The top suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks was obsessed with a sorority that sat less than 100 yards away from a New Jersey mailbox where the toxin-laced letters were sent, authorities said Monday. Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that former Army scientist Bruce Ivins was long obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati.

* Or at least was when we were there.

In terms of players we see for the combine, the best-conditioned and prepared athletes by conference come in this order: the SEC, the Big 12, the Pac-10 is just a little bit under that, and then the Big Ten brings up the rear.

[Mark Sutton, strength coach at D1 Sports Training] casually framed one of the only rational explanations for the persistent and partially inaccurate perception of the SEC speed myth/Big Ten Sloth Legend: The emphasis on speed training, explosive Olympic-style movements in the weight room, and a noticeable bleedover between the disciplines of track and field and football.

Doesn’t that sort of support the speed myth? And then there’s this:

Bringing us to the thorny point of talent development. Tossing out kooky, unempirical theories such as hot weather making players faster or WOO-WEE DEM SOUTHERN BOYZ KEN RUN, you’re left with what happens to the players after they get to the program. In the SEC, the emphasis will be developing the player’s speed. According to some trainers, the top Big Ten programs focus more on adding muscle.

The difference a training program makes may be marginal when you compare the uniformly elite talent recruited by top college programs, but margins are where smallish teams like West Virginia beat teams like Oklahoma in bowl games, and where Ohio State might lose a crucial step on the edge in high-profile debacles against SEC teams.

So … if the SEC focuses on speed and the Big Ten focuses on strength, then wouldn’t that, well, tend to make the SEC faster? We’re obviously not interested in advocating for the speed myth, but this article seems to explain it, not debunk it.

Both agree that the best non-conference game is Ohio State vs. USC on September 13th. I would put Georgia’s trip to Tempe on the following weekend at #2, but Fiutak has it at #4—he thinks that the border war in St. Louis between Illinois and Missouri is #2. Now, both of those teams might be good again this year, but it seems more interesting to me that the consensus #1 team isn’t playing four complete pushovers.*

* Though of course any SEC team can get away with non-conference pushovers, right? I mean, conference play is just brutal, so they clearly need a rest. In fact, why don’t we just go ahead and give all of them four non-conference wins?

SC starts March 25th and ends with the Spring Game April 19th. According to Rivals, the biggest SC question is QB (Scott Wolf’s boyfriend or Mark Sanchez), while the secondary story is the lack of defensive line studs. The latter is the bigger question in my opinion as they are the most important part of the Cover-Two SC runs.

* I still refuse to use the new name.

I am a pro-playoff guy and have been since I became aware that this is a sport and not a beauty contest. For 10 seasons, we have seen the BcS change its stripes more times than I care to count and each time against the wishes of most college football fans. I have finally had it. I don’t want a Plus-One; that just means that this year Virginia Tech gets in for beating no one except for a BC team they already lost to, and OU (my #2 team) would be in semi-finals against the alleged #1 and #2 teams. What a crock.

I want an 8-team playoff. I know 16 will never happen and I think that given a season like this, where 8 teams can say they should have a shot at showing they are the best, we should give them the opportunity. If not, then go back to the old beauty contest way with traditional bowl match-ups; Ohio State vs. USC in the Rose, LSU vs. Georgia in the Sugar (since they didn’t play during the regular season), Oklahoma vs. Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl (why did the Big 12 get hosed out of Miami for New Year’s for Phoenix?) and West Virginia vs. Missouri in the Fiesta Bowl. The season was amazing from day 1 with Appalachian State beating Michigan in Ann Arbor and it has propelled them on to the semi-finals of the Division 1-AA playoffs. See, all of the other kids are supposed to be the same but big time football is the sacred cow and apparently no would be excited about Ohio State hosting Kansas, LSU hosting USC, Virginia Tech vs. Missouri and Georgia at Oklahoma. Very sad that a sport that is just the best for 3 full months becomes irrelevant in 24 hours.

