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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If The State newspaper columnist Ron Morris is waiting for an apology from Steve Spurrier, he might be waiting a long time.

Spurrier said on his weekly Thursday night call-in radio show that he had no regrets about refusing to do his weekly press conference while Morris was in the room.

“I’m not proud of what I did,” Spurrier said. “I’m not apologizing for it. I don’t know if I was right. I don’t know if I was wrong. But I can assure you this. It won’t happen again. Once is enough. That won’t happen again as long as I’m at South Carolina.”

Spurrier was miffed at Morris for a story he wrote back in the spring regarding Spurrier recruiting then-South Carolina point guard Bruce Ellington, who is now a Gamecock receiver, away from the basketball team. So Spurrier called Morris out in front of his peers and told other reporters he would meet with them in another room, or after Morris had left:

“I’m not gonna talk when [Morris] is in here. That’s my right as a head coach. I don’t have to talk to him, and I don’t have to talk to him when he’s in here. So what we’re gonna do, all you TV guys, I’m gonna do a personal interview with you in this other room. And the writers that are still left in here, I’ll come back here and talk with you right after that.

“OK? Everybody for that? What room we got? Media room? OK! Bring your cameras down there and let’s do some one-on-one.”

From the sound of Spurrier’s comments on his radio show, it doesn’t look like he and Morris have kissed and made up, which should make for an interesting postgame after Mississippi State on Saturday.

Will Spurrier continue to postpone press conference’s until Morris is removed from the room or what that just a one-time deal? Not sure what point Spurrier was trying to get across with his stunt, but it’s probably not going to stop reporters who cover his team from writing controversial things, especially since the team continues to give reporters ample ammunition.

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

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Poor Ron Morris. You spend years at the same newspaper, showing up at press conferences, collecting quotes, writing stories on a daily basis, building a byline. And then one day, as you’re going about your business as usual, the central figure on your beat abruptly halts the proceedings to call you out in front of all of your colleagues for something you allegedly wrote months ago:

Yes, that was South Carolina‘s Head Ball Coach himself, Steve Spurrier, literally walking out of his regularly scheduled Tuesday press conference Tuesday morning over a story Morris allegedly wrote in the spring about Spurrier recruiting then-Gamecock point guard Bruce Ellington — now a Gamecock wide receiver – from the basketball team. I can’t find that story (Update: Alert reader Craig has passed along a link), but it’s clearly been gnawing at the HBC for all these months:

“I’m not gonna talk when [Morris] is in here. That’s my right as a head coach. I don’t have to talk to him, and I don’t have to talk to him when he’s in here. So what we’re gonna do, all you TV guys, I’m gonna do a personal interview with you in this other room. And the writers that are still left in here, I’ll come back here and talk with you right after that.

“OK? Everybody for that? What room we got? Media room? OK! Bring your cameras down there and let’s do some one-on-one.”

Ouch. You got told, Ron Morris, for some reason or other. Spurrier will be over here with the professionals while you think about that.

Oh, and while they’re doing that, and the video of Spurrier’s speech is making the rounds on YouTube, the university’s media relations department will be typing up a press release that says the former starting quarterback has been officially booted from the team:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (October 11, 2011) — University of South Carolina senior quarterback Stephen Garcia has been dismissed from the football team, it was announced today.

“Being a student-athlete at the University of South Carolina is a privilege, not a right,” said Athletics Director Eric Hyman, “and we remind all of our student-athletes that there are consequences for their actions. For Stephen to return to and remain with the football squad this fall, we agreed on several established guidelines. Unfortunately, he has not been able to abide by those guidelines and has therefore forfeited his position on the roster. We wish him the best of luck as he moves forward in life.”

“We are all saddened that this has occurred,” said head coach Steve Spurrier. “We all feel like we’ve given Stephen numerous opportunities to be a student-athlete here at South Carolina. Obviously, he has chosen not to follow the guidelines of his reinstatement contract. We wish him the best.”

Funny how Spurrier’s attention-grabbing, headline-generating, favor-currying speech, delivered months after the column that prompted it, happened to come on the very same day as the biggest, most negative headline concerning his team all season, isn’t it? What are the odds?

[Get the latest college football scores with the free Yahoo! Sportacular app iPhone and Android]

Sarcasm aside, Spurrier’s shrewd little stunt never really had a chance of obscuring the final, disappointing chapter of college football’s resident Bro Montana. Garcia was a repeat offender, enduring five separate suspensions — all alcohol-related — between his enrollment in January 2008 and his unceremonious exit Tuesday morning, but as inevitable as the ending seems now, it’s worth recalling that Garcia had seemed to turn not one corner in his college career, but two.

The first came after his third suspension in March 2008, when he lost the “Wild Thing” locks, remained in good standing and entrenched himself as the full-time starter in a rising program that hit a new high last fall with its first SEC East championship. He looked like a success story, a kid who learned his lesson, matured and slowly grew into a leadership role on a team harboring all-time-high hopes this fall with virtually all of the stars of the 2010 squad coming back.

The second apparent corner came on the heels of his fourth and fifth suspensions in the spring, after which he managed to keep his nose clean through the summer and returned to re-seize the starting job from sophomore Connor Shaw one quarter into the season-opening win over East Carolina. Before his demotion in favor of Shaw last week, Garcia was the most experienced starting quarterback in the SEC, with more than twice as many starts under his belt (34) as any other passer in the league. Before Shaw’s big day against Kentucky over the weekend, the smart money was still on Garcia returning from the bench to add to the total.

