BYU listed sophomore Taysom Hill (4) as its starting QB on its final post-spring depth chart. (Boyd Ivey/Icon SMI)

By Zac Ellis

BYU released its final post-spring depth chart on Wednesday, which listed sophomore Taysom Hill as the Cougars’ starting quarterback.

Hill beat out fellow sophomore Ammon Olsen after a strong spring practice. Hill passed for 425 yards, rushed for 336 yards and scored eight total touchdowns in six games last season as a true freshman. Hill injured his knee against Utah State in October and missed the remainder of the year.

And in case you forgot, Hill was also named Idaho’s Gatorade High School Player of the Year as a senior in 2008-09. He threw for 2,269 yards and 18 touchdowns to lead the Highland High Rams from Pocatello, Idaho, to their first state title since 2002.

A quick review of the e’er-spinning carousel of BYU quarterbacks:

• Riley Nelson and James Lark have graduated.

• Jake Heaps is now “the man to beat” at Kansas.

• Taysom Hill’s work in spring ball is being limited by his coaches, following last October’s season-ending LCL injury.

• Ammon Olsen, working with the first team in BYU’s spring game, sustained a partial PCL tear on Saturday, according to Bronco Mendenhall, who also said Olsen likely will not require surgery.

Nobody would blame BYU for starting an actual cougar at quarterback for the remainder of the offseason, is our point.

Hopefully this UConn road trip works out better than their last western jaunt. (AP)

There’s little we like more in the offseason than to hear of larger football programs plotting to meet one another, especially when we don’t have to wait that long to see it happen: Connecticut and BYU have announced a two-game home-and-home series that begins the season after next. The Huskies and Cougars have never met in football, and will remedy this oversight with a game in East Hartford on August 28, 2014, followed by a date in Provo on October 31, 2015.

• You a Terp? Maryland has announced walk-on football tryouts for Wednesday, January 30. You must be a full-time, currently enrolled student to be eligible for consideration.

This is also your reminder that heading into Maryland’s last regular-season football game of 2012, this is what Maryland’s injury report looked like. So if you’re an aspiring quarterback, we’re honestly not sure whether to tell you to show up or stay away.

• Meanwhile, while the internet was caving in on itself …  Lost yesterday in the avalanche of news shocks was the announcement that the Mountain West has retaken San Diego State. (We’re choosing to picture this as a giant Risk board in action. The Big 12 is clearly Australia.) We have an MWC source who’s promised to tell us the second the conference poaches UCLA, and y’all will be the first to know after that.

• Coach-hirin’ follies! Go right on ahead and apply for Chip Kelly’s old job, and be sure and let us know how that works out … here is a magnificent lead followed by Rob Mullens’ insistence that he has no clubhouse leaders in mind for Kelly’s vacant seat … John-El lands at DII Fort Lewis College … Utah passing coordinator Aaron Roderick will take the OC slot at BYU [UPDATE: No he won't!] … Louisiana Tech won’t have to re-glaze any of its “I <3 OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR TONY” mugs … Tim Rosenbach joins the UNLV staff as OC.

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• BYU 23, San Diego State 6. All you really, really need to know about last night’s Poinsettia Bowl — that you didn’t glean from the Laff Riot — can be found in this gif from our pals at @SBNation:

It’s the Muppetish way Riley Stephenson lets his arms swing while running off the field that really elevates the artform of the celebration dance here. [BOX | RECAP]

• Merry Christmas, Raggle Muffins. We’re just going to paste in excerpts of Georgia’s Friday morning practice report here:

ATHENS—–Fifth-ranked Georgia held its final bowl practice in Athens in what was deemed “Ragamuffin Friday” as players had the option of getting creative with their workout attire. A handful of Bulldogs garnered attention for their accessories, most notably junior cornerback Blake Sailors for his raccoon skin hat taped to his helmet, freshman running back Todd Gurley’s red riding hood cape and senior flanker Taylor Bradberry’s vintage electric blue-striped jumpsuit straight from the 1980s.

[...]

At the end of practice, Bulldog head coach Mark Richt made a few announcements and what has been tradition over the years, a member of the team volunteered to sing a tune in hopes it would be good enough to excuse the squad from its final conditioning run. Junior defensive end Clint Kirk stepped up and belted a rendition of “I Believe I Can Fly,” an R. Kelly song that made its debut in 1996.  Richt deferred the decision to director of strength and conditioning Joe Tereshinski who paused briefly and then said “Merry Christmas.” 
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The story of a bowl game, as told through social media.

And now, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir lets loose: “Lark the herald Cougars sing / How will James the pigskin fling?” #BYUFootballCarols

— Matt Zemek (@MattZemek_CFN) December 21, 2012

Sometimes you’ve just gotta let Lark fly.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) December 21, 2012

And other times, Lark slams into a window.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) December 21, 2012

Adam Dingwell is a decent quarterback and a disastrous air traffic controller.

— edsbs (@edsbs) December 21, 2012

Simultaneously violating four different components of the BYU Honor Code while BYU is playing. I used to be better than this.

— Ramzy Nasrallah (@ramzy) December 21, 2012

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Here is BYU’s Cody Hoffman high-fiving a beluga whale, in the face. We love the Poinsettia Bowl. (AP)

The 2012 Poinsettia Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an X’s and O’s breakdown, click through to Bill Trocchi’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is played in San Diego and gets its participants and fans back home in plenty of time for Christmas, making it one of our favorite postseason destinations. (We have a weakness for sea lions. What?)

