After impressing in backup duty last season, Eddie Lacy will be Alabama’s starting running back in 2012. (Getty Images)

A host of household names departed the corps of college football last winter. So did some lesser-known but crucial moving parts. Today, we get acquainted with their replacements. Here are 10 teams (listed alphabetically) with gaping holes to fill:

Alabama: Trent Richardson

Last year: Richardson finished the 2011 season ranked fifth nationally in rushing, averaging perilously close to 130 ground yards per contest. He ranked sixth in scoring, averaging more than 11 points per contest. About all he failed to do was follow up Mark Ingram’s Heisman with a stiffarm trophy of his own.

This year: The next guy up, if you want to get technical about it, is 2011′s No. 2 man Eddie Lacy. It’s a big dropoff from Richardson’s 130-yard average production to Lacy’s 56, but you have to like the numbers Lacy put up on such a paltry allowance of carries (674 rushing yards, 95 touches). Lacy recently returned to action following offseason foot surgery and will be a full participant in fall camp.

But like CBS’ Daniel Lewis, we are almost more intrigued by the guys coming up behind Lacy: Jalston Fowler, Dee Hart and T.J. Yeldon. These players are always fun to track at ‘Bama because, like Richardson behind Ingram, they are undeniably talented, have to wait their turn and will be endlessly clamored for on the radio and message boards the first time Lacy has an off night.

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We take longstanding college football rivalries as seriously as any media outlet in the nation around here, which is to say they are revered with a solemnity ancient cultures might have reserved for fertility rituals. Open season on one’s most be-loathed opponents never ends. Everything is fair game. Until it isn’t:

Alabama RB Trent Richardson takes Crimson Tide fan and cancer survivor Courtney Alvis to her senior prom » youtu.be/yUlBK_MyzaM

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 15, 2012

That’ll do it. Alabama football is currently impervious to comedic jabs of all types. There is honestly nothing not to like here. Trent Richardson is an excellent human being in addition to a beastly football player, and we can even do a little smug hipster preening at remembering how we always did like him a little better than Mark Ingram. The strain will be difficult, but some day in the distant future, a new outlet for japing will present itself, and until then, we’ll just have to –

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Alabama's 21-0 win over LSU in the title game gave Nick Saban his record third BCS championship. (Al Tielemans/SI)

Alabama 21, LSU 0: RECAP | BOX | MANDEL | STAPLES | MORE COVERAGE

Quarterback AJ McCarron and linebacker Courtney Upshaw walk away from Alabama’s latest national title victory with MVP honors, and deservedly so. Now, to reward and shun the rest of the field:

• MVP, replacement part edition: Kevin Norwood, Alabama. The sophomore wide receiver recorded stats in just four games this season, and it’s telling that those games were Kent State, Penn State, Mississippi State and Georgia Southern. Thrust into a greater role tonight after the injury to No. 1 receiver Marquis Maze, Norwood led the team with 78 yards’ worth of catches, including a long of 26 yards, tied for Alabama’s longest reception of the night.

• Play of the game, drama masks edition: Good who’s-boss fun: Maze hurtling downfield with a Brad Wing punt for a 49-yard return, upending entirely our favorite stat of LSU having allowed only six net punt return yards all season. Very bad consequence: Maze messing up his hamstring on the effort and spending the rest of the game on the sidelines.

• Play of the game, Bronx cheer edition: Jordan Jefferson, not too long after being audibly booed in a de facto home game for the national title, broke off an 18-yard run that took the Tigers from midfield to the Alabama 32-yard line, the first time LSU crossed midfield on offense all night. This valiant act, of course, was followed up by a run play that lost three yards, a five-yard penalty, two incomplete passes and a sack on Jefferson that cost LSU 10 more yards and the ball. [SFX: sad trombone]

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In the absence of Brad Wing, Robert Griffin III will have to do as Heisman Trophy winner. (Icon SMI)

• And then there were five, and one was III: Robert Griffin III is indeed a Heisman Trophy finalist, alongside Andrew Luck, Montee Ball, Tyrann Mathieu and Trent Richardson. The continued exclusion of Brad Wing from these lists is constantly upsetting. He’s not on our People’s Heisman poll either, but you can vote for some other nice young people.

• Fresh coaches, bought and sold: Add Greg McMackin to our Canned Coaches Cubby. (He wasn’t technically canned, but he’s gone, and I like the Spam connection.)

• In which Chris Petersen cops to the glaring problem with the Coaches’ Poll: “I know how I voted and I know what I’m trying to do, which is make the best case for Boise State to get in there, so I probably shouldn’t be a voter.”

• Penn State things: ABC News is reporting that eight alleged victims will testify against Jerry Sandusky. Meanwhile, does the headline “NCAA considers advisory role on abuse guidelines” make anybody else moderately uncomfortable, for the sole reason that the NCAA doesn’t seem very good at the jobs it actually does have?

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Running back Donte Harden and Ohio outlasted Blaze Caponegro and Temple 35-31 on Wednesday night. (US PRESSWIRE)

• Ohio 35, Temple 31: In the Wednesday night MAC All-Name battle, Ohio quarterback Tyler Tettleton defeated Temple defensive coordinator Chuck Heater, and the Bobcats made it three in a row in their highly successful campaign to derail the Owl’s Novembers.  Ohio attained bowl eligibility and the division lead in one fell swoop, and all seemingly because it was lucky enough to have the ball last. Chris Coyer replaced Chester Stewart at quarterback before the first quarter was even over, and went on to throw three touchdown passes and run for 184 yards, but so much for that newly stalwart Owls’ defense: Tettleton alone accounted for 258 yards and three touchdowns, with the Bobcats gaining almost twice as many total yards (521) as Temple had been allowing in an average game. [RECAP | BOX]

• SBC through the breach: The Sun Belt will allow member institutions to handle the increased NCAA scholarship monies and tenures on a by-school basis.

• RichRod has some thoughts: Listen to Rodriguez flat-out cackle as he discusses West Virginia’s Big East exit hurdles.

• Quote of the day: “Trent Richardson just told us that he benches ‘about 475′ and that they won’t let him try to do more.” — Paul Pabst

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