As of Tuesday morning, we don’t know the nature of the straw — or possibly the anvil — that broke the camel’s back. (Initial reports suggest a failed alcohol test, one of the conditions of his latest reinstatement.) But it is interesting to consider that it may have been Garcia’s declining play — before his demotion, he’d completed fewer than half his passes and served up more interceptions (nine) than any quarterback in the country — that influenced whatever it is that finally did him in, rather than vice versa. With his job suddenly out of his hands, maybe he lost whatever sense of purpose was holding him back. Or maybe he’s just an unrepentant  hellraiser for all seasons, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

Now: Is Spurrier going to send a “Sorry, still friends?” note to Ron Morris? Or is he going to stand by his grudge?

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Video of courtesy of partners at WLTX.
Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Snap judgments on Saturday’s best.

ENGINEERING • Melvin Ingram, Antonio Allen, Jadeveon Clowney and Stephon Gilmore, South Carolina.
Left to its own devices, the South Carolina offense had about as much chance of matching Georgia‘s pace Saturday as Steve Spurrier has of landing the cover of Men’s Fitness: The Gamecocks were outgained by more than 100 total yards and generated just two touchdown drives to Georgia’s five.

But who needs offense when the defense and special teams are perfectly capable of manufacturing points of their own? Between Ingram’s 68-yard rumble on a fake punt in the second quarter, Allen’s 25-yard interception return in the third quarter and Ingram’s recovery of a fumble created by Clowney in the fourth, Carolina manufactured three non-offensive touchdowns in a 45-42 win and did all the heavy lifting on a fourth, putting the offense at the UGA two-yard line after a long fumble return by Gilmore. In two weeks, the Gameocks have now scored five touchdowns on defense and special teams and set up four more for the offense on drives that began inside the opposing 35-yard line.

AGRICULTURE • Isaiah Crowell, Georgia, and De’Anthony Thomas, Oregon.
Besides Clowney (who also recorded his first sack against the Bulldogs), two more of the most promising specimens in the 2011 recruiting crop are already beginning to bear fruit. Crowell, suddenly finding himself on a second-half depth chart that read:

1. Isaiah Crowell
2. Isaiah Crowell
3. Isaiah Crowell

…rose to the challenge by ripping Carolina for 158 total yards and two touchdowns as a rusher and receiver. Meanwhile, back in Eugene, fellow freshman De’Anthony Thomas also blossomed as a multi-purpose threat, rebounding from last week’s two-fumble debut against LSU with 204 all-purpose yards on 13 touches and a pair of touchdown catches covering 69 and 24 yards, respectively, in the Ducks’ 69-20 incineration of Nevada. Local rumors suggest that number also includes a 62-yard run on one of Thomas’ eight carries, but this has not been confirmed as technology has not advanced to the point of being able to capture the “Black Mamba” on film.

COMMUNICATIONS • Tyler Bray, Tennessee.
It was the second-year stars’ turn to shine in Knoxville, where Bray had a clear, direct line to fellow sophomores Justin Hunter and Da’Rick Rogers at all times in a 45-23 win over Cincinnati. Between them, Hunter and Rogers combined for 256 yards and three touchdowns on 20 catches, the lion’s share of a 405-yard, four-touchdown effort that left Bray as the most efficient passer in the SEC ahead of next week’s coming-of-age trip to Florida.

CARPENTRY • Iowa Corn Growers Association.
Faced with unenviable and unexpected task of re-imagining the Cy-Hawk Trophy for the second time after the initial makeover was roundly rejected last month, Iowa Corn managed to come up with a perfectly respectable “interim” effort for Saturday’s Iowa-Iowa State clash in Ames — only to see it instantly destroyed by the Cyclones in the aftermath of a 44-41 upset in triple overtime:

Well, you know what they say: It’s when hundreds of rowdy college students aren’t destroying things that you should really be worried.

FAMILY DYNAMICS • Zach Maynard and Keenan Allen, California.
It’s entirely possible that, if not for his blood ties to Allen, Maynard would have never been recruited to Berkeley, and may not have emerged so definitively from a four-man battle for Cal’s starting quarterback job in the spring. But if there was a slight dash of nepotism in Maynard’s rise to the top of the depth chart, it paid off in spades Saturday at Colorado, where Maynard and Allen connected five times for 97 yards in a 36-33 win — including the game-winning touchdown on the final play of overtime, Maynard’s fourth touchdown pass of the game.

CHEMISTRY • Tyler Hansen and Paul Richardson, Colorado.
Even in victory, the Bears’ half-brothers couldn’t match the mind-meld between Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen and receiver Paul Richardson, who hooked up 11 times for 284 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the second half covering 66 and 78 yards, respectively, in a span of a little over two minutes. That was good enough to shatter a bunch of school records, but not to keep the Buffaloes from falling to 0-2.

