxy, I didn't think Stanford would go 11-1 last season after losing Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart to the draft.

The following not-so-memorable excerpts are from a post I authored last April titled "Let's settle down about Andrew Luck" (which pretty much says it all):

• I just think people are seriously jumping the gun if they're expecting him to become a dominant, top-tier QB this year.
• I'd bet dollars to doughnuts (mmmm, doughnuts) that Luck doesn't finish in the top 10 in pass efficiency this fall.
• I'd even go a step further and predict that he doesn't garner first- or second-team Pac-10 honors; I think those spots will go to Matt Barkley and Jake Locker (not necessarily in that order).

In summary: derp, derp and derp. He would have been the top pick in the draft by a mile had he left school, and this was after he finished third in the country in pass efficiency and was named the All-Pac-10 first-team quarterback. Good call, me.

So anyway, my recent record when it comes Stanford predictions is less than spectacular. But I have nothing against Luck -- I'm willing to recognize when I'm wrong, which is more than a lot of writers can say -- and this post really has nothing to do with him. It has a lot to do with the following two fellows:


The one on the left you might recognize as Jim Harbaugh, who is now running the San Francisco 49ers. The one on the right is Vic Fangio, who you probably don't recognize despite his role in Stanford's dominance last year as defensive coordinator. He's also now working for the 49ers.

David Shaw, who was the nominal offensive coordinator but reportedly didn't call plays (that task belonged to associate coach Greg Roman, who -- wait for it - is now with the 49ers), is the new head coach. So the guy who ran the show is gone, the guy who called the defensive plays is gone and the guy who called the offensive plays is gone. Wwwwhhheeeeeeeeee!!!

I'm actually not so concerned about Shaw taking over for Roman, mostly because (a) Luck really is the uber quarterback everybody makes him out to be and (b) having relative system continuity will be helpful. If Shaw is more competent than Cam Newton and can just read plays off the sheet on his clipboard, Luck can probably do the rest well enough to at least come close to replicating last season's numbers in yards (about 3,300) and touchdowns (32).

That's the good news on offense. The bad news is that three starting O-linemen have graduated, and so have top receiver Doug Baldwin and fullback (also linebacker) Owen Marecic. That's basically half the offense, including a bunch of the most relevant pieces. Chris Owusu is getting some pub as the next breakout receiver, but the guy has never been able to stay healthy and has all of 67 catches heading into his senior season. In other words, there's a good chance Luck's efficiency and the overall offensive production will both take a hit this season (although if he responds to my criticism the way he did last year, he might set the all-time efficiency record while throwing for 87 touchdowns).

But just for argument's sake, let's say the offense is similarly effective over the course of the season because Luck ascends to God-like status and wins the Heisman in his downtime between earning the Mr. World title and curing cancer (he's like the new Tim Tebow).

I say Stanford still won't go 11-1 or really come close to being as good as last year, and this is why:

2007: 98th, 65th
2008: 75th, 71st
2009: 90th, 69th
2010: 21st, 10th

Those were Stanford's rankings in total defense and scoring defense during Harbaugh's tenure. See that massive leap in 2010? That came immediately after the hiring of Vic Fangio, who had spent his career making buckets of money as an NFL defensive coordinator and/or associate head coach until Harbaugh lured him away from the Baltimore Ravens (and big brother's staff), presumably with the promise of lovely NorCal weather.

Just to expand on those numbers a bit, Stanford finished last season ranked 19th in rushing defense, 35th in passing defense, 16th in pass-efficiency defense and 15th in sacks. The previous year -- under D-coordinator Andy Buh -- those rankings were 55th, 90th, 98th and 78th. We're talking about a massive turnaround, the kind that doesn't just happen by Owen Marecic getting a little grittier or Sione Fua eating an extra bowl of whatever it is Samoan guys eat to acquire their ridiculous girth. Fangio was earning his (presumably large) paycheck.

In case you're wondering, the offensive numbers during that stretch were as follows:

2007: 107th, 105th
2008: 67th, 54th
2009: 19th, 11th
2010: 14th, 9th

As Stanford went from 1-11 to 5-7 to 8-4, it was pretty clear that Harbaugh's influx of talent, understanding of how to manage an offense and general golden touch were primarily responsible (quantifying things for a head coach who doesn't call plays is kinda difficult). He took Stanford from "really bad" to "pretty good" in three years -- but the offense was basically just as good in 2009 (when they went 8-4) as it was in 2010 (when they went 11-1), which was somewhat overlooked amid all the Luck-related fawning. The thing/person that took them from "pretty good" to "borderline elite" was Fangio. He came in and made the defense not only a non-embarrassment but a legitimate strength, and that was enough to make games against teams like Arizona and Cal blowouts rather than shootouts.

The new D-coordinators are former secondary coach Derek Mason and former 49ers linebackers coach Jason Tarver (oh, the irony), and to say that neither of them have Fangio's track record would be a hilarious understatement. Stanford's defense will be noticeably worse this season -- the question is whether it will be 2009 worse or somewhere closer to average.

