The odds of Henderson getting any definitive word on the sanctions (or lack thereof) before April 1, though, are slim; the NCAA usually takes in the neighborhood of six weeks to announce those decisions, and keeps them under notoriously strict lock and key in the meantime. It's not clear that Henderson will have any information by then that he doesn't have now, other than maybe reading the expressions on faces around USC's football offices. Whether he signs with the Trojans or doesn't, putting his name down before he knows the extent of the sanctions (if there are any) is a gamble.

Or, if he's feeling really confident, he can take his sweet time, because the NCAA doesn't require a letter of intent to accept a scholarship and enroll in time to play next fall:

Am I required to sign a National Letter of Intent?
No. You are not required to sign a National Letter of Intent but many student-athletes sign a National Letter of Intent because they want to create certainty in the recruiting process. Specifically, by signing a National Letter of Intent, you agree to attend the institution for one year in exchange for the institution's promise, in writing, to provide you athletics financial aid for the entire academic year.

Back in 2007, Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis wondered why anyone would commit themselves to a completely voluntary process -- "They will simply sign because, well, that's what everybody does." -- but the answer is obvious: For the vast majority of players, no signature means no scholarship; impatient coaches will just move to the next person in line who jumps at the opportunity. Even a player as hyped as Bryce Brown, the No. 1 ranked player in last year's incoming class, was effectively dropped by Miami when his longstanding offer from the 'Canes expired before Brown announced his decision.

But Brown still found plenty of other schools ready and willing to take his signature a full month after signing day had passed -- Oregon and LSU were holding their collective breath when he eventually signed onto Lane Kiffin's program at Tennessee in March -- and Henderson's hype suggests he may very well be worth waiting for well into April or May or however long it takes for the NCAA to come back with a verdict on USC's immediate future; few coaches (with the possible exception of Miami's Randy Shannon) are in the habit of turning down elite talent out of some haughty sense of decorum, and Kiffin and right-hand recruiting mercenary Ed Orgeron, in particular, will never pass up an opportunity to add another blue-chip notch on their belts. Henderson will never have this kind of leverage as a player again. If he plays it right, the only limit he faces is the patience of his many suitors.

- - -
Hat tip: Julian

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott says that if the conference is going to expand, a decision will likely be made in the next year.
[...]
Scott said it made sense to have a decision about expansion before starting to negotiate new television deals that expire following the 2011-12 academic year.

Scott says "serious evaluation" of the topic will go on in the next six to 12 months. He said the primary factor in the decision will be finding schools that fit into the conference culturally and academically and determining whether the benefits of adding extra teams outweigh the costs.

On Monday, Scott named Kevin Weiberg -- a veteran who helped oversee Big Ten expansion from 10 teams to 11 as the conference's deputy commissioner in the early '90s, and returned to help put together the Big Ten Network after doubling revenues during a nine-year stint as commissioner of the Big 12 -- as the Pac-10's new deputy commissioner, a good indication a copycat Pac-10 Network could be in the works. When the San Jose Mercury-News' Jon Wilner asked Scott if Weiberg's addition could be read as a prelude to expansion before negotiations for the conference's critical new television contract heat up next year, Scott admitted "this would be the logical time."

Is a mini-blitz in the media an indication that Scott is necessarily more serious about expansion than he was three or six months ago? He says no: "I think I’ve been consistent on that subject." Is it a starting gun for far-reaching, recklessly sourced theories about how the cards may fall if another heavy-hitting league starts to sprawl in search of fresh blood? Of course it is:

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 Sports) - The University of Utah to the PAC 10? BYU to the Big 12? It could happen.

This is all speculation...but sources are telling ABC 4 Sports that Utah will be invited to join the PAC 10 conference, but not BYU. The Cougars could wind up in the Big 12...or staying put in the MWC.

Several dominoes have to fall first, but here's how it could all play out...

Speculation by anonymous sources indicates it could happen if certain other purely speculative moves happen first. Or not ... Thank you, Woodward and Bernstein. (Unwritten rule of thumb: The reliability of any report is typically in direct opposition to the quantity of ellipses therein.)

Which isn't to say it isn't going to happen: The longstanding fallout plan if the Pac-10 ever started to look outward calls for the league to snatch up Utah and BYU, or to take one of the Beehive State powers along with Colorado, leaving the other (in this scenario, BYU) to fill the Buffaloes' slot in the Big 12 North, which would welcome the addition of the fastest-growing state in the Union to its footprint. The burning question then: Where does the Big 12 turn if the Big Ten snatches up Missouri to fill out its vision of a two-division behemoth? Would it turn to one of the reigning mid-major darlings, Boise State and/or TCU? (Hey, this is kind of fun, actually ...)

Yes, all indications at the start of a new decade point to the emergence of the long-envisioned league of superconferences to leverage themselves for the ever-increasing spoils and put even more distance between the haves and have-nots. But they're still moving verrrry slowly for the foreseeable future. (The unforeseeable future, on the other hand, looks awesome.)

Fortunately, we don't have to wait, because every other major team sport on every level in America settles its championship via some form of playoff with no significant input from opinion polls on the result. That includes the nation's most popular and lucrative sporting endeavor, the NFL, which just concluded its annual tournament-style championship to stunning levels of dissent according to readers of ESPN's SportsNation this morning:

So, OK, nothing that elicits that sort of rare display of unanimity among sports fans can possibly qualify as "controversial" in the big picture. But maybe the number belie a certain regional nuance, wherein overcrowded, NFL-centric megalopoli overrule the solid, BCS-loving heartland ...

It's safe to say Mssr. Hancock's messages won't be taking any democratic turns any time soon. Only two states -- Georgia at 22 percent and (of course, given the favorable ending in the last BCS title game) Alabama at 30 -- gave the Series an approval rating above 15 percent. That's worse than both George W. Bush's historic low at the end of his presidency and even the permanently detested Congress. I guess it's comforting to know that at this moment of division and low morale, no American institution brings a partisan country together like hatred of the BCS.

In March 2007, Helix High School seniors Brandon Fountain and Matt Cobb were presented a $10,000 scholarship from Bush to use for college.
[...]
Fountain attends Cuyamaca College, and Cobb entered San Diego State University. Each received a $2,500 installment on their scholarships in their freshman year. Both ran into problems the following year when trying to contact the scholarship's trustee, Jerry Michaels.

"Mr. Michaels never responded. A couple of weeks later, [Brandon] sent a second e-mail and still no response," said Fountain's father, Bruce.

It was the same story for Cobb, and after weeks of wondering they received an answer they were not expecting.

"That's when we were told he was out of funds and due to the economy he didn't have the money," said Cobb.

Michaels (no relation, presumably, to Michael Michaels, with whom Bush reached a settlement in 2007 to keep him quiet about their alleged pay-for-play agreement at USC) told the television station that "Bush's people" contacted him about funding a scholarship through an existing program Michaels oversees, but never followed up. The existing money in the fund was tied up in investments, and ran out when the stocks tanked; Michaels is on tape saying, "We ran out of funds." Sorry, kids.

Bush is a fat, easy target for populist anger on a subject like this. On top of his multimillion-dollar salary and additional $5 million in endorsement deals, Bush also picked up an extra $500,000 for helping the Doc's beloved Saints win the Super Bowl on Sunday. Maybe, between legal fees, house-hunting with Kim Kardashian and celebrity victory parties, he'll find some way to set aside 2 percent of that championship bonus for making good on his three-year-old promise at home. Based on his track record, I'm sure the check will be in the mail any day now, guys.

• Show us your cards. A district court judge rejected the NCAA's request to throw out a lawsuit filed last year by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon, who's seeking royalties for use of his image and likeness following his graduation (he's not arguing that so-called "student-athletes" should be paid while they're in school, though that's the next logical step if the suit succeeds). The upshot, according to O'Bannon's lawyers, is that the NCAA and many member schools -- public and private -- will be forced to open their books as part of the discovery phase: "... we soon can begin collecting evidence from the NCAA, taking depositions, and uncovering everything that it wanted to hide and keep from the public’s and athletes' view. ...[T]o our knowledge, no one has ever gotten behind the scenes to examine how student-athletes' current and future rights in their images are divided up and sold." [Yahoo! Sports, New York Times]

• Drankin'. Louisiana Tech quarterback Ross Jenkins, who has 20 consecutive starts for the Bulldogs and figures to become the trigger man for new coach Sonny Dykes' high-flying spread attack this fall, was arrested and charged with DWI Sunday morning at a sobriety checkpoint in Monroe, where he blew a whopping .228 on the breathalyzer -- three times Louisiana's legal limit (though, in Jenkins' defense, probaby somewhat mild compared to what most of the rest of the state would have registered just 24 hours later). [Associated Press]

In other alcoholic news, touted South Carolina recruit Victor Hampton, 17, was charged with underage drinking and faces possible reassignment to an alternative school after smuggling liquor into his high school (brandy, to be specific, which he mixed with Coke) last Friday, two days after signing with the Gamecocks. If Hampton is booted from Darlington High, his new school will be his fifth in four years. [The State]

• Tosh.Who? Rivals released its annual list of the top 25 recruiters in the nation Monday, headed by an unfamiliar face, California defensive line coach Tosh Lupoi, who was credited as the lead recruiter on six different Cal signees rated among Rivals' top 200 prospects nationally. Among those coups was a pair of late five-star additions, defensive end Chris Martin and safety Keenan Allen, who Lupoi helped lure from commitments to powerhouses Notre Dame and Alabama, respectively, and all four members of possibly the best incoming crop of linebackers in the country. [Rivals]

• All I want for Christmas is a little piece of mind. Rich Rodriguez came out ahead of the last-second-defection game in this year's recruiting class (well, depending on your opinion of Demar Dorsey, a late, potentially risky addition from Florida), but still made it a point last week to call for an early signing period in mid-December, to head off the fli-flops. (He'd include a waiver to kids who committed to a school that subsequently changed coaches between the early date and the current date in February). With two-thirds of SEC coaches (and Nick Saban, specifically) already backing an early signing period, the idea isn't going anywhere -- although, of course, neither are the athletic directors and university presidents who overwhelmingly oppose it. [AnnArbor.com]

Quickly ... Former Tulsa and Louisville head coach Steve Kragthorpe could be joining Mike Sherman's staff at Texas A&M, likely as a position coach despite the Aggies' new vacancy at offensive coordinator. ... Tim Tebow has nothing but football on his plate before April's NFL Draft. ... And outgoing Tennessee safety Eric Berry, a likely top-10 pick in April, sympathizes with Lane Kiffin's defection from the Vols to USC: "That’s his dream job. ... I can’t really say anything because I’m about to do my dream and I left college early."

Somewhere out there, some modern Machiavelli has penned a masterwork to instruct top-rated prospects on the consolidation of power in the recruiting process, beginning with one crucial rule: Delay the drama as long as possible, preferably until it becomes all about you. Two years ago, No. 1 prospect Terrelle Pryor pushed his decision to sign with Ohio State until well into March, more than a month after the vast majority of his 2008 classmates had declared their intentions long before signing day in early February. Last year, chart-topping running back Bryce Brown delayed his decision so long that his longstanding "commitment" to Miami simply evaporated when the 'Canes declined to renew an expired offer sheet; Brown defected to Tennessee instead, a school that wasn't even on his radar on signing day.

And this year's most hyped incoming name, Minnesota offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson was already a practicing diva as of last week, thanks to a nationally televised announcement/fashion show from New York City and the bucket of cold water he tossed onto his "commitment" to USC a few hours later, when he refused to sign an official letter of intent until he knows more about the consequences of the NCAA's upcoming review of major allegations against former Trojan Reggie Bush's bank account during his junior year in L.A. Officially, the towering man-child says he remains committed to USC until further notice. Today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune, though, says Henderson -- like Brown during his tortured "commitment" to Miami this time last year -- is still as good as a free agent:

As has been suspected since Wednesday -- when Cretin-Derham Hall offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson committed to play at USC but did not sign a letter of intent -- the nation's No. 1 recruit is back on the market.

During an in-studio interview with KSTP-TV sports anchor Joe Schmit on Sunday night, Henderson and his father, Sean Henderson, made it clear that Seantrel will not sign with USC if NCAA penalties are too severe. But the extent of those penalties may not be known for months, and nobody knows how long the Hendersons are willing to wait.
[...]
Sean Henderson said, "I wouldn’t lose the leverage that we have. I mean, at the end of the day it’s still a business and at the end of the day it’s still my son’s future. ... I’d rather be able to at least let him keep his options open,  because if things aren’t looking good come the 20th or the 21st [of February] or whatever, then we might have to move in a different direction, but it’s only for the sake of his future."

It's unlikely the Hendersons (or anyone else outside of the NCAA's jealously guarded inner sanctum) will have any new, reliable information after the closed-door meetings on USC's fate later this month, and the official judgment will likely come down after April 1, the last day Henderson has to sign if he plans to play anywhere next fall. It's extremely unlikely that any of the smoke surrounding the probe will disappear over the next two-to-six weeks. If those doubts are the same ones holding Henderson back now -- and given Lane Kiffin's self-professed delight in snatching top recruits away from other coaches at the eleventh hour -- there's no reason Miami or Ohio State shouldn't consider him fair game again.

If you weren't clued in to the underlying political connotations before the game, you might confuse an ostensible anti-abortion message for a commercial meant to sway the public on the virtues of motherhood and/or existence inside a vacuum. (Which makes more sense than a commercial for the Census, actually.) The most polarizing element of either spot was probably the cooing strum/xylophone soundtrack so popular in domestic pitches at the moment. As predicted, a divided nation heeded the call of spectacle, and asked in unison, "Is that it?"

If you were too bored and/or confused by the ad to validate your own beliefs or viciously malign those of others, however, you can always go to the Web site, where the social/political message is slightly more overt (but only slightly). Big marketing pushes as political bait: Welcome to the future.

• They're my wins, maw. I'll do the vacatin'. After nearly a solid year of haggling and appeals with the NCAA, Florida State finally, officially vacated a dozen wins from two of the worst seasons of the Bobby Bowden era, 2006 and 2007, as penance for playing ineligible players who had been caught up in a widespread cheating scandal involving an online music. The revision will take five of seven wins from the '06 team, including the Emerald Bowl triumph over UCLA, and all seven victories from the '07 campaign. Officially, Bowden finishes with 377 career wins, and none of the results being stricken from the book came over Miami, Clemson, Florida or, soberingly, Wake Forest.

For opponents that did wind up on the wrong side of the 'Noles on the field, though, sorry: FSU's wins were vacated, not forfeited, and will still count as losses on the records of the teams the 'Noles defeated. [Tallahassee Democrat]

• Hey, pundits, leave my kid alone. ESPN Los Angeles digs a little deeper into USC's bizarre recruitment of a 13-year-old quarterback from Delaware, including a defense from the wunderkind's father, David Sills IV, who said "I'm just trying to give him every opportunity that I can" as father and son hopped a train into New York City for an interview on Good Morning America. But the most interesting detail: Lane Kiffin reportedly offered the young 'un a scholarship without ever seeing him throw or apparently even meeting him in person, based on a video tape and the recommendation of personal coach Steve Clarkson, who's previously worked with SoCal prodigees Matt Leinart, Jimmy Clausen and Matt Barkley, among others. [ESPN Los Angeles]

• Raiders don't hate, they self-flagellate. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal rounded up documents confirming that Texas Tech, hoping to avoid a more direct hit by preemptively punishing itself, self-imposed minor penalties -- a reduction of a single scholarship in the incoming class, four fewer campus visits for prospective recruits over an entire recruiting period -- in response to coaches on former head coach Mike Leach's staff text-messaging prospects well after the NCAA passed a blanket texting ban in August 2007. The case remains open with the NCAA, which could still hand down a harsher sentence (almost anything short of a "puppy penalty" would be harsher), but Tech athletic director Gerald Meyers said the case had nothing to do with Leach's sudden termination in December. [Lubbock Avalanche-Journal]

• Spartans will never surrender to exceedingly minor aesthetic change. A very long, rambling letter from Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis to Spartan fans last week amounts to this: MSU is keeping its old Spartan logo as part of a wider re-branding, thanks to public backlash against the meaner-looking replacement Nike had in store for the Spartan helmets next year. The redesigned uniforms will be scaled back to include only the Swoosh's patented "rippling abs" stitching to complete the idealized Spartan motif. [Michigan State Athletics]

Quickly ... If Oregon fulfills expectations as back-to-back Pac-10 champs next fall, Chip Kelly will be in line for a big raise. ... LSU's Trindon Holliday stole the show with 209 total yards and two touchdowns, but outgoing Tennessee quarterback and combine snub Jonathan Crompton may have helped his draft stock in Saturday's Texas vs. The Nation All-Star game. (But when did Jonathan Crompton join the staff of The Nation?) ... And I thought Forrest Gump was the Forrest Gump of football?

Of all the possible NFL stars who come out of college every year, Drew Brees -- a short, lightly recruited kid who came up in a spread offense at a non-traditional power -- didn't exactly leap off the page when he was leaving Purdue. But at least college fans remember Brees as a prolific Heisman finalist and Rose Bowl starter in his final game; I put up his greatest amateur moment because I couldn't find a college clip of key Saints teammates Darren Sharper (William & Mary), Marques Colston (Hofstra) or Jahri Evans (Bloomsburg State) if my life depended on it, or of Pierre Thomas, the hardest runner in the Super Bowl, who was lucky to make "Honorable Mention" on the All-Big Ten team and catch on as an undrafted free agent. The archives are slim on Tracy Porter, too, a second-team all-conference pick at Indiana and second round reach who just happened to pants two certain Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks in a row in the clutch to lock up a conference and then a world championship.

