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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Once again, Brian Kelly is looking for a starting quarterback during Notre Dame's spring practice.
(US PRESSWIRE)

Early last season, we wondered if the quarterback races at Alabama, Penn State and Texas would ever be settled to anyone’s satisfaction. The Longhorns may be giving up their spot on the carousel before too long; players are being ranked and re-ranked at every practice, although the job is David Ash’s to lose. Mack Brown has some well-remembered reasons to be overcautious in prepping a backup.

We may also soon bid a fond farewell to the Matt McGloin-Rob Bolden QB1 tango. Two seasons of trading snaps hasn’t settled matters as much as it might otherwise have thanks to coaching turnover and a full season of nausea-inducing offensive game film. But new coach Bill O’Brien is at least on the record setting the finish line, however nebulously, “later in training camp.”

Notre Dame, though. Notre Dame could be fun. Find what you love and do it, they say. Follow your bliss, they say. And if what you’re good at is never settling on a starting quarterback, well, best make that part of your brand.

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Obie gets to take off the suit (probably), but staging December and January games can be a full-time gig. (AP)

We joked Monday about how we would’ve loved to work for the Fiesta Bowl during the John Junker heyday, because who doesn’t enjoy attending $30,000 birthday parties? But you, gentle readers, may be as surprised to learn that bowl employees work more than four days a year as our own mother was to learn that we work more than four months. While recuperating from the crush of bowl season, Campus Union spoke with bowl worker bees and executive types busy putting bows on their 2011 games while laying the groundwork for the 2012 postseason. Here’s what we learned.

Months of moving parts

Every postseason college football contests maintains a year-round calendar of sorts, though we were surprised on both ends of the spectrum by just how many and how few year-round employees are retained by certain games. (For comparison’s sake: The Outback Bowl employs five year-round staffers; the Music City Bowl has nine, most of whom double up with duties to the Nashville Sports Council; and the Orange Bowl has 30, with plans to bring on an additional nine full-time positions this year to accommodate preparations for hosting the BCS title game.) The timeline varies wildly based on available personnel, resources, the organization’s presence in the community and how the game approaches its own team selection process. The first scout I personally laid eyes on last season was a very nice lady representing the Champs Sports Bowl in Morgantown in Week 3 during LSU-West Virginia. Both squads, of course, would go on to win their conferences and play in BCS bowls, but that early in the season, bowl scouts share the same disadvantage as the rest of us: All they have to go on is preseason rankings and their own prognostications.

Still, for a game like the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which draws from two of the more voluminous conferences, scouting all potentially eligible teams in person in a single season is a daunting task. Volunteer CFA scouts go out in Week 1 to begin assessing various SEC and ACC squads, though the bowl’s selection committee does not convene until November.

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Five-star tackle Andrus Peat headlines Stanford's terrifyingly fierce offensive line class. (US PRESSWIRE)

• “When you’re the first person in your family to graduate from high school, you don’t need to be sitting out.” Justin Taylor and family spoke to the AJC about Taylor’s decision to spurn Alabama’s offer of a grayshirt year and sign with Kentucky instead. The three-star running back and Atlanta native will look to infuse some life into a rushing offense that averaged just 124 yards per game in 2011.

• The SEC East resurgence comes not from the south, but from the sides. Andy Staples was on the scene in Nashville as James Franklin reeled in the flossiest class in Vanderbilt program history.

• “Urban Meyer can’t stop yawning.” An unfair excerpt from Stewart Mandel’s visit with the Urbz and his mighty crop of blue-chippers.

• They’ll breed. You’ll die. We legitimately fear the prowess of the linemen Stanford has landed.

• Go west, and north. Steve Sarkisian lost some in-state gems, but pillaged California in return.

• Jordan Payton settles! This counts as news at this point.