When I started this post, my intent was to break it down into three overarching reasons as to why Stanford 2011 < Stanford 2010. Those reasons were going to be: Harbaugh, Fangio, loss of a bunch of starters. But really, there's no way to quantify Harbaugh's loss or the hypothetical drop-off to David Shaw (who is a complete unknown as a head coach), and the same holds true for the graduated players and their likely replacements. All we can do is say, "Well, it'll probably be tougher without a senior leader/two-way player, half the offensive line and a guy universally regarded as the most coveted coach in the country back in January. Duh."

But those things are secondary to my argument because of the numbers I pointed out above. The jump to overall awesomeness was primarily due to Fangio; he's gone now and can't be duplicated with two guys who have never even been D-I coordinators.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the schedule is pretty manageable this year -- there are only four games in which Stanford should be seriously challenged -- so the margin for error is wide. If the defense can sustain respectability and the offense can be something close to what it's been the last two years, 10-2 isn't an unreasonable goal and might be sufficient (depending on the two losses) to make another run at a BCS game, which wouldn't exactly qualify as "suck" like my headline implies. On the other hand, going back to crappiness on defense might be enough to flip those games against USC and Arizona and Notre Dame, and 8-4 is suddenly much less exciting after crushing fools en route to the Orange Bowl, hence "suck relatively."

Now that you made it all the way through this post, I'll summarize in five words: Vic Fangio gone, Stanford worse.

NOTE: This was the second post in a completely irregular series about randomly selected teams. Also see "Why Auburn won't suck."

Oh yeah, there's a poll

So I thought I posted this yesterday but apparently just saved it. Oops.

Anyway, the coaches have spoken:

1.	Oklahoma (42)	0-0	1454	6
2.	Alabama (13)	0-0	1414	11
3.	Oregon (2)	0-0	1309	3
4.	LSU (2)	0-0	1296	8
5.	Florida State	0-0	1116	16
6.	Stanford	0-0	1101	4
7.	Boise State	0-0	1065	7
8.	Oklahoma State	0-0	933	10
9.	Texas A&M	0-0	885	21
10.	Wisconsin	0-0	829	8
11.	Nebraska	0-0	814	19
12.	South Carolina	0-0	779	22
13.	Virginia Tech	0-0	767	15
14.	Arkansas	0-0	750	12
15.	TCU	0-0	687	2
16.	Ohio State	0-0	631	5
17.	Michigan State	0-0	536	14
18.	Notre Dame	0-0	440	NR
19.	Auburn	0-0	329	1
20.	Mississippi State	0-0	301	17
21.	Missouri	0-0	266	18
22.	Georgia	0-0	260	NR
23.	Florida	0-0	240	NR
24.	Texas	0-0	162	NR
25.	Penn State	0-0	161	NR

Others receiving votes: Arizona State 158, West Virginia 149, Utah 50, Miami (FL) 49, Iowa 41, Northwestern 30, Arizona 28, UCF 22, Michigan 19, Air Force 15, North Carolina 14, Houston 13, South Florida 9, Hawaii 8, Clemson 7, Tennessee 7, Southern Miss 6, Brigham Young 5, North Carolina State 4, Northern Illinois 4, Oregon State 4, Pittsburgh 3, Washington 3, Nevada 1, Georgia Tech 1.

Thoughts and observations:

• Whoa -- 42 first-place votes for Oklahoma? I figured they'd be No. 1, but I'm not really sure why Oregon didn't get more consideration after just obliterating everybody last year (except Auburn, obviously) and not losing many significant pieces.
• I'll be a little surprised if the winner of the Oregon-LSU game on September 3 doesn't jump Alabama (at least temporarily). Bama opens with ever-dangerous Kent State.
  
• I've gone on record as saying Auburn will be better than people think, but there's really no justification for having them in the top 25 right now, especially not at 19.
  
• There are three Big 12 South teams in the top 10, and Texas isn't one of them.
• Speaking of Texas, giving them a spot at the back end of the poll after they just went 5-7 seems ... ummm ... generous. I don't see any other team in the top 25 that didn't finish with at least eight wins last year.
  