• Is this the longest bowl name? Not since the Military Bowl presented by Northrop Grumman came to town, but this is still the only postseason contest named for a poisonous houseplant.

• Where will this game be played? Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers, San Diego State Aztecs and the Holiday Bowl.

• When is it on television? Coverage begins at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 20, with Carter Blackburn, Rod Gilmore and Jemele Hill. The game will be televised on ESPN (in 3D where available!) and streamed on WatchESPN.

• Whom does it feature? This year’s tie-ins are the Mountain West and BYU.

• What about this year? Home game! The Cougars (7-5) will face off with 9-3 SDSU.

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• By the time you see this post, all of this information will be out of date. Just keep this soothing mantra in your minds, and we’ll all get through this together:

When it all boils down, we’re all members of the Human Race Conference. #footballhugs

— Good Bull Hunting (@GBHunting) November 28, 2012

Change begets stress, and even good stress is stress, our mama has always said, so continue those deep, cleansing breaths while you read these releases from Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic announcing their intent to join Conference USA in 2014. Karl Benson is making solar puns in all caps, so give him a little hug if you see him. And our pal Steven Godfrey finally realizes why Rutgers cut him off for a story a couple weeks back.

The Sun Sentinel is reporting that Western Kentucky and New Mexico State may be next, so if it’s all right with y’all we’re going to wait until next week to re-revise our handy realignment graphic.

• Bowltyme! Our postseason schedule is up and running, with new bowl teams added as they’re announced. It’s also in a font large enough for you to read first thing in the morning without your glasses a couple weeks from now, when you sit upright in bed and are terrified you have overslept into the New Mexico Bowl.

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Jordan Lynch, pinballer of the year. (AP)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome. WE HAVE MUCH TO DISCUSS.

• On teams about to move themselves outside our purview. Like we said this morning, we had no sooner finished updating our magnificent work of college football realignment art than word came down we might need to add Middle Tennessee State to it. And right as we were wrapping up this here column, Florida Atlantic joins the fray, chasing FIU to Conference USA. Consider this another plea for a dead period in conference realignment, for the sake of everyone’s collective multitasking abilities, at least until the bowls are over. What on earth else are we going to talk about in February if we get all this conference-hopping sorted out before Christmas?

And what to do with some of these teams going forward? We have a while to figure it out, obviously, but how to cover this ballooning middle class created by the sinking of the Big East? Will the Blue Raiders graduate from Profiterole-dom as Temple did last year? We’ll probably dedicate way more thought to this than we should; but, again, best to save that for the offseason when we have nothing better to do.

• Conference races drawing to a close. Where we’re at heading into that weird hybrid weekend of regular and postseason games: Kent State and Northern Illinois meet Friday night in Detroit for the MAC title game. Tulsa hosts Central Florida this Saturday for the C-USA championship. The Mountain West remains deadlocked in that wacky three-way tie between San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State, with only the Broncos’ Saturday date with Nevada standing any chance of breaking it. The top two teams in the Sun Belt, Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee, play a final regular-season game Saturday that may as well be the conference title game. Utah State has clinched the WAC title outright with last week’s victory over Idaho. And Army and Navy will meet a week from Saturday for the right to hoist the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, with Air Force out of the race entirely for the first time since 2005.

• Bowltyme! Stewart Mandel’s latest postseason projections can be found here, along with a freshly-updated chart listing every accepted bowl invitation. Profiteroles playing this holiday season include Nevada in the New Mexico Bowl, Utah State in the Potato, San Diego State and BYU in the Poinsettia, Louisiana in the New Orleans, SMU in the Hawaii, Air Force in the Armed Forces and Navy in the Fight Hunger.

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Monteé Ball’s last name is also a football word, which should save us all some headline writing time once he finally breaks this record. (AP)

Saturday college football games of varying degrees of interest, grouped in highly subjective categories. For more preview content, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.

• Biggest game with nothing riding on it: No. 6 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers already know they’re headed to Indianapolis, as the only other teams with fewer than three conference losses in the Leaders Division (the Buckeyes and Penn State) are ineligible for postseason play. But a win here would be the biggest [screw]-you moment for Urban Meyer since the 2008 Florida-Georgia game. And if you think Urban Meyer doesn’t live for [screw]-you moments, please see the 2008 Florida-Georgia game.

What is actually at stake: The NCAA all-time career touchdowns record, currently sitting at 78 and held by former Miami RedHawk Travis Prentice. Monteé Ball is one score away from tying and two away from breaking this record, and he has a chance to do both at home. He recorded 198 rushing yards and three scores last week against Indiana; if Ball does break the record, expect to hear the hollering in Madison as far away as Kentucky, and expect little bits of glitter to spew from this page. (Please protect your eyes accordingly.)

• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 21 USC at No. 17 UCLA, 3:05 p.m. We have well established at this point in the season that even when relying on math and the best available logic, picking games is tricky work. It’s much more fun, and equally ineffective, to rely on factors like spite and cussedness and probably-imaginary-but-maybe-not-surefire jinxes to decide, particularly in rivalry matchups, which is why this weekend’s clash in the Rose Bowl scares the hell out of us. Some factors to consider: Whose coach to dislike (or grudgingly admire) more? Is it cosmically dangerous to even bring up that “football monopoly” talk at this point? Can we straight-up call this game for USC because keeping an opposing team’s costumed representative from poking one’s field with a sword is the furthest possible thing from a power move imaginable?

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