It's not like the Saints are a bunch of cast-offs and misfits, as most of the city and media would have you believe -- between Reggie Bush, Jeremy Shockey, Robert Meachem, Sedrick Ellis, Will Smith, Jonathan Vilma, Malcolm Jenkins and injury casualties Charles Grant and Jammal Brown, New Orleans has more than its share of first-rate college stars turned first-round picks. But Brees is the glue, the indispensable mainframe at the heart of the league's reigning Death Star of an offense, and today he wakes up as the first genuine star -- maybe a burgeoning legend, at least to the beleaguered people in his adopted hometown -- in Saints history. You could see it in him when he led his long-suffering, overmatched college mates over No. 4 Kansas State in 1998 to put Purdue in the final polls for the first time in 18 years, and past Michigan and Ohio State as a senior to break the Boilermakers into the Rose Bowl for the first time in 34 years. Before that, I know people who said they saw it in him when he led his high school team to a state championship. On the biggest stage of his life Sunday night, he was the same guy he's always been.

Not that anyone could have necessarily predicted it  -- the scrappy "it" player who flames out at the next level is so common, it's something of a cliché -- which is why Brees was snubbed by his hometown school, only a second-round pick by the Chargers, and rather easily dismissed when he suffered a major shoulder injury that ended his time in San Diego. But it was there. In fact, you might want to get used to seeing a lot more of it. Some guys are just naturals.

Navy sailed mostly under the radar in 2009, as usual, right up until a Texas Bowl pantsing of Missouri on New Year's Eve woke up the country to one of the best Academy outfits of the last 50 years: The Midshipmen pushed Ohio State to the brink out of the gate, initiated the Charlie Weis Death Watch by stunning Notre Dame in South Bend for the second time in three years, beat Air Force and Army for their seventh straight Commander-in-Chief's Trophy and closed it out by humiliating a Big 12 favorite on national television. The 10 wins tied a school record, and second-year coach Ken Niumatalolo quietly emerged from the shadow of his celebrated predecessor, Paul Johnson, as one of the steadiest young hands in the game.

The Good. As usual, the Midshipmen saw no good reason to put the ball in the air unless absolutely necessary, running on more plays (820) and passing on fewer (110) than any other team in the country. They beat Wake Forest in October without attempting a single pass, pureeing the Demon Deacons for 338 yards on 64 carries even without leading rusher Ricky Dobbs. And they finished off Air Force, Rice and Notre Dame -- against whom the Middies racked up 348 yards on the ground, by far the most any opposing offense gained against the Irish in the decade -- with 10 passes combined. Only two other players nationally, Stanford's Toby Gerhart and Pitt's Dion Lewis, carried the ball more often than Dobbs, and only Gerhart scored more touchdowns.

For a strictly triple option point man, though, Dobbs brought more to the downfield passing game than any Navy quarterback in years, as Ohio State found out when he hooked up with Marcus Curry for an 85-yard touchdown in the opener. That was something of a trend in the biggest games: Dobbs' only downfield completion against Notre Dame was a 52-yard touchdown strike to Greg Jones to put the Midshipmen up by two touchdowns in the third quarter of the eventual upset in South Bend, and he connected with Curry again for a 47-yard completion to set up an icing fourth-quarter touchdown against Missouri in the bowl game. When he did throw, Dobbs averaged more yards per completion (18.4) and per attempt (9.8) than any quarterback nationally except fellow triple-option gunner Josh Nesbitt at Georgia Tech, an endorsement for the system Johnson exported from Annapolis to Atlanta if ever there was one.

The Bad. As usual, the defense was one of the worst anywhere at getting into opponents' backfields, bottoming out with fewer tackles for loss than any other team in the nation. The pass rush picked up some over the second half of the season, culminating in the four-sack, three-turnover effort against Mizzou to close the year, but nowhere was the overall talent gap more apparent than on the defensive front seven.

The Weird. As surprisingly good as they were against the best teams on the schedule, the Midshipmen missed out on a really special season by spitting the bit defensively in a pair of very winnable games against underdogs Temple and Hawaii down the stretch, giving up 267 yards rushing and two touchdowns to Temple freshman running back Bernard Pierce alone and 366 yards and three touchdowns passing to obscure Hawaii backup quarterback Bryant Moniz. Wins in those two games would have given the Middies' 11 straight after a 1-2 start and the first 12-win season in school history.

If we're going to start playing the "what if" game, though, the season could have just as easily turned sour with a handful of plays in the other direction: Navy escaped with three-point overtime wins over Air Force and SMU, hung on to beat Wake Forest just 13-10 and somehow fended off Notre Dame for a 23-21 triumph despite being bombed for 452 yards passing by Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen. A defense that bends like that is bound to break on a couple of occasions.

The Takeaway. "Returning starters" always means less at the service academies than anywhere else because essentially everyone on the roster is a generic role player, including the quarterback. But with Dobbs and eight other starters back on offense, there's not going to be any drop-off in scoring or explosiveness. Last year's team was on the cusp of finishing in the final polls for only the second time since Roger Staubach starred en route to the Heisman in 1963, a barrier that could conceivably fall next year if the defense holds together and there are no more head-scratchers in winnable games. But don't expect the recent success against Notre Dame to catch on.

Handing the shoes off at the door was a nice gesture, but Tressel's stocking feet, honking championship ring and anal-retentiveness may not have left quite the impression he was hoping for:

During Coach Jim Tressel’s home visit last month, he told Seantrel in great detail what his first year would be like for the Buckeyes.

Henderson’s father described the talk as "pretty long-winded." Afterward, Tressel mentioned to the Hendersons that he was always told he talked a lot.

"He's so informative and so to the point and so much about business, that it was a little boring," Sean Henderson said.

One thing Lane Kiffin definitely is not: Boring. He's also not a championship coach with a proven track record of building and sustaining one of the most consistent programs in the country. But where's the excitement in that? Given Kiffin's fast finish and the largely disappointing crop at Ohio State, far more top recruits are looking for the adrenaline rush only a coaching transition under the specter of looming NCAA sanctions can provide.

• Double the Tebow, double the media angst. If one Tim Tebow anti-abortion ad during the Super Bowl can get the culture warriors frothing, what are they going to do with two? USA Today reports this morning that the Christian group behind the much-hyped Tebow spot during Sunday's big game, Focus On the Family, has also bought pregame airtime for a second commercial starring Tebow and his mother, Pam, which will air four times before kickoff. Focus On the Family CEO Jim Daly also told the paper the organization's original submission for an in-game ad was rejected by CBS, leading to a toned-down version with "a bit of humor in it." The network accepted the revised version, because who doesn't love abortion comedy? [USA Today]

• Because no one should change their minds about anything, ever. Nick Saban didn't exactly stump for an early signing period Wednesday after losing the highest-ranked commitment in Alabama's incoming class, five-star safety Keenan Allen, to California at the eleventh hour. But he did hammer players who "commit" to a school early, only to back out, leading the Birmingham News' Kevin Scarbinsky to propose a new "Nick Saban Rule" for Alabama or the SEC to put commitments in writing, thereby preventing late defections. (Despite the fact that Allen's decommitment was due to a change in family circumstances when half-brother Zach Maynard decided to leave Buffalo, not some flaky whim.) Scarbinsky doesn't talk about an "early signing period" either, specifically, but his proposal amounts to the same thing: Let schools lock up recruits earlier than the first Wednesday in February. [Birmingham News]

• Humbled Willy Style. Former Clemson quarterback Willy Korn, a cautionary tale from signing days past after failing to even win the starting job with the home-state Tigers, said Thursday he's officially transferring to Marshall, wrapping up a solid stretch run by new Herd coach Doc Holliday that also included a rare pledge from a four-star prospect (Florida safety Brian Robinson) and three late defections from Holliday's old stomping grounds, West Virginia. Korn, one of the most hyped incoming quarterbacks of the class of 2007, will be able to play this fall because he graduated Clemson in just two-and-a-half years and is already enrolled in a graduate journalism program in Huntington. [The State]

• Sam from Ork. Former Oklahoma Hesimanaut and soon-to-be top draft pick Sam Bradford is already at the Super Bowl, though he had to agree to be locked in some sort of futuristic isolation cell by Gatorade:

The Gatorade "Bod Pod" allegedly "analyzes body composition" of its occupant. Sam appears to be at least 50 percent awkward.

Quickly ... Injury-plagued Auburn cornerback Aairon Savage was granted a sixth year of eligibility after suffering season-ending injuries each of the last two seasons. ... Old Big East rivals Syracuse and Boston College will resume their series this fall. ... The Austin American-Statesman reviews Texas' needs for the 2011 recruiting class, which should be locked down in, what, a month? ... And hack columnist impugn the integrity of Demar Dorsey at their own peril.

Last year, a fairly ridiculous story made the rounds wherein Lane Kiffin, then the new head football coach at Tennessee, reportedly offered a scholarship to 14-year-old Evan Berry, younger brother of UT All-American Eric Berry and soon-to-be high school freshman, who reportedly accepted. Now at USC, Kiffin apparently figured on Thursday that was setting the bar a little too low -- why target eighth-graders, after all, when you can get to them in seventh grade:

According to the Wilmington News Journal, Bear, Del., seventh-grade quarterback David Sills committed Thursday night to accept a football scholarship from USC.

The 13-year-old, who attends Red Lion Christian Academy, told delawareonline.com "my heart was beating so fast" when he talked to Kiffin.

Red Lion high school varsity coach Eric Day confirmed that Kiffin recently offered the teen a scholarship, and that Sills committed, according to the Wilmington paper.

I offer this brief pause to allow you to stop laughing and/or crying. OK, we good?

Onward: Sills is a camp kid, already molded and polished enough to star in at least one earnest promotional video set to a Fountains of Wayne song for his high-priced private coach, Steve Clarkson (or, as he prefers to refer to himself, "Steve Clarkson, Dreammaker"). If he were to eventually join the Trojans, he'd enter as a member of the class of 2015, five full seasons from now. In the meantime, he hopes to pass the seventh and eighth grades and begin studying for his driver's license, among more lurid pursuits.

I maintain, as I did last year when I wrote about the younger Berry, that the usual recruiting parlance of "offers" and "commitments" is rendered virtually meaningless when extended to players too young to have taken a varsity snap. It's almost a contradiction in terms, like a four-sided triangle or something. Coaches aren't allowed to extend official, written scholarship offers until Sept. 1 of a player's junior year in high school -- still three-and-a-half years away for Sills. Even though the scouting process begins much earlier than that for many players, any story that employs the offer/commit language prior to that point is only serving a publicity-seeking sideshow, a grotesquerie of a process that's grotesque enough to begin with. It's no coincidence that both incidents of unabashed middle-school stalking in the past year have been attributed to college football's resident carnival barker, Kiffin, who will push any button for a headline but can't even promise with a straight face that he will be at USC in five years. (Has anyone asked Evan Berry about his "commitment" to Tennessee since Team Kiffin hightailed it for L.A. last month?) That's all Sills' "commitment" is: A weird, slightly disturbing and ultimately empty headline.

In the meantime, USC has landed its first commitment for the class of 2011 from a local player with three seasons of high school play under his belt. That one I'm willing to acknowledge, but in the recruiting business, nothing's in the bank until a signature is on the page.

- - -
Top photo of Kiffin with assistants Monte Kiffin, James Cregg and Ed Orgeron via Sports Illustrated's excellent gallery of the recruitment of Seantrel Henderson.

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• The Saints star who almost didn't make it

But by the other crucial measure in L.A., proximity to USC, even a step forward in any other context isn't necessarily getting the Bruins any closer to the Trojans' ballpark in terms of sheer talent on hand:

The first thing those numbers should show -- and expect the preseason polls to reflect this, to an extent -- is that the Bruins have no more excuses for feeling satisfied with 6-6 seasons that end with a close game against a MAC also-ran in the EagleBank Bowl. Physically, this is obviously a team that should be going into the annual cross-town battle in late November with the Pac-10 title on the line; the last time that was the case was 2005, when the Leinart/Bush Trojans humiliated the 9-1 Bruins, 66-14, to lock up a spot in the national title game. With a trio of solid, more or less Rose Bowl-worthy classes under its belt and a third-year quarterback who's taken his licks (quite literally) over the course of an entire season, UCLA has no reason to set its sights short of nine or even 10 wins next fall. At this pace, that should be the standard soon for every season; if it's not, Neuheisel will be feeling some heat for failing to make good on the quality at his disposal. This year, his fourth, is the year the Bruins have to begin to make that move.

Whether that means making a move on USC's hold on the rivalry (the Trojans won eight of nine against UCLA under Pete Carroll, all but one by at least 17 points) is another story. Talent-wise, the Bruins (like everyone else in the Pac-10 and almost everyone else nationally) are still looking up at SC, and the transition from Carroll to the far less accomplished Kiffin over the next year or two is Neuheisel's big chance to close that gap. But it couldn't have been very encouraging Wednesday night to watch Kiffin's first, hastily-assembled class across town draw rave reviews for a late surge that landed headliners from all over the country -- Markeith Ambles (Georgia), Seantrel Henderson (Minnesota) and Nickell Robey (Florida) on signing day alone. If Henderson follows through on his commitment, that crop will rival any that Carroll brought in over the previous decade, and put the pressure squarely on Neuheisel, who isn't going to out-talk or out-excite Team Kiffin on the trail anymore than he could Carroll. Either the NCAA drops the hammer on the Trojans when it reviews the long-awaited case against former SC star Reggie Bush later this month, or (more likely) "Slick Rick" and his staff will have to flatly out-coach the new kids on the block between the stripes. This, they may be able to handle.

Less than a month after taking Florida’s defensive coordinator position, George Edwards is leaving to take the same position with the Buffalo Bills, a UF coach confirmed to the [Orlando] Sentinel.

Edwards was officially hired by Urban Meyer on Jan. 8 and now leaves the day after the Gators signed one of the best defensive recruiting classes in history.

The Bills made the move official a few minutes ago. Very courteous of Edwards -- who hopped up to Gainesville from the Dolphins and hasn't coached a down in college since 1996 -- to delay his departure until after the Gators inked that chart-topping crop, which includes Rivals' No. 1 defensive end, No. 1 and No. 2 defensive tackles, No. 3 inside linebacker, No. 3 and No. 4 cornerbacks and No. 2 safety, for starters. He served his role -- [Dial highly-rated recruit] "I am the defensive coordinator. The staff is not in chaos." [Dial next recruit, repeat] -- exceptionally well.

Urban Meyer's long-awaited leave of absence is scheduled to begin today and run through spring practice, roughly, leaving it to offensive coordinator Steve Addazio to take over day-to-day operations around the office -- including, presumably, re-filling the position Charlie Strong presided over so effectively for the last five years. As East Division rivals Georgia and Tennessee can attest from their angst-ridden coordinator searches over the last month, takers can be hard to come by this time of year.

Of course, Urban can put off the "vacation" thing if they need him to hang around a little longer. He doesn't mind. Really. He doesn't, if Steve doesn't feel comfortable making that kind of decision ... OK, seriously, Meyer's back. Let's get to work. (Who had "six hours" in the latest leave of absence pool? Hint: This guy!)

It's a rule of recruiting that all coaches are upbeat about their new players, and Ron Zook is an excited, power-positive-thinking kind of guy, generally. So when he insisted Wednesday that the latest signing class at Illinois is "going to surprise a lot of people down the road," count it as a difficult concession to the reality that success from this group -- on Zook's watch, anyway -- would stun just about everybody. A quick stroll through the message boards makes it clear enough that Illinois fans resigned themselves to another year of futility as soon it was clear last fall that Zook would be back for his sixth season, so much so that even the most hopeful Illini partisans had a hard time expressing much real disappointment in by far the most universally panned class of that tenure.

That pessimism persisted despite Zook's penchant for wooing solid talent in bleak circumstances, the one consistently admirable quality he's demonstrated throughout his beleaguered head-coaching career. At Florida, he brought in top-10 classes in 2003 and 2004 that formed the vast majority of the blue-chip lineup Urban Meyer molded into national champions in 2006; in Champaign, he somehow managed to land back-to-back top-30 classes in 2006 and 2007 off back-to-back two-win seasons in 2005 and 2006. He racked up another top-25 class after the Illini's improbable Rose Bowl run in 2007. That season, including wins over Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin, was seen at the time as Zook's breakthrough, a validation of his reputation as more than just an enthusiastic recruiter and muscly water skier.

That momentum slowed a little last year when offensive coordinator and recruiting ace Mike Locksley -- credited with plucking future stars Vontae Davis and Arrelious Benn from his hometown, Washington, D.C., and helping seal once-hyped quarterback Juice Williams out of Chicago -- left for the head-coaching gig at New Mexico, and nearly collapsed as the expected rebound season turned into a sobering descent to the bottom of the Big Ten standings last winter. After losing the highest-rated commitment in the class, in-state safety Corey Cooper, in a signing-day switch to Nebraska, the Illini wrapped up a 20-man crop Wednesday that included just one player (quarterback Chandler Whitmer) rated better than three stars and no one who even threatened to make a Top 100/250 list. One of the highest-rated members of the class, Louisiana center Alex Hill, said he chose the Illini over Duke when he prayed about it and decided he'd pick the school whose first letter, 'I' or 'D', showed up first on the next text message on his cell phone. ("It was my girlfriend, and it was an 'I'.") If it had come up 'D', the final score might have come up even worse:

The good news is that the hard-working members of this class will almost certainly not be worse than their more touted predecessors, many of whom (notably injury-plagued linebacker Martez Wilson and promising young cornerback Terry Hawthorne) are still around this fall for another stab at fulfilling some of the hype. But Zook's fate in Champaign was so wrapped up in establishing a solid foundation of success with his two would-be stars, Juice Williams and Arrelious Benn -- "success" being defined very loosely here as "seven or eight wins a year over multiple seasons" -- and he couldn't do it. Without running back Rashard Mendenhall (the only true star of the Zook era) serving as a focal point, Williams was inconsistent, inaccurate and incapable of keeping Benn, maybe the best raw talent in the Big Ten, involved in the offense. The defense, despite featuring the likes of Davis (now an NFL starter) and Wilson (once a five-star recruit), has consistently finished in the bottom half of the conference. Last year's team, which should have been Zook's most talented, most experienced and best-positioned to make a darkhorse run at the Big Ten title, immediately spun into a tailspin that looked like a regression to Zook's first Illini squad in 2005.

