• You heard the national champion Gopher women’s hockey team. “Do the Gopher!” they say. “Don’t mind if we do!” say we.

• Sadness and bitter recriminations roundup! Friends of the Program dives into Arkansas messageboardlandia … Wake Forest “wins” this week’s Spike Factor … shake it off, BYU … angry Memphian football types, you have been scorned by Notre Dame; please respond proportionally … and Colorado offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy will move from the booth to the sidelines for the Buffs’ upcoming Washington State game; no word on how that will help Colorado avoid giving up more than the 69 points it surrendered to Fresno State.

• “Don’t lie to yourself, or to America.” Pat Forde breaks down the holy rules of field-storming.

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USC tops the preseason AP poll, which means we get to use this photo of Lane Kiffin again. (AP)

• Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Hey, American Gladiators is on! Ow. The Associated Press preseason Top 25 has been released, for whatever that’s worth. And while we’re on the topic of whatever that’s worth, a gentle reminder: Preseason polls are worth a good time-killing argument, plus a bonus argument over the usefulness of the poll’s actual existence in the case of the Coaches’ Poll, and that is all. Would you like to hear our argument? It’s a good one! Here goes: We think there’s a better than even chance Ohio goes undefeated this year (that’s the Ohio Bobcats, because would you look at that schedule), and not a single poll voter gave the Bobcats a single poll vote. (We do not have a vote, and that is a good thing, because these rankings would take forever to do well and we would rather be making jokes. If you would like to peruse the votes of the folks who actually do this thing, here they are.)

• Starkville down a top Dawg. Mississippi State wide receivers coach Angelo Mirando announced his resignation Sunday night for non-specified personal issues, which the Clarion-Ledger’s Brandon Marcello reports are not issues of the legal type.

• Those Ds were his Ds. Julius Peppers speaks out on the unfortunate publicizing of his college transcript.

• Back to school. Chris Brown has written many words on the Sluggo Seam that you should read.

• Injury report story hour. Utah quarterback Jordan Wynn is scheduled to return to practice today … Michigan defensive tackle Ondre Pipkins is up and about after a spinal injury scare … Iowa defensive lineman John Sawhill is giving up football due to injury concerns … Iowa presents another injured running back, right on schedule … and Tennessee’s tight ends are already lined up over a haunted burial ground of some sort, so just try not to jinx the rest of the Vols’ offense.

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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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LaMichael James and Oregon beat UCLA 60-13 when the teams met last season. (Peter Read Miller/SI)

• Pac-12 Championship Game: UCLA @ No. 8 Oregon, 8:00 p.m. ET, FOX: If this weren’t the inaugural Pac-12 title game, it wouldn’t even be worth mentioning. The Bruins are the technical South champions, but the honor of the best record belongs to the postseason-banned Trojans. Everything about this game is ridiculous: The conference’s first title match is destined to be remembered as a joke; Rick Neuheisel wraps his coaching tenure at his alma mater playing primetime cannon fodder; and for comparison’s sake, there’s a MAC championship starting an hour earlier that looks like the hot television ticket of the evening. It’s nobody’s fault, but the Bruins simply shouldn’t be here.

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Arizona State fans got their wish when head coach Dennis Erickson was fired on Bloody Sunday. (AP)

“I’m concerned that by the end of the day there may be more coaching openings than bowl teams.”
– Stewart Mandel, November 2011

Canned Coachmas is upon us once more (presiding patron saint: Mike Leach). It’s the most wonderful time of the year – if your name’s Jimmy Sexton. There’s one very large piece of news this morning involving the vacant coaching position at Ohio State, which has been a foregone conclusion for some days now. Stewart Mandel has a fresh column up on Urban Meyer’s return to Buckeye country. Over here, however, we’ll be tracking goings rather than comings. Bookmark this page, if you’re into this sort of thing, as we catalog the firings, “retirements” and Actual Retirements throughout college football. This post will be refreshed as needed as news of more oustings breaks.

NB: For documenting purposes here, we’ll be sticking to news rather than conjecture, which means we won’t add new bodies until they’re officially defenestrated. To the already dismissed likes of Mike Stoops, Mike Locksley, Houston Nutt and Bob Toledo, and the slated-for-retirement Howard Schnellenberger, we can now add:

• [UPDATE 12/06] Greg McMackin, Hawaii: Following a rocky four-year tenure that concluded with a drop from 10 wins in 2010 to six in 2011 (to say nothing of the recent unpleasantness with points-shaving allegations), June Jones’ successor is hanging up his Warriors whistle. It’s probably time; how anybody can manage to lose to this year’s UNLV and Fresno State squads with Bryant Moniz as a quarterback, rampant injuries or no, is beyond comprehension.

