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.

First, Brent Musburger claimed that the evening out of the coaching is the #1 reason for the mid-major improvement. College Football now pays coaches over $1 million at smaller programs and coaches enjoy working at schools for more years than just trying to leave for a bigger job in a year or two.

Then Chris Fowler came on and claims that while the parity is great for the regular season for College Football that the sport has the worst postseason to decide a champion in a season of great parity. How do you choose two teams when there are seven or eight who might deserve to be in New Orleans?

This was all before South Florida fell victim to the penalty bug, the Rutgers trick play machine and the Big East replay official who determined the second fumble on the blocked field goal was on purpose. Now, it looked very suspicious but when it’s ruled a TD on the field then they should not have reversed it. So, South Florida is out now as they don’t play anyone for the rest of the season who can help them claw their way back in the computers or the human polls.

So, Fowler is a genius but again—it’s week 8 and we are almost at the point where Ohio State and BC are going to lose, and if LSU and Oklahoma win out they will rematch in New Orleans.

The LA Times recaps a contentious practice yesterday in Troy, as Stafon Johnson raised Pete Carroll’s hackles following an impressive run. After Johnson and safety Will Harris got into it, Johnson threw the ball at Harris. Then this happened:

Coach Pete Carroll immediately got into the running back’s face, then halted practice for an expletive-laced speech to the team about avoiding unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties. “It’s so important and such a great issue for the young guys, I had to stop it right there,” Carroll said. “It’s just one of those times you’ve just got to make a statement. I wanted to put my arm around [Johnson], like ‘thanks for the opportunity.’”

Leave it to Carroll to make an expletive-laden rant sound like building sandcastles on the beach.

Looking for an omen when the Trojans head to Tempe to take on Arizona State? How about this one, courtesy of SI on Campus: at halftime of that game, the legendary Chuck Berry will perform with the band… the ASU band. We’d like to suggest a few lyrical modifications the Sun Devils may want to consider: “Roll Over (Hey) Trojans,” “Run Run Rudy (Carpenter)” and “Johnny (David Booty) Be Bad.” (Who did you think was running this blog, Bob Dylan?)

ESPN’s Pat Forde takes a closer look at the Harbaugh v. Michigan academics feud. Reviewing the numbers, Forde finds some evidence that Harbaugh’s verbal jab may not be off-base.

All it takes to see that is a scan of the 2007 Michigan media guide. Only 30 players have listed majors, and 19 of them are pursuing degrees in something called “general studies.” That’s 20 percent of the team, and 63 percent of the players who have declared a major.

Yet a university spokesman said this week that less than 1 percent of the undergraduate student body is in the general studies degree program. The spokesman said there are fewer than 200 general studies students out of an undergrad population of nearly 25,000.

And that’s not all. The other declared degree programs on the football team are: movement science (three players); sports management and communications (two); economics (two); P.E. (one); psychology (one); English (one); and American culture (one). There appears to be one undeclared player enrolled in the business school and another in the college of engineering.

Only one junior has declared a major, according to the guide (in movement science). In 18 years of covering college athletics, I’ve never seen virtually an entire junior class without a major.

For what it’s worth, Pat, there is at least one job that all of the above majors — including general studies and movement science — would qualify these players for: blogger.

Another ESPN college football specialist, Bruce Feldman, unveils his list of the top ten toughest jobs in college football. Here’s one of them:

6. Football Academic Advisor, Akron: Players are creatures of habit with so much of their lives in season being scripted for them. However since the Zips have four games at odd times (two games on Wednesdays and two more on Fridays), this will be a challenge to not miss classes and exams. The routine for most Wednesday night road games for example means the team might have to depart Tuesday afternoon and return home early Thursday morning. Says one coach: “The players would not technically be excused from classes on Thursday, but good luck getting them out of bed.”

Yeah, and good luck dealing with the NCAA when they hear you strayed from the “student-athletes are students first” message.

Speaking of that money-grubbing occasionally fascist organization, an NCAA committee will listen to an appeal of the text messaging ban in recruiting.

“My hope is they will kick it back to the NCAA and form a task force that can come up with a good, solid rule about text messaging,” said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. “I don’t think anyone wants totally open, unabated text messaging. I don’t know a soul who wants that.”

A good solid rule from the NCAA? ROTFLMAO.

One more observation about Stewart Mandel’s “college football royalty” list: much has been made of Les Miles knocking the “real juggernauts” of the Pac-10, but according to Mandel, there is only one Pac-10 school in the “peasant” category: Arizona. The SEC, on the other hand, has three so-called peasants – Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. We’re not sure what this means, other than the mention of peasantry reminds us of one of the greatest moments in cinematic history.

And speaking of one of those peasants, this may not be the season things turn around at Mississippi State. As Every Day Should Be Saturday reports, MSU coach Sylvester Croom is already frustrated with his team’s performance, and they haven’t even run into the vaunted likes of Maine yet.

“Short conversation, gentlemen. There was nothing good at practice today. Any questions?”

If this keeps up, Croom may have to unleash the bull castration shears.

There’s no easy way to transition from bull castration to Hollywood, because one of those things is vile, disgusting and perverse on every level (and the other is bull castration — hey-o!), but here we go: the poster for the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy “Semi Pro” has been unveiled.

We love Ferrell — after all, who better to play the role of Self-Appointed Ambassador of the University of Southern California — but we think his resume is missing something. He’s done NASCAR, soccer, ice skating and now basketball, but he needs to carve out some time in the prime of his comedic life to pursue his true life calling: starring in a funny college football movie.

In the meantime, we’ll have to fill that empty hole in our own lives with this fact:

Twenty one days and counting.

The Committee on Infractions cited Texas Tech [in 1998] for unethical conduct, academic fraud, failure to monitor, and lack of institutional control. Tech was one of only two teams to get cited for all four during entire period, and they managed it in one infraction. While the cases were different, the penalties were quite similar to Kentucky’s 2002 case. The big difference here, and the reason Texas Tech takes the top spot while the Wildcats sit down at #5, is simple: it wasn’t Tech’s only violation.

The Pac-10 makes a fairly strong showing (as it were), with Cal at #6 and UW at #7. (The SEC, for those keeping track of the recent inter-conference rivalry, shows up three times.)