• Hail to whoever can focus a camera that early. Michigan State is in the thick of winter conditioning, and Michigan State’s social media team is soldiering through with the Spartans, providing photos of a quality too rarely found in team Twitter feeds:

Mylan Hicks, Jairus Jones and Isaiah Lewis participate in Monday's 5:30 a.m. winter conditioning workout. #Spartans http://t.co/OMqSa3zf—
Spartan Football (@MSU_Football) February 11, 2013

Eschewing blurry iPhone shots really drives home the point that you are not up and working out at 5:30 a.m. in East Lansing. Bless you, boys.

• And bless you, Black Knights. Just remember who dragged you out of The Nothing and into spring ball: As we’re typing this, Army’s already been at practice for half an hour.

• Solved that thing. Will Katherine Webb in an Auburn/Alabama combo jersey bring about peace in the Yellowhammer State? Probably not, but it was worth a shot, right?

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• We put a lot of work into that headline. Be nice. Here is Ohio State’s new logo, to your right. Can you spot the changes? Do you like them? IF YOU DO YOU ARE WRONG AND GROSS:

Though Ohio State could’ve gone any number of directions with the new logo, they instead effectively rendered an end result that looks something like an Adobe Photoshop CS6 mistake from a first time attendee at a design camp. The biproduct is a mark that’s unreadable at best, and appears to the naked eye as “O-S-E hio-tat” (tattoos? Get it?). While the minds behind the creative decision could’ve properly kerned the logo, instead they elected to take the easy way out and completely punt on crafting the typography.

• Crootin’ comin’! Stay tuned tomorrow for our power rankings of ridiculous Signing Day stunts, and place your prop bets now on whether any of SBN’s helpful suggestions will come to pass … Northwestern prospect Matt Alviti is missing part of his ear, which absolutely does count as news, because February … and Reuben Foster is back to Alabama. (For. the. moment.) Did you hear he has an Auburn tattoo? Once or twice? A day? For the last month? Jason Kirk has an excellent point about that:

I really think the ballin'est thing Foster could possibly do is leave the tattoo exactly as-is and never talk about it.—
Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) February 05, 2013

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When my stomach growlz in class I look at the person next to me in a really crazy way so they think I'm considering eating them as a snack!—
Jack Mewhort (@jackmewhort) January 28, 2013

Ohio State left tackle Jack Mewhort has appeared in 35 games for the Buckeyes over the course of a three-year playing career, and is not, as far as we know, a cannibal. Probably.

• It’s really and truly over. With Army-Navy receding in the rearview, and a football-free week between now and the New Mexico Bowl, it’s time to confront the close of the 2012 season with the following range of emotions:

Everything is terrible.

• What verbal glories await in Hattiesburg? As a kind of farewell to Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Todd Monken, the Oklahoman rounds up a collection of his more memorable (if PG) quips during his tenure in Stillwater. One favorite: “Up until that point, there hadn’t been a moment for myself. Dana had been here, I was just running his stuff. Up until that point there was a trust, but it was still, ‘Who is this guy that stands in front of us?’ It’s like in ‘The Sandlot’ when the goofy kid with glasses finally catches the ball. It’s like, ‘All right, he’s OK.’ Up until that point he’s just the nerdy kid in the outfield with his hat on weird.”

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Bacarri Rambo had a fumble recovery and a pick in Georgia’s rout of Georgia Tech. (Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 13 early slate. For more, check out Friday Snaps, Saturday’s midday Snaps, Saturday’s late Snaps, our recaps of Michigan-Ohio State, Florida-Florida State and Notre Dame-USC and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 3 Georgia 42, Georgia Tech 10. Looky here, it’s two teams headed to major conference championship games next week! Don’t be too hard on Tech; the Jackets and their coach have battled the flu all week, were operating without the services of leading rusher Orwin Smith and still managed to pile up 458 yards in Sanford Stadium. It was scoring that posed the problem; Tech didn’t even attempt a punt in the first half but had three drives snuffed out by a fumble, a failed fourth-down attempt and an interception, respectively. Its second-half drives fared little better, ending in two punts, one touchdown and three more unsuccessful fourth-down conversions. Georgia’s first seven drives, by contrast: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, punt, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Mark Richt, in his postgame press conference: “Our goal was to win every phase of the game, for every unit to win. I think we may have done that.” Seems like a solid take, coach.

The result is the biggest margin of victory for the Dawgs in their year-end rivalry game since 2002. And speaking of records: With Saturday’s scoreboard assault, the 2012 Bulldogs are officially the highest-scoring squad in program history. That same 2002 team scored 450 points in 14 games; with 12 games down and two to go, this year’s squad is already at 456. Safety Bacarri Rambo tied Jake Scott’s school record for career interceptions at 16. And Aaron Murray is now the first SEC quarterback to put up three consecutive 3,000-yard seasons.

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UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin rushed for 171 yards and two touchdowns in a victory over USC. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 midday slate. For more, check out our early Snaps, our coverage of Stanford-Oregon, our look at the new BCS landscape and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 17 UCLA 38, No. 21 USC 28. You heard a lot last week about the football monopoly in Los Angeles being over. No, again. No, for real this time. Well, you’ll hear even more about it this week, but only because it’s finally, demonstrably true. (We’re taking suggestions on which board-game related jokes to start making in its place from here on out. Balderdash? Sorry? Jenga?)