The core of that team -- the talent that a borderline contender on paper -- is off to the NFL with its tail between its legs. (Well maybe not Juice, but not for lack of natural talent.) To steal Zook's construction analogy, that group was supposed to be the foundation of a program that, instead, clearly hasn't gotten off the ground yet. If the latest crop is supposed to be "the mortar" that holds the thing together, who at this point is supposed to be the bricks?

[Offensive lineman Uche] Nwaneri posted on the Jaguars’ Web site that, while cashing a check, a bank teller started talking about how Tebow will save the Jaguars.

So Nwaneri posted his five points on Tebow, with capital letters:

"1. He can't throw, PERIOD.

2. He can't read any coverage other than probably cover 2 or man.

3. The QB Wildcat WILL NOT WORK IN THIS LEAGUE. PERIOD.

4. He doesn’t know how to take a snap from center.

5. HE CAN’T THROW, and that’s really something you either have or not."

I guess that settles it, then. Obviously, there's nothing the kid can do to help the team. Oh, and one more thing:

Nwaneri then urged fans to buy tickets because he doesn’t want to come out "for pregame warmups to a COMPLETELY EMPTY STADIUM ANYMORE."

Let's talk business, Uche: Whether or not the Tebow Child can make a successful transition to the pro game on the field, putting warm bodies in seats is obviously among the greatest of his many other talents. Give the people what they want. And even if Nwaneri and the legions of critics are right that Tebow is bound for NFL flopdom, I guarantee thousands of Georgia fans would be willing to make the drive down to the site of so many Cocktail Party aggravations for the sole purpose of watching their former tormenter operate behind a line that might not feel much like blocking for him.

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Holly welcomes your adulation and veiled threats at nastinchka-at-yahoo, etc.

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• What do you think this is, charity? Nick Saban, formerly the patron saint of overstuffing classes with more recruits than he could possible retain, couldn't find any room in Alabama's top-five haul for former Buffalo quarterback Zach Maynard, even though rolling the dice on a scholarship for Maynard would have secured his far more coveted half-brother, five-star safety and longtime 'Bama commit Keenan Allen. Saban said thanks, but no thanks on the package deal: "We were not in a position to do that because we were full."

Maynard and Allen went cross-country by signing with Cal instead, and unlike Saban, they weren't willing to talk about the snub: When a Tuscaloosa News reporter mentioned Alabama before the players' announcement press conference, their handler -- a former coach at Allen's high school who may or may not have been offered a job at Cal -- had the reporter kicked out of the restaurant where it was being staged. [Mobile Press-Register, Tuscaloosa News]

• Well, we didn't totally collapse. Victory! The title of "Most Relieved" out of signing day goes to Tennessee, where Vol fans are just happy that hastily installed coach Derek Dooley (aka "The Panic Choice") was able to hold a top-10 class together in just a few weeks on the job -- UT's only significant defection in the end was five-star receiver Markeith Ambles, who followed Team Kiffin to USC, and Dooley made up for it by reeling in Rivals' top-ranked player in Tennessee, top-100 defensive end Jacques Smith. [Rocky Top Talk]

"Most Panicked," on the other hand, was clearly Ohio State, which whiffed on the top four in-state players and landed outside of Rivals' top 25 classes for the first time in recent memory after losing primary target Seantrel Henderson to USC (for the time being, anyway). Buckeye blog Eleven Warriors, while not exactly enthusiastic about the lackluster showing, took it upon itself to rally the troops this morning by reminding them that, you know, Columbus is still standing, right?

• Knoxville=Wilcoxville. Tennessee's most important pledge of the day came not from a recruit, but from Boise State defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox, who was officially introduced as the Vols' new DC on Wednesday night. The 35-year-old has a good reputation as an up-and-comer after seven years at the helm of Boise's D -- a span that includes six WAC championships and two Fiesta Bowl wins to cap undefeated seasons -- but, like his boss, Wilcox was far down the line of choices: If "a thousand coaches wanted that job," as Derek Dooley said, at least four of them reportedly turned the Vols down before they reached out to Wilcox. [Knoxville News-Sentinel]

• Workoutgate Update. Michigan's Board of Regents held a closed-door session Wednesday morning to hear an update on the university's investigation into "possible training violations," according to the Detroit Free Press, which initiated the investigation on the eve of the '09 season with a serious-sounding report that may or may not hold up to serious scrutiny, depending on your allegiances. The Freep didn't learn much about what went on behind those doors, including whether the NCAA has submitted its findings to the university, but the meeting is probably a sign that the investigation is drawing to a close and some announcement of findings -- along with possible self-imposed sanctions, if necessary -- could be coming within the next few weeks. [Detroit Free Press]

Quickly ... With a stellar class behind him, Urban Meyer finally plans to step away for awhile before the start of spring practice on March 17, but he doesn't know how long that while will be. (I've got six hours in the pool.) ... The Columbus Dispatch wonders why Ohio State struggles to recruit Cincinnati. ... Steve McNair's son, three-star receiver Steve Jr., kept his commitment to the hometown school, Southern Miss. ... Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly expects likely starting quarterback Dayne Crist to recover from an ACL injury in time to participate in non-contact drills this spring. ... Former North Carolina coach John Bunting passes along a few signing day stories. ... And Ndamukong Suh will henceforth be known as "Ndamukong Swoosh."

This is what happens when you go to sleep on Lane Kiffin: After celebrating Florida's exceptional class Wednesday as one of the greatest ever assembled, the gurus had to reverse course at the 11th hour, when USC capped its late surge by adding late commitments from a pair of top junior college prospects, defensive end Marquis Jackson and fullback Soma Vainuku, who are expected to sign today. Those additions, on top of three new five-star signatures earlier on Wednesday, vaulted the Trojans' overall crop in front of Florida's in Rivals' final rankings overnight (though, it must be noted, other sites whose existence you are otherwise commanded to ignore still have USC sitting outside their top five nationally, well behind the No. 1 Gators), putting a very "Dewey Defeats Truman" spin on Wednesday's proceedings, vague and subjective as they already were.

In fact, with 3,003 total points and an "average star" rating of 4.2, Team Kiffin's first crop -- patched up and closed on in a little under a month following Pete Carroll's abrupt departure for the NFL -- came within a whisker of Carroll's classes in 2006 (3,018 points) and 2007 (average of 4.22 stars) for the best numbers Rivals has awarded to any class since it started keeping track in 2002.

Still, the tenor in L.A. today is uncertainty on two fronts: a) The moment of truth in the NCAA's illegal benefits probe against former Trojan star Reggie Bush is less than three weeks away, when the association's Committee on Infractions will meet to discuss the results of the investigation into nearly $300,000 in cash and prizes allegedly funneled to Bush and his family by wannabe agents in 2004-05, and to mete out possible sanctions; and b) Until that meeting is complete, the crown jewel of the final recruiting push, coveted Minnesota offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson, isn't signing anything, says the New York Times:

According to his father, Sean, Henderson is not signing his letter of intent until U.S.C. appears before an N.C.A.A. infractions committee later this month. Though any possible sanctions may not come at that time, Sean Henderson said the family would get a sense of where the investigation was heading.
[...]
During his son’s recruitment, Sean Henderson said, recruiters from other colleges mentioned that the Trojans might face penalties from an N.C.A.A. investigation of their athletic program. But while visiting the Hendersons last week in Minneapolis, Lane Kiffin told them not to be worried, Sean Henderson said.

"As far as he's been informed — he was very, very choosy with his words — there shouldn't be anything going wrong because there was no knowledge of anything going on by the staff," Sean Henderson said. The Hendersons asked Kiffin to be clear about what impact the N.C.A.A. might have on the Trojans' football program, Sean Henderson said. Just before Seantrel chose U.S.C. on Wednesday, Kiffin reiterated not to listen to others who said the Trojans might face sanctions.

In the meantime, Henderson will remain an unsigned commitment, a status he can maintain -- because USC is obviously not pulling his scholarship, and any other school on his list will honor its offer in a heartbeat if he changes his mind -- until April 1, the last day of the official signing period. (Recruiting veterans may recall that the last two No. 1 prospects, Terrelle Pryor and Bryce Brown, both extended their recruitments into March, though neither had a firm commitment before they ultimately signed with Ohio State and Tennessee, respectively.) Because Infractions Committee decisions take 4-6 weeks to come down -- and are notoriously secretive before they do -- it's very likely USC's fate re: the NCAA will still be very much in the air when the April 1 deadline rolls around. If the backchannels begin forecasting a hammer from the Association after Feb. 21, we probably shouldn't be surprised if the Buckeyes and Hurricanes start looking pretty good to Seantrel again.

Even if you're not a flame-wielding Tennessee fan, odds are that you either don't like USC coach Lane Kiffin for trading on contacts and unscrupulous bravado over substance and dues-paying on his way to one of the best jobs in his profession, or you simply don't respect him. Maybe both. But you have to give him this: The man can close.

With just two months to salvage a mediocre class at Tennessee last winter, Kiffin and recruiting consiglieri Ed Orgeron dramatically improved the Vols' final haul, stealing coveted prospects Janzen Jackson and Nu'Keese Richardson from rivals LSU and Florida, respectively, at the the last second, then sealing the deal with the nation's best player, longtime Miami commit Bryce Brown, a few weeks later. This year, with even less time to cobble together a USC-worthy class in their new digs, Team Kiffin quickly secured a pair of five-star wafflers, Kyle Prater and Dillon Baxter, from Pete Carroll's crop of commitments, added four-star target Demetrius Wright down the stretch and closed with a resounding bang today, locking up cross-country signatures from five-star Georgia receiver Markeith Ambles, hotly-sought Florida cornerback Nickell Robey and the gem of the day, towering, top-ranked Minnesota offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson. No one was pegging any member of that trio for L.A. before Kiffin and Orgeron burst onto the scene.

In a single 12-hour gambit, the Trojans' 2010 crop went from an undersized, on-the-brink group hovering around the bottom of the gurus' top-10 lists -- a mediocre effort by USC standards, to say the least -- to one of the few truly elite classes in the nation, a Carroll-worthy haul that easily landed at No. 2 in Rivals' final national rankings. It might have threatened to come in at No. 1 if they'd landed UCLA-bound targets Dietrich Riley and Josh Shirley in the afternoon, but by any standard, Kiffin and Orgeron left no doubt that the USC recruiting beat lives on for the foreseeable future.

Still, if there was any question, Urban Meyer is here to assure you that, as recruiting beasts go, there is none beastlier than the creature he's nurtured at Florida, a tyrannosaur in an F-14 whose appetite for young, blue-chip blood is never sated. Here is a man who quit his job barely a month ago, just weeks after being wheeled from his house on a gurney in the middle of the night, unconscious, having literally worked himself into a heart-wrenching stupor. As recently as three weeks ago, he was still scheduled to be on Tahiti today, or at least in a hammock or something, rather than putting the finishing touches on Florida's third No. 1 class in the last five years.

But here it is. The Gators brought in every headliner reported to be in the fold before today's proceedings -- top-ranked defensive end Ronald Powell faxed his letter-of-intent in from Los Angeles; flaky, five-star safety Matt Elam came through after months of waffling on his commitment -- and managed to add to their riches with on-the-fence offensive lineman Chaz Green and receiver Adrian Coxson as the day wore on. A title like "Best Recruiting Class Ever" has no meaning before anyone in it has set foot on a college field, but less than five weeks after Urban Meyer decided needed to throttle down for the sake of his health and family, he somehow reaffirmed his program's status as the gold standard for contemporary talent magnets:

Such continuity is startling, given the stark future the burgeoning Gator dynasty faced when it looked like Meyer may not be back this fall, if he was ever back on the sideline at all. Already, Florida had lost both coordinators, its mega-star quarterback and the core of the exceptional defense that built the dynasty in the first place. If Meyer had followed those departures, there would be no semblance of the spectacular four-year run from 2006-09 remaining at all.

Instead, today is the day Meyer put any notions of long-term decline out of their misery. The Gators aren't going to win a national championship every year, or every other year. But as long as Urban lives to stalk the trail, obviously the well that produced the last four years isn't running dray any time soon.

• DB Wave Ryder, Utah State Navy. "Bonus: He's from Hawaii." Demerit: He's bound for the wave-less dunes of Logan, Utah. Double Bonus: Was not forced to change surname for show business, like Winona Ryder. Triple Bonus: An alert e-mailer points out that, contrary to his now-outdated Rivals profile, Wave has in fact backed out of his commitment to Utah State and is en route to the most perfect of all destinations: Navy. Yes, Wave Ryder will ride the waves, literally, as a Midshipman. It is his destiny.

Demerit: Still much harder to hook up with Winona Ryder if the opportunity arises.

• WR Necho Beard, Nevada. "Because 'Neck' Beard or 'Nacho' Beard would've been too obvious."

• QB Munchie Legaux, Cincinnati. (Right) Further comment will only diminish the lustrousness of this bayou masterpiece. Brian Kelly is considering ditching Notre Dame to return to the Bearcats, because he can't pass up the opportunity to be associated with it.

• DB Furious Bradley, Southern Miss. Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples argues this is an even better moniker than "Munchie Legeaux." Why? "Muchie's real first name is Benton. Furious' real first name is Furious."

• LB Chi Chi Ariguzo, Northwestern. "I'll have the fried ice cream, please."

• QB D'Angelo Barksdale, San Diego. "See, the king stay the king, a'ight? Everything stay who he is. Except for the pawns."

• DB Asian Ruff, Uncommitted. Some mid-level program in the South (probably Arkansas) is getting a big safety who is definitely not Asian, although he does bear a startling resemblance to a medium-sized wading bird that breeds in marshes and wet meadows across northern Eurasia.

• LB Myles Davis, Syracuse. Too cool for this sort of low-brow fare, frankly, but will his hardcore Orange fans stick with him when he decides to get a little "experimental" with his game as an upperclassmen?

• RB Storm Johnson, Miami. "Name a kid 'Storm' and it's 50-50 that he's either going to grow up to play for the Hurricanes or spend his life boosting cars." (Why not both, Michael Irvin always said ...)

• OL Jose Jose, Central Florida. "It's It's gotta gotta be be Jose Jose. Right? Right? /obvs /obvs." When you weigh 355 pounds, you can have as many names as you need, brother.

Forget next year's list: The point is moot in 2011, when all comers are shamed by the luminscence of God's Power Offor. That race, it is finished.

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Thanks to followers Worst Fan, Dan Rubenstein, Hail To Purple, Ryan Matts, Friends of the Program, The Vermonster and AG Buck. Follow Dr. Saturday on Twitter at @DrSaturday.

When Auburn hired Gene Chizik away from Iowa State in December 2008, the move was so universally panned by baffled pundits and torch-wielding Tiger partisans alike that premature obituaries didn't seem too farfetched before Chizik had even coached a game. Auburn had just fired one of the most successful coaches in school history, Tommy Tuberville, a man who had led an undefeated season and six straight wins over hated Alabama, and was already beginning to quiver in the shadow of the looming Death Star being constructed by Nick Saban across the state. Even conservative, old-school outlets like the Birmingham News, "Five-and-Nineteen Gene," was greeted as a lightweight in a heavy artillery fight:

One former SEC assistant heard the news and laughed out loud.

One former Auburn assistant who worked alongside Chizik reacted with stunned silence.

One college football insider who knows both the current Alabama boss and the man Auburn has chosen to battle him said Chizik is a good coach - but Nick Saban will eat him for breakfast.

No word on whether it'll be before or after his daily Little Debbies.

A couple months after that, Saban reeled in the nation's top-ranked class for the second straight year as a prelude to a long-awaited national championship. Chizik's debut at Auburn, meanwhile, was more or less the meh campaign everyone expected.

Yet when the recruiting gurus wrap up the post-signing day rankings this afternoon, the Tigers' first full haul under Chizik is going to be right alongside Alabama's as one of everyone's top five incoming classes nationally (slightly ahead of the Tide's crop, actually, if you want to split hairs), spinning Big Cat Weekend and the Hummer limo in high school parking lots and all the other sideshow aspects of the Auburn hard sell last spring and summer in a less eye-rolling light: Obviously, hyped-up 18-year-old kids appreciate the sideshows.

In this class, that goes double for the out-of-state kids: The Tigers got out of Alabama to coax signatures from Rivals' top-ranked players in Arkansas (five-star running back Michael Dyer), Mississippi (five-star offensive tackle Shon Coleman) and Louisiana (high four-star receiver Trovon Reed) as well as the the top-ranked junior college prospect in the nation (quarterback Cam Newton, an Atlanta native who was originally the mega-hyped heir apparent to Tim Tebow at Florida before transferring to lead Blinn College (Texas) to a JUCO national championship). They picked up a nod from elite Florida defensive end Corey Lemonier at the last minute, on top of multiple four-star prospects from Georgia and another pair of top JUCO players from Kansas and California. They did well enough in-state, despite losing the three highest-rated players to the Tide, to land four of Alabama's top 10. And unlike 'Bama, which lost hyped safety Keenan Allen to Cal, didn't suffer any last-second defections from its expected commitments. It's a better haul than anyone had any right to expect at Auburn even two months ago.