Honorable Mention: On Friday night, Arizona State‘s Brock Osweiler and Aaron Pflugrad connected eight times for 180 yards and two touchdowns in an overtime win over Missouri, a little over 24 hours after Oklahoma State‘s prolific pass-catch tandem, Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon, put on their usual clinic for a national audience in a 37-14 win over Arizona:

LOGISTICS • Marshall Lobbestael, Washington State.
Filling in for injured starter Jeff Tuel, Lobbestael and backup Connor Halliday combined to distribute seven touchdown passes among six different receivers in a 59-7 rout over UNLV, pushing the Cougars to 2-0 for the first time since 2002. Lobbestael and Halliday found 11 different receivers altogether, seven of whom brought in at least one pass covering at least 20 yards.

PERFORMING ARTS • Denard Robinson, Michigan.
On paper, Robinson completed fewer than half his passes and was picked off three times, while leading the Wolverines to just seven points over the first three quarters of an overwrought, under-written melodrama against Notre Dame. In the fourth quarter, though, Robinson turned the entire production into an acclaimed one-man show, drawing raves for a performance that included one touchdown run, three touchdown passes and not one but two go-ahead touchdown drives in the final two minutes of a 35-31 classic that might redefine the genre.

MEDIA CRITICISM • Face-palming Michigan fan.
He knows your tricks to manipulate the narrative, ESPN, and he does not approve:

Did the same cameras come back to Mr. Facepalm after either of Michigan’s subsequent touchdowns to take the lead? Where’s the emotional balance, ESPN?

CATCHES OF THE YEAR OF THE WEEK
First prize this week goes to Tennessee’s Da’Rick Rogers, who lost his helmet in a Bearcat sandwich and hung on for the touchdown, anyway:

Next, there’s Rutgers junior Mohamed Sanu, whose career afternoon in a 24-22 loss at North Carolina included this one-handed gem for the Scarlet Knights’ first touchdown:

And the video may be a little sketchy, but if you need Hi-Def to appreciate this high-flying, one-handed snare by TCU‘s Antoine Hicks, you have either very poor eyes or no soul:

Or else you’re just an Air Force still a little bitter about a 35-19 home loss, which is… acceptable.

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

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A weekly primer.

GAME OF THE CENTURY OF THE WEEK
MISSISSIPPI STATE (-6½) at AUBURN • 12:20 p.m. ET, SEC Network (Regional).
What’s at stake: Contrary to some overheated suggestions you might read this week, this is definitely not the biggest regular season game Mississippi State has ever played. But the Bulldogs are road favorites in an SEC game for only second time in the last six years (last November at Ole Miss was the first), and a win would be their first in an SEC opener since 1999 — also the last time they were still within shouting distance of the top of the SEC West at the end of September. After a near-catastrophe against Utah State pushed the nation’s longest active winning streak to the brink, Auburn may already be bracing for the worst. If either has any hope of making a real run at a division title, or even a place in the top 25, this is a must-win.

Mississippi State wants: This shaped up as the best offense in MSU history coming into the season, and there was nothing in last week’s 649-yard, 59-point obliteration of Memphis to indicate any differently. Meanwhile, Utah State took it right at Auburn, rolling up 227 yards rushing on 53 carries with a 15½-minute advantage in time of possession, thanks to four drives consisting of at least 14 plays apiece. Mississippi State certainly has more big-play potential than Utah State — though the Aggies also broke a 43-yard run for their first score — but churning out long, sustained drives with running back Vic Ballard and Tebow-esque quarterback Chris Relf pounding a few dozen times into a very young defensive line is right up the Bulldogs’ alley.

Auburn wants: By the same token, Auburn managed to generate five offensive touchdown on drives that took up, between them, a grand total of 34 snaps. In an unexpected (and more than a little desperate) shootout against Utah State, that came mostly from the passing game, namely junior receivers Emory Blake (3 catches, 95 yards, 1 TD) and Travante Stallworth (4 catches, 93 yards, 1 TD); against a much less forgiving division rival, the attack is likely to revolve around the complementary talents of tailbacks Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalebb, who combined for more than 2,000 yards on the ground last year and went over 100 despite limited touches last week. If the running game can keep quarterback Barrett Trotter in a comfort zone in his first SEC start, the big downfield plays that came so easily against USU could open up again.

Constants: Mississippi State will control the line of scrimmage and the clock against Auburn’s defensive front. … Auburn will strike for big plays off motion and misdirection. … Mississippi State will pressure Barrett Trotter on ovious passing downs.
Variables: Can Chris Relf force Auburn’s defense to respect his arm enough to keep the Tigers from ganging up on the run as the game wears on? … Does Auburn have another big special teams play or two up its sleeve? … Can Mississippi State force Trotter into consistent second and third-and-long situations?

The Pick: Before Cam Newton became, you know, Cam Newton, Mississippi State’s defense held the eventual BCS champs to season lows for points and yards per play last September, including the worst stat line of the season for the Chosen One himself. That was in Starkville, where MSU has been significantly more dangerous over the last decade than it’s been on the road, and it was under the watch of defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, who’s now calling the defensive shots at Texas.

But Diaz’s co-coordinator, Chris Wilson, is back to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” with the same playbook and essentially the same personnel against a much less potent quarterback and a much greener offensive line than Auburn had to offer last year. And based on what we saw last week from the revamped Tiger defense — not exactly a strength during last year’s championship run, anyway — the Bulldogs should be able to pound their way into the thick of the SEC West race with LSU coming to Starkville next Thursday night. After a win on the Plains, that will definitely rank among the brightest stages they’ve ever encountered.

