The Nebraska State Paper.com sat down this week with University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Harvey Perlman, who was recently appointed as chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, which ultimately decides how the BCS is set up on a year basis.

So in other words, if college football were to ever have a playoff, this is the man who would give it the green light to happen. And considering he crapped all over the idea in the interview, it looks like we fans will be waiting a long time for BCS to adopt a playoff system.

Why is a playoff not a viable alternative? Is it because it would cut too many teams out of postseason play?

It would diminish the bowl structure and it would reduce the number of opportunities for student-athletes to play in the postseason and that’s not a good thing. If you look at college football now, it’s the greatest sporting event spread over September, October, November, December and a little bit of January that the country has. A playoff would seriously diminish the regular season, as it has in college basketball.

I don’t think it’s good for college football, I don’t think it’s good for student-athletes and I don’t think it’s good for fans. I don’t see fans travelling around the country three weeks in succession between December and January following their team. So you’re either going to have to play at home sites – which I’m sure everybody will want to play in Nebraska in December and January – or you’re gonna have to travel, which means that bowls will cease being intercollegiate events, but will become corporate events, where everybody in, you name the city, will be there except the fans of the teams.

This isn’t basketball. This isn’t March Madness. Football’s a different game, different environment. We have different traditions. It’s hard to see why a playoff is a good idea.

A playoff would diminish the bowl structure? How ironic, Harvey – because the bowl structure diminishes the college football season.

This whole notion that a playoff system would diminish the regular season is absolutely ridiculous and is the worst argument that BCS-supporters have made to date. Is the NFL regular season diminished by a playoff? Hell no. So why would a playoff diminish the college football season? Teams still have to fight to get into the playoffs, making every week just as exciting as it has ever been.

Sure, nobody is interested in Bengals-Browns in Week 17, but that’s unavoidable. Nobody cares about Washington-Washington State when both teams are lousy either. Whether there’s a playoff format in place or not, there are going to be bad games on the schedule.

The traveling argument makes sense, but if they regionalized the games as best as they can, fans will still travel to see their favorite teams. Hell, look at how Pittsburgh Steeler fans; there are often more Steeler fans in opposing stadiums than there are fans of that city’s team. Granted, it’s a little different when we’re talking about poor college students compared to adults with jobs, but the students would still find a way to pack the stadiums.

But I digress. Perlman has already made up his foolish mind and we’ll once again be where we always are come December and January - frustrated and wanting more. The BCS is a joke, the arguments for it are a joke, and the people that are running it are a joke.

- CHICAGO CUBS ONLINE details the story of catcher Geovanny Soto’s positive marijuana drug test at this year’s World Baseball Classic. (No wonder he can’t hit this year - he’s as high as a kite.)

- SPORTSbyBROOKS shares the story of Alabama’s decision to appeal the NCAA’s decision to strip the Tide of wins in various sporting events from 2005 through 2007.

- DEADSPIN asked a body language expert to analyze some of the awkward handshakes between David Stern and some of the basketball prospects in last night’s NBA draft.

- FANHOUSE writes that T.O. doesn’t think that Tony Romo is a leader.

- YARDBARKER has the top 10 most unseemly NBA draft moments.

SI.com put a collection of videos together of sports controversies that we’re painfully awkward to watch on film.

Here are a couple of my faves:

The only one of these I saw live was the Broadway Joe one, which was incredibly hilarious. Poor guy had to go to rehab after that, when anyone one of us would have wanted to kiss Suzy Kolber after having a few pops at a football game, too. Sad.

You know what else is sad? Jim Rome got popular after being a sniveling little punk. Loved the table flip from Everett, although one punch to the Rome’s jugular was certainly in order, so it’s a shame he stopped himself.

The University of Alabama is having a bad day.

Sixteen athletics teams at Alabama have been penalized for their involvement in improperly obtaining free textbooks for other students, with the football team ordered to vacate an unspecified number of victories between the 2005 and 2007 seasons, the NCAA Committee on Infractions announced Thursday.

