Legendary coach Barry Switzer is the patron saint of Campus Union’s college football awards; Dana Holgorsen is one of our distinguished spring 2012 imaginary award recipients. (US PRESSWIRE)

[Previously: 2011 midseason Switzies | 2011 year-end Switzies]

Preseason football is meaningless football, but that won’t stop us from handing out imaginary trophies to the luminaries of spring. Be sure to also check out Andy Staples’ post-spring Top 25 and Stewart Mandel’s 10 spring lessons.

• The Paul Erdős Plaque for Most Relentlessly Complex Spring Game Scoring System: Auburn, which awarded players extra points for “explosive plays”  and consecutive first downs, confounding all onlookers.

• The Mark Mangino Medal of Mean Expectation Lowering: Quoth Dana Holgorsen, tempering fan panic as he tinkers with his offense: ”The guys in there? If we’re playing with them in the fall, we’re not going to win.”

• Most Likely To Announce His Own Retirement At Halftime Of The First Game Due To Incurable Sadness: We had Frank Spaziani slotted in here until about three minutes before hitting the “publish” button, when we realized we’re not sure if he’s capable of processing human sadness. Would Kirk Ferentz make an able runner-up candidate? He keeps right on losing running backs, had to replace two coordinators and has a Week 1 date with Northern Illinois. The Huskies are themselves replacing Chandler Harnish, but if Jordan Lynch can even prove a halfway passable facsimile … oh, man.

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Some light reading and our favorite stories of the week to speed you through Friday.

Everything I’ve ever known is a lie. RT @ASUDevilscom: Brock Osweiler measured 6-foot-6 7/8 at NFL Combine without shoes.

— Gina Mizell (@ginamizell) February 24, 2012

• Can’t trust a blessed thing in this world. If we can’t depend on Brock Osweiler being 6-8, what can we depend on? Next thing you’ll tell us Ron Zook is, at best, a mediocre and unenthusiastic jetskiier.

• More like “leaders of the pack beating a fast trail out of Denton,” amirite, Hoosiers? The problem, in the end, with naming conference divisions “Leaders” and “Legends” is that every league, no matter how stacked, is going to have its Indiana. Smart and sassy Michigan internet fixture MGoBlog follows up our shoddy “research” with some “research” of its own — and speaking of shoddy, Brand Explorers still can’t spell “analysis.” Fun extrapolation from the ensuing comment thread: “This, combined with the the poll posted on the board yesterday, suggests that Michigan fans disapprove of the division names more strongly than they approve of Brady Hoke.” Who just won Michigan a Sugar Bowl, you might have heard.

• The state bird of Ohio. Is not football, but don’t mention that to the northern cardinal.

• Ricky Williams, graven idol. We can only hope that future civilizations, surveying the wreckage of post-zombie-apocalyptic America, will find these bronzed tributes to our beautiful game and build a religion around them.

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After starting the season 0-2, Mark Richt's Georgia Bulldogs won nine in a row to claim the SEC East. (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 early shift. For late shift Snaps, click here. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For Stewart Mandel’s take on the BCS chaos, click here. For Andy Staples’ Nebraska-Michigan wrap, click here. To see how Top 25 teams fared, click here. For highlights from SI.com, click here.

• No. 13 Georgia 19, Kentucky 10: An uneasy afternoon for several SEC teams playing presumed gimme games began with one division very nearly folding in on itself.  But now the race is over, and the Georgia Bulldogs are the sacrificial critters who will be handed over in an early December ceremony to an SEC West team that will almost surely make mincemeat of them. My Athens-educated beau has been referring to today as “2 for $20 Saturday,” with slapdash games barely qualifying as football littering the schedule.

Georgia prevailed despite problems cropping up early and often in an area that has been fraught with drama this season: the tailback position. With Richard Samuel not slated to return from injury for several weeks and Carlton Thomas missing a game for unspecified personal reasons, the first drive of the game was about the worst possible time for freshly hatched star Isaiah Crowell to leave the game. He sprained an ankle during a collision with a teammate, and did not return. For what should be obvious reasons, the ground attack didn’t really gain any traction until the second half.

Aaron Murray appeared out of sync with his receivers, and promising drives were cut short by turnovers. We can let the defense escape largely without criticism; despite allowing one monster pass from Maxwell Smith to Matt Roark and committing a couple boneheaded penalties, Todd Grantham’s boys played lights-out ball. From here, of course, it only gets harder. [RECAP | BOX]

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Marcus Coker scored the first and last Hawkeyes touchdowns as Iowa never trailed Michigan. (AP)

Snap judgments from the Week 1o early shift, in which a whole bunch of teams need to go sit in their corners and think about what they’ve done. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For late shift Snaps, click here. For a review of the Top 25 action, click here. For game highlights from SI.com, click here.

• Iowa 24, No. 13 Michigan 16: It’s got to be the helmets, right? The Hawkeyes came into Week 10 hesitantly wielding the 76th-ranked defense in the FBS, allowing more than 400 yards per game with teams like Michigan State and Nebraska remaining on the schedule. But — perhaps infused with Ricky Stanzi’s USA-Number-One spirit — they banded together this afternoon to hold Denard Robinson to 194 yards passing and 55 on the ground. The superbly named Fitzgerald Toussaint managed only 58 yards on 16 carries. James Vandenberg had a serviceable afternoon for the Hawkeyes, with 171 yards on 14 completions, but young Marcus Coker was the key here, recording his sixth triple-digit rushing performance in nine games this season (132 yards, 29 carries, two touchdowns).

Play ended after a nail-biter of a final drive, with Robinson throwing four incompletions from inside Iowa’s five-yard line to conclude in futility a two-minute drive that began at the Wolverines’ 18. Expect gnashing of teeth from the Ann Arbor camp following several curious decisions on the part of the officiating crew. [RECAP | BOX | HIGHLIGHTS]

• Ohio State 34, Indiana 20: The shuffling Buckeyes were very nearly in worse trouble than the Wolverines. Ohio State hit the locker room at halftime tied with the one-win, no-luck Hoosiers at 13-all. After exchanging another pair of touchdowns to open the third quarter, the Buckeyes pulled away with two unanswered scoring runs from Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde, but it can’t be fun to have to actually work to beat this Indiana squad. OSU’s ground attack carried the day, with Boom Herron leading the pack at 141 yards on 14 carries. Carlos Hyde and Miller added another 105 yards each and three rushing scores between them. And if the running carried the day, Travis Howard saved it entirely with a late interception on what would have been a game-tying drive for the Hoosiers in the fourth quarter. [RECAP | BOX]

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