Jerry Sandusky received an effective life imprisonment sentence Tuesday morning. (AP)

• Jerry Sandusky, going away. We trade in irreverencies here, but this is not a matter for lighthearted anything (except for this guy, maybe?), so we will give you some facts instead: Jerry Sandusky was sentenced this morning to 30-60 years in prison. Sandusky plans to appeal. SI.com’s Michael McCann has provided a full report.

• Groh puns! Get your Groh puns! Puns by the thousands! Through six games, Georgia Tech is giving up an average of 431 yards per contest, and Paul Johnson apparently thinks that’s about enough. Defensive coordinator Al Groh’s firing was announced Monday afternoon. Said Groh: “I feel positive that this is a good time in life to move on to a new situation.” Hard to argue with that.

• It is news that Frank Spaziani is not yet fired. Boston College sources have confirmed that Brad Bates will become the school’s new AD.

• Injury report story hour. Following Oregon State’s official release on the matter of Sean Mannion’s knee, we don’t know a great deal more than we did yesterday. The weeks Mannion will miss are still set at “undetermined.” What we do have now, however, is a statement from coach Mike Riley on Mannion’s backup, junior Cody Vaz, and an attempt to dispel that pesky “No one but Sean Mannion has taken a snap at quarterback in 14 games” fear. “Cody is a good quarterback; he’s been preparing for this for a long time. He’s had a ton of reps; in fact he almost had as many as Sean did during fall camp. Cody knows what we are doing, he gets rid of the ball fast and he’s accurate.” He’ll have to be, at BYU.

Read More…

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel wants to be clear: He’s younger than Nick Saban. (AP)

HOOVER, Ala. — Right when it seemed like nobody at SEC Media Days was familiar enough with Gary Pinkel to know what kind of questions to ask to draw out interesting answers, an Alabama-based reporter came to the rescue with a query that’s very much at the front of everyone’s minds during realignment: Where on earth does one eat dinner in Columbia, Missouri?*

Pinkel’s reply: “Why don’t you email the city restaurant organization?”

Other important factoids revealed during Pinkel’s Q&A session: He did know Nick Saban in college, when both played for Kent State, but: “First of all, [Saban's] older than me. I want to make that very clear.”

*If you do not think this is important, you were not at SEC Media Days the year before last to witness the Lord of the Flies fracas that ensued when, simultaneously, the wireless internet went down and Chick-fil-A ran out of chicken. Journalism!

Two more hours of ESPN college football programming means two more hours of possible Lee Corso sightings.

Did the Huntsville Times just portend the next great leap forward in reality television programming?

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama –Nick Saban figures there’s one certainty about the new college football playoff scenario. There will be “a two-hour ESPN show on who got left out,” he said.

Far be it for us to fail to heed the auguries of Saban (or to dare to meet his gaze directly): A sister program to our summer hit, the Selection Committee Selection Show, is clearly called for. Run it in that dead stretch of actionless time in the days between the Army-Navy Game and the New Mexico Bowl.

First Segment: Man vs. Self

We open on a tight shot of Tom Rinaldi, clad in an exquisite white tuxedo and oversized silver platform sneakers, seated at a grand piano on a turntable that rotates at a sedate speed. Casually, with effortless grace, he ripples through a sonata of unknown origin. The camera pulls back to reveal Dabo Swinney, unproud head coach of a 12-1 Clemson squad. He stands on a scale model indoor football field. Around his neck is a veterinary Elizabethan collar. “Explain what you saw that the committee didn’t in the ACC Championship Game,” Rinaldi probes. Mechanized animatronic football players rise out of the turf, but Swinney, hampered by the collar, cannot place his whistle in his mouth to activate the simulation. His screaming will haunt you for all your nights to come.

Second Segment: Man vs. Nature

In a soundproof booth, on hidden camera, Gary Pinkel is informed he can bump Mizzou’s strength of schedule up one slot in next year’s rankings for every exotic poisonous insect he selects and eats. He gobbles the entire tray without question. Doesn’t even take a sip of water.

Read More…

• UAB 34, No. 22 Southern Miss 31: Yesterday’s categorization of the Blazers as a “respite” for the Golden Eagles clearly galvanized UAB into unleashing the special-teams dragon. Emerging from a 14-0 hole after quick touchdown strikes gave Southern Miss a three-minute, two-score lead, the Blazers kept pace in the second half and secured the win with a 38-yard field goal in the game’s final four minutes. Nobody in Birmingham puts up with being called a patsy. At least not more than once a season.

Either that, or Larry Fedora really, really doesn’t want that Ole Miss job but can’t think how to decline it gracefully. And either way: A 2-8 team just beat a ranked squad, and now Southern Miss has to get past Memphis (LOLZ) to lock up C-USA East. And it’s all thanks to the hedgehog mentality of the Blazers:

“We don’t get down. We just kind of roll,” Blazers coach Neil Callaway said.

Roll on, you crazy diamond. Roll on. [RECAP | BOX]

Read More…

Tyler Tettleton and MAC East champion Ohio survived Bowling Green 29-28 on a 23-yard field goal as time expired. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

• Ohio 29, Bowling Green 28: Your 2011 MAC East champions didn’t put on quite as dramatic a performance as we’ve seen from certain other recent weeknight conference games, but there was suspense to be had, in the form of a game-winning field goal with three seconds remaining on the clock. 23 yards! Caliente! [RECAP | BOX]

• Western Michigan 24, Miami (Ohio) 21: You like passing? Zac Dysert and Alex Carder combined for 842 aerial yards. [RECAP | BOX]

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold: It’s been an alarming 24 hours for coaching news. The universe continues to contrive to create job openings in order to keep Houston Nutt in the SEC, with Texas A&M on a three-game losing streak and now Gary Pinkel’s DWI arrest. And New Mexico has gone and hired Bob Davie, for which we should all be grateful, as it will greatly reduce the time we have to listen to him speak on television.

• Penn State things: SI’s special report on the Jerry Sandusky case, from the latest issue of the magazine, is now available online. A new judge has been assigned following some glaring conflict of interest concerns. Police are contradicting claims made by Mike McQueary. Nobody seems to think the university’s open-records law exemption is a good idea. And read with amazement how the internet played an instigating role in the investigation.

Read More…