ALABAMA (-10) at PENN STATE • 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC.
Everybody wants to know who Alabama’s starting quarterback is going to be, but what about Penn State’s quarterback? Sophomore Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin were their same old uninspiring selves in last week’s 41-7 rout over Indiana State, which revealed nothing except the Nittany Lions’ ongoing indecision at the position and usual dependence on the running game to slug out some first downs and keep the defense out of trouble.

True, you can say the exact same thing about Alabama after A.J. McCarron and Phillip Sims combined to throw four interceptions to just one touchdown in the Tide’s opening-day cakewalk over Kent State. But with two key differences: a) With four returning starters up front and a Heisman candidate at tailback, Alabama’s running game is actually good enough to slug out some first downs and keep the defense out of trouble, and b) When Penn State has the ball, Alabama’s defense is going to be the side doing the slugging. McCarron and Sims haven’t taken any significant snaps on the road anywhere, much less in the nation’s second-largest stadium. Frankly, though, I’d rather face 106,000 hostile Pennsylvanians any day than a Nick Saban-led defense featuring ten returning starters.

NOTRE DAME (-4½) at MICHIGAN • 8 p.m. ET, ESPN.
The Fighting Irish gained a ton of yards last week against South Florida, and negated most of them with five turnovers, three of them leading directly to USF points. Meanwhile, Michigan — a team consistently plagued by turnover margin under ousted head coach Rich Rodriguez — forced three giveaways from Western Michigan, two of them returned directly for Wolverine touchdowns. Advantage, Michigan?

Probably about as much of an advantage as playing under new lights at the Big House, which is to say: Not much. Notre Dame’s not going to cough it up five times Saturday night, and Michigan’s not going to score two defensive touchdowns. The Wolverines’ real advantage is more straightforward: They boast a vastly more experienced, more aggressive defense under new coordinator Greg Mattison, and they still boast Denard Robinson at quarterback. Old-school, “Man Ball” rhetoric notwithstanding, Michigan lined up in the shotgun on more than two-thirds of its offensive snaps in the opener, and the Irish defense is still trying to catch Robinson from this time last year.

SOUTH CAROLINA (-3) at GEORGIA • 4:30 ET, ESPN2.
South Carolina fans seem a little on edge this week, and for good reason: The Gamecocks had their share of issues in a sloppy, shootout win over East Carolina, most notably in the passing game and in stopping the pass. They’re also going to Athens, where things haven’t gone so well for them in the past. But the fact is, USC scored seven offensive touchdowns in three quarters after senior quarterback Stephen Garcia took the reins from sophomore Connor Shaw, and brings proven, veteran players at every position who have been a part of big wins in their careers, including big road wins.

Georgia, on the other had, has nothing to show for all of its proverbial “talent” — the Bulldogs have lost seven of their last eight against ranked teams and various stages of panic and resignation after last week’s opening-night flop against Boise State. Maybe Boise State is really that good, but it’s a better bet that South Carolina’s going to look pretty good, too.

UTAH at USC (-10) • 7:30 p.m. ET, Versus.
Utah is a total mystery, in more ways than one. Internally, The offense loses virtually all of last year’s most productive starters at the skill positions and on the front line, at the same time it’s transitioning to a more pro-style philosophy under a new coordinator, venerable pocket-passing guru Norm Chow. Externally, there’s no good basis for gauging how well such a young team will adjust to the step up in week-to-week degree of difficulty in the Pac-12.

At USC isn’t a particularly good place to start. The Trojans struggled to score last week in a meh win over Minnesota, but the defense still played relatively well, and quarterback Matt Barkley is still loaded with blue-chip options at the skill positions — even if only one of them, sophomore receiver Robert Woods, qualifies as a proven commodity. For now, that’s still one more than Utah.

MISSOURI at ARIZONA STATE (-9½) • 10:30 ET Friday, ESPN2.
This line moved toward the Sun Devils by 2.5 points literally overnight — are bettors only just now realizing Mizzou is coming in with four senior starters sidelined by injuries? If so, they’ve managed to overlook that Arizona State is also missing four starters to injury, including all-conference/NFL-worthy cornerback Omar Bolden, who tore his ACL in the spring. Combined with the presence of volatile, bone-rattling Sun Devil linebacker Vontaze Burfict and 100-degree desert temperatures in Tempe, it’s shaping up as a game only a medical student could love.

BYU at TEXAS (-6½) • 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2.
The Longhorns’ opening-day win over Rice taught us three things: a) A very significant chunk of Texas’ offense could be generated by freshmen and sophomores, specifically receivers Jaxon “It’s OK If You Slip and Call Me ‘Jordan’ ” Shipley and Mike Davis; b) Garrett Gilbert remains entrenched at quarterback; and c) Texas is still way, way better than Rice.

The Cougars’ visit to Austin should give us a little more to go on, which is just about the most exciting thing you say about a collision of teams that figure to rely overwhelmingly on their defenses through at least midseason. BYU’s D matched its offense with one touchdown apiece in last week’s 14-13 win at Ole Miss; at that rate, if it manages to take another one in against the Longhorns, it may give the old saw about “the best defense” an entirely new twist.