All of which may be redeemed for 30 seconds' worth of bragging rights and four years' worth of increased expectations. There's a reason the Tigers' bumper crop has met with so much surprise next to Alabama's day at the office: If Chizik can't convert that momentum into another January bowl and another celebrated class next winter, he'll be right back where he started, because Nick Saban's shadow isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

WARNING: Female readers are encouraged to consult their physician before clicking 'play.'

For ignoring the stereotypes of his position and slow-jamming his way into the hearts and pants of Tiger fans across the Plains, Ladarious succeeds 2009 winner Sam Barrington as Dr. Saturday's Recruit of the Year. We'll be watching you Ladarious: Do the groove proud.

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Video hat tip: Friends of the Program.

Yeah, it may not play because the maximum number of viewers has been reached. And they're not even putting the kids' names on a board!

• Urban: Cowboy? The tall tales swirling around Urban Meyer since he announced his (apparently fictional) leave of absence in December have been divine, including the persistent speculation that Meyer planned to step down as soon as the nation's best recruiting class was secure. But none quite tops the wholly absurd word Tuesday that opposing coaches told recruits Meyer was bound for the Dallas Cowboys after signing day, per incoming Gator signee Mack Brown: "They would say, he's tricking ya'll — he's going to the NFL to coach the Dallas Cowboys. I was like 'What?' There's no way." Mack had better hope not, for his sake: His official letter of intent is already in Meyer's hands this morning. [Orlando Sentinel]

• Kiffin be closin'. USC is waiting on many recruits today -- including the biggest name on the board, Minnesota offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson -- but the Trojans have already landed one elite prospect, five-star Georgia receiver Markeith Ambles, who announced his decision on Atlanta TV moments ago. Ambles opted for The Kiffin Plan once already, when he committed to Tennessee over USC in December, and remains under Lane's sway as he and right-hand recruiting bear Ed Orgeron set up shop on the West Coast. If all goes as planned in L.A., Ambles can follow Kiffin to the NFL in three years, too. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

• Father knows hype. As for Henderson: The 6'8", 300-pound behemoth will anchor the day's festivities with a televised announcement gala in New York City this afternoon, and his dad knows what you're thinking. Let Sean Henderson set the record straight: "I'm not worried about it being over the top. One of the reasons we're going to New York is I want Seantrel to make his decision where he'll be in a neutral spot, where he'll feel good about it ... I didn't want him at school in some gym when he announces it, because there might be some 'yays' and there might be some 'nays.'" Very prudent, for a man consenting to put his teenage son on live television in the media capital of the world. [Columbus Dispatch]

• Da'Rick does Georgia Da'Wrong. Along with Ambles, Henderson and Allen, one of the more interesting recruiting dramas of the day will go down in Calhoun, Ga., where five-star receiver Da'Rick Rogers -- regarded by everyone as the best prospect out of Georgia this year, and possibly since Eric Berry in 2007 -- threatens to start a riot when he snubs the Bulldogs for Tennessee despite his longstanding commitment to UGA over the last year. One disgruntled Georgia fan started a Twitter feed Tuesday for the express purpose of harassing Rogers for his last-second defection to the Vols, which Da'Rick seemed to take in stride. [The Chattanoogan]

• I think we're in Kansas again, Toto. Miami linebacker Arthur Brown, older brother of last year's top-ranked recruiting diva, Bryce Brown, and a once-hyped prospect his own self, is not enrolled at Miami this semester and has returned to his hometown in Kansas "to be close to his family," according to a school spokesman. Brown hasn't requested a transfer from the 'Canes, but he won't be back for spring practice, and UM message boards have been calling him a goner for weeks. [Miami Herald]

The day's biggest mystery, though, seems to have already slipped through Kiffin's fingers: Five-star receiver and overly confident playa Markeith Ambles -- a former Tennessee commit who warmed up to USC again when Kiffin bolted for Los Angeles last month, and who was teasing Volunteer, Tar Heel and "Trogan" fans online Tuesday night -- woke up wearing a North Carolina beanie on his Twitter page and "feeling good about [the] choice" he made last night.

Then again, maybe Ambles is just setting up the Heels for the most elaborately, cruelly constructed hat trick yet -- and still, it couldn't hope to match the Song of Keenan Allen for last-second drama.

Sure, you can feel guilty about stalking the whims of teenagers via social media, but you may as well go ahead and face it: This is your day. Hopefully, you're one of the lucky ones for whom the recruiting bug only bites for the first Wednesday every February. If so, welcome to obsession, and do not be ashamed. It comes with the territory.

Yeah, almost. But somehow, it sounds even more pretentious in print:

Lattimore kept fans in suspense until the last minute.

He invited former Auburn tailback and Columbia resident Stephen Davis to the front of the church. Davis, who also grew up in Spartanburg, gave Lattimore an Auburn hat, prompting some shouts of "Auburn" from some in the crowd of of 300 or so. But then Lattimore pulled a Gamecock hat out from under the Auburn cap and put the garnet hat on.
[...]
"That's here my heart is," Lattimore said. "And (Steve Spurrier) did the Cha-Cha Slide with my mama."

Okay, I admit, the Ol' Ball Coach doing whatever "the Cha-Cha Slide" is with Lattimore's mother would have made his announcement easily the best recruiting press conference to date, while significantly lowering the limbo bar for Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. As it is, South Carolina gets the top-rated running back in the country, the highest-rated recruit of Spurrier's five-year tenure and a potential cure for a ground game that's finished dead last in the SEC three years in a row. Good luck and good health back there, Marcus.

The Bronco bandwagon, clearly bound for the BCS after pantsing the Ducks in a late-night romp last September, has a bigger destination in its sights this time around: With the cred of three undefeated regular season in four years, the momentum of last month's Fiesta Bowl win over TCU and an entire offseason of hype over 20 returning starters from the team that landed the highest poll finish in school history an opening night reprise against the Hokies could set BSU on a course for the BCS title game. That may be a bold assumption, but it's one the Broncos have earned, just as they earned the assumption last year that an eventual BCS bid was in the works after clearing their only significant hurdle against Oregon. The more they win, the higher the stakes become.

Of course, the Labor Day spot can cut the other way -- no one would hesitate to dismiss the Broncos from their brief stay among the elite with a high-profile loss in their biggest game of the year, and Virginia Tech will be out to make a splash to kick off its own BCS campaign. With the exception of its pair of Fiesta Bowl upsets over Oklahoma and TCU, Boise hasn't been nearly as successful against major competition away from the blue turf. It couldn't ask for a better opportunity to overcome that stigma and put itself in position to actually compete for No. 1.

On the other hand, if you don't get a combine invite, the cold shoulder alone could be a career-ending disappointment. This year's notable combine snubs still have a chance at the next level, but it's almost certainly going to be a long, uphill climb in some random training camp:

• WR Freddie Barnes, Bowling Green. Former quarterback shattered the NCAA record with 155 catches last year, 19 of them for touchdowns, and has decent size at 6'0", 212 pounds; some projections have tabbed Barnes as a middle-rounder for his reliability and consistency. Barnes' record-breaking campaign was more quantity than quality, though, and his production against the best teams the Falcons faced, Missouri and Boise State -- against whom he combined to average just 6.7 yards per catch with no touchdowns -- highlighted his inability to stretch the field against a competent secondary. (And in Mizzou's case, that's defining "competent" pretty loosely.)

• RB Damion Fletcher, Southern Miss. USM's all-time rushing leader passed Herschel Walker and LaDainian Tomlinson into eighth place on the NCAA's career rushing list in his final game, on the same night he became just the ninth player ever over 1,000 yards on the ground in all four college seasons. But Fletch was never going to impress scouts with his size or speed, and his production declined over the last two years to the point that he was just another piece in the Eagles' increasingly pass-happy attack, rather than the workhorse he'd been early in his career. Essentially, he was as good as he's going to be as a true freshman, and that's not good enough to command attention from the NFL.

• QB Matt Grothe, South Florida. A torn ACL a month into his senior season may have sealed Grothe's fate, but the Big East's all-time leader in total yards was a quintessential "college quarterback" from the beginning, a sub 6-footer sidewinder prone to bailing from the pocket and embarking on the occasional sandlot-style scramble drill. That led to some big plays and a Favre-like reputation for "just having fun out there," but it also led to a Favre-like penchant for dumb turnovers: Grothe tossed 14 picks in each of his three full seasons as a starter, leaving him with more career interceptions than any other active college passer.

• LB Rico McCoy, Tennessee. Probably the most surprising snub: McCoy started every game for the Vols over the last three years, led UT in tackles as a senior after finishing second on the team in 2007 and '08 and was tabbed as a second team All-SEC pick by league coaches in a linebacker-heavy conference twice, in '07 and '09. The drawback from the NFL's perspective is clearly his size: At 6'0", 220, McCoy is smaller than a lot of pro running backs, and not athletic enough to make a move to safety. I guess "the next Derrick Brooks/Zach Thomas" isn't such a hot argument.

• QB Todd Reesing, Kansas. Three-year starter, academic All-American and ironic American flag enthusiast is pretty easily the most productive QB in Jayhawk history, delivering three straight 3,000-yard/20-touchdown campaigns and the best season in school history in 2007, capped by a win in the Orange Bowl and a top-five finish in the polls. He also loves puppies and once described football as "Indescribable through the modern English language." With his height, though, and his notable fade through most of KU's seven-game losing streak in the throes of Manginogate last fall, Reesing might as well get to work on that MBA.

• QB Bill Stull, Pittsburgh. First-team All-Big East pick has decent size (6'3", 215) and was surprisingly one of the most accurate and most efficient passers in the nation as a senior. Stull didn't have much of a profile coming into the year, though, and didn't turn any heads during the Panthers' tough, four-game closing stretch against Notre Dame, West Virginia, Cincinnati and North Carolina. Ultimately, he lacks the arm to stand out from a parade of "good-not-great" college quarterbacks, and might be automatically disqualified for his key role in the 2008 Sun Bowl atrocity, anyway.

• QB Juice Williams, Illinois. There was a moment -- during the Illini's improbable Rose Bowl run, when Juice was only a sophomore with two years left to throw jump balls in the general vicinity of freshman phenom Arrelious Benn -- when he was on track to keep Illinois in the Big Ten title hunt while fulfilling his recruiting hype as one of the nation's premiere quarterbacks. Two losing seasons later, Williams goes out as an unmitigated bust who was benched for much of a dismal senior season and even failed to flash enough of his undeniable physical gifts to even make him a project at the next level.

• DL Mick Williams, Pittsburgh. Senior tackle shared Big East Defensive Player of the Year honors with line mate Greg Romeus, who could have been a first round pick if he'd decided to leave Pitt a year early. The difference in Williams and Romeus? About five inches: At 6'1" and "just" 280 pounds, Williams is well below prototype heft for an NFL defensive tackle and also lacks the lean, long-limbed explosiveness scouts want to see in an edge rusher.

But Alabama's not taking the apparent snub lying down; no, the Tide have only begun to fight. And if it's blood you're interested in, Keenan Allen, Tide fans are here (and on your Facebook page) to assure you: If you choose Tuscaloosa, there will be blood.

No, Eric Harrison. No you do not.

- - -
Hat tip: Friends of the Program.

• It's a Texas thing. The Tulsa World's "Star Search" series on the geography of major college football players is well worth the tremendous effort that went into compiling the data, though it doesn't reach any stunning conclusions: Texas produces the most Division I-A players by far -- the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metroplexes alone accounted for 13 percent of all I-A players nationally in 2009, and 25 percent of players in the Big 12 -- though Alabama is the most productive football state per capita. (Note that Dallas native Greg McElroy, right, had to land at Alabama to win a national championship because the Longhorns weren't interested.) Among major cities, Honolulu is far ahead of the second-most productive area, New Orleans, with a whopping 135 players from a teenage male population of 29,300. The least productive states: North Dakota and Maine, which each had a single native player on '09 rosters. [Tulsa World]

• Wherefore art thou, Keenan? One of signing day's most-watched dramas will unfold around mega-hyped, five-star North Carolina receiver/cornerback Keenan Allen, a long-time Alabama commit who has reportedly dropped the Tide from contention, according to "multiple sources familiar with his recruitment" in the Mobile Press-Register. Rivals' database has officially changed Allen's status to "uncommitted," and sees him moving cross-country to Cal instead. An X-factor in the soap opera: The destination of Allen's half-brother, former Buffalo quarterback Zach Maynard, who transferred shortly after Bull coach Turner Gill bolted to Kansas and could bring one of the incoming class' most-sought athletes with him to whatever major school is willing to extend a scholarship to a mediocre MAC refugee. [Mobile Press-Register]

• Departed Ducks. Oregon announced the departure of three reserves on Monday, including receiver Garrett Embry, who was reportedly named in a police report alongside star quarterback Jeremiah Masoli in connection to a robbery at a frat house in the early morning hours of Jan. 24. The team went out of its way in the release to note that Embry had already been dismissed for undisclosed rules violation on Jan. 8, apparently to distance the news from the much-publicized robbery, for which there are still no charges or arrests. [Oregon Register-Guard]

• Gagging for the greater good. Following in the humanitarian footsteps of "World Champion Buffalo Bills" gear and Lane Kiffin-themed Tennessee T-shirts, Texas' University Co-op will turn the team's loss into a gain for charity by shipping 14,000 "BCS Champion Texas Longhorn" shirts to Haiti to aid in earthquake relief. The Co-op will send the gear through Kids In Distressed Situations Inc. [Austin American-Statesman]

Quickly ... The Birmingham News' Kevin Scarbinsky casts a dissenting vote on the soon-to-come Nick Saban statue. ... Tony Dungy's son, Eric, a two-star prospect from Tampa, commits to Oregon after a weekend visit. ... And, statistically speaking, college football is the domain of Southern Republicans more than any other group. Hey, man, them's the numbers talking, not me.

In the long, great history of trash talk, few taunts have ever made less sense than 30 burnt orange "Don't Mess With Texas" billboards around Tuscaloosa and West Alabama -- clearly, 'Bama messed with Texas with great success during the Crimson Tide's BCS Championship win over the Longhorns last month. Knowing Tide fans, I'm sure they'd welcome the opportunity to mess with Texas again, healthy quarterback and all. So is this some kind of joke, or what?

Actually, yes, according to the Tuscaloosa News, although the paper wasn't able to shed any light on the eventual punch line, or who's behind it. The space is owned by Baton Rouge-based billboard giant Lamar Advertising, which rented it out to a marketing agency, 41 Entertainment, which had been contacted by a company looking to hatch a year-long campaign built around the 'Bama-Texas title game. But that's where the trail goes cold for now:

"That's the problem with this," [41 Entertainment spokesman Philip] Hurley said. "I'm not going to be able to enlighten you much. We have a client that has been in the Alabama market for 25 years. I'm not going to be able to tell you who it is."

The space is currently rented for a month, [Lamar Advertising general manager Durel] Young said. But the campaign will play out over the next year with fairly frequent changes, Hurley said.

"The client is interested in having a very entertaining campaign in good taste and good humor," Hurley said. "As it develops, you will see it is to sell a product."
[...]
"It's all based on this Texas-Alabama game," said Hurley, who was in Los Angeles for the BCS National Championship Game. "It was in the works well before the game. We may have to revise it a little of it because Texas didn't win. It's all geared around athletics, college football and how big a deal that game was. Alabama and Texas have a pretty good rivalry and we hope there's another game in the near future."

So there you go: Advertising disguised as mysterious, slowly evolving concept art, in Alabama, concerning Texas, centered on a recently secured national championship. I'm sure the payoff was deeply considered and meticulously planned in advance. No, I don't hear shotguns cocking. Do you?

- - -
Hat tip: The Wiz

The Good. Passing guru Bobby Petrino and ex-blue chip Michigan transfer Ryan Mallett shrugged off their sketchy reps and lived up to the hype in their second season together, combining to orchestrate the highest-flying, highest-scoring offense in the SEC. The super-sized Mallett ended the season as the league's leader in passing yards, touchdowns and touchdown-interception ratio while regaining his status as the most drooled-over passer in the eyes of pro scouts after a rocky start in Ann Arbor in 2007.

The numbers were inflated by easy-pickin' blowouts over Missouri State, Eastern Michigan and Troy, and the Razorbacks were eaten alive by Alabama's ferocious D in a 35-7 rout in Tuscaloosa. But Mallett was exceptional in high-scoring wins over Texas A&M (271 yards, four touchdowns), Auburn (274 yards, two touchdowns), South Carolina (329 yards) and Mississippi State (313 yards five touchdowns), nearly orchestrated upsets at Florida and LSU and bombarded Georgia for 408 yards and five touchdowns with no picks in a 52-41 loss in September. His inconsistency -- Mallett hit fewer than half his passes in five different games -- was offset by the best long-distance arm in the country: The Razorbacks' top four wide receivers all averaged more than 16 yards per catch with 22 touchdowns between them.

The Bad. Mallett and Co. got no breaks from a defense that forced them to burn every bit of that firepower to keep with the league's worst secondary -- Arkansas finished dead last in the SEC in pass efficiency and scoring D for the second year in a row, giving up at least 30 points in four of five losses. In the fifth, after holding Florida to a field goal through the first two quarters, the Razorbacks allowed four extended scoring drives in the second half en route to a 23-20 heartbreaker.

In all, the Hogs gave up at least 250 yards or multiple touchdowns through the air in nine of 13 games despite returning three 2008 starters in the secondary and getting a fair amount of pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Frankly, it's hard to expect much more in this conference when there are no particularly touted players in the secondary (three of four starters were rated as two-star prospects out of high school; another regular, Rudell Crim, was a first-year junior college transfer) and the front seven remains among the SEC's worst against the run.