On a rainy afternoon in the Rose Bowl, the Bruins dashed out to a 24-0 lead midway through the second quarter, only to see the Trojans snatch momentum back by the start of the third, by which point Matt Barkley had thrown two touchdown passes and defensive tackle George Uko had scored a genuine Fat Guy Touchdown on a slip-and-slide fumble recovery. (Storied rivalry, historic venue, high conference stakes, home-and-home jerseys AND a FGTD: This game had it all, y’all.) A pair of traded touchdowns and a successful USC two-point conversion later, and the Trojans were trailing by three points with a little more than seven minutes left in the fourth quarter.

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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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• Duck hunts. Not to be outdone by the LSU-Alabama trailer that dropped earlier this week, Oregon has released its own hype video in honor of the Ducks’ upcoming trip to USC. Among its highlights: The Duck learning to play Oregon Trail and doing the team’s laundry under threat of dysentery from a school employee, the Duck searching for a watch he does not wear, a covert laundry detergent handoff from gold-medal decathalete and Oregon grad Ashton Eaton and the implication that the Duck possesses a commercial driver’s license, which wouldn’t actually surprise anyone. Our one quibble is spelled out neatly by YouTube commenter “ChocolateJesus2K:

Wash uniforms? Oregon doesn’t wear the same thing twice.

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Tuesday night not all right for the Ragin’ Cajuns. (AP)

• Arkansas State 50, Louisiana 27. Terrance Broadway completed 28-of-39 passes for 374 yards and three touchdowns, but also committed three of the Cajuns’ five turnovers during a highly non-competitive home-field rout. Red Wolves kicker Brian Davis accounted for a full 20 of Arkansas State’s 50 points, kicking five field goals and five extra points. Ryan Aplin had a 21-of-31, 269-yard, one-touchdown outing; Rocky Hayes and David Oku added 86 and 83 rushing yards, respectively. The Red Wolves improved to 3-1 in Sun Belt play.  [BOX]

• Excellent scheduling news. Our absolute favorite kind of scheduling story: Power conference showdown! Oregon and Ohio State have announced a two-year home-and-home series, to be played in 2020 and 2021.

• Roster blotter. Charlie Weis benches Dayne Crist … Clemson defensive back Jerrodd Williams, who’s seen playing time in six games for the Tigers on special teams, is done for the season after breaking his leg in Tuesday’s practice … Southern Miss moves on to its fourth quarterback this season, Arsenio Favor.

• Hey, here’s a neat lead. “The Missouri athletics department is tightening employee use of school-issued credit cards after an audit found a series of improper purchases, including bills for more than $7,600 from a Las Vegas strip club.” Stewart Mandel has already cut directly to the proper joke for this news, saving you all the trouble:

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas … unless you charge it to your Mizzou-issued employee credit card. arkansassports360.com/88085/mizzou-c…

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) October 23, 2012

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After replacing an injured Braxton Miller, Kenny Guiton (13) rallied Ohio State past Purdue. (Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)

Snap Judgments from the Week 8 early slate. For more, check out midday Snaps, late Snaps, our coverage of South Carolina-Florida, Kansas State-West Virginia, Oregon-Arizona State and our complete Top 25 review.

• No. 7 Ohio State 29, Purdue 22 (OT). Braxton Miller has been knocked out of games before. Buckeyes backup quarterback Kenny Guiton had seen action in five of Ohio State’s seven games prior to Saturday, whether in mop-up duty or in temporary relief for an injured Miller. Guiton is a junior, albeit one with very limited meaningful game experience, but tonight in Columbus he’ll be something of a local hero.

In the final minute of the third quarter, at the end of a 37-yard run, Miller was tackled hard and had to be helped off the field. He was taken to a local hospital, the nature and severity of his condition undisclosed at the time, although it has since been reported that he is symptom free and will return from the hospital soon. Still, even prior to being knocked out, Miller was having one of his worst statistical outings of the season. Through three quarters, he recorded just 47 rushing yards on 12 carries, completed 9-of-20 passes for 113 yards, fumbled twice and threw a pick.

At the time Miller went down, the Buckeyes trailed the Boilermakers 20-14 behind three explosive Purdue plays: an 83-yard touchdown pass from Caleb TerBush to Akeem Shavers on the first play from scrimmage, a 100-yard Akeem Hunt kickoff return at the end of the first quarter and a 31-yard TerBush pass to Gary Bush. Ohio State might have been even further behind had a 34-yard Paul Griggs’ field goal attempt not been blocked on the previous drive. The Buckeyes dug themselves a little deeper with a missed 50-yard field goal attempt on the ensuing drive, but they held the Boilermakers near midfield — only to be pinned at the one-yard line by Purdue’s punt. Ohio State then committed a safety thanks to a block in the back in the end zone.

So you’re a backup quarterback, down 22-14 in the fourth quarter, to a conference opponent, at home. What do you do, hotshot? If you’re Guiton, the answer is “throw an interception, then lead a touchdown drive in the final minute, tie the game on a two-point conversion pass and lead another touchdown drive in overtime for the win.” Carlos Hyde rushed in the Buckeyes’ winning score from one yard out. [BOX | RECAP]

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