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 Big East can give up on football entirely by adding lowly Memphis to its ranks. (Icon SMI)

• Realignment tidbits, grudgingly dispensed: Just plunge through all these as fast as you can so we can get back to talking about football: Here’s our most recently updated story on the Big 12 and West Virginia. That Big East-Mountain West-Conference USA superconference that was a story and then was not is now a story again. And here’s a fun story on how the Big East might just give up on football completely (the league would signal this surrender by adding Memphis to the conference).

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold: Jerry Kill’s new deal at Minnesota runs through the end of the 2017 season, which given the current state of the Gophers football program seems a reasonable time frame for a rebuilding effort.

• Quote of the day: “How will I explain to my children that their father never experienced the Beef O’ Brady’s Bowl?” — West Virginia raconteur Andrew Bernstein, lamenting (kinda) the Mountaineers’ looming flight from the Big East.

• Giveth, taketh: Trent Steelman‘s starting streak will snap this weekend, as he’s expected to miss the Army-Fordham game. Notre Dame’s Kapron Lewis-Moore is out for the season with a knee injury, as is UCLA’s Tony Dye with a neck injury. And Washington State quarterback Jeff Tuel, who fractured his collarbone on Week 1′s first series, continues to be dealt rough hands with reports he’s suffering from acute compartment syndrome in his leg.

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West Virginia fans were quick to knock Pitt and Syracuse for leaving the Big East for the ACC, but their own Mountaineers appear poised to jump to the Big 12. (Lance King/Icon SMI)

• Will no one think of the pepperoni roll? Clearly ignorant of the fine culinary traditions found in and around West Virginia, the SEC passed on expansion candidate WVU. Now, the Mountaineers are reportedly headed for the Big 12. And Tudor’s Biscuit World franchises will surely follow into Texas and Oklahoma, skirting SEC country entirely. Life is cruel, y’all.

• NCAA Reform And Them: “More than 300 major college football and men’s basketball players are telling the NCAA and college presidents they want a cut of ever-increasing TV sports revenue to fatten scholarships and cover all the costs of getting a degree, with athletes picking up still more grant money when they graduate.” This should be fun. Dan Wetzel wants a bowl boycott. And the NCAA’s compliance blog looks ahead to 20 years of reform.

• Quote of the day, I: “We could end up with two conferences, one called ESPN and one called Fox.” — LSU chancellor Michael Martin

• Quote of the day, II: “Don’t worry, Big East Conference. I’ll play football in you.” — Dan Devine

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LSU's Jordan Jefferson and Oregon's Cliff Harris are both suspended indefinitely. (US PRESSWIRE :: ZUMA)

From an entertainment standpoint, the grand opening of the finest American pastime is not likely to live up to its potential. Saturday is the big day, but the season cracks open Thursday night at 6 p.m. ET with the barn-burning, high-flying antics of Murray State at Louisville. (It’s even being televised on ESPNU, and you know as well as I do we’ll both be watching, because we are sick people.) Western Illinois at Sam Houston State kicks off an hour later, raising the bar not-at-all. Like it or not, these games will set the tone for most of what we’ll see the next few days. UNLV at Wisconsin highlights Thursday night; TCU and Baylor take center stage Friday, but come Saturday morning it’s back to the dregs. In a way this makes excellent business sense: Programmers have to know fans are ready to drink the sporting equivalent of vanilla extract just for the sweet trace of alcohol … and voila! Elon at Vanderbilt, for your swilling pleasure!

Any real interest in the bulk of early Saturday games has to come in the form of morbid curiosity. To what extent can wee Akron withstand an Ohio State offense depleted by NCAA sanctions? What horrors await when Minnesota takes the field at USC? And which fan base will panic and call for the firing of its coach first: Auburn when a defender misses a tackle against Utah State, or Alabama when Kent State intercepts one of its quarterbacks?

Two anchor games were set to provide safe harbor for fans seeking the real deal in college football on Labor Day weekend: Boise State and Georgia in Atlanta and LSU and Oregon in Arlington. The particulars were perfectly aligned: Cross-country matchups! Professional stadiums! Old and new football powers! Four shiny sets of Pro Combat unis! The glossy production values of ABC and ESPN! And while the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game between Boise and Georgia is a promising one, No. 4 LSU and No. 3 Oregon are going to command the nation’s attention.

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