Apparently bowl games are not immune from the poor economy. How else does one explain the Military Bowl’s new mascot, Sgt. Stripes — basically a photo commemorative Military Bowl football with cartoon eyes Photoshopped on? Photshopped!

According to the Military Bowl release, Sgt. Stripes will have his own Twitter account and “pop up at landmarks throughout the region and pose with local celebrities as a way to engage fans in the game.” Sgt. Stripes has already posted four Twitter updates and a picture from the Comcast SportsNet studio in Washington.

Of course, Sgt. Stripes will also have his own spot on the bowl’s Facebook page.

I get that the mascot is not supposed to be high tech and it’s supposed to be funny (I chuckled) and that the simplicity of it is, in fact, the beauty of it. But for a bowl sponsored by Northrop Grumman, I expected a mascot with some muscle. Like, perhaps a fighter jet with the Military Bowl logo on it or an aircraft carrier. Heck, I would have settled for a WMD with the Military Bowl logo. Just something that screamed military.

Instead, we got cartoon eyes.

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

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As conference expansion talks have seemingly locked in on Missouri, West Virginia and Louisville, BYU — an early favorite in projections to the Big 12 — has been left out in the cold. According to coach Bronco Mendenhall, the Cougars’ faith is a big reason why.

As a Mormon-based institution, BYU has additional rules and stipulations that govern its athletics, among them an inflexible ban on games on Sunday. Faced with potential conflicts and culture clashes, several leagues — the Pac-12, Big 12, Big East — have only taken a cursory look before moving on.

Mendenhall expressed his frustration with the expansion process Tuesday night on KSL in Utah.

“(BYU is), by design, to be very unique and someone in a conference has to want that culture with our values,” Mendenhall said. “Not only all of our sports teams that are excellent, but they have to want a school that has the values that we have.

“Those that want us, fantastic. And if they don’t, I would rather stand alone. Then my job is to help lead the program to the point where you can’t be ignored any longer. That will accumulate over time through our record. That is just simply kind of the brutal facts of where it is.”

BYU broke off from the Mountain West last year, opting for independence in an attempt to earn greater revenue with its television partnership with ESPN and greater exposure and notoriety by playing more high-profile opponents. (And to avoid taking a backseat to its Pac-12-bound rival, Utah.) The Cougars have struggled some on the field, against the Utes in particular, but are still one of the more attractive options in terms of all sports and academics available.

Just a few weeks ago, BYU was reportedly being courted by the Big 12, which seemed like a good fit for a faith-based school.

“The Big 12 has already shown that they have some interest in already doing (taking a faith-based institution) with Baylor and they’ve just taken TCU,” Mendenhall said. “Unlike the Pac-12, which made it very clear that it did not want a religious-based school.

“I know one of the criteria’s they’re mentioning in talking about West Virginia is they were in the Top 25 four of the past five years, which I think our record is very similar. [BYU's record from 2006-10 was virtually identical to West Virginia's. — ed.] Our basketball program is certainly on par or better than the majority in the country and all of our sports. So, there comes this really unique issue, just to be very blunt, of culture and we have a very unique institution.”

But the uniqueness of BYU isn’t much of a selling point in the current game of musical chairs, and Mendenhall knows that if the university gets passed by in this round it could be awhile before it comes again. So he’s not shy to hitch BYU’s wagon to the nearest shining star, Boise State.

“All of these moves are revenue-driven, they’re TV rights driven and they are access driven to the highest level of bowl games that there are,” Mendenhall said. “You could certainly find yourself on the outside looking in as one of those teams, as we are now, that have to win every game. That is simply the way it is. Boise State finds themselves in a similar situation.

“It would make a lot of sense to me, if anyone wanted a partnership and wanted a natural rivalry to take us and Boise and put us in the league and you’d have a Mountain West imprint, so to speak, and you’d have two excellent football teams and I think people would be surprised at what would happen.”