The Weird. The backfield was such a revolving door that Arkansas finished as one of only two teams in the conference (along with Florida) with four different players over 300 yards rushing for the season, and as the only team without at least one runner over 500 yards. Thundering USC transfer Broderick Green wound up handling the bulk of the carries, but Michael Smith (a 1,000-yard back in 2008), Dennis Johnson and Ronnie Wingo all averaged more than 5.5 per carry, and it was Smith (with 157 total yards against Auburn) and Johnson (with 122 hard-fought yards at Florida and 78 yards on just nine carries against LSU) who showed the brightest flashes when healthy.

Also: Receiver Joe Adams suffered a minor stroke before the Auburn game on Oct. 10, was back on the field by Halloween and later survived the hit of the year by LSU's Chad Jones:

... to haul in a fourth-down touchdown pass to put the Razorbacks up 30-27 moments later. Joe Adams is one tough mofo.

The Takeaway. This was a frighteningly young team -- Mallett, his top five receivers, three of the top four rushers and four starting linemen are back next fall, along with 11 of the top 15 tacklers on defense -- that regularly lit up opposing defenses and came within a missed field goal in two of the SEC's toughest road venues, Gainesville and Baton Rouge, of winning 10 games. Florida rotates of the schedule next year, and Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU come to Fayetteville, opening the door to turn-the-corner kind of campaign. With average improvement on defense and an upset or two in big games, the Razorbacks could plausibly push 'Bama's three-peat in the SEC West to the wire. But there were also nine returning starters on defense coming into last year, which basically amounted to nothing; who's going to step next time?

That might have been the end of the loop, if the endlessly sketchy BR hadn't been taken for a "pretty reliable outlet" by a blogger for an actual newspaper, the Kansas City Star, whose (heavily qualified) validation of the rumor on Sunday night was strengthened this morning when Fox Sports radio host Ben Maller cited "a little birdie" in relaying the "Pitt players have been informed/announcement is forthcoming" lines to readers of his blog. (And, presumably, to listeners of his show). Maller's post was picked up by College Football Talk, The Big Lead and With Leather, among others, and continued to spread on Twitter.

Never mind that the "original" Twitter accounts alleged to have "broken" the news were reportedly deleted, or that none of the claims had been even remotely substantiated, or that the Big Ten itself had just vowed to spend "12 to 18 months" to decide if it even wanted to expand. The rumors had reached enough of a saturation point by lunchtime today that both the head of Pitt's media relations and "a Big Ten source" were forced to publicly knock them down, the latter telling the Chicago Tribune that the conference had every intention of adhering to its 12-to-18-month timeline before it made any recommendation about expansion. There is no good evidence that Pitt is going anywhere anytime soon, alongside solid confirmation now that it definitely is not.

That's not to say the Panthers aren't still a candidate to call the Big Ten home eventually -- along with Missouri, Pitt still has the best resumé of any viable candidate short of the great white whale of all conference expansion scenarios, Notre Dame; there's a reason so many more people were so quick to jump on this rumor than there would have been if it had involved, say, Rutgers or some random MAC school. Pitt is a very plausible candidate, probably the odds-on favorite depending on Mizzou's willingness to break 100-year-old conference ties for a few extra bucks. But not for another nine months, at least. Keep your pants on, everybody.

The holy hour of the vast, seedy recruiting underworld, national signing day, is two days away, which is also the signal for legions of recruiting skeptics to sound their annual, anecdotal chants of "Ryan Perrilloux!" and "Notre Dame!" and snake oil!" And occasionally, they make a persuasive case. On All-Americans, for example: If you were to go back and review the projections for last year's All-Americans - or any year's All-Americans -- when they were but mere recruits, you'll probably notice that the results, relative to the hallowed rankings, seem virtually random.

It's true: As many of the nation's top players were rated two or three-star mediocrities out of high school as were rated four-star mustangs, and more lower-rated prospects are on the All-America teams than former five-stars. Of the 93 different players (excluding kickers and punters) who were voted in some capacity to one of the five NCAA-recognized All-America teams last year, only 13 came into college as five-star, can't-miss blue chips, the cream of the crop. By contrast, more than four times as many of those All-Americans -- 50, to be exact, more than half of the total -- were rated three stars or lower. The top three or four recruiting powers in the country should each have more talented rosters than that by themselves, according to the gurus.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think all those recruiting stars everyone gets worked up about every winter didn't correspond to future success at all, a theme you might become familiar with over the next week or so.

Fortunately, because we've been bestowed by the American education system with the magic of basic arithmetic, we do know better. If you look more closely at the relationship between initial expectations and eventual production, there's a very good reason for the heavy distribution of lower-ranked players among the nation's best, beginning with the distribution of stars at the beginning of the process, according to Rivals' extensive database of signees to I-A schools over the last five years:

I would hope that two and three-star players could acquit themselves well enough to produce a large number of big names, since they account for almost 90 percent of all players nationally. Again, using the rosters of the five NCAA-recognized All-America teams -- as voted by the AFCA, the Associated Press, the Football Writers of America, the Sporting News and the Walter Camp Foundation -- the situation changes dramatically when you look at the All-America numbers in light of those ratios:

Maybe a raw ratio of 1-in-15 -- or even 1-in-12, or 1-in-10, or whatever it is after accounting for the early departures, injuries and academics that these numbers make no attempt to reflect -- isn't all that impressive by itself. After all, that means far more elite recruits are falling short of their star-studded birthright than are reaching it. Across the board, failure is the norm.

Still, if you look at those odds ...

... and then consider that the exact same trend applies to players who are eventually drafted by the NFL, it must be very tough to go on portraying them as a crapshoot.

• But it sounded so plausible! Pittsburgh-centric message boards and Twitter were set aflame Sunday by wholly unsubstantiated rumors that Pitt is the Big Ten's choice to expand the conference to 12 teams/two divisions, complete with speculation that Panther players had been informed of the move behind closed doors and that an official announcement could come as early as this week. Ohio State blog Eleven Warriors outlines the appropriate reaction: Wake me in 2011, when the conference itself projected its exploratory phase might be complete. [Twitter, Ben Maller, Kansas City Star, Eleven Warriors]

• Best supporting actors. The headline out of Saturday's Senior Bowl couldn't have been anything but an account of the exploits of Tebow -- for the record, the outgoing Florida star completed a nondescript 8-of-12 for 50 yards with no touchdowns and two fumbles -- but there were a few breakout performances in Mobile, led by game MVP Brandon Graham of Michigan, who capped an outstanding week with two sacks and a forced fumble in the North squad's 31-13 win over the South. The other big games came from a pair of wide receivers on either side, Tulane's Jeremy Williams (109 yards on seven touches) and Cincinnati's Mardy Gilyard (5 catches, 103 yards, one touchdown), and the quarterbacks who facilitated most of those numbers, Oklahoma State's Zac Robinson and Central Michigan's Dan LeFevour. [Associated Press, Official Box Score]

• We must protect this kicker. Eugene police cited a member of Oregon's scout team, defensive end Matt Simms, for allegedly attacking a student on Saturday in retaliation for the savage beating that left Duck kicker Rob Beard hospitalized with severe facial injuries the previous weekend. Except for racking up a misdemeanor assault charge, Simms' street justice was apparently in vain: Police had already made a pair of arrests in connection to the fight that put Beard on ice, and the student Simms is supposed to have attacked said he had nothing to do with Beard's injuries. [Eugene Register-Guard]

• He likes the new character, "The Recruitburglar." Brian Kelly may not be above the occasional visit to the McDonald's drive-through lane when recruiting gets a little harried, but the South Bend Tribune describes Notre Dame's new coach as "almost [a] rock star" when he enters a high school to talk to a prospect, a status that served him well over the weekend: In desperate need of bodies at quarterback, Kelly janked one of his old Cincinnati recruits, three-star passer Luke Massa, from his commitment to the Bearcats, one of three new pledges the Irish picked up on official visits. [South Bend Tribune, Rivals High]

Quickly ... Jim Harbaugh hires assistant Vic Fangio from his brother's staff in Baltimore to serve as Stanford's defensive coordinator. ... Pro scouts continue to doubt freakish USC safety Taylor Mays, downgrading him from a possible top-10 pick to the bottom of the first round, and possibly the second. ... And I have no idea what this is, exactly, but I want it now.

Oh, reckless social networking. What would recruiting be without you?

As any UT frat boy with Heather's smoking hot "Sports Animal" poster tacked up in his dorm room can confirm, Ambles has good taste. Alas, at 25, Heather has outgrown recruits. (Although she's not above an unfortunate double entendre or two.)

Tennessee picked up three commitments out of the weekend despite the snow; not surprisingly, Ambles wasn't one of them. Presumably, he's delaying his announcement for some signing day shenanigans on Wednesday. If hastily installed coach Derek Dooley hasn't made the acquaintance of the Vol hostesses yet, this might be a good time.

- - -
Hat tip: Rocky Top Talk

WASHINGTON (AP)—The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review.

In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the Justice Department is reviewing Hatch’s request and other materials to determine whether to open an investigation into whether the BCS violates antitrust laws.
[...]
"The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football … raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties," Weich wrote.

The DOJ's stated basis for the probe (as well as Hatch's grateful response) is composed of the usual list of injustices -- "seemingly discriminatory action with regard to revenues and access" -- and the usual "nothing to see here/get a life" response from BCS mouthpiece Bill Hancock. Like everything in Washington (especially a back-burner issue like eliminating the BCS, which most Americans don't want to see on the agenda next to health care reform and economic recovery at all), it will proceed with all the haste of a snail aboard a glacier.

But at the initiative has goals to direct its efforts toward, three of them, specifically:

• Asking a governmental or non-governmental commission to review the costs, benefits and feasibility of a playoff system. There's a highly ineffectual ring to spending heaven knows how much time and taxpayer money to produce a few pieces of non-binding paper for BCS-supporting university presidents and conference commissioners to toss into their fireplaces. (Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany's is an authentic Medieval replica constructed of human bones, of course, with a skull you pull down to open a secret pathway descending into the torture chamber where he keeps Joe Paterno's original human body.) But a professional, nonpartisan report on the matter could go a long way toward settling the never-ending loop arguments about whether the bigwigs can't institute a viable tournament, or whether they simply won't. It will be much more difficult for the BCS apologists to claim "impossible" if the official stance of the federal government -- along with the stance of every other team sport on every level in America, and of common sense -- is "possible."

• Legislative efforts aimed at prompting a switch to a playoff system. There's already one legislative effort creeping its way the labyrinth in the House, a bill introduced in December 2008 by Texas Congressman Joe Barton that would ban any system short of a playoff (i.e. the BCS) from advertising itself as "the championship" of anything. Beyond that, there's nothing else in the pipeline, though it's certainly conceivable that Hatch, Barton, Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii or some other perpetually BCS-hating congressperson will take the next step and draft a proposal to strongarm a bracket into existence if the Justice Department has his back.

• Encouraging the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason. Now we're talking. From the beginning, the great divide between college football and every other university-sanctioned sport has been the NCAA's total lack of control over the gridiron postseason, except to set embarrassingly low minimum standards for bowl games to exist for teams to become eligible to play in them. The Association's absence from the "championship" system is also the source of the longstanding legitimacy problem of crowning "the national champion" -- as far as the NCAA is concerned, in major college football, there has never been any such thing. (It's telling that it renamed the two divisions within Division I the "Bowl Subdivision" and the "Championship Subdivision," specifically reserving the latter distinction for the lower tier that competes in a playoff.) An official, undisputed NCAA champion -- by any means -- would change the entire dynamic of crowning No. 1.

The question is, who's going to allow the NCAA to take control of the postseason? The organization (currently without a head in the wake of president Myles Brand's death last year) doesn't have enough clout to topple the commissioners, presidents and corporate goliaths that prop up the BCS without significant backing from the feds; if it did, it probably would have done so already. In fact, one of the reasons it hasn't tried before is because the feds have ruled specifically against the NCAA's influence over individual schools' and conferences' authority to negotiate their own TV contracts, including bowl games, when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that dramatically undercut the NCAA's power and paved the road to the modern system in 1984. I'm no lawyer, but if the BCS is at risk of violating antitrust laws, under existing precedent, so would be an authoritative NCAA power grab for the same rights it was legally forced to relinquish a quarter-century ago.

Then again, if the Justice Department really decides to make good on the president's promise to "throw my weight around" on anything, opponents had better either head for the hills or be absolutely confident in their entrenchments. Whatever onslaught the politicians are gathering to bring against it, everything we've heard from the BCS to date suggests it's digging in for a long fight.

Between his hyper-scrutinized NFL audition at the Senior Bowl and his hyper-scrutinized turn in the most controversial Super Bowl commercial no one has actually seen yet, all eyes were on the Tebow Child all week long, even as the rock star quarterback battled strep throat on top of the barrage of criticism from all sides.

Today, the gallery included more than 1,000 fans who began lining up before dawn for a chance at a mere glimpse at the great Tebow, perhaps an autograph, or simply to touch his garment during a meet-the-players function in Mobile. And they weren't taking "sick" for an answer:

MOBILE, Ala. -- Thousands of people were lines up Friday afternoon at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center when it was announced that star University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow would not be there for the Senior Bowl meet the players event "for medical reasons."

The announcement drew loud boos from the crowd, many of whom had shown up just for the chance at getting an autograph from the former Heisman Trophy winner.

Yea, Tebowites, why hast thou forsaken your teacher? Such are the burdens of fame and pending fortune: Deliver unto the multitudes pieces of your spirit like so many loaves and fishes, Timothy, or it could get ugly.

Looking around the conference, the trend is the same everywhere. Aside from the exodus from Ohio, the best player in Illinois, all-everything receiver Kyle Prater, is already enrolled at USC; Indiana's only top-50 prospect, offensive lineman James Hurst, is going to North Carolina; the only five-star player in Pennsylvania, massive defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd, is bound for Florida. The best prospect in the region (and possibly the nation), Minnesota offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson, may choose Ohio State next week, but may also opt for one of the warm-weather sites he's visited since December -- USC, Florida and Miami.

You can trot out the old argument that Big Ten states don't produce as many top players as the Sun Belt states, but the issue here is that the conference isn't retaining the players that it does produce. Overall, of 26 five-star players nationally, seven of them hailing from Big Ten states, only one -- Detroit defensive end William Gholston (below), who's headed for Michigan State -- is currently committed to a Big Ten school. Only one Big Ten school (Penn State, at No. 9) is among Rivals' top 20 classes as the curtain on the '10 recruiting season begins to fall, where the SEC (from which no blue-chip escapes), Big 12, Pac-10 and ACC have at least four teams in that group. Outside of Penn State's foothold in Pennsylvania, the rest of the conference is facing a dramatic drain:

Losing more than a third of the region's home-grown talent is a disaster for any conference, but why now? It's not a trend: Last year, of the top 10 prospects in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of three committed to non-Big Ten schools, and one of those was to Notre Dame. Ten of 12 players from Big Ten states in last year's Rivals 100 stayed in the Big Ten, consistent with the retention rate in 2007-08.

Part of the answer may be in the gaping hole left at the top of the conference by Michigan's recent descent to the bottom of the league; Iowa and Wisconsin aren't exactly in a position to replace the Wolverines among the recruiting powers in the region, much less the nation. Some of it may be in the hammering the Big Ten has taken in the media over the last three years, thanks to its string of ugly BCS flops (six straight losses, all by double digits) from 2006-08. But if anything, that stigma should have lifted this year, after Ohio State ended the conference's decade-long drought in the Rose Bowl and Penn State and Iowa both won high profile January bowl games over Southern schools to finish in the top 10 of the final polls. With the exception of Michigan's ongoing woe, 2009 was the year the Big Ten fought back.

Maybe that will carry over to more success next year, when Ohio State has its best chance to break through with a national championship-caliber season since running the table in the regular season with a Heisman-winning quarterback in 2006. If not the Buckeyes, someone has to step up: Whatever the divide in real vs. perceived perception on the field, there shouldn't be any doubt that the conference can't afford another year like this on the trail.

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• Shaun White takes nasty spill during practice

Their commitments are some of the first significant stirrings from Texas on the 2010 recruiting scene in almost a year -- 20 of the 'Horns' 22 standing commitments before Friday (all but receivers Mike Davis and DeMarco Cobbs, who committed in the fall) were already wrapped up by last March -- but Jeffcoat and Hicks are big ones if you're the type who puts stock in the annual team rankings. In one swoop, Texas is within striking distance of Florida's ridiculous haul for the title of "nation's best class." Hey, Nick Saban can't be No. 1 every year, especially if 'Bama loses the jewel of its '10 crop, Keenan Allen, who's been getting suspiciously flirty with Clemson lately.

While we're on the subject of late movers, note also that Lane Kiffin and Ed Orgeron -- relentless pied pipers who turned mega-hyped prospects Bryce Brown, Janzen Jackson and Nu'Keese Richardson from prior commitments at the last minute last year at Tennessee -- are hosting a dozen prospects at USC this weekend, on top of the pair of five-star gems (receiver Kyle Prater and running back Dillon Baxter) they convinced to remain in the fold and enroll early after Pete Carroll skipped town. Just, you know, FYI when the Trojans come flying into the picture at the tape next week.

Not all the new faces are freshman -- many, in fact, did the "hyped freshman" thing a year or two ago, took a mulligan, and are taking another swing at it after a year or two in junior college. Count on a few of the more season rookies to enter the conversation right away:

• QB Cam Newton. A huge, athletic, five-star recruit out of Atlanta in 2007, Newton was greeted at Florida as the heir apparent to Tim Tebow in Urban Meyer's spread scheme until he was charged with stealing a laptop and tossing it out of a dorm window in November 2008. Charges were eventually dropped in exchange for probation, but Newton was quickly bound for Blinn College in Texas, where he led the Buccaneers to a junior college national championship and emerged again as a highly-sought scout's dream.

