FootballScoop is reporting that former Nebraska defensive backs coach Marvin Sanders will leave Florida Atlantic after just two months to become defensive backs coach at Southern Cal. Sanders, who resigned from Nebraska a year ago for personal reasons, joined the FAU staff shortly after Carl Pelini took over as head coach of the Owls. InsideSoCal.com is also reporting that Southern Cal is interested in Sanders.

What's the link here? Southern Cal defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin originally recommended that Frank Solich select Bo Pelini back in 2002. Those connections assuredly have led his son (and Southern Cal head coach) Lane Kiffin to look towards Sanders.

Those connections with the Nebraska coaching tree are also leading to another coaching change. FootballScoop.com is also reporting that Southern Cal will hire North Dakota State defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton as linebackers coach. North Dakota State head coach Craig Bohl was Bo Pelini's predecessor at Nebraska.

Conquest Chronicles has more about the USC reaction to the hires.

It's a bit of a late start this morning. Good thing it's a Friday, as I'm having problems getting started. Mostly, it took me a while to shake a bad dream I had last night.

The whole thing started innocently enough. I was me as "just some guy", living the life, la de da, and all that. Then I was informed I would be coaching a football game against Urban Meyer. I remember the moment at which I was told, and thinking, "Why does something like this happen to me? Why would I have to coach against Urban Meyer? Why me?"

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The Big Ten is planning to propose a four-team college football playoff system to supplement, not replace the current bowl structure and BCS. Previously, the Big Ten was one of the fiercest opponents to a playoff system, but now recognizes that many, if not most, college football fans consider the current system a failure. Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips summed it up thusly:

"We have to listen to the fans; we cannot be tone-deaf. The Big Ten is open and curious."

This is not the "plus one" model that's been frequently been proposed, but instead a real playoff system. Oh, it still takes the top four teams in the final BCS standings, but rather than sending those teams to two bowl games as semifinals, the top two teams in the standings will host the number three and four teams in the BCS.

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Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno died of lung cancer at 9:25 am ET, according to a Paterno family spoksman. Paterno, who was dismissed in November after revelations of child abuse by former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly thereafter. He's been hospitalized for the past week, and the situation deteriorated in recent days.

Like Bear Bryant, Paterno only lived a few weeks after coaching his final football game.

Say what you will about the Sandusky situation and how he handled it, Paterno's coaching career is something that we'll never see again.

H/T for graphic: Onward State

I made mention of SB Nation's 2012 college football preseason ranking earlier this week, the one in which Bill Connelly didn't rank Nebraska, but went ahead with ranking Texas and Notre Dame despite their poor performances as of late. (Note that our Virginia Tech site, Gobbler Country, wasn't too thrilled with Connelly not bothering to rank them either.)

I am hopeful that by the time next season rolls around SB Nation will do a voting-based Top 25 in which the college sites on our network do something similar to the Blogpoll, and form our own Top 25. That's not certain, mind you, nor has it been mentioned (and maybe it's best that we stick with the Blogpoll instead since it incorporates a lot of fine sites that aren't part of the SB Nation network).

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Mike: Well, it's our last chance to embarrass ourselves with our picks. I've selected the best of the remaining games. That means we're not picking the Orange or GoDaddy bowls. And while we already know who the better team is, I think we kind of have to pick a winner of the exhibition game between LSU and Alabama.

Andy: No GoDaddy Bowl picks??? An outrage for two reasons: 1) I just added "GoDaddy" to our spellcheck dictionary. Now I feel like that was just time wasted, and 2) It would have given us an excuse to link to one of those GoDaddy online videos of Danica Patrick in a 30 minute three-way with Paula Barbieri and Kyle Orton.
Those commercials are not teasers. GoDaddy.com is rife with Danica Patrick pornography.

Aaron: Well, I'm going to pick the winner of the Orange Bowl. Even though they've had our number I just have a feeling this is Nebraska's year. Huskers 24, Miami 17.

Jon: Every year I think we should keep track of these picks, and every year by the end of the year I'm glad we didn't. (Lot of confidence showing there!)

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Mrs Corn Nation complains I don't listen to her. Nothing unusual about that, in fact, it's a pretty common complaint from women about their husbands. Honestly, I don't listen all that well. If it's more than 30 seconds, it trails off, as in "We have a soccer game tonight at 6:30, but there's a band concert and one of us.... you know, those breakfast hot pockets are a lot better than the pizza hot pockets, I wonder if we have any of those left because I could really go for one of those right now....", which is too bad because a lot of the times there's real information in what she's saying that I need to pay attention to.

Unfortunately, most of the time I tend to have this "here we go again" attitude and my brain turns to other more interesting items, like food. Or Battlefield 3.

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(Warning - content is rife with personal opinion. Which should come as no surprise to all three of my readers.)

And that verdict is: THHPPPPTTTTTTTTT!!!!

I'm fuming worse than Newt Gingrich being told to cut his caloric intake to under 7000, and not just because I find myself agreeing with Rick Reilly in principle (1). The BCS results are a joke, though I have to admit through no fault of the BCS formula itself. What they are trying to do is simple - identify the two best teams in college football.

Did they do this? Yes.

Is it time to tinker again? Absolutely.

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