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

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I said it on Tuesday, and it’s worth repeating: The first rule in conference realignment is, Nothing is a done deal until it’s a done deal. I should have stopped there.

Because while everyone from the New York Times to the West Virginia dailies in West Virginia was literally proclaiming the Mountaineers’ pending defection from the Big East to the Big 12 “a done deal” — local outlets even went ahead with the obligatory “Meet the new rivals” stories — the actual deal was about run into a big, L-shaped wall:

After being informed by Big 12 officials that it would be admitted to the conference, West Virginia now finds itself in a holding pattern.

A Big 12 conference call Tuesday night was expected to be a formality on West Virginia’s road to admittance. Instead, objections were raised.

A late push by Louisville has put political pressure on the Big 12 and opened the possibility of Louisville’s being the university that is admitted instead of West Virginia. Two people with direct knowledge of the situation said that lobbying by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, including to David Boren, the president of the University of Oklahoma and a former senator, helped slow West Virginia’s admittance to the Big 12.

Again, the locals confirmed the eleventh-hour backtracking. A source “with direct knowledge” of the negotiations told the New York Times “it’s 50-50 right now between West Virginia and Louisville” to replace (presumably) SEC-bound Missouri as the tenth team at the Big 12 table, and the issue may not be settled until the next Big 12 board meeting on Monday night. If the Mountaineers remain a tentative favorite, obviously the question is a long way from being settled.

It’s not one either side is likely to concede, either. If the reports of West Virginia’s exit were greatly exaggerated, the reports of the Big East’s impending demise as a major football conference were not: Losing Louisville would leave the league in the same position, standing by with five remaining members — Cincinnati, Connecticut, Rutgers, South Florida and West Virginia — and a continental expansion plan — Air Force, Boise State, Houston, Navy and SMU — that doesn’t go far enough to take its automatic bid to a BCS bowl game off the bubble, risking its demotion to the ranks of the Have-Not leagues.

In fact, if Boise and Co. aren’t convinced that the new alignment secures the bid past 2013, they may decide to take their chances in the pending Mountain West/Conference USA merger, and the Big East will be forced to join or die. The lone invitation to the Big 12, with its rock-solid BCS bid, is like the letter of transit in Casablanca.

If high-ranking senators are directly involved in the lobbying process, the dollar signs in someone’s office are already blinking with a vengeance. And as Rich Rodriguez — or anyone who’s read about his exit from Morgantown in the new book “Three and Out” — can tell you, the combination of politics and football in West Virginia is not for the feint or trusting of heart. That goes double where there’s big money involved. It goes triple where they feel like they’ve been betrayed. I hope McConnell and the Cardinals came to play hardball, because the fight for the last ticket out of the desert is about to get ugly.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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More than a year removed from a head-on collision on the football field that left him paralyzed from the neck down, former Rutgers lineman Eric LeGrand will be leading the team onto the same field Saturday for arguably its biggest game of the season.

LeGrand told Yahoo!Sports Tuesday he will be leading the Scarlet Knights out the tunnel for the pregame introductions at High Point Solutions Stadium, where he hopes to give an emotional lift to the 5-2 Scarlet Knights as they make an upset bid against West Virginia. Had the injury not occurred, rendering him unable to play football again, LeGrand would be in the midst of his senior season under head coach Greg Schiano.

“It’s going to happen,” LeGrand said. “It’s official, just talked to coach. It is happening.”

The idea behind LeGrand, who moves about in a motorized wheelchair, leading the team onto the field came from Schiano. This summer, Schiano approached his former player and offered to let him lead the team onto the field before a game of his choosing. After discussing it with his mother, LeGrand picked Saturday afternoon against the Mountaineers, the preseason favorites to win the Big East and a team Rutgers hasn’t beaten since 1994.

“I was thinking that’d be the perfect game, the atmosphere and being on national television,” LeGrand said. “We haven’t beaten them in so long and they’re No. 25 in the nation. This would have been my senior year. I wanted to lead the team onto the field. Those are my guys, my teammates out there.”