TCU (-1½) at AIR FORCE • 3:30 ET, Versus.
Another late-moving line today, courtesy of the late-breaking news that TCU will be playing without a pair of All-Mountain West starters, running back Ed Wesley and linebacker Tanner Brock, who both aggravated existing injuries in last week’s shootout loss at Baylor. Brock, in particular, is a major loss. But Air Force’s overwhelmingly ground-based option attack is a completely different test for the wounded Frog defense than the spread passing attack that burned it to a crisp last week in Waco, and happens to be a challenge TCU has consistently met during its six-year stay in the conference. The warning flags are up, but if any defense has earned a mulligan, it’s TCU’s.

OREGON STATE at WISCONSIN (-20)• Noon ET, ESPN.
Wisconsin opened the season by steamrolling an overmatched opponent in grisly, efficient fashion. Oregon State opened the season by losing to an FCS team and may be on the verge of starting a redshirt freshman quarterback who spent most of the preseason at No. 3 on the depth chart. I have enough respect for the operation Mike Riley’s built in Corvallis to predict that the Beavers won’t embarrass themselves, but not nearly enough to expect them to come anywhere near the kind of upset they specialized in a couple years back.

IOWA (-7) at IOWA STATE • Noon ET, FSN.
The bad news for Iowa State: It’s scored a grand total of 15 points in consecutive losses to the Hawkeyes over the last three years, and had to rally for two touchdowns in the final five minutes last week to ward off an upset bid from an FCS “rival,” Northern Iowa. The good news: They won’t have to feign enthusiasm over whatever it is the Iowa Corn Growers’ Association is going to be passing off as the “interim” Cy-Hawk Trophy.

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

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This fall, stability is out and late-breaking suspensions are definitely in. Between Ohio State, LSU, Miami., Oregon, Mississippi State and Ohio State again, having multiple and/or high-profile suspended is all the rage. Naturally, if Boise State wants to run with the big dogs, it has to face lingering, unresolved eligibility questions like the big dogs — and maybe give it a little international  intrigue:

The Boise State football team will face Georgia on Saturday without three key players — all from Amsterdam.

Senior starting safety Cedric Febis, sophomore wide receiver Geraldo Boldewijn and sophomore defensive tackle Ricky Tjong-A-Tjoe are being held out of the game “due to a review of their NCAA eligibility,” according to a release from Boise State. They did not travel with the team.

The decision is not related to academics or violations of team rules, the release said.

The spectacularly named trio all immigrated to Boise via an improbable pipeline forged by former Bronco assistant Romeo Bandison, a native Dutchman who came to the U.S. as a teenager after dominating club teams in the Netherlands, earned a scholarship at Oregon and was drafted by the Washington Redskins. In 2005, his last year at Boise before leaving for Colorado with head coach Dan Hawkins, Bandison reached out to the chairman of his old club team in Amsterdam to see if there were any players who had outgrown the competition in the Netherlands and were interested in following his route to the States. Boldejiwn, Febis and Tjong-A-Tjoe subsequently landed in different Boise high schools and graduated to the nearest up-and-coming powerhouse.

Assuming they’re cleared to return at some point, all three are expected to play major roles this season. Boldewijn (née Hiwat, right) wasted no time in the spring establishing himself as the heir apparent to departed seniors Titus Young and Austin Pettis, the leading receivers in school history, putting him on the short list of breakout stars this fall as the top target for prolific quarterback Kellen Moore. Febis (top) was expected to start immediately in place of departed All-WAC safety Jeron Johnson, a four-year starter. Tjong-A-Tjoe planned to see the field plenty in the defensive line rotation.

The timing for the NCAA to decide to look into their route to Boise is inconvenient, to say the least: The Broncos kick off against Georgia in 36 hours in a game that could make or break their case as a BCS contender, and are suddenly starting a very green redshirt freshman at free safety. Then again, these days, that’s just big-time college football.

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

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Making the morning rounds.

• Worst. Point-shaving scandal. Ever. Former Toledo running back Quinton Broussard pled guilty in federal court Thursday to conspiracy to influence sporting events by bribery, admitting he accepted more than $2,000 in cash and free groceries from two Detroit-area gamblers from 2004-06 in exchange for inside information about the team — including $500 to intentionally fumble in the 2005 GMAC Bowl against UTEP. Prosecutors indicted seven former Toledo athletes for point-shaving in 2009, four of whom have now pled guilty; three others and both of the gamblers allegedly behind the scheme have yet to stand trial.

The punchline: Though Broussard successfully carried out his end of the deal in the 2005 GMAC Bowl, losing a fumble with Toledo holding a small lead in the second quarter, the Rockets went on to win the game by a score of 45-13, covering the three-point spread by four touchdowns. Which begs the question: Has anyone investigated what was going at UTEP in 2005? [Toledo Blade]

• Arizona ligament harvest claims its latest victim. Arizona cornerback Jonathan McKnight — younger brother of ex-USC/current New York Jet running back Joe McKnight — is out for the season with a torn ACL, making him the fifth Wildcat player and third defensive starter to go down with an ACL tear since the start of spring practice. Safety Adam Hall and linebacker Jake Fischer, two of the Wildcats’ top five tacklers in 2010, were both injured in the spring and will miss the first month of the regular season, at minimum.