Alabama could be forced to vacate as many as 21 football wins that came under the watch of former coach Mike Shula and current coach Nick Saban, sources at the university told ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach. Citing a source, the Birmingham News reported the number of victories to be at least 10.

The football program, which will not lose future scholarships, and the other 15 teams have been put on three years’ probation — the third probation penalty for university athletics in the last decade. Alabama also was ordered to pay a $43,900 fine.

In addition to football, the programs receiving penalties are men’s and women’s basketball, softball, baseball, women’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s track and field, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.

In men’s tennis and men’s and women’s track, the individual records of 15 athletes identified as “intentional wrongdoers” will be vacated and team point totals from regular season, postseason and NCAA championship contests will be reconfigured, the NCAA said.

Alabama went 10-2 in 2005, 6-7 in 2006 and 7-6 in 2007. So in the grand scheme of things, if they do have to give back those victories, it wouldn’t have much of an affect on the outcome of those seasons for other teams. But could you imagine if the Tide would have won one of those mythical titles that the BCS tries to pass off as a national championship in 2005, 2006 or 2007? Boy, Alabama’s face would have been red!

On a side note, textbooks in college should be free anyway. That’s one of the biggest scams universities run on students every year. First, you’re going to pay us $12,000 a year just to attend our school. Then we’re going to charge you another $500 to $1,000 for textbooks and when you sell them back to us, we’re only going to give you $21.84 for your trade in.

Have a nice day.

Joe Montana’s son, Nick, who is entering his senior year at Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village, California, has officially committed the University of Washington. This news comes on the heels of the Huskies losing out on Skyline High School’s Jake Heaps, who spurned Washington to commit to BYU.

Montana (the son, not one of the greatest quarterbacks to have ever lived) actually had offers from Notre Dame, LSU, Ohio State, Stanford, Alabama and Georgia, but chose Washington despite the Huskies’ brutal 0-12 season in 2008.

Even though the Huskies have a ton of work ahead of them in order to be competitive again, it’s nice to see that Montana wants to help play a role in turning Washington back into the proud program it once was. Nick could have gone to his dad’s alma mater Notre Dame, but that probably would have created unnecessary pressure on him to succeed.

For three SEC programs to be interested in Montana, you know the kid has some immense talent. It’ll be fun to follow him at Washington after he wraps up his senior year of high school.

- Ever wonder what’s going on with those bags under Jeff Van Gundy’s eyes. The fine folks at COLLEGE HUMOR did, and they made a video about it.

- INSIDE HOOPS reports that the Kings have hired Paul Westphal after a failed courtship with Kurt Rambis.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS has photos of Bob Huggins with two black eyes. WTF?

- DEADSPIN quotes from UCLA QB Chris Forcier’s press release in which he announces that he is transferring to Furman. Fact: It’s pretty weird for a press release.

According to a report by ESPN.com, Tennessee quarterback Jonathan Crompton received death threats last season in the wake of the Volunteers losing seven games for only the second time in the program’s history.

Crompton received at least two e-mailed death threats during his junior season, the player told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

The problem was brought to his parents’ attention after a package they received had slanderous messages scrawled on the box.

“That’s when my parents started talking about it,” Crompton said, according to the newspaper.
Crompton said he never reported the threats to the school.

He also stayed quiet when he began to receive harassing phone calls after his cell number was made public on the Internet.

“It was tough, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “When you’re faced with adversity, your true character comes out — as a person, as a student, as a Christian.
“It tested me.”

People seem to lose the sense of reality when it comes to sports sometimes. Crompton is only 21 years old – he’s still a kid. He’s a student athlete trying not only to succeed at sports, but also in the classroom so that he can excel in a career field when he’s done playing football. He doesn’t deserve to have his life threatened because of what he does or doesn’t do on the field – no one does.

I know we’re talking about Tennessee football here, but relax people – it’s just a game.