Newton is the most immediately promising of several gems in Auburn's surprisingly strong incoming crop, a JaMarcus Russell-sized behemoth (6'6", 247) with the straight-ahead speed of a running back and two full seasons at an elite I-A power already under his belt. The question as he competes with another hyped athlete with flaky tendencies, redshirt freshman Tyrik Rollison, for the Tigers' starting job this fall is whether Newton comes closer to dominant LSU JaMarcus or bloated NFL JaMarcus.

• DT James Carmon. Colossal Baltimore native failed to qualify out of high school and landed at Mississippi Gulf Coast C.C., where he filled the enormous void left by Alabama-bound Terrence Cody in the middle of the MGCCC defensive line -- literally, Carmon filled every inch of it, matching Cody for mass at 370 pounds, on a much taller (6'7") frame, and emerged as a higher-rated prospect than Cody was when the future All-American was airlifted out of Perkinston two years ago. Carmon's already enrolled for spring practice at Mississippi State and could easily have an instant, Cody-like impact on one of the worst defenses in the SEC if he can keep himself from ballooning above 400 pounds.

• DB Jakar Hamilton. Originally a middling prospect from South Carolina who didn't make the grades to catch on with the Gamecocks, Hamilton blossomed immediately at Georgia Military College and committed to Georgia after an All-American freshman season; he eventually landed as Rivals' No. 2 JUCO prospect after his sophomore campaign. Hamilton is enrolled for spring practice, and with Reshad Jones and Bryan Evans both en route to the NFL, "Hit Man" should have a starting safety job waiting for him right away alongside Bacarri Rambo.

• DL Scott Smith. Initially a three-star California commit out of Hawaii in 2007, Smith wound up at Butler College in Kansas, where he was the conference Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore and the top-rated JUCO pass rusher in this year's class. The hitch: Since faxing his letter of intent to Texas Tech just days before the Mike Leach Ultimatum broke out in Lubbock last month, message board rumors have swirled that Smith wants out of his commitment to the Raiders, and he hasn't enrolled at Tech for the spring semester as expected. Arkansas would love to snatch him away.

• QB/Athlete Randall Mackey. Ole Miss lost its starting quarterback (Jevan Snead) and most electric playmaker (Dexter McCluster) to the draft, but has a chance to replace both in Mackey, a prolific passer who last year accounted for 600 total yards and seven touchdowns in one game to lead East Mississippi C.C. to a ridiculous 75-71 win over Gulf Coast C.C. for the Mississippi JUCO title. The Louisiana native will get a shot to replace Snead in the fall, but at his size (6'0", 190) will probably be restricted to taking over McCluster's role in the Wildcat if he lines up in the backfield at all. More likely, Mackey's a receiver who may turn some heads on the side as a return man.

• LB Lavonte David. One of the less hyped members of the celebrated Northwestern (Miami) High senior class that stocked the hometown Hurricanes with eight signees in 2008, David committed to Middle Tennessee State instead before bouncing to Fort Scott C.C. in Kansas. If he catches on Nebraska, the detour was a smart one: David added 25 pounds to his undersized prep frame in Kansas and drew the attention of most of the Midwest as the top JUCO linebacker in the country. He'll be in Lincoln in the fall with an equally hyped Fort Scott teammate, hulking offensive tackle Jermarcus Hardrick, who's already enrolled for the spring.

• CB Mike Harris. Another Miami native comes home to Florida State after two years in California, picking the 'Noles over offers from a slew of powerhouses -- most notably Florida, Alabama and Michigan -- that have no reason to dip into junior colleges unless they see a talent big enough to move into their blue-chip lineups right away. Harris fits that bill, although given FSU's wretched secondary last year, locking down a position from day one shouldn't be that tough.

• QB Matt Simms. Best known as the 420-friendly son of Hall of Famer Phil and younger brother of former Texas starter Chris, Simms the Younger bailed from Louisville last January when it was clear he wasn't in line to become the Cardinals' starter in the spring, opting for a stopover at El Camino (Calif.) College instead.

Vol fans are more excited about El Camino teammate Kenbrell Thompkins at receiver, and Simms is rated about where you'd expect for a guy headed for career backup status at Louisville -- as a nondescript three-star -- but Li'l Phil is already enrolled at Tennessee with a legitimate shot at competing with returnee Nick Stephens and incoming freshman Tyler Bray for the Vols' starting job this spring, a fact that probably says more about the ugly quarterback situation new coach Derek Dooley inherits in Knoxville than it does about Simms' chances of emerging as a viable SEC starter.

• We'll play them in the air, we'll play them on the beaches, we'll play them from the cliffs, we'll play them in a baseball stadium. Northwestern, Illinois and the Chicago Cubs have reached a tentative agreement to stage next year's Wildcat-Illini football game between the decrepit ivy of Wrigley Field, according to the Champaign News-Gazette. The paper says the game will be "a costly ticket but a cinch sellout" if the parties can iron out the financial details of the first gridiron match in Wrigley since the Bears moved out in 1970: "People in Chicago would go to Wrigley to watch a hot dog eating contest." True -- they even sold out a hockey game there in 2009 -- but can a Northwestern-Illinois football game match the mighty drawing power of Kobayashi and Nikolai Khabibulin? [Champaign News-Gazette]

Elsewhere in bizarro Big Ten venues, Michigan and Michigan State are set to put on a hockey game in Michigan Stadium, reprising the original "Cold War" in 2001, when the Wolverines and Spartans drew almost 75,000 to Spartan Stadium for the thing they do up there with the sticks and whatnot. [Detroit Free Press]

• Jackson, welcome to Austin. Defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat, son of former Arizona State/NFL great Jim Jeffcoat and one of the few five-star prospects yet to announce his school of choice ahead of next week's signing day, is expected to commit to Texas during a press conference this morning. Along with the recent decommitment of hyped safety prospect Demar Dorsey from Florida, the addition of the No. 1 player in one of the most stocked recruiting states could push the Longhorns into a dead heat with the Gators for the No. 1 incoming class in the nation. [Sports Illustrated]

• Blood in the water. ESPN Los Angeles has a long profile of UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel in the wake of Pete Carroll's exit from USC, a momentous shift Neuheisel said he could sense when he saw Carroll working the BCS championship game for ESPN: "'That's not like him to find time for this,' Neuheisel said to himself as he saw Carroll down on the field before the Jan. 7 game." Less than 24 hours later, Carroll was all but on the plane to Seattle, and the door is as wide open for the Bruins to break SC's stronghold in L.A. as it's been or going to be in a long time. [ESPN Los Angeles]

• At least we know it wasn't Lane Kiffin. Who let the Tennessee fan into Ohio Stadium?

Big Ten partisans should know by now: Never turn your back on the SEC. [Friends of the Program]

Quickly ... Eugene police made their second arrest in as many days in connection with the weekend assault that hospitalized Oregon kicker Rob Beard with severe facial injuries. ... Michigan State receivers Mark Dell and B.J. Cunningham each pled guilty to misdemeanor assault in battery in the Nov. 22 brawl with an MSU fraternity that led to the arrest of 15 Spartan players in all. ... Georgia's running game should be in much better shape going into 2010 than it was at the start of last year. ... And former Miami basketballer Jimmy Graham's decision to give up hoops for the Antonio Gates route in football will look like a smart one in April.

The NFL people seem to see what everyone else in Mobile has seen, and it is not what the legions of Gator fans who've attended these workouts want to hear.

"I actually don't think he's that hard to evaluate at all," said a high-ranking college scout for an NFC team. "To me, he's just not a very good quarterback prospect. Now, if you want to rework his mechanics, his release, try to improve his accuracy, then you see a guy with this big frame that can throw.

"He's a big-time project, no doubt."
[...]
"He can't play quarterback in the NFL, I'm convinced of it," ESPN director of college scouting Todd McShay said. "From his delivery to his footwork to his accuracy, you have to absolutely strip him down and build him back up. And it's too late."

Bold words from the former quarterback of Swampscott High, and this time last year, I'd have been up for arguing with him. I've always been skeptical of the over-the-top Tebow love, but as a college fan, the suggestion that Tebow's success was some kind of mirage, that he hadn't more than earned his "phenomenon" status through his first two seasons as a starter, was almost offensive. He'd obliterated the rest of the SEC, where he finished among the top four nationally as a passer in pass efficiency, yards per attempt and touchdown percentage both years, and Florida led the conference in scoring at more than 42 points per game in both years. He was at his best in the Gators' biggest games as a junior, leading blowout wins over Georgia, LSU and Tennessee and taking UF on fourth-quarter touchdown drives to beat No. 1 Alabama in the SEC Championship game and then No. 1 Oklahoma in the BCS title game. In 27 starts, he was never "shut down," by anyone -- the Gators scored at least 24 points in four of their five losses in that span, with Tebow accounting for 15 total touchdowns in those efforts. With that kind of consistent production at the highest amateur level, how could anyone not expect a player with his talent and temperament to evolve into a competent pro?

Now, not so much. It's harder to defend Tebow's inherent excellence after his senior season, when the hype clearly exceeded the reality for the first time. In the big picture, Florida still led the SEC in scoring and ran the table into the SEC Championship, and Tebow himself finished as the most efficient passer in the nation. Focus a little harder, though, and there was no comparison between senior Tebow and the dominant player of 2007-08. When not feasting on Charleston Southern and Troy, his production against SEC defenses collapsed, along with the rest of the offense (see chart at right). Statistically, he delivered the three worst passing games of his career against Tennessee, Mississippi State and Alabama, and did nothing to keep the Gators competitive as 'Bama pulled steadily away in the biggest game of the season. He looked tentative and mediocre in defensively-driven wins over LSU and South Carolina, teams he'd humiliated in the past; without Percy Harvin to stretch the field, Tebow's passing numbers were increasingly inflated by short catch-and-runs, especially with the heavy reliance on the triple option shovel pass to tight end Aaron Hernandez.

In other words, he looked a little better than ordinary at best -- sacrilege when directed at a college legend and all-around good guy leading a team that held a death grip the No. 1 spot in the polls until the final hours of the regular season, but all too obvious to the unsentimental pros. Before, it wasn't conceivable for Tebow to fail on a football field, because he hadn't come close; once you've thrown a pair of pick-sixes in a too-close-for-comfort win over Mississippi State, the benefit of the doubt tends to evaporate in a hurry. Whatever unique reverence for Tebow's game was left after the grueling season was snuffed out by Alabama, and only partially regained in a record-breaking farewell barrage against Cincinnati -- from which the most memorable moment was a former Super Bowl-winning coach explaining to a national audience specifically why Tebow won't succeed at the next level.

And still, experts concede that he remains a first round possibility in April on the strength of his production, versatility, work ethic and intangible "it" factor ("He's just a football player, dammit"), and on the odds: It only takes one team already set at quarterback to take a flier on a high-reward project it can afford to bring along slowly. He's going to get a chance, and may get a few of them. It no longer seems inconceivable, though -- even from a college perspective, where the Tebow Child will remain forever one of the most revered quarterbacks of his era -- that one of those chances might come at a position other than quarterback.

The local Lubbock Avalanche-Journal took a shot at the last question Wednesday, when it got ahold of documents from Texas Tech attorneys claiming Adam James' father, ex-SMU and NFL star, ESPN personality and aspiring politician Craig James, prodded Tech officials by threatening to sue if they failed to retaliate against Leach:

Craig James threatened on Dec. 20 to sue the university if it did not investigate the actions of then-head football coach Mike Leach, according to documents filed Tuesday by Tech's attorneys with the attorney general's office.

The documents, filed as an appeal against an open records request made by the Avalanche-Journal, say James, father of Red Raider receiver Adam James, "indicated that litigation could ensue if TTU did not proceed to investigate Leach for the improper treatment of an injured student-athlete."

"The threat did not appear to be an idle threat as the parent expressed genuine concern for the health and well-being of his injured child, as well as other student-athletes," Tech's letter says.

Craig James' P.R. company -- this would be the same company that leaked the Adam James cell phone video and is handling the run-up to James' pending Senate campaign, something its CEO knows a little about from her days repping the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry in 2004 -- responded that James never threatened a suit and "Texas Tech initiated its investigation of its own accord."

Team Leach has an interest in proving otherwise, of course, to bolster its key contention that James was less interested in his son's physical well-being than in settling a score with Leach for failing to identify and nurture his son's greatness as a wide receiver, and used the lawsuit (along with his personal clout) to bully Tech officials who were out to get Leach, anyway. One Leach lawyer, Ted Liggett (of "aggressive gorilla attorney" fame), notified Tech he'd be defending the coach against any suit a full week before Leach was suspended and the layers began to come off the onion, suggesting litigation was in the air. That's what Leach defenders will choose to believe, anyway.

What we actually get, as long as the case is behind closed doors and Leach is chilling in Key West, is an endless loop of speculation and contradiction between sides that only agree on two facts: a) Adam James was, on two occasions, isolated from the team in enclosed spaces, and b) Leach was subsequently fired. The rest is static to be deciphered by the eye of the beholder.

• What have you done for me lately? Several Nevada boosters and employees told the Reno Gazette-Journal that coach Chris Ault could lose his job next year if the Wolf Pack don't show some improvement over 2009; according to one donor, "It's a firestorm up there right now." If so, athletic director Cary Groth has some serious stones, considering the 63-year-old Ault put Nevada football on the map: In two different stints as head coach since 1976, he's brought the program from Division II obscurity to consistent I-AA contender to consistent I-A bowl team, posting winning records in 22 of his 25 seasons in charge. Last year's Wolf Pack finished 7-1 in the WAC, losing only to unbeaten Boise State, and became the first team in NCAA history to produce three 1,000-yard rushers in the same season from Ault's innovative "Pistol" formation.

Off a 45-10 Christmas Eve humiliation at the hands of underdog SMU, though, Groth admitted she told Ault earlier this month, "We can't have those types of performances." AD and coach both denied there were any ultimatums, offers to resign or suggestions that he step down in the meeting, but there will certainly be a new defensive coordinator in town to fix the nation's worst pass defense two years running. [Reno Gazette-Journal]

• Seastrunk's a Duck. Top-rated Texas running back Lache Seastrunk, one of the last five-star prospects to name his school, officially committed to Oregon on Wednesday, making him the fourth Army All-American in the Ducks' stellar incoming class and their first five-star pick-up since eventual first-round draft pick Jonathan Stewart was lured to Eugene in 2005. Seastrunk dropped a bit on recruiting boards after beginning last season as one of the top five senior prospects in the country, but remains the elite speed back in the incoming class. Eugene Register-Guard[

In other Oregon news, Eugene Police arrested a 20-year-old man Wednesday in connection with the severe beating that hospitalized Duck kicker Rob Beard over the weekend. [The Oregonian]

• Everybody wants to be a Bull. The looming legal battle between fired head coach Jim Leavitt and South Florida didn't prevent a wide array of applicants from contacting USF about the vacancy the same afternoon Leavitt was canned, including Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster, New York Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride, Oklahoma offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson, Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson, Michigan offensive coordinator/former Leavitt assistant Calvin Murphy, former Iowa State coach Dan McCarney and a random high school student from Texas. Not among the list of applicants reported by the Tampa Tribune: Skip Holtz, who decided to take the job after USF contacted him. [Tampa Tribune]

• Breaking the mold, 20 years too late. Freakish USC safety Taylor Mays, the jaw-dropping talent with cornerback speed in a linebacker's body, is surprisingly drawing mixed reviews at the Senior Bowl, where some scouts say they don't even see Mays as a first-rounder (!) due to his tendency to ignore the ball in search of a big hit. Former Minnesota Vikings safety Corey Chavous, working for the NFL Network, described Mays as "a 1980s type of safety," in the mold of headhunters like Ronnie Lott or Steve Atwater, stuck in a passing era that demands more finesse. [Orange County Register]

Quickly ... Down to a single healthy quarterback for spring practice, Notre Dame could sign as many as five QBs next week. ... Iowa quarterback and patriotic American Ricky Stanzi officially endorses the Americanzi nation. ... And if there were still any doubts about Tim Tebow's impact in the culture, Sarah Palin puts them to rest by jumping on the political bandwagon rushing to comment on Tebow's anti-abortion Super Bowl ad.

Boise State has its infamous "Smurf Turf," and Nebraska has what it likes to call the "Sea of Red" to describe the vast crowd inside Lincoln's Memorial Stadium. As of next fall, though, neither of them will have anything on I-AA Eastern Washington, which announced plans Wednesday to install an actual field of red:

Taking a cue from Boise State's famous blue turf, Eastern Washington is planning to install an artificial red playing surface inside its football stadium. The Big Sky program's official school colors are red and white.

Former EWU star Michael Roos, now in the NFL with the Tennessee Titans, has pledged $500,000 toward the "Red Turf Project.'' School officials in Cheney hope to raise additional private money and have the field installed for the 2010 season.
[...]
"There is no doubt that one of Boise State's claims to fame has been their blue turf and like it or dislike it, it has certainly brought them a tremendous amount of notoriety," EWU athletic director Bill Chaves said. "In a similar vein we have a tremendous opportunity at Eastern to do the same by differentiating ourselves with the red turf while providing a superior playing surface."

The NCAA has no provision addressing the color of playing surfaces -- at least not yet -- because it hasn't had to consider the issue outside of the relatively obscure venues at Boise State and Division II University of New Haven, which installed its own blue turf last year. If it goes through with it, then, EWU's lava motif will be breaking ground on what promises to be a run on multi-colored turf by publicity-starved schools across the country; eventually, somebody somewhere is going to go with black. (I'm looking at you, Idaho.)