• Arizona State just missed the No. 25 spot but is still the odds-on favorite to lose to Oregon play for the division title. Utah and Arizona got a few votes each.
• Michigan is 34th. Yay? Boo? I dunno. It's a little concerning that there are four teams in the division (and six teams on the schedule) ranked higher, although only Nebraska is in the top 15.
• I'm still skeptical about Stanford. Andrew Luck might be God's Gift to Quarterback Play, but losing Jim Harbaugh and Vic Fangio isn't just a minor blip. I'm actually working on a separate post about this that should be up Sunday.
• As expected, the Big East looks pretty terrible.
• There are a few teams outside the top 10 that I think have legitimate national title shots: Virginia Tech, Arkansas and (cringing) Notre Dame.
• Ohio State at No. 16 seems about right. The lack of a legitimate/experienced starting quarterback will be costly at some point, but unless Luke Fickell is a worse gameday coach than Ron Zook (which is possible), it's hard to envision anything worse than about 8-4.
• Boise State plays two well-respected top-25 teams this year: There's a de facto road game against Georgia in Atlanta on September 3 and a home game against TCU on November 22. Even if they win both (duh) and have Georgia and TCU both finish in the neighborhood of 11-1, that probably still won't be enough to jump a zero- or one-loss Oklahoma team and/or the survivor of the SEC West. In other words, buy your Fiesta Bowl tickets now.
• Where's Duke's one vote?!? It appears that Steve Spurrier has given in to the powers that be.

This seems like the appropriate place for this official Forever Saturday statement: I have no problem with preseason polls. Yeah, they're almost entirely speculation, but so is every poll until about Week 8. And I know there's an obvious argument: Don't release a poll until Week 8. But here's the thing: None of the polls except the last one mean anything. All they do is give us (and by "us" I mean "media, fans and the general public") an idea of the coaches' general opinion of the top 25 teams in the country. The fact that obviously biased coaches are voting at all is an argument for another time.

So yeah ... preseason polls are fine. I like information.

Catching up does a lot of catching up

Michael Floyd reinstated: This was pretty much a formality barring yet another alcohol-related arrest, but Notre Dame reinstated Michael Floyd on Tuesday. With his career hanging by a figurative thread after a DUI and some other shenanigans, this was his only option besides going the always-successful Terrelle Pryor route. The hope here is that actually has his crap together and finishes his career the way he should -- with gazillions of yards and touchdowns (hopefully none of them coming against Michigan).

As for ND and Brian Kelly, this is a massive first step toward Returning to Glory TM. The next one is choosing a quarterback, which Kelly said he'll do approximately 10 days before the start of the season. The next one after that is winning a lot of games, and Floyd obviously helps a lot in that regard; he's one of the five best receivers in the country and should be a first-round pick. He just needs to stop (a) drinking while underage and (b) suffering ridiculous injuries due to the fact that his upper body is apparently made of porcelain.

Steve Kragthorpe has Parkinson's disease: LSU announced Wednesday that offensive coordinator Steve Kragthorpe is "relinquishing his duties" as OC and will slide over to quarterbacks coach because of his battle with Parkinson's disease.

On a purely football level, this is obviously unfortunate for LSU. Kragthorpe isn't overwhelmingly revered by any means, but he's been a pretty good O-coordinator for years (just ignore his time as a head coach at Louisville) at various D-I schools, and trying to shuffle your coaching staff right at the start of fall camp is less than ideal.

The (possibly temporary) fill-in will be offensive line coach Greg Studrawa, who was offensive coordinator at Bowling Green from 2003-07 (he took over right after Urban Meyer left for Utah). In case you're wondering -- and I'm not sure whether this is an endorsement or not -- Studrawa's offenses finished with the following national rankings in total yardage: second, third, 27th and 52nd. So they got progressively worse as they got further removed from Urban Meyer's golden touch. Still, having a backup guy who's been a D-I coordinator for several years and not been terrible is something not everybody can say, and with Kragthorpe sticking around and probably being involved in just about every aspect he feasibly can, I don't think LSU's offense will really feel much of an impact.

On a personal level, hopefully he can battle this thing effectively and keep doing what he loves for a long time (he's only 46, BTW). He said Thursday: "This is obviously a bit of a blow to myself, but by the same token we're a family of great faith and will be exactly where God wants us, and that is at LSU."

Jameis Winston picks Florida State: Jameis Winston is either the top dual-threat prep QB in the country or just the top prep QB in the country (depending on the particular scouting service's opinion of Indiana commit Gunner Kiel), and he announced Wednesday that he's going to Florida State. FSU has been absolutely crushing fools on the recruiting trail ever since Jimbo Fisher took over, so this doesn't seem that shocking, but what makes it pretty interesting is that Winston is from Hueyton, Alabama, so it was more or less assumed that Bama was the team to beat. They got beat.

The big question now: Will Winston ever make it to campus? He's rated the No. 22 overall prospect for next year's MLB draft, and if he ends up in the Bubba Starling range (somewhere in the ballpark of the top 10), he'll be looking at a seven-figure check right off the bat. Right now, he doesn't sound totally committed to playing football: "I don't think too many (college) fans will get mad at me if I go into the draft," he said.

His draft status will likely be the determining factor -- he's probably a goner if he's a high first-round pick next June.

Big Ten going to nine conference games in 2017: Yay? I consider this a win for everybody who enjoys watching actual college football and not Ohio State-Eastern Michigan (insert joke here about Michigan losing to Toledo). The current format is eight conference games, three meaningless nonconference games and one sell-some-tickets games; that middle number should now (well, not now, but in 2017) drop from three to two.