Sometimes greatness is taken for granted. Fans expect Florida or USC to be playing for a national title year in and year out, the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox battling for American League pennant every season. When it doesn’t take place, it throws the sports universe off base.

Well, another sports gimme has ended. Rafael Nadal’s unbeaten streak has ended at the French Open.

The four-time defending champion lost to Sweden’s Robin Soderling 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-4, 7-6 (2) in the round of 16 on Sunday, thus ending his 31-match winning streak at Roland Garros.

Here is the New York Times match account:

In his 31 previous matches at Roland Garros, Nadal had never been pushed to five sets in victory. He had not lost so much as a set in any match here since the 2007 final against Roger Federer, but Soderling changed all that with a varied but consistently aggressive approach: clubbing forehands with or without clear openings, serving big under pressure with the exception of the second-set tiebreaker and pushing forward to net on a semi-regular basis.

But Nadal, the Spaniard from Majorca who is seeded and ranked first, was clearly not the same irresistible force as usual. He failed to generate depth consistently, which allowed Soderling the space to keep applying pressure. He made errors off the ground from positions where he would normally generate winners or high-bouncing shots to the corners. He also looked, at times, less convincing than normal on defense, as Soderling made him stretch and then stretch some more.

But Soderling, an erratic player with a reputation for cracking under pressure, still had to summon the gumption and the shots to do what no other player had done in the five years since Nadal emerged with his topspin forehand, two-handed backhand and matador’s brio. With Nadal down, 1-2, in the fourth-set tiebreaker, Soderling ripped a backhand pass that Nadal could not handle and on the next point, Nadal made an uncharacteristic unforced error with his backhand.

It was 4-1, and it would soon be 6-1 when Nadal’s forehand pass hit the tape. Nadal would save the first match point he had ever faced at Roland Garros with a forehand winner down the line, but on the next point, he moved forward and pushed a forehand volley just wide.

Soderling pumped his fist, quickly shook Nadal’s hand and then the umpire’s hand, as well. Only then did he show just how much this moment meant to him, running back on court, throwing back his closely cropped head and roaring with delight before tossing his racket into the stands.

Earlier this season, Nadal defeated Soderling in straight sets on the clay surface at a tournament in Rome. The Swede has never advanced this far in a Grand Slam tournament before, as the deepest he went was the third round at the 2007 Wimbledon.

Remember Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas? He’s the congressman who wants to see college football adopt a playoff system and who compared the BCS to communism.

Barton is making headlines again as he plans to investigate testimony from Alamo Bowl executive director Derrick Fox made at this month’s BCS subcommittee hearing in which Fox claimed that millions of dollars are donated to local charities thanks to the revenue generated by bowl games.

Fox, while representing all 34 bowl games during his appearance on Capitol Hill on May 1, claimed in his argument against a playoff that “almost all the postseason bowl games are put on by charitable groups” and “local charities receive tens of millions of dollars every year.”

In fact, 10 bowl games are privately owned and one is run by a branch of a local government. The remaining 23 games enjoy tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, but combined to give just $3.2 million to local charities on $186.3 million in revenue according to their most recent federal tax records and interviews with individual bowl executives.

“That doesn’t seem like something that’s really geared toward giving to charity, does it?” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) after being presented with Yahoo! Sports’ findings.

“It’s perjury if it’s knowingly said,” Barton said of the sworn testimony, which he called “misleading.” “It’s also contempt of Congress. You’ve got to give [him] some sort of due process, but ultimately the remedy is to hold [him] in contempt of Congress on the House floor or send it to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution of perjury under oath.”

Barton, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee and a playoff proponent, did caution that in today’s political climate there is no certainty that charges of perjury or contempt would be filed even if the investigation found wrongdoing.

Fox said in a written statement the “tens of millions of dollars” testimony was “a good faith estimate based on information initially supplied by the FBA [Football Bowl Association].”