Now on to the Trojans: I was not a believer as many of you know. I felt that the “Dwarf from Shreveport” would never take this team anywhere and that we were destined for 9-3 and a trip to San Diego. Well the injury bug struck every Pac-10 contender and so we got another BcS trip and a 4th Rose Bowl in 6 years along with a 6th consecutive conference title. This team came on late and really looked good on for a half against ASU and 3 quarters against Nebraska. That was really it—the rest of the season the offensive play calling was inconsistent and the defense had to make just enough plays so the team got wins. I am not sure if the offense was so underwhelming because of the Dwarf’s inability to execute the plays, or Sarkisian feeling that he was the smartest guy there and thinking that no matter what we should throw all the time. The other thing I never got is why Stafon Johnson didn’t get more carries—either he was really injured or again Pete gave his seniors the benefit of the doubt sticking with Chauncey all season and Booty against Stanford.

The whole season for USC really boils down to the last 4 minutes of the Stanford game. They had a great game plan for SC and we played right into by being to confident in our offense. Three runs and a punt and we sneak out with a win because they were not going 80 yards against our defense with no time outs. Meanwhile, we would be 11-1 and playing Ohio State. But we were not smart enough to figure out that stats aren’t important wins are. Oh well, now we can find out if it was really the “Dwarf” that held this team back as in ’08 they will start the season in the Top 5 and we will see if Sanchez or Mustain are ready to fill the shoes of Matt Leinart who is the gold standard for SC QB play. Until we do the fans will not be satisfied and we will keep playing against crappy Big-10 teams in the Rose Bowl as the reward for the season instead of for National Championships in the craptacular system that we have to deal with in my opinion for another 7 years minimum. (Thanks Tournament of Roses Committee for a deal with ABC through 2014).

Ok I am sorry to everyone for not posting in the past 12 days.  After my visit to LA for the yawnfest that was the Homecoming win, I had a business trip then family in town so yeah I forgot to post about week 11.  Ohio State, thanks for playing.

Thursday Night: Holy Sh*t, the Pac-10 on Thursday night.  It gets even better for Thanksgiving with SC at ASU, but tomorrow Oregon tries to stay in the hunt for the BcS title game with a visit to Tucson.  (Erin Andrews will not be in the Top 50 of hots in that Stadium)

Saturday: Ohio State at Michigan (noon ABC, Musburger/Herbstreit) Ok, this game is worth a trip to Pasadena and maybe the end of Lloyd Carr, but Herbie calling this one seriously, ABC/ESPN come on.  Nessler/Greise without McGuire should have called this one and you should have sent Herbie and Brent to Lubbock.

Saturday Night: Oklahoma at Texas Tech (8pm ABC, Nessler/Greise/McGuire) 4-hour game guaranteed.  Maybe OU spits the bit like 2 years in Lubbock but since the Big 12 officials will be out to get Leach, I doubt it.  West Virginia at Cincinnati (7:45pm ESPN Patrick/Blackledge) maybe the Mountaineers will lose so they won’t complain about being 11-1 and left out.

Ok, that is all that I can recommend for Saturday, you can flip by LSU at Ole Miss (3:30pm CBS Lundquist/Danielson) to see if everyone has a problem concentrating when they come to Oxford because they would rather be in the Grove than in the Stadium whipping Ole Miss and Duke at Notre Dame (2:30pm NBC Hammond/Haden) just to see if Lucky #10 can happen.

I hate what has happened to college football because this used to be the best weekend of the year, rivalry Saturday across the country but with selling out for TV and conference title games the next 2 weekends are better this season. (sad)

Also, to everyone who complains that the Pac-10 doesn’t have a conference championship game, F*CK OFF!  The SEC (Die Roy Kramer for creating these things), Big 12 and ACC all went to 12 teams to get to have a title game ($$$$$$$$$$$) that is the only reason.  The Pac-10 teams play everyone now so stop complain or we will go to 12 teams (hello Utah and BYU) and then we can have years where Oregon would miss USC and ASU and everyone would say they haven’t played anyone.  So, let that stupid tired argument go away like Corso needs to.