The only downside for the Big Ten is that there will probably be some years in which playing an extra meaningful game will cost the conference a second BCS bid. For example, Wisconsin doesn't play Michigan for the next four years, and under the current format, they would only play four times in every 10-year period. Upping that number to six matchups in 10 years and cutting out a couple games against the likes of James Madison and Delaware State means there are two more painful losses to be handed out during that stretch.

But since I'm not a coach in need of a meaningless bowl berth and I really like good football games, I'll take it.

Kevin Newsome leaving Penn State: Ahhh, Kevin Newsome. It was right about this time three years ago when he was gonna be The Savior of the Rich Rodriguez era at Michigan ... and then he changed his mind at some point after Tate Forcier committed during the '08 season and picked Penn State. That looked like a fine decision until he actually got on the field and was anything but productive, and by last year, he'd been passed on the depth chart by freshman Robert Bolden and walk-on Matt McGloin. Newsome threw all of 13 passes last season.

The weird thing is that Newsome wanted to transfer around the time of the Outback Bowl but backed out for some reason, eventually deciding to go through spring and see what happened. Bolden also wanted to transfer but had his request denied by the supposedly all-class Joe Paterno, which was even weirder.

At least things could still work out for Bolden, who's got a good shot to start; Newsome is just a so-far-disappointing guy who's probably headed for the FCS. He hasn't yet announced a destination, and although StateCollege.com listed a few hypothetical FCS possibilities, it's unclear whether those were purely speculative or had any reasoning behind them.

The Southern Miss logo looks too much like what? A panel of patent judges ruled this week that Southern Miss can't trademark its Golden Eagle logo because it too closely resembles ... drumroll ... the Iowa Hawkeye.

The Golden Eagle logo unveiled by Southern Mississippi nearly nine years ago might be in jeopardy because University of Iowa officials say it’s too similar to their Tiger Hawk emblem — and a three-judge panel agrees.

USM’s trademark application was denied last week by judges in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, who ruled 2-1 in favor of Iowa.

Whaaa??? I mean, there's definitely some general similarities (like the shape of the bird head and curvature of the beak), but they're not even the same freakin' animal, and it's not like it's Southern Miss' fault that the schools have the same colors. By that logic, the Arizona Cardinals shouldn't get to keep their logo either since it faces right and has a devious-looking eye.

Anyway, Southern Miss says it's considering appealing the decision. If that doesn't happen or if the appeal is unsuccessful, a new logo will be in the works and literally dozens of fans will feel obligated to buy new apparel.

Daily "laugh at Ohio State" moment: Everybody loves Casey Anthony ... right? So if you see her sporting your team's colors, it's definitely a good idea to recognize it with an OFFICIAL school statement:

"We are never surprised to see Buckeye pride displayed across the world. Buckeye hoodies and hats have traditionally been spotted across the world, and we understand that as a result, our logo will be seen in a wide range of news situations, whether positive or negative."

Ohio!

Actual reporting (!?!) from Arizona State camp

I observed some actual football (gasp) the night before last, and it was just as fulfilling as I thought it'd be after four months of emptiness. I even did actual reporting! You can check it out if you're interested in reading my quasi-professional writing style, which isn't really much different but is more ... umm ... professional.

As you probably surmised from this post's headline and my location in metro Phoenix, I was watching Arizona State open camp in its bizarre, space-age bubble-type thing that is utterly awesome if for no other reason than it allows us spectators to not stand out in the 105-degree heat all evening. Indoor practices FTW. Just don't cross the streams forget to close the first door in the airlock before you go in -- that's not a joke. Apparently an alarm will sound and the place will start to deflate or something. Weird.

Anyway ... I'm not gonna try to writing something super insightful or analytical after watching two hours of padless drills in which not-even-close-to-ready freshmen were getting the same reps as everybody else (although I was pleasantly surprised that about 15 minutes were spent in a starters-against-starters "scrimmage"). But here are some observations about things that might be of interest:

• Brock Osweiler looks pretty good when he knows where he's going with the ball. When he has to make reads and move his feet, he gets a little panicky ... and the mediocre offensive line doesn't help a lot in that regard.
• Speaking of which, the offensive line is supposedly a "strength" now, according to Dennis Erickson, but I'm not seeing it. I mean, it should definitely be better with all five starters returning and all three interior linemen being upperclassmen with solid recruiting resumes, but the tackle situation goes something like this: redshirt sophomore Evan Finkenberg (who had a solid freshman year) at left tackle and Dan Knapp (who switched from tight end midway through last season) at right tackle. And this is an offense that passes on almost 60 percent of its plays -- the tackles are kind of important.
• If Osweiler goes down, the ugly possessions will be plentiful. Redshirt freshman Taylor Kelly might be competent enough to guide the ship to a non-Titanic-esque ending, but the true freshmen (Mike Bercovici and Michael Eubank) are terrifyingly raw. Velocity = great, understanding of where to throw the ball = bad.
  