Yet Bruce Binkowski of the FBA said the organization doesn’t compile such figures and in literature doesn’t assign a dollar amount to the bowls’ charitable donations because “we just don’t know.”

As Barton stated, perjury charges may never come in light of Fox’s statements, but it is interesting that the main argument made for keeping the current non-playoff system in place is an outright lie. If you read the entire article, it notes that Fox and ACC commissioner and BCS coordinator John Swofford stated several times during the subcommittee hearing that donations to local charities and economic impact on host cities are the two main reasons of why bowl games must be saved at all costs. Yet there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that the local charities receive “tens of millions of dollars every year” from the BCS, so either Fox and Swofford fabricated those statements or they flat out lied in effort to keep the current college football format in place.

If the BCS did generate millions of dollars for charities every year, then a case could truly be made that college football is better off without a playoff system. (Although if bowl games generated money for charities, I don’t see why a playoff system couldn’t.) But again, there isn’t any evidence that that is indeed the case and therefore Fox and Swofford have some explaining to do.

Hopefully this is just the start of the BCS’ unraveling.

- Remember that smoking hot model that Jets’ quarterback Mark Sanchez was pictured with in a recent GQ photoshoot? Well according to SPORTSbyBROOKS.COM, the two might be an item now.

- According to THE BIG LEAD, Kansas State is suing to cancel a secret deal that would require the school to pay former football coach Ron Prince $3.2 million in three payments between 2015 and 2020.

- THE LOVE OF SPORTS lists 10 reasons to love NFL training camp.

- Even though they won the Blake Griffin Lottery on Wednesday, LARRY BROWN SPORTS wants to know: How can the Clippers screw this up?

- DEADSPIN reports that 10 teams of the Lingerie Football League are now interviewing applicants for their internship program. (Note to self…contact Lingerie Football League about possible internship program.)

Delaware State’s football team is already 0-1 this season after the school forfeited a game against rival North Carolina A&T so it could play Michigan instead.

North Carolina A&T said Wednesday that Delaware State will forfeit their game this season because the two sides couldn’t settle on a date to renew the rivalry.

A&T officials said in a statement that the forfeit stems from a conflict created by an Oct. 17 game between the Hornets and Michigan. The Hornets and the Aggies were to play on that date.

Both schools tried to move the game to Nov. 14, but that presented another conflict between the Hornets and their game with Norfolk State. Delaware State then decided to forfeit the game with North Carolina A&T.

I have several problems with this, the biggest of which being the athletic department at Delaware State using the football team as chum so that they can score a huge payday. I know the money they get from the game could go right back into the program and maybe I’m being too judgmental as an outsider, but doesn’t anyone else have a problem with what Delaware State is doing here?

Another issue I have is the fact that even though they get a win, North Carolina A&T loses a game on their schedule. How is that fair to their players? Furthermore, how is it fair to the players at Delaware State that they don’t get to play a rival because they have to be used as tackling dummies at Michigan so that their athletic department can get a fat check?

And before anyone says it, yes, I know Appalachian State beat Michigan at the Big House a couple years ago. (I was actually in attendance that day.) But App State is also a FCS powerhouse, whereas Delaware State didn’t even finish .500 last season. Could the Hornets knock off the Wolverines? After watching the crap effort Rich Rodriguez put together last year, absolutely Delaware State could win. But what’s more likely, another massive upset or a 56-10 thrashing?

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaa!”

During a recent Gator Club appearance, Urban Meyer slammed former Florida quarterback Shane Matthews (although he didn’t have the guts to call him out by name) for the way he criticized Meyer’s game plan on a radio show following UF’s loss to Ole’ Miss last season.

“If you want to be critical of a player on our team or a coach on our team you can buy a ticket for seat 37F, you’re not welcome back in the football office,” Meyer said, according to the report. “You’re either a Gator or you’re not a Gator.”

