• JoeP catches up to 1993, laps rest of Big Ten. Here is where the Big Ten is at the moment, innovation-wise: The leading voice of progress within the conference is ... Joe Paterno?

Penn State coach Joe Paterno said Thursday night that he has pushed within the Big Ten conference to expand it to 12 teams as a method of leveling the playing field in college football.
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"Everybody else is playing playoffs on television," Paterno said. "You never see a Big Ten team mentioned. So I think that's a handicap.

"I've tried to talk to the Big Ten people about, 'Let's get a 12th team -- Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt -- we could have a little bit of a playoff.'"

The 12-team/two-division/championship game format pioneered by the SEC is clearly the future for the Big Ten and Pac-10, eventually, and would make the much-discussed ninth conference game viable. But JoePa knows the odds while he's still kicking in State College: "You know, it's a conference that's dominated by a couple of people ... If I start talking, they're polite, but they snicker. They don't know I know they're snickering, but they're polite."

Paterno -- supposedly getting around a lot better after his hip replacement surgery over the winter -- also used the forum to stick up for Bobby Bowden in FSU's fight to keep the 14 wins threatened by NCAA sanctions.

• Senselessness. Bizarre, terrible story out of Louisiana, where Drew Villar, a walk-on kicker at Tulane, was found dead Thursday of unknown causes:

"We just don't know what happened," Lynn Odom, an aunt who answered the phone at Villar's parents home said. "He's just gone."

I don't know what kind of player Villar was, but the Times-Picayune reports he was president of his class all four years in high school and earned a legislative scholarship, and the sudden disappearance of 20-year-olds is never anything but tragic.

• Three lewd and lascivious strikes, and you're out. On the completely opposite end of the spectrum, there's North Carolina recruit Angelo Hadley, who was booted from the Tar Heels before he ever arrived following his second arrest in less than a month on Wednesday, this time for allegedly having consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl while his two older brothers robber her house of more than $17,000 worth of jewelry, cash and a shotgun in February. Hadley was charged with felonies for burglary and firearm possession as well as lewd and lascivious battery, on top of the two counts of lewd and lascivious battery he picked up on April 5, which were apparently connected to the same incident.

In other legal news: Texas A&M offensive lineman Matt Allen, a potential starter, was arrested last weekend for DWI; and Ohio State walk-on tailback Bo DeLande was also hit with a DUI on Tuesday, at least the fifth drug or alcohol-related arrest of a Buckeye this offseason.

• The Capital One Bowl is on fire. Or so says the Orlando Sentinel, which reported Thursday that bowl honcho Steve Hogan is pulling the fire alarm on the futures of both the Capital One and Champs Sports bowls if the Citrus Bowl doesn't undergo renovations. Just one tiny problem:

Improvements to the dilapidated stadium projected to cost $175 million have been tabled indefinitely, with Hogan and several city officials agreeing it could be 10 years before the venue would be renovated because of the nosedive in tourism tax revenue.

SEC and Big Ten reps immediately "pounced" on the holdup in meetings with Hogan, which -- especially with the Cotton Bowl moving to the Cowboys' lavish new intergalactic space palace in Dallas -- might cost the Capital One game the first pick at non-BCS teams from those conferences, a position it apparently covets. Can't noted Orlando booster Lee Corso intervene here?

Quickly ... Pat Hill, on the hot seat? ... Why the Jets really drafted Mark Sanchez. ... Get your official Greg Paulus World Tour t-shirt. (The Robert Marve live box set remains in the works.) ... Mack Brown won't attend next week's Big 12 coaches' meeting, where the tiebreaker rule that helped cost Texas a shot in last year's championship game will be up for discussion, to attend to his wife during her wrist surgery. At least Leach and Sherman will be there. ... Some Arizona officials are pushing back against Mike Stoops' raise in bad economic times. ... Even after a bad spring game, UCLA officially named Kevin Prince its starting quarterback. (Again.) ... Pittsburgh boots seniors T.J. Porter and Tommie Duhart for undisclosed reasons, though Porter has had a series of legal problems (most recently a DUI in February) and Duhart has struggled academically since transferring from junior college. ... Wisconsin receiver Luke Swann is shooting for the pros via Michael Irvin's reality show on Spike TV. ... Meet Geno Atkins, Georgia's only two-sport athlete. ... Ex-Colorado receiver/Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom, once stripped of his football eligibility by the NCAA, has a few ideas for improving the organization. I'm with him on revenue sharing and the jersey thing. ... Former 300-pound lineman Brett Byford has shed weight and returned to Nebraska to run a marathon. ... Dabo Swinney is a hit on the rubber chicken circuit. ... And fans can drink up in Minnesota's new stadium this fall. (Just be careful in the bathrooms, ladies, alright?)