• Omar Bolden looks shockingly mobile for a guy who tore his ACL four months ago; he was wearing only a knee sleeve and did a bunch of wind sprints and exercise biking while everybody else participated in drills and whatnot. The question I can't answer is whether he can move laterally at all -- my guess is that he's not quite ready for that step. But when I said last week that there was "no chance" he'd be able to get back to 100 percent during the regular season, I might've been jumping the gun. Seeing him yesterday made me think it's somewhat plausible he could make it back in November.
• Vontaze Burfict is large. He's listed at 250 and looks every ounce of that. He's also incapable of lowering his intensity level below 12 on a scale of 1 to 10.
  
• Defensive tackle Will Sutton is the loudest person I've ever heard (that's not hyperbole) and might also be very good this year. He was a part-time starter as a freshman in 2009 and then missed all of last year because he was academically ineligible. He's stepping into Lawrence Guy's spot this season (Guy left early to get drafted in the seventh round) and just looks like a physical force, sort of like Darnell Dockett back when he was a demonic DT at Florida State.
• The defense was somewhat of a disappointment last year (57th in yardage and 55th in scoring), and despite Bolden's injury, I saw enough to think it'll be better this season. There are too many ridiculous athletes and too many guys who have been in the system for three-plus years for another season of meh performances. There are at least five players (Burfict, Sutton, outside linebacker Brandon Magee and defensive ends Junior Onyeali and Jamaar Jarrett) in the front seven alone who could realistically end up as all-conference players this year.
• There are about six quality receivers who could start for a lot of teams --and that doesn't include out-for-the-year T.J. Simpson -- but only Gerell Robinson strikes me as having the skill set to be a true No. 1 guy. The rest just seem like OK players who will all end up with somewhere around 30 catches for 400 yards and a few touchdowns (which is exactly what happened last year, except Kerry Taylor was the de facto No. 1).
  
• Dennis Erickson has truly mastered coachspeak after 35-ish years.
• ASU doesn't want you to know this for some reason, so I had to take it out of my "official" piece, but they're clearly jacking up the expectations: They're ending practice each night with a team-huddle chant of "NATIONAL CHAMPIONS."
  

I'll be back out there tonight for more delicious dirt. There's also a lot of other stuff going on in the college football world that I'll react to in a post either late tonight or (relatively) early tomorrow.

Way too many words on media days

I'm undecided about whether the official start of the football season should be based on the release of NCAA Football (insert year here) or the myriad conference media days, which aren't really that interesting but manage to get some relevant, non-controversy-generated news flowing for a few minutes and remind us that the painfully long abyss of summer is coming to an end.

Regardless, both have now happened. It's 31 days to kickoff. Yay.

As for media days, the concept is much more interesting than the execution. The concept is that you can get everybody in one place and ask all the important and interesting questions you could possibly want answered, catch up on any summer off-the-field shenanigans that nobody would comment on when they were happening, tabulate preseason poll/all-conference votes, etc.

What you actually get are super-insightful inquisitions like "How hard are you guys working to get back to a bowl game this season?" and "How important is it to get off to a good start?"

Here's how I feel about those questions:

It'd be great to be able to ask Al Borges, "Do you plan to completely scrap zone blocking even though most of Michigan's O-line has played exclusively in that system?" or "Do you foresee lining up in the shotgun more than 50 percent of the time to keep Denard Robinson comfortable given what we saw in the spring game?" Instead, Drew Sharp will be collecting meaningless filler quotes for his column that people will shake their head at while he collects paychecks until his newspaper collapses because they continue to employ people like Drew Sharp.

There is some useful stuff that comes out of media days, though, and that's the preseason stuff I mentioned earlier. It's not meaningless when the people who see the teams on a weekly basis (either coaches or media) say, "Team X is the best team and Team Y is the second-best team" or "Player A and Player B are the two best defensive players in the conference." Some of that stuff is pretty obvious (Oregon is expected to win the Pac-12?!?), but some of it actually provides some insight into various things we might not know since we don't get paid to be at every game and talk to the coaches on a daily basis.

So let's make the rounds and glean what we can about football-type stuff:

SEC

The thing you care about:

Western Division
1. Alabama (111) 925
2. LSU (30) 790
3. Arkansas (23) 717
4. Mississippi State (1) 455
5. Auburn 406
6. Ole Miss (2) 214

Eastern Division
1. South Carolina (114) 931
2. Georgia (38) 794
3. Florida (12) 731
4. Tennessee (2) 496
5. Kentucky (1) 340
6. Vanderbilt 215

Thoughts:

• LSU is probably going to be a top-five team and isn't even in the same projected ballpark as Alabama in the West. You will bow down to Nick Saban now.
  