The past few days have been poignant ones for LeGrand, who watched Rutgers lose on the road at Louisville on Friday, including the second quarter play where Cardinal defensive back Anthony Conner was hit by the Scarlet Knights Mohamed Sanu. After the play, Conner lay motionless on the field for several minutes as both teams knelt and looked on, the Rutgers team visibly shaken by memories of LeGrand’s injury last October. Eventually, the Conner was transported to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a cervical fracture. He underwent surgery earlier this week and is expected to make a full recovery.

LeGrand reached out to Conner on Tuesday afternoon.

“I was praying for him as I watched him there on the field. I know what it’s like, that feeling, not knowing what was happening,” LeGrand said. “His girlfriend reached out to me on Facebook just to see if I could offer him any advice. He’s a little bit down, his playing career is over but he’s expecting a full recovery so that’s good.”

Right now, LeGrand’s own recovery is progressing. After months of therapy, he posted pictures of himself standing upright for the first time in July. In November, he’s scheduled to begin an intense five-day-a-week rehab schedule, which will run for 24 sessions. He also plans to begin using a body weight suspended treadmill to ratchet up the intensity. His legs and hips will be manually moved on the treadmill to begin the process of getting him to stand on his own two feet again.

“I’m just blessed right now. It’s no good to be down on myself. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You can’t control what happens to you,” LeGrand said. “I hope that next time I’m on that field at Rutgers, that I will be running when I lead my team out there.”

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Kristian R. Dyer is on Twitter: Follow him @KristianRDyer.

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Making the morning rounds.

• Oh, I think we can find room. Nobody came right out and said “They’re going to play,” but suspended LSU stars Tyrann Mathieu and Spencer Ware were back at practice Tuesday and looking for all the world like they’re going to be in the lineup against Alabama after sitting out last weekend’s obliteration of Auburn for allegedly failing a drug test. There’s still more than ten days to go, but if Mathieu and Ware are in the fold — along with a third suspend, nickel corner Tharold Simon — the only notable absence on either side on Nov. 5 will be LSU offensive lineman Josh Dworaczyk, out for the season with a knee injury since last month.

“If they continue to do the things that they’re doing, we would anticipate that they would play (against the Crimson Tide),” said coach Les Miles. “We’re not going to live in deadlines in any way. We’re practicing and preparing them to play and operating along that way. We’re going to practice them and plan on using them.” [Baton Rouge Advocate]

• Don’t let the door hit you. To the surprise of no one, USC running back Dillon Baxter is officially off the team to “focus on his academics,” likely ending his trajectory from the second coming of Reggie Bush out of high school to persona non grata less than two years into his career. Before the season, Baxter was talking about his improved maturity as a sophomore and relishing his opportunity to seize the starting tailback job with senior Marc Tyler on indefinite suspension. By last weekend, Tyler was back atop of the depth chart alongside Curtis McNeal, hyped freshman George Farmer had been added to the mix as the resident “dual threat” option and Baxter was skipping the trip to Notre Dame altogether after failing to see the field in the Trojans’ wins over Arizona and Cal.

“The decision has been made for Dillon Baxter to focus on his academics,” coach Lane Kiffin said in a statement. ”As he does so, he will not be part of our football program.  However, we will continue to support him with our academic services department. There will be no further comment regarding this from me or any member of our program.” For what it’s worth, Baxter’s stepfather said Tuesday that the subject of a transfer hasn’t come up. “He loves USC,” Anthony Mooney told the Orange County Register. “He respects the staff. He wants to be a Trojan.” [USCTrojans.com, Orange County Register]

• Let the Mtn eat cake. As a multitude of sources added to the chorus confirming West Virginia’s defection from the Big East to the Big 12 Tuesday — and with it the likely demise of the Big East as a major football conference — Big East officials strongly denied reports that they were planning to meet with Mountain West and Conference USA commissioners in New York to discuss joining the forthcoming Mtn/C-USA merger to forge a “super conference” of up to 32 schools. “We are not part of any meeting with those two conferences,” a Big East spokesman told the New York Daily News (“in no uncertain terms”), despite the leverage a merger could offer toward the Big East’s first priority: Keeping an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game.