Until then, Woodward Field, thy name is "Blood."

- - -
Picture courtesy EWU Athletics. Hat tip: The Wiz.

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Through the first half of the week, though, McCluster also seems to have emerged as the most eye-opening, fast-rising player on either roster in Mobile. After Tuesday's practice, he was drawing comparisons to former undersized Pro Bowlers Leon Washington and Warrick Dunn while solidifying his status as a second or third-round pick in April; when such an outside-the-box talent gets the extremely inside-the-box NFL punditry gushing over him as the "buzz player" of the week, you can be sure he's legitimately lighting it up.

Maybe that shouldn't be surprising after McCluster exploded out of last season with a Heisman-worthy run over the last six games, including lights-out efforts against Araknsas, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma State. In fact, coming off that finish to his college career, his performance in Mobile and pending draft status make it that much more surprising that it took Ole Miss so long to convert its most dangerous weapon into an every-down option. Before the Rebels' Oct. 24 game against Arkansas last fall, McCluster had averaged just shy of eight offensive touches for 71 yards per game over the first three-and-a-half years of his career, earning 20 touches only once, when he went off 180 yards in the blowout Cotton Bowl win over Texas Tech last January. That was despite playing for the SEC's lowest-scoring, least explosive offense as a freshman and sophomore and averaging 8.4 yards every time he touched the ball when his all-purpose role expanded to include Wildcat duties from the shotgun in 2008.

It wasn't until the Arkansas game, seven games into his senior season, that somebody on the Ole Miss staff had the idea to just make McCluster the starting tailback, and D-Mac rewarded them by torching the Razorbacks for 260 yards in a 30-17 Rebel win. He went on to average 221 yards on 29 touches per game down the stretch, carrying at least 22 times in five of his last six; the Rebels won six of their last eight overall and took their second straight Cotton Bowl (where McCluster had 229 total yards and both of the team's offensive touchdowns against Oklahoma State) to secure back-to-back nine-win seasons for the first time in nearly 50 years.

It's possible Ole Miss didn't think he could take the pounding of a feature back across an entire season, or held back because of a couple persistent injuries early in McCluster's career that cost him the last half of 2006 and the first month of 2007. It's also much tougher to write that outburst off as a fluke when he goes on to burn a group of all-stars in the same fashion. Maybe the moon has entered a brief, four-month McCluster Phase, never to return again. Or maybe two consecutive coaching staffs under Ed Orgeron and Houston Nutt really did wait far, far too long to light the fuse on one of the most explosive players ever to come through Oxford. We'll see where he goes from here.

Gunslinging prep quarterbacks are usually hype magnets: Since 2002, three incoming QBs (Vince Young, Jimmy Clausen and Terrelle Pryor) have topped Rivals' list of the best 100 overall prospects, and least two five-star passers have been among the top 25 overall players in every class between '02 and '09, a group that includes a future Heisman winner (Tim Tebow) and NFL starters Mark Sanchez, Matt Stafford, Chad Henne and Trent Edwards. By that standard, the 2010 crop is practically barren: Rivals doesn't list a single quarterback among this year's top 60 overall prospects, and only two come in among the top 100.

Whoever emerges from the incoming class as the next great star, then, will be something of a surprise even to the people who scout them for a living. Here are their best guesses:

• Jake Heaps. Here's all you need to know about this class: The same Rivals scouts who rank Heaps as the top-rated passer in the nation openly compare him to Chad Pennington and Tim Couch and admit, "He is probably not great at any one thing right now." The perennial juggernauts were cool enough toward Heaps to let him escape into the arms of BYU; he narrowly chose the Cougars over nearby Washington.

Once he fills out his 6'2" frame, though, and returns from a likely Mormon mission at the age of 20 or 21, Heaps should have at least two years of slicing up Mountain West defenses in typical BYU fashion. It's hard to bet against any competent prospect in this system: If his resumé in five years looks anything like those of his immediate predecessors in Provo, John Beck and Max Hall -- much less the likes of Ty Detmer and Steve Young from the Cougars' high-flying glory days under Norm Chow -- the No. 1 projection will be justified.

• Phillip Sims. Alabama commit (above) comes from the same Chesapeake region of Virginia that produced the Vick Bros., Aaron Brooks, Ronald Curry and legendary prep quarterback Allen Iverson, but Sims is bigger and much more of a pocket passer than any of those guys. Rivals lists his 40 time at a pedestrian 4.8 and notes that he "looks more like an inside linebacker on the hoof than a quarterback." He has probably the most respected arm of any QB in this class and should be right in the mix to replace Greg McElroy as the Tide's starter in 2011.

• Devin Gardner. Michigan fans desperately wanted to see the next Vince Young/Terrelle Pryor in the similarly lanky, athletic Detroit product, and Gardner seemed to make some strides before the season with a couple impressive camp performances. At the end of the year, though, he was still regarded as a project who will require significant coaching and polish to straighten up his mechanics, and his athleticism was drawing comparisons to Jason Campbell and Daryll Clark instead of freakish outliers like Young and Pryor.

Still, the Wolverines are drooling over Gardner's raw talent in an offensive scheme that can make good use of it, and at 6'4", he towers over Frodo-esque incumbent Tate Forcier. Gardner might eventually make a run at the starting job (or at least some significant playing time), but preferably in 2011, following a redshirt year, rather than next fall, which would probably be a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.

• Jesse Scroggins. The most intensely-sought passer in the class despite relatively mediocre guru ratings, Scroggins turned down offers from just about everyone -- including Florida, LSU, Nebraska and QB-starved Tennessee -- to stay close to home at USC, where he'll assume the heir apparent role behind the Trojans' last blue-chip arm, Matt Barkley. Then, in two or three years, he'll try to fend off the next hyped SoCal slinger coming through the pipeline, looking to hop Scroggins in the lineup like Barkley did to Aaron Corp. Welcome to USC, kid.

• Blake Bell. Oklahoma commit was a preseason chart-topper because of his 6'6" height, Bell fell hard in the rankings after a disappointing effort in last summer's Elite 11 camp, and didn't gain any ground during his senior year. Like Gardner, scouts love Bell's raw potential, hate his mechanics: He's probably bench-bound behind sophomore-to-be Landry Jones at OU until 2013, but his ideal size virtually guarantees a shot at the next level if he's able to show any flashes of an NFL-worthy arm.

• Connor Wood. Physically, Wood looks like one of the best in the class, a prototype pocket guy who will arrive at Texas in the fall boasting near-NFL-ready size (6'4", 209) and enough athleticism to run for more than 1,400 yards and 37 touchdowns in three years as a high school starter. There's some question about his tendency to float long throws, but the biggest stumbling block to his emergence in Austin is heir apparent Garrett Gilbert's seemingly unshakable perch at the top of the depth chart.

• Brett Nottingham. Bay Area slinger looks like Tim Tebow at the same age, and knows how to get in the good graces of media types: He told reporters last week his switch from UCLA to Stanford was motivated by academics. Doesn't have a reputation as a phenomenal athlete in terms of mobility or arm strength, but scouts like his size and accuracy, and he'll have at least two years to get comfortable behind entrenched starter Andrew Luck.

• Barry Brunetti. Memphis product is a classic you can't measure this kid's heart! player: Despite leading his high school team to back-to-back undefeated, state-championship seasons and starting for the East team in the Army All-American Bowl, Brunetti didn't draw a great set of scholarship offers because of his sketchy size (just 6'0") and speed (Rivals lists him at just 4.8 in the 40-yard-dash, though scouts do seem to respect his overall athleticism and peg him as a natural for a shotgun/zone read scheme). When SEC offers weren't immediately forthcoming last summer -- even from Tennessee, which was desperately in search of a young quarterback, any quarterback -- Brunetti jumped on an offer from West Virginia, even though it means he's probably stuck behind the Mountaineers' last hyped quarterback signee, Geno Smith, for the next three years.

• Nick "Yes, That Montana" Montana. Son of Joe is one of a dozen Southern California prospects flocking up the coast to play for former USC assistant Steve Sarkisian at Washington, and, with just three stars to his credit according to Rivals, not a particularly highly rated one. He's only listed here because of his last name, but the recent transfer of veteran Ronnie Fouch does leave the younger Montana as the Huskies' Quarterback of the Future of the moment -- he should compete to back up Jake Locker this fall as a true freshman and then to take over the starting job in 2011.

- -
Previously: The Uncommitted.

In turn, the bowl hired a former Arizona attorney general, Grant Woods, who dutifully reported to the secretary of state's office that there was nothing to see here. This week, the state decided it's taking "no" for answer:

The state elections director Monday said she would begin "independently pursuing leads" into claims that current and former Fiesta Bowl employees made illegal campaign contributions.

Amy Bjelland, whose office is part of the Arizona Secretary of State's Office, said the Fiesta Bowl has not provided "sufficient information" to a state inquiry. So she will begin using other databases to determine if laws were broken.
[...]
The state asked that the information be turned over by last week. But on Monday, Bjelland said the only response the Fiesta Bowl provided was to deny the allegations.

"Normally people are pretty cooperative on getting us information," Bjelland said. "They haven't provided any hard data yet, but we are looking forward to getting something from them. ..."

A pending state investigation into the finances of a major bowl game is far less interesting for any revelations of petty corruption -- the sleaziest revelations in the original Republic report, that the game has spent millions to ply politicians with meals, tickets, vacations and other perks, were all legal despite its status as a nonprofit -- than for the ability of a relatively obscure national lobby that just formed last fall to sic real legal dogs on a local economic engine that's brought millions into the state on an annual basis for almost 40 years ... over $38,000 in possible kickbacks. I don't know that the potential recrimination if the state's investigation turns up anything illegal would even amount to a slap on the wrist, but I am impressed the anti-BCS soldiers got someone to care more than they really had to.

• Today on 'Oregon Confidential.' Eugene police offered no new answers Tuesday in the campus theft investigation in which two Oregon players have been repeatedly implicated by aggrieved frat boys in the local press, but a police spokesman did deny a pair of local television reports that star quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and receiver Garrett Embry were not suspects in the case: "We have not released any details from the case except to acknowledge EPD took a theft report ... We have no reason to release names of victims or persons of interest or suspects at this time." The owner of a bar across the street from the fraternity house also reportedly submitted video to the police that shows Masoli in the bar at the time the robbery is supposed to have occurred last Sunday morning. [The Oregonian]

• Senior Bowlin'. After a rocky debut on Monday, Tim Tebow was "a little more comfortable and got the ball out of his hand quicker" at his second Senior Bowl practice on Tuesday, despite running a high fever on Monday night. Tebow hit a pair of deep balls in practice, but after watching him for two days, ESPN pundit and consistent Tebow critic Todd McShay sounds more convinced than ever that Tebow is only "a mid-level quarterback prospect" in the upcoming draft class: "He's not accurate enough as a passer at this point to be considered a starter in the NFL." (Don't tell that to the guy filming the Tebow documentary, McShay.) [Associated Press, Gainesville Sun]

On the flip side, the guys who appear to be making themselves the most money in Mobile: Ole Miss offensive lineman John Jerry, Missouri linebacker Sean Weatherspoon and Michigan defensive end Brandon Graham. Hordes of coaches who have no official role in the game are also in town for the sake of their professional futures; prominent among them Tuesday was recently fired South Florida coach Jim Leavitt, who vowed to stalk the sidelines again, as an NFL position coach if necessary. [St. Petersburg Times]

• Mustang on ice. SMU defensive lineman Torlan Pittman has been suspended indefinitely by coach June Jones after Pittman's arrest Monday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault. Huntsville, Texas, police arrested Pittman -- a backup who played in all 13 games last season -- and a former Sam Houston State baseball player for allegedly raping a girl in a Huntsville apartment last September. [Associated Press]

In other legal news, two more Michigan State players -- defensive lineman Oren Wilson and receiver Myles White -- have been hit with conspiracy and assault charges stemming from the Nov. 22 attack on a fraternity dinner immediately following MSU's team banquet, making them the 14th and 15th Spartans charged in the incident. Unlike the other 13 -- all charged and suspended from the team by mid-December -- Wilson started in the Alamo Bowl loss against Texas Tech on Jan. 2; White was already suspended from the game for an unrelated arrest outside a bar on the same morning as the frat assault. [Detroit Free Press]

Quickly ... Pulling off the rare SEC-to-Ivy League defection, the smarties at Cornell tabbed Ole Miss offensive coordinator Kent Austin as their new head coach. ... USC quarterback Matt Barkley underwent minor surgery on his right (throwing) wrist, but expects to recover quickly and be full speed for spring practice. ... Rocky Seto, a former USC walk-on promoted to defensive coordinator last year after a decade as an assistant coach, confirmed he won't be back on Lane Kiffin's staff this fall. ... And Ed Orgeron reminds Trojan fans that top-ranked recruiting classes don't come cheap.

Consider first that a) Nobody outside of Focus on the Family has seen the commercial in question, including key decision-makers at CBS, who have only approved the script, and leading women's groups that began pressuring the network to scrap the ad on Monday. Then consider that b) The betting site Bodog.com actually posted odds on whether CBS would air the ad under its long list of random Super Bowl prop bets. Then consider that c) That's not even the craziest reaction to the ad in the last 12 hours.

No, that title clearly belongs to the woman in the following clip, who I understand is somewhat famous for co-hosting what I am led to believe is a popular network television show, and who responded to the ad this morning by conjecturing that Tebow (and I quote) "he could just as easily become some kind of a rapist pedophile." Take it away, Joy:

Introductions to the wider culture don't get much better than that: Tim Tebow, son of missionaries, determined virgin and earnest sower of his faith, might just as easily have grown up to become, say, John Wayne Gacy. Because, you know, it's 50:50 like that. (Obviously, Joy Behar is a big Freakonomics fan.)

I've been writing about Tebow for more than four years, and the odds of him associating with anything remotely controversial or politically incorrect enough to justify the reactions to the Super Bowl ad are about as good as him becoming the next clown killer. The ad is guaranteed to be generic and inoffensive -- in other words, for those of us more interested in the spectacle and sideshow than the politics, a letdown. But the next two weeks should be fun ones, anyway.

The vast majority of the nation's highest-profile, OMG Shirtless prospects in the class of 2010 have already named their future destinations, barring the always-entertaining defection to a rival school at the last second. Of Rivals' 26 five-star prospects, the cream of the cream, only eight are still making up their minds:

• OT Seantrel Henderson. Mountainous Minnesota offensive tackle checks in at 6'8" and a shade over 300 pounds, drew scholarship offers from Minnesota and Notre Dame before his first high school game, is athletic enough to double as a Division I basketball prospect and swept the preseason lists as the top incoming prospect in the country. Rivals has subsequently downgraded Henderson to No. 2 behind Florida commit Ronald Powell, but still compares him favorably to former Miami All-American and longtime Viking starter Bryant McKinnie; others tab him as the next Jonathan Ogden or Orlando Pace. USA Today tabbed him as the national offensive player of the year last fall, when Cretin-Derham High "ran behind him all the time," according to his high school coach, en route to the state championship in Minnesota's largest classification. Take your pick of highfalutin projections: Henderson is unanimously regarded as a prototype left tackle bound for the first round of the draft in three years, to such an obvious extent that he's flying into New York on Feb. 3 to announce his choice on live television in a bit of foreshadowing for 2013.

NYC aside, Henderson shows no signs of basking in the late-breaking drama that accompanied the last two top-rated prospects, Terrelle Pryor and Bryce Brown, and in fact has been unusually quiet about his intentions. Early on, he named Michigan as a tentative favorite, but didn't take an official visit to Ann Arbor in the fall and eventually dropped the Wolverines for a final list that includes Ohio State, USC, Florida and Notre Dame -- all of which he's visited already -- as well as Miami, where he plans to visit this weekend. Henderson's first official visit was to Columbus in September, on the same weekend Ohio State lost to USC, but the Buckeyes are optimistic that geography and Pete Carroll's sudden defection to the NFL give them the edge next week.

• RB Marcus Lattimore. The six-foot, 210-pound South Carolina thumper narrowed his choices to two after an official visit to the home-state Gamecocks last weekend, nixing cold-weather suitors Penn State and Oregon in favor of Carolina and Auburn. The 'Cocks have every reason to be optimistic about the home-grown star's intentions to stay in-state: Auburn has already wrapped up a commitment from Lattimore's only competition as the nation's top-rated running back, Michael Dyer, and remains very much in play for another five-star runner, Lache Seastrunk (see below). Not only has South Carolina not landed another running back commitment in the incoming class; Lattimore would be pretty easily the most hyped player Steve Spurrier has signed in any class since taking over at USC in 2005.

• DE Owamagbe Odighizuwa. Oregon defensive end is a bit undersized at 235 pounds, but he's a late mover into Rivals' final top 10 based mainly on his strength and ability to "sink his hips and drive 300-pound linemen straight back into the pocket like a rag doll." He also has a reputation as a "coachable" kid with a good temperament and good grades, etc.

After dropping Oregon State from his list of finalists earlier this month, Odighizuwa put the Beavers back in the mix over the weekend, joining Nebraska and UCLA, a tie he plans to break based on his"gut feeling." (Personally, my rooting interest is in whichever school will list him as just "Owa," so I don't have to triple-check the spelling on his name for the next four years. Nebraska has already filled its quota on Oregonian tongue-twisters with Ndamukong Suh.)

• LB Jordan Hicks. The nation's top-rated linebacker is probably destined for special teams and third-and-long situations until he adds some more bulk, but his speed and long-term potential is so high that fans from all three of his finalists -- Texas, Florida and the in-state behemoth, Ohio State -- have floated rumors of his impending commitment to the good guys for weeks. (It's not hard to see why.) As of two weeks ago, though, nobody really had a clue.