• Same with Arkansas -- for all the talk about being a darkhorse national title team, being probably the third-best team in the division makes things kinda difficult.
• There are two teams with zero first-place votes: Vanderbilt (duh) and ... drumroll, please ... Auburn. This has gotta be the first time in the history of preseason polling that the defending national champion hasn't received even a single vote to win its own division.
• The fact that South Carolina is even more of a favorite in the East than Alabama is in the West says more about the division than it does about South Carolina. Two of the three best teams in the conference (unless South Carolina is a lot better than I think) will be sitting at home for the SEC title game.
• On a related note, it's not a big stretch to think Florida or Georgia or maybe even Tennessee (eh, probably not) could end up "earning" the right to get crushed by Alabama/LSU/Arkansas in the championship game. I mean, South Carolina isn't exactly '95 Nebraska -- that division is wide open.
• If Georgia can't finish 8-4 or maybe even 9-3, Mark Richt's gotta be gone, right? Georgia has the most generous schedule in the history of conference scheduling (no Alabama, LSU or Arkansas?!?) and is better on paper than all but one other team in the East. And Richt isn't exactly riding a tidal wave of positive momentum -- he seems to be taking the Lloyd Carr approach (except while 15 years younger) of being consistently pretty good but never good enough.
• Why does Ole Miss have two first-place votes? Those two ballots accounted for more than 10 percent of their total points.
• The all-conference teams are listed here, and Marcus Lattimore -- you know, the guy who has a long way to go to reach the "performance level of the other top SEC backs" -- is on the first team along with Trent Richardson. No surprises there. Georgia's Aaron Murray is the top quarterback, which is interesting given the loss of A.J. Green but almost inevitable considering that the second- and third-team guys are Stephen Garcia (?) and Jordan Jefferson, who have both been on the brink of getting benched for about the last two years.
• The first-team defense: Alabama owns it. Five (!) guys from 'Bama would start on a hypothetical defense made up of the best players in the conference, which pretty much explains that vote total above despite Nick Saban having no idea who his starting quarterback will be. They also set the overall record with 16 players on the three all-conference teams.
• Florida has zero (yes, zero) all-conference offensive players.
  

Big Ten

The things you care about:

Legends
1. Nebraska (19) 139
2. Michigan State (4) 118
3. Iowa 82
4. Michigan (1) 71
5. Northwestern 69
6. Minnesota 25

Leaders
1. Wisconsin (22) 141
2. Ohio State (1) 113
3. Penn State (1) 95
4. Illinois 76
5. Purdue 52
6. Indiana 27

Title game predictions:
Nebraska over Wisconsin (10)
Wisconsin over Nebraska (7)
Wisconsin over Michigan State (3)
Nebraska over Ohio State (1)
Nebraska over Penn State (1)
Wisconsin over Michigan (1)
Michigan State over Wisconsin (1)

Offensive player of the year:
1. Denard Robinson, QB, Michigan (14) 52
2. Dan Persa, QB, Northwestern (4) 26
3. Kirk Cousins, QB, Michigan State (2) 18
4. Edwin Baker, RB, Michigan State (1) 16
5. Montee Ball, RB, Wisconsin (1) 14
6. Russell Wilson, QB, Wisconsin (2) 9
7. Taylor Martinez, QB, Nebraska 4
8. James White, RB, Wisconsin 2
9. Mike Brewster, C, Ohio State 2
10. Derek Moye, WR, Penn State 1

Defensive player of the year:
1. Jared Crick, DL, Nebraska (15) 58
2. Lavonte David, LB, Nebraska (7) 37
3. Jerel Worthy, DL, Michigan State 10
4. Shaun Prater, CB, Iowa (1) 8
5. Alfonzo Dennard, CB, Nebraska (1) 7
6. John Simon, DL, Ohio State 6
7. Mike Mauti, LB, Penn State 5
8. Mike Martin, DL, Michigan 3
9. Nathan Williams, DL, Ohio State 2

Thoughts:

• The Big Ten is freakin' thorough with its polling, yes?
• If Nebraska and Wisconsin don't end up playing in Indianapolis in December, it will be a shock to just about everybody.
• After the two obvious favorites, it's a crapshoot. Proof: Michigan got as many first-place votes (one) as Ohio State and Penn State. Michigan State looks like the consensus No. 3, but hoping for back-to-back good years from MSU is basically the equivalent of flipping a coin and hoping it comes up heads; winning three close games in miraculous fashion while getting streamrolled by a combined 72 points (!!!) in your two losses doesn't exactly scream "dynasty in the making."
  
• Nebraska's defense is the Big Ten equivalent of Alabama's -- their dudes got 23 of the 24 votes for defensive player of the year (and not all of those went to Jared Crick).
  
