Prepare to be judged. (Getty Images)

We continue our curious streak of SEC West news with this tidbit out of Tuscaloosa: Reports are circulating that Alabama GA Derrick Crudup Jr. was arrested last week for misdemeanor drug possession. (We regret to inform you that you’ve all already been beaten to the “Roll joints!” joke by intrepid reader @BobbyBigWheel.)

Al.com has posted a university response signifying Bama’s ascension to the summit of the non-quote-quote art form: “Alabama spokesman Doug Walker said the athletic department is ‘aware of the situation and will take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.’” From such a famously PROCESS-oriented institution, we’d expect nothing less.

Dana Holgorsen vs. Nick Saban? Yes, please. (AP)

It’s not a done deal just yet, but if you’d care to have a sympathetic crew of scientists cryogenically freeze you to make good and sure nothing happens to you during the next two football seasons, it’s an understandable impulse: Alabama and West Virginia are in negotiations to open the 2014 season as part of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic. WVU officials confirmed the possibility to the Charleston Daily Mail.

We have spent more time watching these two teams than any other save our actual alma mater, but even if you despise both programs it’s hard to deny the curb appeal of BOOM GRR DEFENSE versus HISS SPAT OFFENSE. This particular game of Red Team Blue Team, still more than two years away, will be hard to top for other neutral-site organizers in terms of pure built-in narrative and mayhem potential. Start building your Walking Dead bunkers now, Atlanta residents, and disguise your couches as chest freezers for the duration of the weekend.

We take longstanding college football rivalries as seriously as any media outlet in the nation around here, which is to say they are revered with a solemnity ancient cultures might have reserved for fertility rituals. Open season on one’s most be-loathed opponents never ends. Everything is fair game. Until it isn’t:

Alabama RB Trent Richardson takes Crimson Tide fan and cancer survivor Courtney Alvis to her senior prom » youtu.be/yUlBK_MyzaM

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 15, 2012

That’ll do it. Alabama football is currently impervious to comedic jabs of all types. There is honestly nothing not to like here. Trent Richardson is an excellent human being in addition to a beastly football player, and we can even do a little smug hipster preening at remembering how we always did like him a little better than Mark Ingram. The strain will be difficult, but some day in the distant future, a new outlet for japing will present itself, and until then, we’ll just have to –

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Unlike baseball, college football is actually supposed to have an opening weekend. (REUTERS)

All this chirping about based ball’s Opening “Day” just makes us pine for five months from now, when college football will accomplish in five days what baseball crams into nine or so. Is it too early to start making out our Week 1 mayhem wish list? Probably!

Thursday, August 30

• South Carolina @ Vanderbilt. James Franklin taunts Jadeveon Clowney after the Commodores pull off a late go-ahead touchdown, and the ensuing fracas manages to convince SEC officials to suspend the South Carolina stalwart. Seeking revenge, Steve Spurrier departs Nashville with five or six of Franklin’s scholarship quarterbacks, to feather his depth-chart-fiddlin’ nest back in Columbia. No one is truly satisfied, but no lessons are learned.

• Minnesota @ UNLV. TCF Bank revokes Golden Gophers’ stadium sponsorship after team refuses to pay $5,000 in ATM fees following return from Vegas.

• UCF @ Akron. Zips win, and Terry Bowden gets free jousting privileges at all Medieval Times locations for life.

• UMass @ UConn. In their FBS debut, the Minutemen rout the Huskies, relegating Connecticut to the MAC by a previously unnoticed realignment provision. All involved parties agree this is probably in everyone’s best interest.

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Nick Saban already has a statue. Why not add a school? (US PRESSWIRE)

Nick Saban High is not to be, and we are all a little less lethally efficient for it.

Montgomery Public Schools spokesman Tom Salter, who was on the naming committee, said he certainly learned a lot during the process. But when grilled about the potential of a Saban High, he chose his words carefully.

“As big as an Alabama fan as I am, it would likely not be an appropriate choice, especially this close to the Plains,” he said.

Salter playfully declined comment when asked to speculate why there were no submission for Auburn University football coach Gene Chizik.

Plus, what would they call the school once Saban leaves to coach the Cowboys, PAAAOWL? (If anybody needs me, I’ll be hiding in the office for the rest of the week in fear of landmines being placed under my car.)

[Via: FOTP.]

Once again, Brian Kelly is looking for a starting quarterback during Notre Dame's spring practice.
(US PRESSWIRE)

Early last season, we wondered if the quarterback races at Alabama, Penn State and Texas would ever be settled to anyone’s satisfaction. The Longhorns may be giving up their spot on the carousel before too long; players are being ranked and re-ranked at every practice, although the job is David Ash’s to lose. Mack Brown has some well-remembered reasons to be overcautious in prepping a backup.

We may also soon bid a fond farewell to the Matt McGloin-Rob Bolden QB1 tango. Two seasons of trading snaps hasn’t settled matters as much as it might otherwise have thanks to coaching turnover and a full season of nausea-inducing offensive game film. But new coach Bill O’Brien is at least on the record setting the finish line, however nebulously, “later in training camp.”