• [UPDATE 12/05] Pat Hill, Fresno State: The magnificently mustachioed skipper of the Bulldogs for 15 years, Hill’s had a bad few seasons despite his overall winning record, and the party line from the AD is making it sound like ticket sales were the real culprit: “Our community was not responding any longer to the record that we had.” The 2011 team finished well out of bowl contention, with a nasty OOC schedule that included Cal, Nebraska and Boise State, but also dropped games to such FBS luminaries as Ole Miss, New Mexico State and San Jose State.

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Juron Criner and Arizona annihilated UCLA in a game that provided vastly more excitement than expected. (US PRESSWIRE)

• UAB 26, Central Florida 24: Arizona trouncing UCLA was a possibility that we could have conceivably predicted based on available information. More on those teams in a second, but first something we did not expect: The winless, lovelorn Birmingham Blazers, playing in decaying Legion Field on a Thursday night in front of an audience of dozens, knocking off a team predicted by many this preseason to take the division crown. Without their starting quarterback. On a field goal from midfield, with six seconds to play. Weeknight games, you give and you give this year. You really do. [BOX | RECAP]

• Arizona 48, UCLA 12: Now here’s one that could have been extrapolated, although there was no way to predict the level of entertainment this throwaway game wound up providing both in and out of play. The danger here is to assume that the firing of Mike Stoops was some sort of magic bullet to repair the Wildcats’ season; the first half of a ludicrous schedule included consecutive dates at Oklahoma State, against Stanford and against Oregon, while the later slate provides such relatively easy pickin’s as Colorado, Utah, and yes, UCLA. That said, it was really, really nice to see Nick Foles, who has long deserved better things (beginning with a better offensive line), winging touchdown passes with flair and not looking miserable for once. Juron Criner continues to make his assigned defenders look silly, one way or another. [BOX | RECAP]

• Now, what you’ve all been waiting for: This time of year, with your team as likely as not on the skids, you take diversion where you can find it. So here is video from actual television cameras and from accomplices in the stands of the streaker who took the field in the UCLA-Arizona game dressed as a ref in tearaway capris, blew a live play dead, then stripped and galumphed into the red zone — an event that preceded a bench-clearing brawl by mere seconds. And you thought nothing could top the gobsmacked spectacle of hearing Jesse Palmer suggest Mike Leach as a candidate for the Arizona job, on live television, while sharing a booth with Craig James. I will never again dismiss the entertainment possibilities of a weeknight game between two lose-happy teams.

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Matt Barkley and the USC offense took advantage of five Cal turnovers in a 30-9 win. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

• USC 30, Cal 9: Not as bad as 48-14, but still not good for Jeff Tedford. His offense is so out of whack that for one magical night, it made the much-maligned USC defense look capable. Monte Kiffin’s unit will be credited with five turnovers on the evening.

On offense, the Trojans are still displaying the same holes at running back (leading rusher Curtis McNeal managed only 86 yards; the next closest back had 30), and though Matt Barkley was never sacked, the offensive line was wobbly in giving both him and the tailbacks room to operate. Barkley’s output and completion percentage were low, actually worse than Zach Maynard’s. He was outgained by almost a hundred yards. But he stayed on his feet where Maynard did not (USC recorded three sacks), and threw two touchdowns to Maynard’s three interceptions. And Cal’s ground game was even more woeful, with Isi Sofele held to just 44 yards rushing.

It was the second quarter that decided things, with USC scoring 17 points and shutting out the Bears, whose four drives ended in a punt, an interception, a turnover on downs and another interception. But this botched fake field goal on the Trojans’ first drive was what really set the tone for the entire contest.

On fourth-and-goal from the 8, the Trojans lined up in an off formation and snapped the ball diagonally to Rhett Ellison, who dropped it for a turnover. Kiffin tried the trick play instead of opting for the easy field goal.

“That’s no fun,” Kiffin said. “You’re on ESPN. You have to do something fun.”

Were I playing a video game — which is as close as I’ll ever come to actually coaching — I would have precisely the same philosophy, so really, it’s hard to fault the guy.

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Via the Wiz, who adds this is from a 2010 fundraiser. I have to say, it’s aged beautifully, which is to say not at all. Just like Neuheisel.