“It’s very frustrating, but it’s part of the game,” coach Mike Stoops told the Tucson Citizen. “There’s a fine line as coaches as to how much you practice and how much you don’t. We haven’t altered our schedule in any way, or our training. I don’t have a good explanation for it right now.” [Tucson Citizen]

• The plot thickens. The general manager and bouncer of the Baton Rouge bar where LSU Jordan Jefferson allegedly kicked a man in the head last week both told the Associated Press Thursday that the victim, Andrew Lowery, had been asked to leave the bar because was harassing a young woman and willingly joined in a brawl in progress in the parking lot. Lowery’s 18-year-old ex-girlfriend also claimed in a petition for a temporary restraining order that Lowery was stalking her in a bar and hit one of her friends earlier in the evening.

“What we do know is that Lowery threw the first punch,” said the general manager, John Peak. “That’s one thing we do know and we will attest to — and he had been kicked out of the bar.” [Associated Press]

• So that’s a “No,” then? Junior college transfer Duron Carter, son ex-Ohio State/NFL great Cris Carter, is still MIA from Alabama, and coach Nick Saban sounds like he’s not holding his breath for Carter’s academic issues to be resolved any time soon. “You know, I have some information, but at this point, I’ll believe it when I see it. Is that fair?” Saban told reporters after Thursday’s practice. “Can you read between the lines at all? You guys write — do you read between the lines in what you write?” [al.com]

• New CatLab. We are not worthy:

If aliens uncover the ruins our civilization 10,000 years from now, I hope that video is the central artifact. [tdj7349]

Quickly… Memphis names a starting quarterback. … Iowa State loses a safety to an ACL tear. … Yet another freshman is leaving Michigan. … Oregon‘s NCAA-related attorney’s fees are up to $60,000. … Nevin Shapiro once punched out the referee of a flag football game. … Joe Paterno has a new way to urge recruits to come to Penn Schtaaaaate. … The Rose Bowl Parade will truck no elephants. … And Boise State may be taking the “Blue Turf” thing a little too seriously.

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

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Making the morning rounds.

• This is going to hurt us more than it does you. At least 12 current players implicated in the sprawling Nevin Shapiro scandal at Miami are expected to be declared ineligible by the university within the next week, according to the Miami Herald, in hopes of having them reinstated by the NCAA in time for the Hurricanes’ Sept. 5 opener at Maryland. The move would not mean permanent ineligibility or even an “admission of guilt”: It’s more of a proactive step to ward off a harsher reaction if the NCAA rules the players ineligible later on. As an anonymous source told the Herald, “If those players aren’t first declared ineligible, then reinstated, before they participate and they’re found to have violated rules, the school will be in much deeper trouble.”

Based on Shapiro’s statements and corroborating witnesses, Yahoo! Sports’ bombshell report named a dozen current ‘Canes as beneficiaries of improper benefits (click on a player’s name for specifics): Safety Ray-Ray Armstrong, wide receiver Travis Benjamin, defensive end Dyron Dye, defensive tackle Marcus Fortson, quarterback Jacory Harris, wide receiver Aldarius Johnson, cornerback JoJo Nicolas, defensive end Adewale Ojomo, linebacker Sean Spence, safety Vaughn Telemaque and defensive end Olivier Vernon. Altogether, that list includes the starting quarterback, his leading returning receiver and seven returning starters on defense, including two preseason All-ACC picks, all of whom remain in limbo. [Miami Herald]

• Tough break. The injury plague that struck down Purdue‘s starting quarterback, starting tailback and leading receiver last year returned Wednesday with a vengeance, sidelining sophomore quarterback Rob Henry for the upcoming season with an ACL tear in his right knee. Henry started seven games last year after Robert Marve went down with an early ACL injury, held on to the No. 1 job in the spring and was expected to split time with Marve this fall as the better runner of the two.

As of Tuesday, though, Marve said ongoing rehab on his knee would probably cost him the first month of the season, leaving junior Caleb TerBush and sophomore Sean Robinson to duke it out in the meantime. “The time process has been a little longer than I thought and I’m not in any rush,” Marve told the Indianapolis Star. “I’m trying to get ready for Big Ten ball.” [Associated Press, Indianapolis Star]

• Law & Order: Baton Rouge, Part One. Baton Rouge police searched the apartment of LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson and obtained a DNA swab Wednesday in its ongoing, intensely scrutinized investigation into a bar fight involving multiple Tiger players last week. Witnesses have implicated Jefferson, specifically, for allegedly kicking a Marine in the head during the scuffle, which sent four people to the hospital — one of whom reportedly suffered several fractured vertebrae.

Officers left Jefferson’s pad with several bags of evidence (“He gave us 100 percent cooperation,” said a police spokesman) but any charges and/or arrests are still pending. In the meantime, even LSU fans are starting to have a little fun with this. [Associated Press, Baton Rouge Advocate]

• Law & Order: Baton Rouge, Part Two. While the police were assembling the case against one group of Tiger players, the East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney’s office was standing up for another, filing charges Wednesday against two men who allegedly pulled a gun on quarterback Zach Mettenberger and defensive end Sam Montgomery during a fight in June. According to a campus police report, 22-year-old Marcus Adams pointed a gun at Montgomery as the latter fought with Robert Davis, 31, and then at Mettenberger when he tried to intervene. Adams and Davis were both charged with once count each of aggravated assault with a firearm, illegal use of a firearm and  carrying a weapon on campus and simple battery. [Times Picayune]