• There's somebody out there who thinks Michigan will win the Legends Division. Yay.
• Speaking of which, nobody seems too concerned that Denard Robinson won't be able to figure out whatever Brady Hoke/Al Borges want to do on offense this season.
• Two people had Russell Wilson as offensive player of the year, but only three other people even had him on the ballot.
• Mike Brewster? Really??? He's a good-but-not-dominant center who might not even be the best in the conference (David Molk would like a word).
• There's a weird disconnect between the college version of Jerel Worthy (good player but no preseason votes for defensive player of the year) and the hypothetical NFL one (consensus top-15 draft pick). I still haven't figured out the drooling.
• While we're talking about Michigan State, it should be noted that Mark Dantonio's response to the requisite Ohio State questions was to call Jim Tressel "a tragic hero." This actually happened. Remarkably, I actually have less respect for Dantonio than I did a week ago (it's gone from zero to negative infinity).
  
• This reaction to Big Ten media day from EDSBS goes here because I have nowhere else to put it: "The best summary of a Brady Hoke speaking engagement is to imagine Lloyd Carr using a gigantic Matt Foley puppet to address the media." That is so, SO accurate.
  

Pac-12

The thing you care about:

North
1. Oregon (29) 239
2. Stanford (13) 220
3. Washington 142
4. Oregon State 120
5. California 110
6. Washington State 51

South
1. USC (24) 230
2. Arizona State (13) 207
3. Utah (4) 170
4. Arizona (1) 140
5. UCLA 89
6. Colorado 46

Title game champion:
Oregon (28)
Stanford (11)
Arizona State (3)

Thoughts:

• Oregon wins. I'm actually a little surprised that almost a third of the voters think Stanford -- minus basically its entire coaching staff and some relevant on-field pieces -- is gonna somehow overtake Oregon for the division. Good luck with that (no pun intended).
  
• Welcome to the Pac-12, Craporado. You're the Washington State of the South Division.
  
• I've been leaning toward Arizona as ASU's primary competition in the South, but either I'm underestimating the injuries/Juron Criner situation/lack of an offensive line or everybody else is overrating that stuff. Not a lot of faith in UA (not that there should be, but still).
• Utah's got a nice thing going, but given the fairly extensive losses on both sides of the ball and not-so-insignificant jump in competition, winning the division seems like a stretch. I'd probably flip Arizona and Utah if I were filling out a ballot.
• Arizona State has three conference championship votes (!?!). Preseason optimism FTW.
• If ASU and Stanford are as disappointing as they plausibly could be, the Pac-12 could be turrrible after Oregon.
  
• The voters are soooo proud of themselves for "correctly predicting the conference winner in 10 of the last 11 years," which was super difficult when USC was winning every year and the only question was which random team would finish second.
  

Big 12

The thing you care about:

1. Oklahoma (41) 428
2. Texas A&M (1) 362
3. Oklahoma State (1) 360
4. Missouri 281
5. Texas 265
6. Baylor 194
7. Texas Tech 191
8. Kansas State 140
9. Iowa State 93
10. Kansas 51

Thoughts:

• Good Lord. Why are they even playing the games? Let's just fast-forward to November and figure out whether Oklahoma gets to play in the BCS title game or just the Fiesta Bowl.
  
• This thought wasn't necessarily brought on by media day, but I'll share it here anyway: With Nebraska gone, if either Oklahoma or Texas (or both, God forbid) is anything other than good in a given year, the Big 12 is just going to be a sinkhole. It'll be like the Big East Southwest (except if the Big East had Texas to mine for talent).
  
• Quick, name a starting Big 12 running back other than Cyrus Gray or Roy Finch (who isn't exactly a household name to begin with but plays for Oklahoma and is therefore recognizable).
• I bet it's been a while since Texas didn't have a single first-place vote in the preseason poll. Their talent-to-expected-results ratio has to be the worst in the history of college football. On the plus side, it'd be just about impossible to underachieve this year ... so that's nice.
  
• Oklahoma State's been getting the magazine covers and national-title-sleeper talk, but Texas A&M actually came out ahead in the vote for that assuredly coveted No. 2 spot. And with good reason: A&M (srsly, A&M) has as much skill-position talent as anybody in the country. I could definitely envision a Stanford-in-2010-esque season.
• Does it mean anything that the top result from my Google search for "Big 12 media day poll" was Baylor's press release about the Bears being picked sixth in the conference? Probably not.
• The fact that Baylor (Baylor!) is bumping up against Texas and staring down at nearly half the conference is such a remarkable achievement that I'm not even sure what to say about it. Art Briles is the new Greg Schiano.
• Kansas played in the Orange Bowl three seasons ago, hired Turner Gill when he was one of the most coveted up-and-coming coaches in the country and is now the worst team (by far, apparently) in a not-good conference. At least basketball starts soon.