In the meantime, Boise State president Bob Kustra confirmed reports that he met with Big East officials in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, but said the conversation was “informational in nature” and Boise “continues to consider and evaluate its options” — not just boilerplate when one of those options (the Big East) is looking less and less viable by the week. [New York Daily News, Charleston Daily Mail, Charleston Gazette, Idaho Statesman]

• I’m just mad about Kapron. Notre Dame defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore is out for the rest of the season with an MCL injury, joining fellow senior Ethan Johnson on the injured list and likely forcing the Irish to start two true freshman ends Saturday against Navy — the same Navy whose slippery triple-option attack has gashed ND in Midshipmen wins three of the last four years. Lewis-Moore has started 29 games over the last three years and should be back with a fifth year of eligibility in 2012. [IrishIllustrated.com]

In other injury news… Washington State quarterback Jeff Tuel remains in limbo after reinsuring the same shoulder he hurt in the Cougars’ season opener. [Seattle Times] … UCLA safety Tony Dye is out for the season due to “stingers,” and will likely have to request a medical redshirt to return next year. [L.A. Daily News] … And Cincinnati cornerback Dominique Battle is out for the season with a torn ACL that will require surgery later this week. [Cincinnati Enquirer]

Quickly… Missouri may be forced to remain in the Big 12 for one more year in 2012-13. … Cliff Harris plans to fight his latest traffic citations. … Jerry Kill parlays Minnesota‘s ongoing nightmare of a season into a longer contract worth more money. … Florida loses a pair of former high school teammates in search of more playing time. … South Carolina holds a team meeting to remind itself it’s still in the driver’s seat in the SEC East. … And Jeff Sagarin’s computer ranks Boston College behind Harvard, along with pretty much everyone else with a team.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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For the second consecutive week, Vanderbilt has to explain itself regarding an incident that occurred after their football game.

The university issued a statement Tuesday apologizing to “all of the men and women who attend and work at the United States Military Academy, their families, all graduates of USMA and their fans” for not respecting the tradition of Army’s alma mater.

Here is the text of the letter on the Vanderbilt website:

To all of the men and women who attend and work at the United States Military Academy, their families, all graduates of USMA and their fans:

We at Vanderbilt University would like to publicly offer our sincere apology for the events that occurred at the conclusion of our recent football game. While our football team performed our alma mater with our fans and band, the Black Knights, their band and cheerleaders, as well as their fans, stood at attention and honored us as would a worthy foe. However, after we were finished and the Black Knights began to perform their alma mater, our football team left the field and our loud speaker blasted music that had the result of drowning out the performing of your alma mater.

While there was no intention to be disrespectful, this was wrong and was a huge mistake on our part. There is no excuse for this oversight; we were just wrong and we are truly sorry.

Make no mistake, the people at Vanderbilt University, our alumni and fans respect all that you do and have done for this nation. We are honored by what you stand for and we understand that this was not the way you should have been treated.

On behalf of Vanderbilt University, please accept our apology for this mistake and oversight of your important protocol. You deserved better and we have learned from our mistake. We request your forgiveness.

Respectfully,

Vanderbilt University

In all fairness to Vanderbilt, it hasn’t hosted Army in more than 20 years and coach James Franklin has never faced Army during his coaching career. Still, it’s pretty well known that military academies stand with their opponents during their alma mater and that they expect teams to do the same.

This is the second consecutive week Vanderbilt has had to address a postgame issue. Against Georgia two weeks ago, Franklin got into a verbal altercation with Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Franklin addressed the issue after the game and the incident was talked about ad nauseam in the media especially after neither coach was reprimanded for their actions.

Army and Vanderbilt have no future games currently scheduled.