The rift apparently started when Matthews criticized the offense following the 31-30 loss to Mississippi — the game that produced Tim Tebow’s now-famous postgame speech.

“When I watched the Ole Miss game and Ole Miss played our wide receivers about 90 percent man-to-man, it was a slap in the face to our wide receivers and passing game. I can’t understand why we didn’t take advantage of that,” Matthews said at the time, according to the report.

You’re either a Gator or you’re not a Gator? How profound, especially coming from a Midwest guy who didn’t become a Gator himself until after stints at Ohio State, Illinois State, Colorado State, Notre Dame, Bowling Green and Utah. Matthews was a Gator long before Meyer was ever crying about the way Florida is treated.

Former Miami defensive lineman Dan Sileo said it best in the article when he noted:

“Urban Meyer’s not a Gator. He’s a caretaker of the Gator program,” Sileo said. “Most times these coaches think they’re the programs, but really, the program is the players. That’s the problem I have with coaches whose egos get too big for their britches. If Urban doesn’t like it, that’s too bad.”

Meyer is always crying about something and it’s ridiculous for him to say that a former Florida player can’t be critical of the program when they lose a game. Most college coaches have egos the size of Michigan Stadium and they all think that everyone should bow down to “their” program.

What a joke. Matthews is in the media – he’s doing his job. He would be criticized if he didn’t bash the Gators when they deserve it and fans would quickly point out how much of a homer he is.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS.COM has details of the wife who stabbed her husband because he had a Cowboys game on too loud. Apparently she’s not a huge Tony Romo fan - thought the Cowboys should have kept Brad Johnson.

- As DEADSPIN points out, Yankee Stadium doesn’t want any of you smelly riff-raff troubling the rich folk.

- THE LOVE OF SPORTS lists the 10 guys you have to love to hate, including Bill Belichick, Bill Belichick’s quarterback and Bill Belichick’s former offensive coordinator.

- YARDBARKER points out that Manny Ramirez can still start in this year’s MLB All-Star Game despite being suspended for PEDs…and missing over a third of the season.

- WITH LEATHER writes that steroids are the only reason why fans still know baseball exists.

Six former University of Toledo athletes and two Detroit-area businessmen were indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury for their alleged roles in a point-shaving ring that centered around men’s basketball and football games.

Prosecutors allege in the 20-count indictment related to the Toledo case that Ghazi “Gary” Manni and Mitchell Edward Karam paid money and offered up other gifts to several athletes between November 2005 and December 2006, during which time the two allegedly wagered about $407,500 on Toledo contests.

All eight defendants face charges of conspiracy to commit sports bribery. The six former Toledo athletes also face charges of unlawful use of interstate facilities.

The former athletes charged are: Running back Adam Ryan Cuomo, point guard Keith Junior Triplett, forward Anton Du’ane Currie, basketball guard Kashif Lashon Payne, running back Harvey Lamont McDougle and running back Quinton James Broussard.

Each count carries a prison term of up to five years and as much as a $250,000 fine.

What a shame it is that these athletes work hard to earn athletic scholarships, only to eventually wind up getting involved in a gambling ring. It has to be tough being a student athlete, but all six of these players had to think about the repercussions they faced for doing something like this.

-THE LOVE OF SPORTS compiles the 10 most annoying sportscaster lines of all-time.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS.COM has the video of three Penguin fans pummeling a Capitals fan in Washington D.C. It was the only thing Pittsburgh has pummeled in Washington over the past week.

- Former NBA great Dave Bing was elected as Detroit’s mayor through the end of the year. Can Bing start cleaning up the mess in Detroit? Well, considering a slinky could have done a better job than Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit can only go up from here.

- YARDBARKER lists the best 60 college football games of the 2009 season.

- The RAYS INDEX fires a few shots at Tampa closer Troy Percival after he lobbed some profanities in the direction of a fan who intervened with a foul ball that third baseman Evan Longoria was attempting to catch. Apparently the fan in question was with his 6-year old son when Percival dropped at least one obscenity in his direction.