ACC

The things you care about:

Atlantic Division
1. Florida State (65) 420
2. Clemson (4) 286
3. NC State 270
4. Boston College (2) 224
5. Maryland 211
6. Wake Forest 80

Coastal Division
1. Virginia Tech (66) 421
2. Miami (4) 328
3. North Carolina 287
4. Georgia Tech (1) 226
5. Virginia 132
6. Duke 96

ACC Championship Game winner:
1. Florida State 50
2. Virginia Tech 18
3. Clemson 2
4. Boston College 1

ACC Championship Game predictions:
1. Florida State over Virginia Tech 45
2. Virginia Tech over Florida State 15
3. Florida State over Miami 4
T4. Clemson over Virginia Tech 2
T4. Virginia Tech over Clemson 2
T6. Florida State over Georgia Tech 1
T6. Virginia Tech over Boston College 1
T6. Boston College over Virginia Tech 1

ACC Player of the Year:
1. Montel Harris, Boston College 26
2. EJ Manuel, Florida State 14
3. Luke Kuechly, Boston College 12
4. David Wilson, Virginia Tech 8
5. Danny O'Brien, Maryland 4
6. Andre Ellington, Clemson 3
7. Lamar Miller, Miami 2
T8. Sean Spence, Miami 1
T8. Brandon Jenkins, Florida State 1

Thoughts:

• Everything I said about the Big Ten's divisional favorites applies here: If Florida State isn't playing Virginia Tech on December 3, the ACC-loving media will have to manually lift its collective jaw off the floor.
• There's a lot of faith in Jimbo Fisher's coaching ability. Florida State lost three conference games last year (not to mention the 30-point embarrassment against Oklahoma) and is now starting a quarterback who threw four touchdown passes and four interceptions last year and has a 6-to-10 career ratio, but that hasn't stopped the Return to Glory (TRADEMARK COURTESY OF NOTRE DAME) hype train. I'm not sure FSU is quite ready to make The Leap ... then again, I didn't think Alabama was ready in '09 or Florida was ready in '06 or Ohio State was ready in '02 (you get the idea).
• Virginia Tech has flown way under the radar this offseason. Maybe it's the lack of identifiable players now that eighth-year senior Tyrod Taylor has finally graduated with his doctorate -- I dunno. They still have David Wilson at running back and Cam Newton wannabe Logan Thomas as everybody's new favorite quarterback, and the schedule is soooooo easy; they'll be favored in every game. It's pretty hard to envision anything worse than 10-2 barring an apocalyptic string of injuries.
  
• I'd be interested to see a re-vote in the Coastal Division now that Butch Davis is gone -- not that the order would change much, but I wonder if Georgia Tech would jump UNC.
• I like Montel Harris, but the player of the year voting says a lot more about the dearth of high-end talent in the ACC than it does about Harris' awesomeness.
• Clemson gets picked second (approximately) in the division every year and ends up as a perennial disappointment with about a 7-5 record and a berth in the (insert crappy bowl here). One more of those seasons probably gets Dabo Swinney fired -- with the level of talent they've brought in, there's no reason they can't compete with Florida State for the division and start reaching nine-ish wins on a regular basis.
• John Swofford is probably on his knees each night praying that those four votes for a Miami-Florida State title game are the right ones. Cash money, yo.
• On a related note, it seems kinda weird that Miami has four title-game-appearance votes and loses to Florida State in every one of them. I mean, FSU is such a heavy favorite that I guess the odds make that not so unreasonable, but there are seven other predictions that don't involve either team.
• Given the complete mystery that is the Atlantic Division after Florida State, it's just depressing that Wake Forest can't come within 120 freakin' points of the next-to-last-place team in the division. Jim Grobe is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in the conference and still can't pull Wake out of the black hole that is Carolina-region football. I would say something similar about Duke, but that's such a given that it's not worth the effort.
  

Big East

The Big East is so special that it needs to wait until a week after everyone else is done (Tuesday) to have its media day. Since there's a good chance there won't be a single Big East team in the actual preseason top 25 -- West Virginia will probably be close -- I don't feel like waiting and will just make some safe assumptions.

Thoughts:

• TCU can't get here soon enough.
• West Virginia's gonna be at the top, possibly by a comfortable margin (depending on how much people are buying into South Florida). Hopefully Dana Holgorsen handles pressure a little better than he handled being the coach-in-waiting.
• USF will be No. 2 and Pitt will probably be third. After that, a blindfolded monkey throwing darts would have as good a chance as anybody else at an accurate projection.
• Cincinnati has fallen off just a notch or two from the Brian Kelly era, yes?
• UConn played in a BCS bowl last year. Paul Pasqualoni is now the head coach. Let those two items soak in for a moment and then decide whether they have a better chance at finishing first or last in 2011 (I'll take last).
• Geno Smith is the obvious pick for preseason player of the year -- he was unexpectedly impressive last year as a sophomore and will be throwing about an extra 150 passes this season under Holgorsen. This could go spectacularly or badly; either way, I'll be entertained and West Virginia will probably still be good enough that its prolific QB will be the most recognizable player in the conference.

So ... it's late and I just pumped out a lot of words that don't really tell you anything new, which is exactly what I strive for. Goal achieved.