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Many Penn State fans marked Joe Paterno's death with a candlelight vigil by his statue Sunday night. (Getty)

I’ve never been quite comfortable with the notion of raising statues in monument to the living. What if Tim Tebow retires from the NFL and takes a job as an assistant coach at Florida State? What will become of the larger-than-life metal version of Nick Saban should Tuscaloosa’s generalissimo return to the pros to ply his trade? Right up to their last breathing moments, our idols retain the capacity to disappoint, merely by virtue of being human. When that happens, there’s an over-sized hunk of bronze hunching complacently in all its craggy glory, and we idolaters are stuck with it.

That’s a touch cynical, but it’s my cynicism. I wasn’t close to the Penn State football program, but if I’d been covering the team my entire career it still wouldn’t be my place to dictate Joe Paterno’s place in college football’s pantheon. If I’d been on duty this past weekend, I would’ve churned out a piece that sounded a lot like what Gregg Doyel came up with. It’s not up to us to tell you how to feel right now. It’s not up to anybody.

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High on Bill O'Brien's résumé: Coaching Tom Brady during his time with the New England Patriots. (AP)

Take this moment to enjoy a few deep cleansing breaths and remember that a hire is not a hire until it’s a hire. The Associated Press is reporting that New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien has agreed to become Penn State head coach, but that the details are still being discussed and nothing is official. Yet reality is congealing, and we concede: It looks very much like O’Brien to Penn State will happen.

And so, we’re taking a quick break from bowl coverage to survey fan and media and fan-media hybrid reactions to the development:

• Leading off with the loudest: LaVar Arrington, former Nittany Lions standout and staunch supporter of interim head coach Tom Bradley, is most displeased with the hire:

“I will put my Butkus (Award) in storage. I will put my Alamo Bowl MVP trophy in storage,” Arrington said. “Jerseys, anything Penn State, in storage. Wherever Tom Bradley goes, that’s the school I will start to put memorabilia up in my home. I’m done. I’m done with Penn State. If they’re done with us, I’m done with them.”

• Fellow alum Todd Blackledge also expressed his reservations, and on national television:

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Le'Veon Bell's two short-yardage touchdowns helped Michigan State force overtime. (US PRESSWIRE)

Snaps from the Jan. 2 slate’s non-BCS bowls, of which the Big Ten managed to win just one of four…

• No. 12 Michigan State 33, No. 18 Georgia 30 (3OT): Hail, Sparty the redeemer! At the end of a very long afternoon for the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten, following three dissimilar but equally dispiriting losses by conference squads (more on those down below), MSU pulled one out for the honor of Jim Delany and middle America.

The game began in most ignominious fashion, with the Spartans’ first drive culminating in a safety by all-everything Dawg Brandon Boykin, and two spectacular field-enveloping plays (an 80-yard touchdown pass from Aaron Murray to Tavarres King and a 92-yard punt return by Boykin) giving Georgia a 16-0 halftime lead. Le’Veon Bell made up most of that ground for the Spartans in the second half with two short-yardage touchdown runs, and by the end of his second scoring effort, the game was tied 27-27 with 14 seconds to play in regulation.

Which is about where the trouble started, although Dawgs fans fed up with conservative playcalling on offense might have a good argument that Georgia’s last drive of the fourth quarter sealed its fate. Here, as predicted in this week’s Bowl Breakdown, special teams came into the spotlight in a big, bad way. UGA kicker Blair Walsh, a Groza finalist in 2010 but not himself in 2011, missed a 42-yard field goal attempt (on third down, no less) in the first overtime period, after Bacarri Rambo’s interception of Kirk Cousins snatched away State’s chance to strike first. Walsh connected on a 47-yarder in the second period, as did MSU’s Dan Conroy. Walsh’s final attempt, to match Conroy’s third-period three-pointer, was blocked.

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Houston and Penn State were both hoping for better bowl fates than the TicketCity. (AP)

The 2011 TicketCity Bowl is just a day away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an Xs and Os breakdown, check out Andy Staples’ game preview.)