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

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For the second consecutive week, Vanderbilt has to explain itself for an embarrassing postgame incident.

The university issued a statement Tuesday apologizing to “all of the men and women who attend and work at the United States Military Academy, their families, all graduates of USMA and their fans” for leaving the field and blasting music over the PA system during the playing of Army‘s alma mater.

Here’s the text of the letter on the Vanderbilt website:

To all of the men and women who attend and work at the United States Military Academy, their families, all graduates of USMA and their fans:

We at Vanderbilt University would like to publicly offer our sincere apology for the events that occurred at the conclusion of our recent football game. While our football team performed our alma mater with our fans and band, the Black Knights, their band and cheerleaders, as well as their fans, stood at attention and honored us as would a worthy foe. However, after we were finished and the Black Knights began to perform their alma mater, our football team left the field and our loud speaker blasted music that had the result of drowning out the performing of your alma mater.

While there was no intention to be disrespectful, this was wrong and was a huge mistake on our part. There is no excuse for this oversight; we were just wrong and we are truly sorry.

Make no mistake, the people at Vanderbilt University, our alumni and fans respect all that you do and have done for this nation. We are honored by what you stand for and we understand that this was not the way you should have been treated.

On behalf of Vanderbilt University, please accept our apology for this mistake and oversight of your important protocol. You deserved better and we have learned from our mistake. We request your forgiveness.

Respectfully,
Vanderbilt University

In fairness to Vanderbilt, it hasn’t hosted Army in more than 20 years and coach James Franklin has never faced Army during his coaching career. Still, it’s pretty well known that military academies stand with opponents during their alma mater and that they expect the same in return.

This is the second consecutive week Vanderbilt has had to address a post-game issue. Against Georgia two weeks ago, Franklin got into a verbal altercation with Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham after multiple altercations between players during the game. Franklin dismissed the flap after the game, but the incident was examined ad nauseam in the media — especially after neither coach was reprimanded for his actions.

Army and Vanderbilt have no future games currently scheduled.

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

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Now in its seventh year, the College Football BlogPoll is a weekly effort of dozens of college football-centric Web sites representing a wide array of schools under the oversight of SB Nation. As always, this is an ever-evolving snapshot meant to judge teams exclusively on their existing resumés. It pays as little regard as possible to my guess as to what’s going to happen over the course of the season, or what would happen in a make-believe game “on a neutral field” or anywhere else. It’s subjective, but ideally, it’s not a guess: It’s a judgment on the evidence that actually exists. It is not a power poll.

LSU alternates back to the top in my weekly rotation between the Tigers and Crimson Tide, which (mercifully) has just one more week remaining before there’s a reason to actually rank one ahead of the other. For now, for the fourth edition in a row, they remain 1a and 1b, in no particular order. They have clearly been the two most dominant teams in the country over the first eight weeks and attempting to discern between them before they play is an exercise in futility.

• Cowboys are aliens. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State slides up another spot into Oklahoma‘s vacated No. 3 position, and I’m beginning to understand what the computers see in the Cowboys. I think some human pollsters have been a little slower to come around on OSU because a) They’re not a traditional power, a la Alabama, LSU and Oklahoma, and weren’t considered serious national contenders coming into the season, and b) They’re considered vulnerable defensively, a perfectly valid criticism for an outfit yielding well in excess of 400 yards per game.

On paper, though, Oklahoma State is competitive: Like Alabama and LSU, they’re winning by more than three touchdowns per game, have wins over a pair of teams currently ranked in every major poll (Texas A&M and Texas) and three “secondary” wins (over Missouri, Tulsa and UL-Lafayette) that easily rank alongside the Crimson Tide/Tiger routs over the bottom half of the SEC — the computers, in fact, tend to view the Cowboys’ schedule as the toughest of any ranked team except Texas A&M (see below). Caveats about the defense remain going forward, but they haven’t stopped OSU from putting together a first-rate resumé to date.

