Notre Dame defender Louis Nix stole the spotlight Saturday with this rumbling two-point conversion play. (USA Today)

By Zac Ellis

After yet another weekend full of spring football games, here’s a rundown of the latest news and notes from across the nation:

• Notre Dame: The Irish defense came to play in the annual Blue-Gold game on Saturday, accounting for 10 sacks, two interceptions and a safety in the scrimmage. The offense, however, failed to find its groove, with second-year quarterback Everett Golson finishing 6-of-13 passing for 98 yards with one interception. He was also sacked three times. Coach Brian Kelly said he wasn’t concerned with the offense’s struggles, admitting he’d seen improvement on that side of the ball throughout spring. But the offense did find a spark late in the game when nose guard Louis Nix III took a goal-line snap and rumbled in for a two-point conversion. Perhaps Kelly should consider that package for the fall.

• Alabama: The Crimson Tide were anything but streamlined in Saturday’s A-Day game. The Crimson and White teams combined for nine turnovers — six interceptions and three fumbles — in the contest, leaving coach Nick Saban understandably upset. “The biggest thing I was concerned about was how the team would go out there and what would be their energy, their enthusiasm, and their attention to detail,” Saban said. “I don’t think that there were enough guys that answered that question in a positive way to my liking. But I’m never satisfied.” SI.com’s Lars Anderson reported on the game from Tuscaloosa. Oh, and AJ McCarron’s famous female companion Katherine Webb also made an appearance.

• Penn State: Around 28,000 fans ventured to Happy Valley for the Nittany Lions’ spring game this weekend, braving the icy elements in State College. But there wasn’t much closure for fans hoping to get a feel for Penn State’s quarterback situation, in which Steven Bench and Tyler Ferguson are battling for the starting job. Coach Bill O’Brien was non-committal when discussing both passers after the game, but the competition may become more heated when five-star recruit Christian Hackenberg arrives on campus this summer.

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In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

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If Brian Kelly takes the Eagles job, maybe there will be an NFL team that Alabama could beat

— Brandon (@TeamSpeedKills) January 10, 2013

• Eagles to turn next to R. Kelly. There are folks getting awfully het up at Brian Kelly (subscription required) for his dalliances with the Philadelphia Eagles, who are just trying to live frugally after printing up all those WE <3 COACH KELLY cocktail napkins for Chip.

Elsewhere in coach-hirin’ follies: Obvious international superspy Bob Toledo will rejoin Rocky Long as offensive coordinator at San Diego State … Chuck Bresnahan will coordinate Willie Taggart’s defense at South Florida … Bill Young is out and Glenn Spencer is in as Oklahoma State’s defensive coordinator … Texas A&M swipes West Virginia’s quarterbacks coach to serve as co-offensive coordinator in College Station … and from Regular Virginia, Kevin Sumlin snags an assistant who’d been with the Cavaliers for just over a week.

• Roster blotter. Eddie Lacy, Dee Milliner and D.J. Fluker will all leave Alabama early to enter the NFL draft … Clint Moseley has left Auburn football, though not Auburn … also draft-bound, Clemson’s Nuke Hopkins, Washington State’s Marquess Wilson and Georgia’s Kwame Geathers … Joseph Randle to turn pro, per Joseph Randle … LSU has, at last count, 11 early departures … notable non-departures include Texas A&M’s Jake Matthews and Texas’ Mike Davis … and spare some healing vibes for Notre Dame’s Kapron Lewis-Moore, whose BCS title game injury has been confirmed as an ACL tear.

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• Good morning to America’s Heartland, with love from catlab. Team catlab, your one-stop destination for all catlab needs and services.

• I got those suspended-while-my-team-plays-Boise-State blues. Dave Christensen just sings it out, man.

• Soren Sorensen’s persistent use of Comic Sans continues to be excused, as He Ain’t From Around Here. The New York Times runs down college football statheads.

• On the Mike Leach Twitter thing. Brian Floyd traces the feelingsball origins of folks getting het up over Wazzu players being banned from Twitter, and Tom Fornelli dispenses sense:

If you don’t trust your players on Twitter then you probably have a pretty good understanding of the decisions college kids make.

— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) October 24, 2012

• And the seventh seal was opened, and it said “but but cash money.” The seventh access bowl may not happen, for basically the same reasons the have-not teams it would have welcomed into the postseason are have-not teams in the first place.

• Big East football: Pay attention. No, really. Stop making that face!

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Tracking the zeitgeist of college football’s third weekend through social media:

Will the Cougs be Leaching Las Vegas w/ a win?

— Michael Felder (@InTheBleachers) September 15, 2012

Terrible kill by Marquess Wilson. #Pac12Volleyball

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

Very appropriate ending to the football equivalent of raccoons rummaging through garbage cans. Sure it’s fun to watch, but what a mess.

— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) September 15, 2012

@edsbs Too bad Carter had to give up the magician gig due to ESPN’s ‘no Christian magicians’ policy. Same thing happened to Olbermann.