• Still? Yup. Despite the goofy name, confusing location and utterly ridiculous placement on the calendar, the TicketCity Bowl persists in existing for a second consecutive year.

• TicketCity? According to them: “TicketCity provides passionate fans the ultimate live event experience through personalized customer service to buy and sell tickets.”

• Bet it’s pretty easy to secure tickets for this game, amirite? A little too easy.

• Where will this game be played? The Cotton Bowl.

• But this is not the Cotton Bowl? And we’re back once again to the Champs Sports Conundrum! No, it’s not the Cotton Bowl. The Cotton Bowl is played in Cowboys Stadium now, and inexplicably has not changed its name to the Jerry Jones Classic.

• When is it on television? Kickoff is scheduled for noon ET on Monday, January 2. The game will be televised on ESPNU.

• Whom does it feature? In the august one-year history of the TicketCity Bowl , “traditional” conference tie-ins are the Big Ten and Conference USA.

• What about this year? 12-1 Houston will make a relatively short hop to meet 9-3 Penn State.

• Houston was a bad conference championship game away from a BCS bowl. How mad are the Cougars right now? About as mad as Penn State is to be relegated to the TicketCity Bowl at 9-3, I’d imagine.

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Louisiana-Lafayette fans (and mascot Cayenne) celebrated the Ragin' Cajuns New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego State in style. (Icon SMI)

• Bowltyme! Important takeaways from the first three contests of the college football bowl season: Wyoming fans are people you want to party with. Louisiana fans, even more so. Maybe give Louisiana’s S&C coach a wide berth. Illegal stemming: It’s a thing! Penn Wagers: doin’ Penn Wagers things. A Cowboys extra point attempt very nearly triggered our long-standing “hit both uprights and the crossbar and you win the game” rule. It was the play of the day, until the last play of the night. And I know you’ve found yourselves wondering: Just how are these three contests like artisanal pork products? [Recaps: Temple 37-Wyoming 15; Ohio 24-Utah State 23; Louisiana 32-San Diego State 30]

• A souvenir football on every mantel: In non-FBS goings-on: Mars Hill’s Jonas Randolph is having a pretty good week. Pittsburgh State wins its second DII title in program history. Wisconsin-Whitewater captures a third consecutive Division III national championship. And the States of Sam Houston and North Dakota will vie for the FCS title in January.

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold! Amid speculation he might leave for the Pitt job, Paul Rhoads has re-upped with Iowa State. Reportedly out of the Akron and Southern Miss coaching searches, respectively: Pat Narduzzi and Kirby Smart. And take a minute today to read about the effect outgoing Iowa defensive coordinator Norm Parker had on one former player. And Gary Crowton will do … something … at Maryland.

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Politicians are hopping on the coattails of this Boise State fan and other playoff proponents. (AP)

• “There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.” Now that changes to the BCS format lurk just beyond the horizon, with popular sentiment for those changes swelling in the wake of another controversial national title game matchup, here come the politicians clambering onto the anti-bowl system bandwagon. Way to be heroes, guys. Way to be.

• Smash segue! That student-athlete stipend legislation is indeed on hold, and the NCAA’s compliance blog has an idea for a fix:

The simplest way to address the issues with an unfunded mandate is often to fund it. However, that is often impossible since funding the program (i.e. raising taxes) is often as unpopular as the program might be necessary. But in this case, the Board of Directors could kill not just two but six birds with one stone. Because the mechanism for funding a large grant-in-aid increase is the creation of an FBS football playoff.

• Penn State things: Mike McQueary is testifying in the Jerry Sandusky case today; the Patriot-News‘ Sara Ganim is live-tweeting the proceedings. Gary Schulz and Tim Curley are also scheduled to appear this afternoon. And Sandusky’s legal team should maybe all just stop talking outside a courtroom.

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold! Rams fleeced! Get it?? And can we please all stop pretending that that gawky hatchet job video of Kristi Malzahn had anything to do with her husband’s career prospects?

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