• Don’t get ahead of yourself, kid. USC has named true freshman Cody Kessler as the top backup to starting quarterback Matt Barkley, at least temporarily putting Kessler at the front of the line of succession if Barkley opts for the NFL after this season. With redshirt freshman Jesse Scroggins out following wrist surgery, Kessler out-dueled fellow noob Max Wittek for the No. 2 job, though coach Lane Kiffin said he’d prefer to redshirt both of them if possible and stage a “wide open” competition after Barkley’s departure — whenever that happens to be. “There’s just all kinds of scenarios that can pop up,” Kiffin said. “The best one is to keep the No. 1 guy healthy, hopefully win some games and let (walk-on John) Manoogian hand the ball off at the end.” [Orange County Register]

Quickly… Finally, someone agrees to carry the Longhorn Network. … Danny Sheridan confirms he met with the NCAA about the elusive Cam Newton “bag man.” … Arkansas loses a freshman linebacker to a foot injury. … Virginia Tech quarterback Ricardo Young is transferring to New Mexico, yet more proof of Mike Locksley’s recruiting schwerve in Washington, D.C. … Central Michigan suspends a pair of defensive starters for the start of the season. … Mark Richt is not impressed with his team’s effort against “Boise State.” … Florida‘s poor practice has Will Muschamp out for blood. … Ready or not, Colt Lyerla is going to get his shot for Oregon. … And it’s not a playoff, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Mark Cuban Invitational become a reality.

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

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Kicking off Big East Week.

In Internet years, the spring and summer of 2010 is another era, a whole different epoch, far too long ago to remember in any detail. (Can you imagine a world where Bin Laden was still alive and America had yet to be introduced to the concept of “planking”?) But somewhere in the footnotes of college football history, let it be written: The Big East was dead, man.

Where football is concerned, anyway, the entire conference looked like an insignificant domino teetering on the edge of the realignment abyss, just waiting to be put out of its misery by the expanding empire of the Big Ten. That wasn’t just the apocalyptic vision of a few chattery blogs in the dead of a long offseason, either. Credible insiders like longtime Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and former Syracuse athletic director Jake Crouthamel saw the writing on the wall if the Big Ten reached eastward for Rutgers and/or Pittsburgh, or the restructured landscape forced another raid from the ACC like the one that nearly did in the Big East earlier in the decade. The situation was considered desperate enough that the league was apparently mulling the possibility of kicking out Notre Dame in non-football sports, forcing the Irish into the Big Ten’s arms as a kind of sacrifice to ward off the expansion goblins.

A little more than a year later, not only is the Big East still standing — it turned out to be the Big 12 staring into the abyss instead — but it’s growing itself: TCU comes aboard next year as a potential powerhouse, almost certainly followed by a tenth team (Villanova? Central Florida?) to even things out in the very near future. As the “Big Six” BCS conferences go, the Big East still isn’t a very competitive league — it barely snuck one team into the preseason Associated Press poll and was shut out of the preseason Coaches’ poll altogether, after failing to put a team in the final editions of either poll last January — but all indications are that it’s going to survive and, with TCU’s pending defection from the Mountain West, that it’s going to keep its coveted automatic status in the Bowl Championship Series. There’s no reason to split hairs about the absence of a heavyweight frontrunner.

No, the Big Question in the Big East in 2011 isn’t existential, but aesthetic: Is there actually going to be some offense this year, or what?

The entire conference conspired last year to redefine “low octane.” The highest-scoring attack in the conference, Cincinnati, ranked 57th nationally at 27.1 points per game, behind 34 teams from the other “Big Six” leagues. No other Big East teamed finished in the top 60 — that is, in the top half of the country — in terms of yards or points. UConn represented the conference in the Fiesta Bowl after averaging fewer yards per conference game than all but eight other offenses in the entire country. Seven of those eight finished at least six games below .500. (The only one that didn’t: UConn’s conference mate, Syracuse, which went to a bowl game after averaging all of 16.6 points in Big East play.)

UConn came out of the Fiesta Bowl ranked 96th nationally in total offense and 112th in pass efficiency, the only BCS team that failed to rank in the top 25 by both measures. Cincinnati, the No. 1 Fully 25 percent of all Big East games for the season — 7 out of 28 — were won by a team with less than 21 points on the board. Et cetera.

Nowhere was the frustration more acute than in once-explosive West Virginia, where all four of the Mountaineers’ losses came against opponents that failed to reach 24 points against one of the stingiest defenses in any conference. Not surprisingly, the Mountaineers took the most direct approach to the problem, undermining and eventually replacing head coach Bill Stewart in favor of spread passing guru Dana Holgorsen, architect of attacks that have finished first, second or third nationally in total offense in four consecutive seasons, at three different schools: Texas Tech, Houston and Oklahoma State. Even before his promotion, Holgo got to install his system in the spring with an experienced quarterback and seven other returning starters who figure to come out at full throttle.

Not to be outdone, Pittsburgh used its Mike Haywood mulligan to snap up Tulsa’s Todd Graham, who oversaw three top-10 offenses in the course of the best four-year run in school history. Graham was accompanied by his passing game coordinator at Tulsa, Mike Norvell, and quickly added longtime Rich Rodriguez hand Calvin McGee — coordinator of the prolific West Virginia attacks that wreaked havoc on the conference in the middle of the last decade, and of the No. 1 total offense in the Big Ten last year at Michigan — to oversee the running game.