• DE Jackson Jeffcoat. Lanky, athletic legacy pick just displaced Seastrunk as Rivals' No. 1 player in the No. 1 recruiting state, and -- like every top prospect out of Texas -- has set his sights on regional heavies Texas and Oklahoma. The darkhorses for Jeffcoat's services are both ties to his famous father, Dallas Cowboys great Jim Jeffcoat, who starred his own self at Arizona State back in the day and currently coaches the defensive line at Houston; the elder Jeffcoat has even been floated as a candidate for an opening on Bob Stoops' staff at Oklahoma, based largely on the potential to bring his hyped son with him (for the record, a Jeffcoat daughter -- Jackson's twin sister -- has already committed to play basketball in Norman next year). Jackson visited Oklahoma last weekend and is expected to announce his choice this Sunday.

• LB/DE Christian Jones. A bit on the skinny side for a potential defensive end at 220 pounds on a 6'4" frame, but anyone who draws direct comparisons to Jevan Kearse as a pass rusher is an automatic target for every school in America. And Jones has flirted with all of them, including Oklahoma, Notre Dame, USC, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida, even as everyone remains convinced he's bound to follow his father and brother at Florida State. If for some reason he doesn't, Bobby Bowden's late exit from FSU -- where he coached Willie Jones and Willie Jones Jr. -- will probably get the blame.

• WR Markeith Ambles. Georgia native and longstanding Tennessee commit was the most prominent recruit to back out of his pledge to the Vols when coach Lane Kiffin bolted to USC earlier this month, blowing the door wide open for Ambles' services: He was in North Carolina for an official visit two weekends ago, and just got back from three days at USC; this weekend, he'll be at LSU, with Alabama continuing to push hard. Kiffin will be heading back to his old stomping grounds this week for a home visit, but Ambles has the look of a to-the-wire mystery. You know, the kind that makes fans of snubbed schools hilariously irate for the rest of the offseason. (Irrational anger over 18-year-olds = tons of fun.)

• Lache Seastrunk. This year's "Next Reggie Bush" thanks to his speed/shakes, Seastrunk began the year by helping to create a minor controversy on a visit to Auburn and ended on the wrong end of a dramatic fall from Rivals' preseason top five nationally following a relatively mediocre senior year. He landed at No. 26, the lowest-ranked five-star prospect on Rivals' board, which still makes him of exceptional interest to his primary suitors, LSU, Oregon and Auburn, though some rumors have it that the Tigers have backed off dramatically since landing Dwyer. USC and Memphis (a perk of hiring LSU's running backs coach and lead recruiter as the head coach) are also on the table when Seastrunk announces his decision on Wednesday, and more than a few recruiting analysts will be on a table their own selves if one of the top backs in the nation chooses Memphis over an array of powerhouses, recovering from a brief, shock-induced coma.

The latest and greatest roil comes to us courtesy of the Tebow anti-abortion ad, sponsored by the Christian group Focus on the Family and already approved in script form by CBS to run during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7, which is -- brace yourself for the shock -- running into some opposition from prominent women's groups:

NEW YORK (AP)—A national coalition of women’s groups called on CBS on Monday to scrap its plan to broadcast an ad during the Super Bowl featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, which critics say is likely to convey an anti-abortion message.

"An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year—an event designed to bring Americans together," said Jemhu Greene, president of the New York-based Women’s Media Center.
[...]
[Focus on the Family spokesman Gary] Schneeberger said he and his colleagues "were a little surprised" at the furor over the ad."

"There's nothing political and controversial about it," he said.

Would a Focus on the Family ad be getting any attention outside the close-circle political blogosphere without the involvement of the Tebow Child? Doubtful, making this a stroke of marketing inspiration. Of all the divisions this episode's bound to spark, however, none are as bizarre as the alliances it has the potential to create:

A national columnist for CBSSports.com, Gregg Doyel, also objected to the CBS decision to show the ad, specifically because it would air on Super Sunday.

"If you're a sports fan, and I am, that's the holiest day of the year," he wrote. "It's not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don’t care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don’t care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion."

The end times are truly upon us. Forget the issue at hand; I'm now mortally offended that I'm being forced to agree with Gregg Doyel on an issue of the day. For such an ostensibly nice young man, Tebow sure has a way with lemon juice and open wounds.

• Frat boys demand justice. To clarify Monday's somewhat convoluted Oregon robbery story: Eugene police are still investigating a reported robbery at a fraternity over the weekend, but say Duck players Jeremiah Masoli and Garrett Embry are not suspects, though they are named in the report for being present at the time of the robbery; officially, a police spokesman told the school paper, "Masoli and Embry have not been named suspects and there are no persons of interest in the case." Members of the frat, however, are telling every local outlet that Masoli and Embry are responsible for a pair of missing laptops and other items -- one student Sig Ep told the Oregonian he chased the players from the house, and another left a message with the student paper in which he called Masoli and Embry "hoodrats" who "just stole all of my friend's possessions." There have been no charges or arrests. [The Oregonian, Daily Emerald]

In better news for the Ducks, kicker Rob Beard was removed from the ICU and is expected to make a full recovery after being badly beaten and kicked in an early-morning fight on Sunday. Beard underwent "relatively minor" facial reconstruction surgery on Monday and was able to greet visitors and return text messages. [Eugene Register-Guard]

• The peasants, sir, they demand more. The five mid-major conferences brought in a record haul from the BCS, splitting up a record $24 million among themselves -- more, for the first time, than the $22.2 million apiece the Big Ten and SEC brought in for sending two teams to the Series. Most of the non-Big Six cash was split among the WAC ($9.8 million) and Mountain West ($7.8 million), thanks to Boise State and TCU, but that payout still remains about half of the $17.7 million apiece the BCS doled out to the ACC, Big 12, Pac-10 and Big East for qualifying just one team. [Associated Press]

• Mobile Confidential. Among several dozen last-second Senior Bowl additions over the weekend was Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount, of Boise State Punchout fame, who joins Tim Tebow and recovering USC tailback Stafon Johnson -- playing for the first time since dropping a loaded bench press bar on his neck last September -- as one of the more interesting stories of the week in Mobile. One of the worst stories of the week: Big Ten sack leader O'Brien Schofield, trying out at outside linebacker after an all-conference effort at defensive end for Wisconsin, tore his ACL during practice, putting his rookie season next fall in doubt. [Mobile Press-Register, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

• Welcome to the Cinderella Bowl. I'm generally a defender of recruiting rankings, but aside from Peyton Manning, ESPN's Bruce Feldman pointed out Monday that the star system didn't fare very well in projecting this year's Super Bowl: The vast majority of starters in two weeks were rated three stars or worse coming into college, if they were rated at all, and many (including Colts Pro Bowlers Jeff Saturday and Reggie Wayne and former LSU running back Joseph Addai) initially walked on. The Saints are starting three Pro Bowl-caliber players, Marques Colston (Hofstra), Jahri Evans (Bloomsburg State) and Darren Sharper (William & Mary), from obscure lower-division schools. Which just goes to show how good a thoroughbred, blue-chip quarterback like Manning can make everyone else, right? [ESPN]

Quickly ... Under Armour congratulates Stafon Johnson on just being at the Senior Bowl. ... The Kansas City Star reviews Missouri's options when it comes to joining the Big Ten's expansion efforts. ... The South Bend Tribune continues its tour of new Irish assistants with a look at Brian Kelly's right hand man on offense, Charley Molnar. ... And most of the South may be finished with Lane Kiffin, but Kiffin definitely isn't finished with the South.

Florida tried to address that last year by hiring respected quarterbacks coach Scott Loeffler from the pro ranks, practicing with Tebow under center and having him take a handful of "conventional" snaps in a few games, all with an eye to making the most celebrated college player in modern history a more viable prospect to the skeptics. But when he showed up Monday for the first day of heavy scrutiny at the Senior Bowl, all the old alarm bells started ringing at maximum volume -- Tebow reportedly flubbed his first snap from center, and it only got uglier from there:

Performing drills with fellow South team quarterbacks Zac Robinson of Oklahoma State and Jarrett Brown of West Virginia, Tebow fumbled the ball at least twice while taking snaps under center.

Later in team drills, Tebow fell into his same old habits — holding onto the ball too long, locking onto receivers and throwing wobbly passes.

The scouts noticed.

"He looks like the third QB out there," one NFC South talent evaluator said.

Of course, the two QBs in front of him, Robinson and Brown, also come from shotgun-based spread schemes that featured a steady dose of quarterback-as-runner, and former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach -- as prominent an acolyte of the "college spread" as you can find -- hilariously mocked the NFL mantra when his prolific protegé, Graham Harrell, met with failing grades from the scouts last spring. ("How could you possibly look yourself in the mirror and consider yourself an NFL coach and not be able to teach a guy to run back three steps, five steps and seven steps? I can teach a child that!") Longtime coach and quarterback guru Marc Trestman, who worked with Tebow to prepare for this week, said he didn't think Tebow looked bad enough to hurt himself; Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, overseeing the South roster, said Tebow improved over the course of the practice. If nothing else, he's already well on his way to replacing Brett Favre's spot in Peter King's heart in the league's most influential weekly column.

But for a guy who needed a knockout week, the initial reviews are unadulterated fuel for the haters. Handling the snap is supposed to be the easy part of the transition; if he's still struggling with the basic exchange on national television this Saturday, we won't be hearing the end of it anytime soon.

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[UPDATE, 9:14 p.m. ET] Despite a good deal of specificity in this afternoon's reports that Oregon players Jeremiah Masoli and Garrett Embry were suspects in a fraternity theft -- including direct, incriminating quotes from the student who called police -- Eugene television station KMTR reported tonight that Masoli and Embry are NOT suspects in the incident described below, according to police. Their names do appear in the police report, however, adding to a web we can only hope will be untangled over the next few days. As they say at KMTR, stay tuned. (Hat tip: The Wiz)
- - -

Thanks to Nike founder/super booster Phil Knight and a handful of other well-heeled alums, Oregon has quickly turned itself into one of the frontrunners in the ever-escalating facilities arms race. Since 2002, the athletic department has expanded and dramatically upgraded Autzen Stadium, built a lavish locker room complete with plasma TV screens and Internet ports and, just this semester, opened an academic support center for athletes it bills as "the Taj Mahal of academic services." Last week, the new study hall trotted out 550 custom-engraved MacBook Pro laptops (shown above), courtesy of Knight, that are all but impossible to steal because of the unique etching on the back and bottom that make them easy to identify.

What a coincidence, then, that -- just days after the arrival of the MacBook Pros on campus -- two Oregon players were accused of jacking two MacBook Pros and other assorted items from a nearby fraternity house, according the the local Oregonian. And one of them happens to be a Heisman Trophy candidate:

EUGENE - The Eugene Police Department confirmed this morning that its officers are investigating an alleged theft, and the student who filed the report has told The Oregonian that the men he accuses in it are University of Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli and wide receiver Garrett Embry.
[...]
[Student Max] Wolfard said he didn't think anything of Masoli and Embry's presence at first given that he'd seen them at the house before. But when they started to act "suspicious" -- and appeared to be hiding something -- he demanded to know what they were doing. It was then that Wolfard noticed Embry was carrying what appeared to be Wolfard's projector screen, valued at $560.

Wolfard said the two players then ran out the back door. Wolfard said Masoli fled north and Embry went east up Agate Street as Wolford chased him. Blocks later, Wolfard says, Embry stopped running, gave him back his projector screen and said, "You've got it back, now you better get out of here."

Wolfard, who said there was no evidence of forced entry at the fraternity house, returned to his room to find his guitar and computer missing and then called police. Max Iantorno, 20, a sophomore, arrived at the fraternity house soon afterward to find his door open and his laptop missing.

Not surprisingly, police and Oregon officials are mum all the way around. To be clear, neither Masoli nor Embry has been charged with anything, much less found guilty; police are still investigating the complaint. But Masoli did spend three months in a juvenile detention center for his role in a string of armed robberies as a teenager (one of the reasons he spent a year at junior college before emerging as the Pac-10's best quarterback over the last two years), and the student who filed the complaint said he easily recognized Masoli because "he has a very distinctive face, very distinctive facial hair."

Duck coach Chip Kelly proved his willingness to hand out stern justice to his headliners when he suspended starting running back LeGarrette Blount for decking a Boise State player and later attempting to storm the crowd after the season-opening loss in Boise last September. Kelly has also shown a penchant for second chances by lifting the suspension in November despite an earlier round of suspension/reinstatement with Blount in the offseason, and by taking a chance on Masoli despite his record in the first place. If a charge sticks from the alleged laptop theft, Masoli and Embry will almost certainly be on ice through spring practice, at least. Then the question turns to the season: Is there a chance one of the early national championship favorites enters the year without the trigger man for its prolific offense? In this case, unlike the controversy surrounding Blount, Kelly may not even have the option of bringing his star player back into the fold if Masoli faces jail time.

But that's only if a charge sticks. If not, it's ink in the wind.

- - -
Hat tip: Sports by Brooks.

The term "Terrence Cody shirtless," on the other hand, may not be rocketing up the list of hot trends with the same gusto:

Now we know why Cody keeps his shirt on when emptying ponds, streams and other medium-sized bodies of water: It's just common courtesy, man. Alabama's All-American defensive tackle tipped the scales at a whopping 370 pounds, up from his listed weight of 354 in the preseason, which would place him alongside Leonard Davis, Gilbert Brown and Aaron Gibson in the pantheon of heaviest players in NFL history. That kind of heft is a red flag for Cody's conditioning and endurance, especially since, to quote NFL draft analyst Mike Mayock, "it wasn't a clean 370." Heaven help us all when he tries to get all that moving at top speed in the 40-yard dash, a pointless but no doubt highly entertaining sequel to last spring's smash hit out of Alabama, Body by Andre Smith.

Remember, though, that 370 is a significant improvement since Cody's arrival in Tuscaloosa as a junior college transfer in July 2008, when he reportedly showed up weighing a doughnut or two over 400 pounds. The man can reportedly cut a backflip and dunk a basketball on top of devouring blockers, running backs and game-winning field goals; he will definitely post a better 40 time than me. Don't ask an elephant to be a cheetah. Just put him in the middle of your 3-4 alignment and let him charge.

- - -
Hat tip: Christopher.

Still, it was impossible to imagine the reservoir of anti-BCS sentiment among power brokers spilling over the dam quite as dramatically and consistently as it did through the spring and summer. Not content to let their knee-jerk protests die as the season faded from memory, Barton and his senatorial counterpart, Utah's Orrin Hatch, kept the issue alive through military, economic and political turmoil, hauling key BCS defenders in front of Congress on two separate occasions to publicly compare the Series to Communism and call for a Justice Department investigation into its structure as a monopolistic, antitrust-violating cabal. A political action committee made headlines as the official playoff lobby, and has continued to apply pressure on the system on an almost daily basis. Barton's bill passed the first hurdle on the way to becoming law, and lives on despite the exceedingly long odds of it running the rest of the legislative course.

On the heels of reform efforts by power brokers within the sport over previous offseasons -- in 2007, the president of the University of Florida Georgia's president made a push for a bracket following open discussion by BCS honchos of instituting a mini-playoff format under the "Plus One" tag, prompting Florida State's president to publicly declare that a playoff was "inevitable" -- the sustained outpouring of pro-playoff sentiment from an even higher rung on the ladder seemed like the next logical step on the long, grueling road to a bona fide tournament. The BCS, finally waking up to the fight after a decade of haphazard management, was sufficiently spooked to hire an actual director, create a coherent message and begin punching back (however feebly) on the P.R. front.

Now that there are no more rungs to climb in the power structure, though, the question over the next nine months shifts from getting the right people to pay attention -- when the president and prominent Congressmen hitch their wagons to a cause, visibility is no longer an issue -- to getting enough of those people to care enough to promote actual change. This may be the most crucial phase in the push for a playoff, and the most difficult. Unlike last year, when Utah, Texas and USC all presented valid challenges to BCS champ Florida's status as "the national champion," there is no significant argument against Alabama as No. 1 this time around, meaning there won't be any conversions by Congressfolk looking to score some cheap points with a snubbed constituency. The Justice Department is probably not very inclined to spend taxpayer money and man hours to fix the relatively (compared to the other issues on its plate) un-broken state of naming a college football champion. The novelty of headlines wondering "Why is Congress talking about college football?" will fade, and the momentum will dissipate altogether if the headlines don't begin to show progress toward reform.

Systems that survive a serious political attack tend to come out the other end of the process more stable and more entrenched. For the BCS -- firmly in place through at least the 2013 season, when its new contract expires -- navigating the storm over the next three years is a chance to earn an air of permanence, and a useful bit of cynicism to break out the next time the waters start getting rough: Hey, haven't they tried to take us down already? What else is new, guys? If it has any chance of breaking through and toppling the beast, now is the time for the pro-playoff lobby to show its bite can be as effective as its bark.

But Saints fans felt like a cursed, beleaguered group of downtrodden misfits long, long before 2005, and when they staggered into Bourbon Street after Garrett Hartley's game-winning field goal in overtime Sunday night, it wasn't to celebrate a respite from four and a half years of misery. It was to celebrate the cure of a four-and-a-half-decade disease:

I was in that number (not on camera, thankfully), and I am alive -- albeit down one trusty black fleur de lis cap. I will certainly not be replacing it with anything that says "NFC Champion." If this is the team Saints fans been waiting for, it will finish the job against native son Peyton Manning and the Colts in two weeks. Nothing else will appear here about that match-up in the meantime, unless it explicitly relates to the college game. But I will never be too objective to say: Go Saints. And thank you, finally.