Notre Dame, though. Notre Dame could be fun. Find what you love and do it, they say. Follow your bliss, they say. And if what you’re good at is never settling on a starting quarterback, well, best make that part of your brand.

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Ken Ard resigned his post as South Carolina's Lt. Governor following an ethics scandal that included spending campaign funds on a hotel room for the 2010 SEC Championship Game. (AP)

Bear with us as we celebrate a rare but relevant political detour Friday! Emphasis added for reasons that will quickly become obvious:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – South Carolina Lt. Gov. Ken Ard has resigned from his position following an almost year-long ethics scandal.

Ard’s ethics trouble began shortly after he was elected in 2010. Campaign disclosure forms showed he had been using campaign funds for things like a hotel room for the 2010 SEC Championship, gas, food, meals, airfare across the country, postage, advertising, phone services, and consulting.

And all he got for his troubles was an ethics investigation and a highly public pantsing of his team at the hands of Auburn. Look, we’re not cheerleading political corruption over here, but YOU try finding a hotel room within comfortable driving distance of the Georgia Dome, especially when the season’s already started and particularly on a government salary. Alabama fans book up everything within 20 miles five years in advance, just in case. MARRIOTT POINTS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, PAAAOWL.

It's not often Nick Saban talks about his feelings -- or smiles. (US PRESSWIRE)

Alabama intends to put multiyear scholarships on the table, which is super fun for us because it means we get to hear about Nick Saban’s feelings:

“We’re going to offer four-year scholarships,” Saban said. “Our whole conference is going to do it, all the schools, I think.

“And we’re happy to do it.”

We will, of course, take any excuse to repost our all-time favorite Saban anecdote, from the 2008 Georgia-’Bama game, but this is a particularly opportune moment:

There even were conflicting reports that he smiled in the victorious locker room.

“Yes, he smiled and told us he loved us,” Reamer said.

“No,” said cornerback Javier Arenas.

“Maybe,” laughed quarterback John Parker Wilson.

“I’m excited,” said Saban, looking not the least bit excited.

Obie gets to take off the suit (probably), but staging December and January games can be a full-time gig. (AP)

We joked Monday about how we would’ve loved to work for the Fiesta Bowl during the John Junker heyday, because who doesn’t enjoy attending $30,000 birthday parties? But you, gentle readers, may be as surprised to learn that bowl employees work more than four days a year as our own mother was to learn that we work more than four months. While recuperating from the crush of bowl season, Campus Union spoke with bowl worker bees and executive types busy putting bows on their 2011 games while laying the groundwork for the 2012 postseason. Here’s what we learned.

Months of moving parts

Every postseason college football contests maintains a year-round calendar of sorts, though we were surprised on both ends of the spectrum by just how many and how few year-round employees are retained by certain games. (For comparison’s sake: The Outback Bowl employs five year-round staffers; the Music City Bowl has nine, most of whom double up with duties to the Nashville Sports Council; and the Orange Bowl has 30, with plans to bring on an additional nine full-time positions this year to accommodate preparations for hosting the BCS title game.) The timeline varies wildly based on available personnel, resources, the organization’s presence in the community and how the game approaches its own team selection process. The first scout I personally laid eyes on last season was a very nice lady representing the Champs Sports Bowl in Morgantown in Week 3 during LSU-West Virginia. Both squads, of course, would go on to win their conferences and play in BCS bowls, but that early in the season, bowl scouts share the same disadvantage as the rest of us: All they have to go on is preseason rankings and their own prognostications.

Still, for a game like the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which draws from two of the more voluminous conferences, scouting all potentially eligible teams in person in a single season is a daunting task. Volunteer CFA scouts go out in Week 1 to begin assessing various SEC and ACC squads, though the bowl’s selection committee does not convene until November.

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Five-star tackle Andrus Peat headlines Stanford's terrifyingly fierce offensive line class. (US PRESSWIRE)

• “When you’re the first person in your family to graduate from high school, you don’t need to be sitting out.” Justin Taylor and family spoke to the AJC about Taylor’s decision to spurn Alabama’s offer of a grayshirt year and sign with Kentucky instead. The three-star running back and Atlanta native will look to infuse some life into a rushing offense that averaged just 124 yards per game in 2011.

• The SEC East resurgence comes not from the south, but from the sides. Andy Staples was on the scene in Nashville as James Franklin reeled in the flossiest class in Vanderbilt program history.

• “Urban Meyer can’t stop yawning.” An unfair excerpt from Stewart Mandel’s visit with the Urbz and his mighty crop of blue-chippers.

• They’ll breed. You’ll die. We legitimately fear the prowess of the linemen Stanford has landed.

• Go west, and north. Steve Sarkisian lost some in-state gems, but pillaged California in return.

• Jordan Payton settles! This counts as news at this point.

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