• Movin’ on up. Texas Tech and USC vault from out of the poll altogether to the mid-teens on the strength of big wins over Oklahoma and Notre Dame, respectively, and the Red Raiders may be my Restrospectively Overvalued Pick of the Week. I feel better about the Trojans, though, on the heels of what feels like a breakthrough win in South Bend: After a month of squeaking by the likes of Minnesota, Utah and Arizona, SC finally delivered its first legitimately impressive win of the Kiffin era. At the same time, it got a strength-of-schedule boost from Syracuse‘s surprising blowout over West Virginia, good enough to rocket it into its highest standing of the year — just in time to trashed by Stanford this weekend in the L.A. Coliseum.

• Parity before the storm. The Big 12 is the big winner this week with seven of ten teams in the poll at large, better than its nearest competition in the top-heavy SEC and muddled Big Ten (five teams apiece) and dramatically better per capita. Of course, those seven teams also have 13 games left to play against one another, and unbeaten Kansas State alone is about to embark on a four-week gauntlet against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas that could eject the Wildcats from the rankings in short order. But considering it’s going to survive the current round of conference realignment, after all, this isn’t a bad time to be in that league, unless you happen to be a defensive coordinator.

• Proof. This week’s resumé grid for public consumption:

L: Losses
PPG: Average margin of victory (points per game)
YPP: Average margin per play (yards per play)
Sked: Strength of schedule (as calculated by Jeff Sagarin)

As always, everything will be completely different next week.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Making the morning rounds.

• Hokie Hokie hurt. Virginia Tech linebacker Bruce Taylor — a 2010 All-ACC pick currently leading the Hokies in tackles for the second consecutive season — will undergo season-ending foot surgery next week, making him the third defensive starter ruled out for the year since opening day. Tech was already playing without defensive linemen Antoine Hopkins and Kwamaine Battle (both victims of knee injuries) and linebacker Jeron Gouveia-Winslow (foot), and played last week without All-ACC cornerback Jayron Hosley. Taylor’s replacement, former starter Barquell Rivers, has played just a few dozen plays this year due to injury himself. In all, the Hokie D could be traveling to Duke Saturday with five opening-day starters on the sideline.

“I can’t remember” a more injury-plagued season, said coach Frank Beamer, in his 25th year as Tech’s head coach, “but I think it’s just the way it goes. Some seasons you get to play with the same guy every week and that just isn’t the case for us.” [Associated Press, Washington Post]

• Seeking a second opinion from Dr. Kiper. Injured Arizona State cornerback Omar Bolden, a 2010 All-Pac-10 pick who was ruled out for the year with an ACL tear in the spring, tweeted Monday that he’s been cleared by a doctor to return “from a medical standpoint,” but also added, “I won’t play unless I’m just as effective as I was 6 months ago. … Refuse to damage stock!” Bolden returned to non-contact drills last week, but didn’t want to put a timetable on a possible return, according to the Arizona Republic, because “he doesn’t want to disappoint himself or fans if he doesn’t meet it.” [@Os_Island_TS]

In other injury news… Northwestern quarterback Dan Persa is listed as “questionable” again, this time for the Wildcats’ trip to Indiana. … Alabama offensive lineman Cyrus Kouandijo, one of the most hyped freshmen at any position in the 2011 recruiting class, is undergoing season-ending surgery to repair a “pretty significant knee injury.” [al.com] … South Florida loses starters at wide receiver and cornerback for the rest of the regular to a fractured ankle and ACL tear, respectively. [@CoachHoltzUSF] … And Florida, mercifully, expects senior quarterback John Brantley to play Saturday against Georgia for the first time in nearly a month, relieving the offense of the ongoing growing pains of freshmen Jacoby Brissett and Jeff Driskel. [Orlando Sentinel]

• Mo money, mo problems. More than 300 current college football and men’s basketball players from Arizona, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Purdue and UCLA have signed a petition asking the NCAA to “realize its mission to educate and protect us with integrity” by giving players an unspecified cut of ever-ballooning revenues. “I really want to voice my opinions,” said Georgia Tech defensive end Denzel McCoy, a redshirt freshman who led 54 other Yellow Jacket players in signing the petition. “The things we go through, the hours we put in, what our bodies go through, we deserve some sort of (results). College football is a billion-dollar industry.”