According to a report by Michael Lombardi of the National Football Post, one of the reasons why linebacker Rey Maualuga fell in last month’s draft (he was selected by the Bengals with the 38th overall pick after most projected him to go in the first round) was because he was a “handful” at USC.

Rey Maualuga, the second-round pick of the Bengals, needs to make sure he walks a very tight behavior line in Cincinnati. Maualuga slipped in the draft for a number of reasons, and he must keep his off-the-field behavior in check and not create problems for the coaching staff. In talking to some NFL people, I heard that Maualuga was not always compliant with the rules on and off the field at USC. He was, as one GM said to me, putting it mildly, “a handful.”

Well, Maualuga wound up in the right place if he’s intent on being disorderly.

When you think about it, Maualuga slipping into the second round isn’t that big of a surprise. First of all, scouts consider him a two-down linebacker in that he can be a force against the run, but a liability in coverage and thus he’ll have to come off the field in obvious passing situations. And if teams knew he caused coaches grief off the field while at USC, then it makes sense that NFL GMs hesitated taking him in the first round. No pro team is going to want to invest first round money on a player who was known to be (to borrow the exact word from the report) a handful while in college, not to mention will have limitations on the field at the next level.

The Bengals’ draft this year has boom or bust written all over it, or at least their first two picks do. Andre Smith was the riskiest pick in the first round given all the baggage he carried with him coming into the draft and now it’s clear that Maualuga was a risk as well, even for the second round. But both players are immensely talented and if they can fly straight and just play football, then Cincy might have gotten two steals. Plus, there’s a difference between being a handful and being destructive. We’re not talking about choir boys here and as long as Maualuga can respect his coaching staff and not get in trouble with the law, then I doubt the Bengals care if he’s a bit of a character.

com-mu-nism
–noun
1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.

2. (often initial capital letter ) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

If the above definition sounds familiar, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas says that it’s probably because you’ve been watching college football and are familiar with the BCS.

A congressman who wants to see college football adopt a playoff system is comparing the Bowl Championship Series to communism.

Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said Friday that efforts to tinker with the BCS are bound to fail. He told a House hearing that the BCS is like communism and can’t be fixed.

Barton has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from labeling a game a national championship unless it’s the outcome of a playoff system.

The coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series told the panel that a playoff system would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games. Fans, President Barack Obama and some lawmakers favor a playoff system.

While I agree that there is a massive need for a playoff to be implemented into college football, I wouldn’t go as far to compare the BCS to communism. Fascism? Maybe. Communism? Not so much.

Does anyone else find it ironic that Barton is a Republican representative of Texas and is comparing the BCS to communism after the Long Horns didn’t get a shot to play for the national championship last year?

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame announced the 2009 College Football Hall of Fame Football Bowl Subdivision Class and former Heisman winners Gino Toerretta and Tim Brown made the list.

PLAYERS

•PERVIS ATKINS - HB, New Mexico State (1958-60)
•TIM BROWN - WR, Notre Dame (1984-87)
•CHUCK CECIL - DB, Arizona (1984-87)
•ED DYAS - FB, Auburn (1958-60)
•MAJOR HARRIS - QB, West Virginia (1987-89)
•GORDON HUDSON - TE, Brigham Young (1980- 83)
•WILLIAM LEWIS* - C, Harvard (1892-93)
•WOODROW LOWE - LB, Alabama (1972-75)
•KEN MARGERUM - WR, Stanford (1977-80)
•STEVE McMICHAEL - DT, Texas (1976-79)
•CHRIS SPIELMAN - LB, Ohio State (1984-87)
•LARRY STATION - LB, Iowa (1982-85)
•PAT SWILLING - DE, Georgia Tech (1982-85)
•GINO TORRETTA - QB, Miami (Fla.) (1989-92)
•CURT WARNER - RB, Penn State (1979-82)
•GRANT WISTROM - DE, Nebraska (1994-97)
* Selection from the FBS Veterans Committee, deceased