By March, the conservative, nondescript offenses favored by Dave Wannstedt and Bill Stewart were left spinning in the wake of relentlessly up-tempo spread philosophies that refuse to slow down for anyone. If their arrival doesn’t actually make the Big East any better in the big picture, at least it’s a selling point.

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

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The least you should know about the 2011 Sooners. Part of Big 12 Week.

• Ballad of a Thin ‘Stache. Quarterback Landry Jones has started 24 games for Oklahoma over the last two seasons, during which he’s led the Sooners to a Big 12 championship and BCS win and put himself in position this year, if he stays healthy, to obliterate the school passing record set by predecessor Sam Bradford. As a redshirt sophomore in 2008, Bradford passed for 4,720 yards for a team that won the Big 12 championship, finished 12-2 and landed at No. 5 in the final polls. As a redshirt sophomore in 2010, Jones passed for 4,718 yards for a team that won the Big 12 championship, finished 12-2 and landed at No. 6 in the final polls. Based on the record books and the trophy cases, the only thing Bradford did in two seasons as the Sooners’ starting quarterback that Jones hasn’t done is win a certain hunk of bronze.

But where Bradford was honored with the Heisman Trophy, Big 12 coaches didn’t even see fit to put his successor on the all-conference team. Obviously, for the headliner of the No. 1 team in the nation in the preseason polls, Jones’ virtues are still curiously dependent on the eye of the beholder.

On the one hand, he’s a veteran who hung at least 300 yards and multiple touchdown passes on nine different opponents last year, and finished second nationally in both categories. On the other hand, Oklahoma ran significantly more plays than any other offense in college football, and Jones put the ball in the air more often than any other quarterback. In pass efficiency terms, Jones was well behind the elite.

That said, it’s a given the big numbers are going to be there at the end of the season, for Jones and his first-rate set of receivers. But if Oklahoma is bound for a national championship after a decade of near-misses, it won’t be because Jones has broken a few records: It will be because he’s banished any doubt that he’s more than just a competent guy in an up-tempo system designed to exploit a defensively challenged conference.

• New kids on the block. Even more pressing is the all-purpose void left by workhorse DeMarco Murray, who capped his mercurial career last year by logging more offensive touches for more yards than any other player in the Big 12. He leaves as OU’s all-time leader in total yards, touchdowns and receiving yards by a running back. And of the four candidates seriously vying to replace him, three former blue-chip recruits — sophomores Brennan Clay and Roy Finch and true freshman Brandon Williams — were overshadowed in the spring by a walk-on. So, at what point is it normal to feel the beginning pangs of panic?

Probably not for a while still. In the first case, as reliable as Murray was, last year’s ground game was one of the least productive in the Big 12, ahead of only the rock-bottom attacks of Colorado and Kansas, and was dead last in the conference in yards per carry. Those numbers should come up behind a virtually intact offensive line, regardless of who’s carrying the ball. There’s also no end to the untapped potential among Clay, Finch and Williams, whose collective recruiting hype matches any backfield’s in the country.

Oklahoma’s championship-bound teams in 2000 and 2003, both of which were oriented around a deadlier-than-he-looks quarterback — undersized juco transfer Josh Heupel was Heisman runner-up in 2000; Jason White won the trophy in ’03 with duct tape in place of his knee ligaments — whose extreme efficiency made up for a decidedly non-deadly running game. Statistically speaking, those outfits still stand as the two least potent ground attacks to play for a BCS title in the Series’ 13-year history, and as a relief for Sooners fans lamenting the absence of a proven, NFL-bound workhorse.

• Holding it together. Under any circumstances, the defense was bound to spend the summer being poked and prodded as the most likely liability to the title push after finishing 53rd nationally last year in yards allowed and seeing off All-Big 12 picks Jeremy Beal and Quinton Carter. But the offseason has further indulged the skeptics: Since the spring, the Sooners have endured the tragic death of senior linebacker Austin Box, a foot injury that will put senior linebacker Travis Lewis on ice for the first month of the season and now an unresolved academic issue that threatens to sideline defensive end Ronnell Lewis.

Still, the softest spot on the depth chart remains in the middle of the line, where OU lacks a reliable run stuffer to reverse the trajectory of a run defense that tumbled from eighth nationally in 2009 to 58th last year. The hope is that junior defensive tackles Stacy McGee and/or Jamarkus McFarland will break out of the “growing pains” phase and deliver the dominant presence that was so sorely missing, but otherwise there’s no obvious reason the situation will improve.

• Make them earn it. The absence of the Big 12 Championship Game in December means one less obstacle to the BCS Championship Game in January, but there are more than enough stumbling blocks to worry about in the meantime: Between Florida State, Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State, OU has five dates with teams opening the season in the top 25 and three against teams in the top ten. The Sept. 17 trip to Tallahassee stands out for three reasons: a) It’s a major road test for a team that never loses at home (36 straight wins and counting since 2005) but has dropped multiple games away from Norman in six consecutive seasons; b) It’s the first major test with Lewis out of the lineup; and most importantly, c) It’s a direct gauge of where the 2011 Sooners stand in relation to the 2010 edition, which incinerated Florida State last September, 47-17.

If this group has that elusive “it” factor that emerges in championship teams, we should find out pretty quickly.

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

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