The petition by current players — a first — joins ongoing lawsuits by former players demanding to be compensated for use of their image in commercial products, among other rights that are standard in every walk of American life not governed by the NCAA. The next item on the agenda, according to perennial NCAA critic Dan Wetzel: A player boycott of minor bowl games. [Associated Press, Yahoo! Sports]

• Berry back in police sights. Ohio State running back Jaamal Berry has been named as a suspect — but not charged — in an assault against a 21-year-old non-student who was allegedly “struck in the face with a closed fist” during an altercation last Friday, according to a campus police report. The victim told police that Berry started yelling “vulgar remarks” at him after he was hit by a car, and proceeded to cross the street and punch both the victim and a friend. Berry was later identified by a witness and by the victim, who confirmed Berry’s identity when he was shown a photo; athletic director Gene Smith said the department is aware Berry may have been involved in an altercation.

The incident is the second alleged assault involving Berry in less than a month, following a bizarre case in which he reportedly attacked another student in a state of unexplained delirium last month. [The Lantern]

Quickly… Washington State‘s student paper calls for Paul Wulff to be fired. … Mysterious vandals target Texas’ campus in Austin. … The Big Ten take on the “Oversigning Bowl.” … Will Muschamp laments “a lot of wasted ink” on the fact that he played at Georgia, whatever “ink” is. … The Knight Commission: Still probin’ after all these years. … And Missouri is still technically a member of the Big 12, but its chancellor wishes the conference “the best, and all of that.”

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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For those of you keeping track this summer — and there were a lot of you — Oregon cornerback/return man Cliff Harris‘ driving record produced even more eye-popping stats behind the wheel than last year’s All-America campaign on the field: 118 mph on a suspended license, $8,500 in fines for at least 11 outstanding citations, a one-game suspension for arguably the biggest game of the year and finally six more games in depth chart limbo, where he’s remained since being pulled over back in June.

As of Monday, “limbo” would be a step up: Harris added three more lines to the box score in the form of fresh citations for driving with a suspended license, driving while uninsured and failure to wear a seatbelt. To his discipline record, coach Chip Kelly has added “a complete prohibition from all football activities until the matter is resolved.” His odds of seeing the field again this year from the furthest reaches of Kelly’s doghouse: Well, better than his odds of fulfilling projections as a first-round draft pick, at least.

Kelly has earned a reputation for a killer poker face when it comes to extended discipline: Before he relegated the most dangerous defender in the Pac-12 to second string, he also upheld season-long bans against two other former Duck stars, running back LeGarrette Blount and quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, for exploding into a post-game rampage and allegedly robbing a frat house, respectively. (Blount was granted a pardon near the end of the 2009 season, ultimately sitting out ten full games; Masoli made the decision a little easier by getting arrested again.) With Kelly, the suspension is just phase one, from which players seem to start over from square one.

That’s a luxury you have when you’re able to consistently plug new players into one of the most prolific offenses in the nation. In Harris’ case, he also has the luxury of a two-week buffer in which “tough love” is unlikely to have any impact whatsoever on the results against Washington State (against whom Oregon opened Monday as a 36½-point favorite) and Washington. After that, the Ducks’ season will be made or broken in back-to-back dates with Stanford and USC, and their NFL-bound quarterbacks, Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley, at whose expense Harris collected three of his Pac-10-best six interceptions last year in Oregon’s biggest wins en route to the BCS Championship Game. With a perfect finish and a little help, a return trip to the title game may still be on the table. Whether that remains true with one of the most dynamic players in the country watching from the sideline — and whether Kelly will stick by his guns if it looks like it doesn’t — we may be about to find out.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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