COACHES

•DICK MacPHERSON - 111-73-5 (.601) - Massachusetts (1971-77), Syracuse (1981-90)
•JOHN ROBINSON - 132-77-4 (.629) - Southern California (1976-82, 1993-97), Nevada-Las Vegas (1999-2004)

It’s always amazing to me that a guy like Torretta can put up such great numbers in college, yet never made it in the NFL. (Teams didn’t even consider him as a top pick despite passing for more than 3,000 yards during his Heisman-winning senior season.) But you see examples of it every year (this year’s was Graham Harrell of Texas Tech, who went undrafted), so I guess I shouldn’t be too amazed.

Good to see Pat Swilling on this list. The late Swilling was always fun to watch and I thought he was a little underrated as a player. You have to appreciate self-made players like Chris Spielman, too. Scouts said he was too small, yet he went on to appear in four Pro Bowls.

As spring practices wrap up across the country, Andy Staples of SI.com ranked the top 25 college football teams entering the 2009 season. You can see Staples’ rankings by clicking the link above.

I’m intrigued by a couple of teams on his top 25, most notably Ole’ Miss (No. 7), Ohio State (No. 9) and TCU (No. 11).

Ole’ Miss is going to give a lot of SEC teams trouble this year with 16 total starters (8 on offense, 8 on defense) returning from last year, including quarterback Jevan Snead, who enters his second full season as a starter after throwing 26 touchdowns last season. They lost key components in offensive tackle Michael Oher and defensive tackle Peria Jerry, but they essentially return the same team that beat Florida, LSU and stomped Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl last year. (Not to mention also gave Alabama a game in Tuscaloosa.)

Out of the teams Staples ranks in his top 10, Ohio State has the fewest returning starters at nine. But quarterback Terrelle Pryor will only continue to improve with more playing time and running back Dan “Boom” Herron will ease the loss of Beanie Wells to the NFL. The Buckeyes should also have one of the best defensive fronts in the Big Ten, with end Lawrence Wilson and tackle Cameron Heyward set to return.

TCU turned a lot of heads last year after compiling an 11-2 record, including impressive wins over BYU and Boise State in the Poinsettia Bowl. They had one of the fastest defenses in the nation last year and they held opponents to a staggering 11.3 points per game. But they lost seven starters on the defensive side of the ball, which was obviously their strength, so it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll stack up with Utah again in the Mountain West.

Another team to keep an eye on is Oregon State, who returns two explosive playmakers in running back Jacquizz Rodgers and wide receiver James Rodgers. But as Staples writes in his top 25 rankings, quarterback Lyle Moevano is coming off offseason shoulder surgery and will battle senior Sean Canfield in preseason practice.

Sources close to the Syracuse football program have confirmed that former Duke point guard Greg Paulus will likely be on their roster for next season. With Michigan out of the picture, Paulus is expected to meet with Orange head coach Doug Marrone early this week about playing football at the school in his final year of college eligibility.

Syracuse Post-Standard sports columnist Bud Poliquin wrote that this is a no-brainer decision for the struggling program, as the Orange have won only 26 of its last 83 games and have nothing to lose with this roster addition.

Which makes this, of course, a no-brainer. As long as Marrone likes what he hears from Paulus, and as long as Paulus is confident that SU will provide him with the opportunity he seeks on the field and in the classrooms of the Newhouse School, this is a Done Deal.

Because he never was redshirted during his four years at Duke, Paulus has one year of eligibility remaining in another sport. He has completed his college degree thus allowing Paulus to attend graduate school elsewhere and compete immediately if granted a waiver from the NCAA.

Paulus was a prolific high school passer at Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse; his high marks include an undefeated senior season in which he completed 66 percent of his passes for 3700 yards and threw for 43 touchdown passes. The Orange coaching staff feels Paulus is a perfect fit to lead their pro-style offense next season.