• Come back soon, RonP. College football’s buyout hero is with the Jacksonville Jaguars now, but does that make a minute and a half loop of him singing on the Jags’ video holiday card any less compelling? We say nay:

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your buyout clauses be airtight.

• Can’t spell COIN COIN without COI? Oregon will have its Committee on Infractions hearing. Bylaw Blog does a bit of explaining.

• Coach-hirin’ follies. Boston College hires its coordinators … Gary Andersen pulls what we’re going to call a Reverse Tommy Tuberville … we actually met some Oregon fans last year who professed to be “tired of the Rose Bowl,” so this is a real phenomenon, however dumb.

• Realignment tidbits, grudgingly dispensed. Big East commish Mike Aresco says “We feel we have a very good league.” This is secret code: you cannot spell “FEEL” without “Fresno State and UNLV.”

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Lovingly curated light reading to speed you through your weekend:

• Please plan all holiday travel for January 5. The full 2012-13 bowl schedule has been released. Real football on New Year’s Day again! The entirety of December 30 off for napping before the New Year’s Eve binge! The TicketCity Bowl persists in existing! Will wonders never cease.

• They never promised you a Rose Bowl garden. The Pac-12/Big Ten scheduling snugglethon is scrapped.

• Wordy wordy words words words MAKE IT STOP don’t ever stop. Want 10,000 words on the evolution of the Airraid? WHO DOESN’T? Smart Football is all too happy to oblige. There are diagrams. There is video. It is glorious. Amen.

• Once upon a time, Mark Richt was Goofus AND Gallant. Ol’ Dirty Pastor, suspended by Schnelly?? Asks Blutarsky, “ What sort of depravity gets you suspended at The U in its prime?”

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Alabama's 21-0 win over LSU in the title game gave Nick Saban his record third BCS championship. (Al Tielemans/SI)

Alabama 21, LSU 0: RECAP | BOX | MANDEL | STAPLES | MORE COVERAGE

Quarterback AJ McCarron and linebacker Courtney Upshaw walk away from Alabama’s latest national title victory with MVP honors, and deservedly so. Now, to reward and shun the rest of the field:

• MVP, replacement part edition: Kevin Norwood, Alabama. The sophomore wide receiver recorded stats in just four games this season, and it’s telling that those games were Kent State, Penn State, Mississippi State and Georgia Southern. Thrust into a greater role tonight after the injury to No. 1 receiver Marquis Maze, Norwood led the team with 78 yards’ worth of catches, including a long of 26 yards, tied for Alabama’s longest reception of the night.

• Play of the game, drama masks edition: Good who’s-boss fun: Maze hurtling downfield with a Brad Wing punt for a 49-yard return, upending entirely our favorite stat of LSU having allowed only six net punt return yards all season. Very bad consequence: Maze messing up his hamstring on the effort and spending the rest of the game on the sidelines.

• Play of the game, Bronx cheer edition: Jordan Jefferson, not too long after being audibly booed in a de facto home game for the national title, broke off an 18-yard run that took the Tigers from midfield to the Alabama 32-yard line, the first time LSU crossed midfield on offense all night. This valiant act, of course, was followed up by a run play that lost three yards, a five-yard penalty, two incomplete passes and a sack on Jefferson that cost LSU 10 more yards and the ball. [SFX: sad trombone]

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Punter Brad Wing (38) was arguably No. 1 LSU's most valuable player this season. (US PRESSWIRE)

Today we’re taking up the mantle donned by Andy Staples in the year of the House of Spears and banging our drum (actually, it’s probably more of a tambourine) for an imaginary, expanded Heisman Trophy finalists field. The names listed here failed to earn national recognition for the most famous of bronze lumps, but would be nationally revered if we ran the zoo. Our contenders are a mixed bag of defenders, linemen, stars from overlooked positions and conferences, and even a special-teams whiz kid (guess who!), who’d have our votes in a Very Merry, Very Alt Heisman Race:

• P Brad Wing, LSU. While I could not be more pleased to see a non-offensive player among this year’s actual finalists, particularly one so fearsome as Tyrann Mathieu … I’m not at all sure he’s the best player on his team. Then again, the guy who is the best isn’t even up for his own position award. LSU’s success this season has ridden on defense, and Wing, the freshman Aussie with the adamantium leg, is a field position war machine, a siege engine who’s barricaded opponents behind their own 20-yard line on 23 of 57 tries this year. On average, LSU opponents have returned Wing’s bombs less than half a yard. The first time I saw him play in person, during the Tigers’ Sept. 25 road trip to Morgantown, Wing’s six punts landed on the three, four, five, 11, eight and nine-yard lines. But he won our hearts against Florida, where a fake punt led to a 44-yard touchdown run — that was ultimately called back for taunting under the execrable new “sportsmanship” penalty. Despair not, B-Wing: It’s etched forever on the scoreboard of our souls.

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In the absence of Brad Wing, Robert Griffin III will have to do as Heisman Trophy winner. (Icon SMI)

• And then there were five, and one was III: Robert Griffin III is indeed a Heisman Trophy finalist, alongside Andrew Luck, Montee Ball, Tyrann Mathieu and Trent Richardson. The continued exclusion of Brad Wing from these lists is constantly upsetting. He’s not on our People’s Heisman poll either, but you can vote for some other nice young people.

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold: Add Greg McMackin to our Canned Coaches Cubby. (He wasn’t technically canned, but he’s gone, and I like the Spam connection.)

• In which Chris Petersen cops to the glaring problem with the Coaches’ Poll: “I know how I voted and I know what I’m trying to do, which is make the best case for Boise State to get in there, so I probably shouldn’t be a voter.”

• Penn State things: ABC News is reporting that eight alleged victims will testify against Jerry Sandusky. Meanwhile, does the headline “NCAA considers advisory role on abuse guidelines” make anybody else moderately uncomfortable, for the sole reason that the NCAA doesn’t seem very good at the jobs it actually does have?

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The Switzies are named for former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, the patron saint of college football frolicking. (Rich Clarkson/SI)

Our 10 imaginary trophies celebrating on- and off-field favorites at the season’s midpoint:

• Best new toy: It’s not Clowney, Farmer or Kouandjio. The biggest impact freshman of 2011 is Clemson’s Sammy Watkins, who ranks in the top 20 nationally in receiving yards per game, sixth in kickoff returns and by the numbers is currently the FBS’ No. 10 all-purpose yardage generated. He’s recorded four games with at least 100 receiving yards in less than two months of college ball, and in two of those games has gone over 150. Against Maryland, he hit the century mark in receiving and  racked up 207 yards on kick return duty.

• Best stat: Aren’t early season cherry-picked numbers delicious? Remember those first weeks in September when Robert Griffin’s touchdown passes and incompletions hovered right around the same number? After four weeks of play that ratio was 20:18 and Baylor fan or not, it was hard not to hope it’d stay that way just for the spectacle of it. Subsequent games against Iowa State and Texas A&M knocked his incompletions out of reach. Then again, we’re talking about a guy who has a 78 percent completion rating after six games, so even his off days are nothing to sneeze at.

• Best highlight play: Nothing against the massive runs Trent Richardson’s reeling off, but there’s just something about a good catch that quickens the blood. The year’s best, thus far: Andrew Luck‘s one-handed grab versus UCLA, a move that would’ve been tricky even had the receiver been a receiver, and Mississippi State’s Chris Smith holding onto the ball in an invisible human gyroscope against South Carolina. Honorable mention: LSU punter Brad Wing‘s touchdown-that-wasn’t against Florida.

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