1  USC at Notre Dame            20-Oct       $409          1        $379
2  Ohio State at Michigan       17-Nov       $408          3        $876
3  Oklahoma vs. Texas            6-Oct       $400          2        $419
4  UCLA at USC                   1-Dec       $312          4        $172
5  Tennessee at Alabama         20-Oct       $238          5        $181
6  Georgia at Florida           27-Oct       $274          7        $284
7  Texas at Texas A&M           23-Nov       $268          6        $233
8  Alabama at Auburn            24-Nov       $373          8        $321
9  Tennessee at Florida         15-Sep       $248          9        $180
10 Michigan at Michigan State    3-Nov       $218         11        $193
11 Notre Dame at Purdue         29-Sep       $105         10        $281
12 Arkansas at LSU              23-Nov       $128         12        $226
13 California at Stanford        1-Dec       $118         13        $ 77
14 Miami at Florida State       20-Oct       $113         14        $137
15 Army/Navy Game                1-Dec       $285         16        $150
16 Florida State at Florida     24-Nov       $401         15        $195
17 Georgia at Georgia Tech      24-Nov       $156         17        $161
18 Oklahoma State at Oklahoma   24-Nov       $160         19        $228
19 Pittsburgh at West Virginia   1-Dec       $139         18        $ 87
20 Oregon State at Oregon        1-Dec       $170         20        $173
21 Clemson at South Carolina    24-Nov       $414         21        $282
22 Virginia Tech at Virginia    24-Nov       $191         23        $147
23 Iowa at Iowa State           15-Sep       $122         22        $218
24 Arizona at Arizona State      1-Dec       $ 80         24        $ 69
25 Purdue at Indiana            17-Nov       $ 77         25        $ 59

Granted, this is a fairly useless ranking, as it only uses gross dollar volume of tickets sold through StubHub. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, it looks like the Washington schools didn’t make the cut.

• Dan Shanoff, formerly of ESPN.com’s Page 2 and now a weekly College Football contributor at Deadspin likes Ohio State over Penn State, Oregon over USC, Cal over ASU, Florida over Georgia at the Cocktail Party, WVU over Rutgers, and Virginia Tech to continue the curse of being #2 by beating BC on Thursday (Something bad needs to happen to Boston sports soon).
• SI.com’s Cory McCartney throws out his take with BC surviving its trip to Blacksburg, Ohio State staying undefeated, Florida continuing to own Georgia, and—in the Pac-10′s big games—SC to upset Oregon and Cal to upset ASU.

Since the multi-color (credited to Jim Rome) keeps paying this guy to make lines (which he steals from LVSC) I will let people see what he has on the big games of the weekend.

• VT -3.5
• Oregon -2.5
• ASU -3.5
• Florida -9.5
• Ohio St -3.5

Highlights:

• Thursday night: South Florida at Rutgers (ESPN: Fowler/Flutie/James). South Florida’s last test on the road.
• Saturday (Noon Eastern): Nothing worth watching.
• Saturday (3:30pm Eastern): Florida at Kentucky (CBS: Lundquist/Danielson, Gameday in Lexington) and SC at ND—2 years ago a clash of Top 10 teams, this year NBC (Hammond/Haden) might get better ratings from the test pattern.
• Saturday Night: Auburn at LSU on ESPN (Patrick/Blackledge and please stop the bit where Todd eats) along with Michigan at Illinois on ABC with the Brent Musburger Drinking Game and the Kirk Herbstreit bus story from Lexington, KY to Champaign, IL.

It’s official: the “Dwarf from Shreveport” will not start.

SI.com’s Austin Murphy declares the Trojan Dynasty dead:

Yes, USC could scratch and claw its way back up the rankings and into the national title game. More likely, what we saw at the Coliseum last Saturday was the death knell of a dynasty. The program that came within 19 seconds of winning its third straight AP crown two years ago has now dropped three of its last eight games in the Pac-10. (The entropy will be accelerated, if news reports are true that Lloyd Lake is prepared to sing to the NCAA. Lake is the convicted felon and ex-gang member who is alleged to have fronted Reggie Bush‘s family cash and rent payments while Bush was a Trojan.)

Page 2′s Jemele Hill says we all must jump on the South Florida Bandwagon to blow up the BCS.