— Flubber McGee (@FlubberMcGee) September 15, 2012

Deon Bucannon’s four-way head turn there was magnificent toddler-opera: 1. “DAWG!” 2 wait 3. Naw I was– 4. DANG [flag]

— edsbs (@edsbs) September 15, 2012

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UNLV hosts Washington State tonight at Sam Boyd Stadium, where we were once trapped after a Las Vegas Bowl. (AP)

Washington State and UNLV play a single game tonight that makes up the entirety of your Friday college football viewing schedule. We’re sure you have so many questions.

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, need to consume this game? This is all the football you get for tonight, so do pay attention: The Cougars and Rebels kick off in Sam Boyd Stadium at 9 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• This is in Las Vegas? It is, but not Vegas Vegas. The stadium is several miles from the Strip, negating the possibility of leaping wide receivers and defensive backs being distracted from watching the ball by the roller coaster at New York-New York. And though we have been accidentally locked into it before, we are rather fond of Sam Boyd Stadium. The Las Vegas Bowl is there. It’s a pretty nice venue, especially for a program this size.

• What have we seen from these teams so far, in terms of actual football? Not a whole lot to write home about. Wazzu is undergoing the sort of fits-and-starts growth you’d expect with a wholesale regime change. The Cougars lost their season opener at BYU, 30-6, and came uncomfortably close to losing to an FCS opponent in Week 2, beating Eastern Washington 24-20. The Rebels actually did lose their FCS game, falling 17-14 to Northern Arizona, after dropping a triple-overtime loss to Minnesota in Week 1.

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Ring in the season Thursday night with the Ol’ Ball Coach. (AP)

Today, we are all Littlefoot, and these are our tree stars. Tonight in your living rooms and on your laptops: Actual honest-to-Sutekh football and two of the most quotable head coaches in the game.

Prime time

7:00 p.m. ET: No. 9 South Carolina @ Vanderbilt (ESPN). The Gamecocks clumsily pantsed the Commodores last season, in an ugly 21-3 affair characterized by ill-timed penalties and turnovers. Carolina sacked Vandy six times and threw four interceptions. After the game, Steve Spurrier called the performance the best he’d seen from his defense before excoriating his offense (and himself).

This night, the Gamecocks are favored by a little less than a touchdown. The player to watch is Marcus Lattimore, responsible for two of the Gamecocks’ three touchdowns in last year’s game, who returns to game action Thursday night for the first time since tearing his left ACL against Mississippi State last October. After Lattimore recorded more than 1,200 rushing yards as a true freshman in 2010, the loss was was one felt not just by South Carolina, but by the sport. (The other player to watch is backup quarterback Dylan Thompson, for those of you who like to make friendly wagers at home on just when Spurrier will yank an under-performing quarterback for the unpardonable sin of Not Being Danny Wuerffel.)

The SEC East will have a tight division race this year, even if it’s just a race to lose to the West in the Georgia Dome this December. Is Vandy coach James Franklin the youngest master curmudgeon in college football history? Can he match snipes and scores with one of the game’s all-time crustiest curmudgeons? He couldn’t last year, but this is growing into a whole new Vanderbilt. Just ask Franklin. NO. ASK HIM. [disconcertingly unblinking stare] Franklin trash-talked the Green Bay Packers in a roundabout way in interviews this week. Aaron Rodgers’ younger brother Jordan is Vandy’s starting quarterback, a trivia tidbit that could become the new Brock Osweiler Is Tall if the ‘Dores can back up Franklin’s assertions.*

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Give us this day our daily Catlab.

• And now, the weather. Today in Hurricane Isaac Affects Sports: LSU has canceled practice but still plans to play it season opener against North Texas. Oregon State’s opener against Nicholls State has been postponed indefinitely due to travel concerns.

• Football is here now give us football please and thank you. Today in Yelling At Your Television Provider: Pac-12 gets catty regarding DirecTV and its current lack of a distribution agreement … AT&T U-Verse plays footsie with the Longhorn Network … and we find ourselves among those unfortunate Americans with a cable provider not interested in carrying WatchESPN. Our feelings on this matter are summed up here.

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We can’t believe it either, Dread Captain. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE)

In one day, our battle captain returns. Glory be. Let there be football. 

Washington State coach Mike Leach, seen here pondering a heart-healthy start to his day. (AP)

• Let’s start our week off correctly, shall we? With some heart-healthy legumes and a quote from Mike Leach!

At a Pullman restaurant, Leach ordered a cup of lentil soup and fish tacos, prompting him to weigh in on lentils.

“I don’t know what a lentil is,” he confessed. “Actually, despite not having a great deal of expertise on lentils, I did know there was a lentil festival here. I’ll have to get to the bottom of this lentil stuff.”

Good morning!

• You’re doing it wrong. We continue to shake our heads at the entities preventing The Longhorn Network from reaching more homes. We have said this before, but isn’t it always best, as a species, to err on the side of More Football?

• Here is a photo of Nick Saban in an outdoor location that is not a football stadium or golf course. Still sort of baffled that this SEC beachgoing thing actually happened.

• Penn State update. The person identified as Jerry Sandusky’s “Victim 1″ is suing Penn State.

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