Quarterbacks Nick Isham, Zach Griffith and Colby Cameron (left to right) work simultaneously during Louisiana Tech's fast-paced spring practices. (Holly Anderson/SI.com)

RUSTON, La. — The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs have their cultural Airraid bona fides intact, with Sonny Dykes at the helm, a trusty Red Bull mini-fridge installed in his office and Tony Franklin ensconced as offensive coordinator. They run their camp drills at warp speed, where top receiver Quinton Patton counts hauling in 50-60 passes as a bit of a slow practice. But run the numbers on the 2011 WAC champions and you’ll find a team that generated most of its offensive production from a pair of running backs and spent an inordinate amount of time getting bailed out by its defense.

The makeup of his offense doesn’t frustrate Franklin — or at least it hasn’t since the Bulldogs turned a 1-4 start last season into an 8-4 regular season finish, conference title and trip to the Poinsettia Bowl. ”We had more injuries to skill players last year than anywhere I’ve ever been,” Franklin said, noting the Bulldogs were pressed into sending their No. 2 quarterback out as a receiver against TCU in San Diego. “We ran out.” He estimates the Bulldogs have run the ball 60 percent of the time during his two-year tenure. ”My deal is, I just wanna win. If that means running it more, we run it more. If it’s throwing it more, we throw it more.”

Dykes also credits an increased reliance on the ground attack for the late-season success, but this spring in Ruston coach after coach pointed to off-field factors and team leaders digging in their heels when explaining the remarkable skid-to-streak turnaround. ”We’re sitting here at 1-4,” Dykes recalled.  “We lost our first conference game, and all we talked about was ‘Hey, let’s try to win one game this week.’ It really took pressure off our players. Honestly, the way to deal with a problem like that sometimes is to just not talk about it. Get better as a football team, and the problem will take care of itself.”

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Joseph Williams, a walk-on at UVA, is participating in a hunger strike to raise awareness for the Living Wage Campaign. (Virginia media relations)

Developing a pet cause in college is a rite of passage as expected as changing one’s major five or six times, but something tells us Virginia defensive back Joseph Williams isn’t the type to chain himself to a historic tree to impress a girl. Williams is part of a hunger strike being undertaken by a group of UVA students to raise awareness for the Living Wage Campaign, which seeks to increase university employee pay to $13 an hour with benefits.

It’s a cause that’s particularly personal to Williams, as he explains in a blog entry:

As one of four children supported by a single mother, I have experienced many periods of economic hardship in my life. Growing up, I moved over 30 times – including various stays in homeless shelters, the homes of family friends, and church basements. As a result of these experiences, I know firsthand what the economic struggle is like for many of these underpaid workers. One UVa employee anonymously shared that though she works full time for the University, over 40 hours a week, her family was still forced to go without electricity for nearly 3 months, unable to pay for the rent, electric bill and other basic necessities on the meager wages she is paid by the University. Such stories are the reason that I and countless other Living Wage supporters have chosen to take up this cause and give a voice to the many University employees who often cannot speak up for fear of retaliation from the administration.

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Isaiah Crowell's 2011 Signing Day announcement has yet to be topped, but should be an inspiration for all future recruits. (AP)

The fact that we’re still discussing Isaiah Crowell’s puppy-bearing 2011 Signing Day announcement a year later proves that, no matter what turns the running back’s career in Athens might take, the moment was a smashing branding success for the University of Georgia. This year’s haul of signing ceremonies has been light on pageantry, although one Mississippi State commit did involve an actual human baby in his announcement. So wags the world away. In a fit of wishful thinking, we got to fantasizing about blue-chip athletes swanning about campus with jars full of stinging insects and elite high school prospects piloting heavy machinery through school property, and before too long we had this list of schools whose commits we would very most like to see follow in Crowell’s footsteps and introduce a wee young mascot at their Signing Day ceremonies. Those  Top 25 teams are as follows:

25. Big Cat Schools. Your Wazzus, your FIUs, your LSUs. Perhaps unfairly dinged because there are just so many Big Cat schools, and if this becomes a trend we’ll soon have a Signing Day entertainment market saturated by baby lions and bobcats. Any LSU prospect bringing along a white tiger with purple eyes to match the Bayou Bengals’ latest Pro Combat unis, however, will receive an instant and much-deserved rankings boost. (This being LSU, we estimate this is at most three years from happening.)

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Auburn put up a valiant protein consumption effort, but Virginia won this year's Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge meat-eating contest, averaging 9.03 pounds consumed per player. (Abell Images)

The 2011 Chick-fil-A 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 Cory McCartney’s game preview.)

• What’s all this, then? The game ACC and SEC lifers grew up with as the Peach Bowl is now sponsored by God’s House O’Chicken.

• Does Chick-fil-A sell its notoriously fabulous peach milkshakes at the former Peach Bowl, because that would be a really great business plan. Not that we have ever seen, but here’s a contact page in case there’s anything you’d like to suggest!

• Where will this game be played? Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, home field of the Falcons, the Georgia State Panthers and the SEC Championship Game.

• When is it on television? Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on New Year’s Eve. The game will be televised on ESPN.

• Whom does it feature? An ACC-SEC clash since time immemorial.

• What about this year? Blue and orange all around! 8-4 UVA and 7-5 Auburn get to ring in 2012 in the ATL.

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Montee Ball rushed for four touchdowns against Penn State, bringing his season total to 34. (US PRESSWIRE)

Snap Judgments from the Week 13 swing shift. For early shift Snaps, click here. For late Snaps, click here. For Andy Staples’ recap of LSU’s win over Arkansas, click here. For Staples’ take on Alabama’s rout of Auburn, click here. For a recap of all the Top 25 action, click here. For highlights from SI.com, click here. 

• No. 15 Wisconsin 45, Penn State 7: Who’s ready for a less-hyped but still-intriguing postseason rematch? The Badgers will re-engage Michigan State in Indianapolis next Saturday in an undeniably compelling first-ever Big Ten Championship Game. Despite two conference losses, there’s no doubt Wisconsin is the class of the [checks notes] Leaders Division; after a soundly defeated Penn State, the next-closest team to Wisconsin’s record is actually Purdue, which went 4-4 in B1G play.

We who presume to project the paths of seasons make more than our share of missteps, no less than we deserve from the football gods for our temerity. LSU was called a sure bust by multiple SI.com staffers in our preseason predictions (with me in the mix, sure the Tigers would lose two games somehow by virtue of Being LSU). A healthy majority of our own pundits predicted Denard Robinson would have a disappointing season. But if you’ve got a postseason hardware ballot to fill out, it would behoove you to check out my midseason MVP, Montee Ball. Is his second four-touchdown game of the season enough to draw your eye? With the first coming not against UNLV or South Dakota, but Nebraska? He’s within reach of Barry Sanders’ single-season touchdown record (Ball sits at 34; Sanders had 39) and has lingered out of notice for too long as it is. If you’re not going to give the trophy to Brad Wing, give wee Ball a ponder.

With that addressed, let’s not bash Russell Wilson by omission. His 186 yards passing and 36 rushing constitute one of his lowest outputs of the season, but his first touchdown pass erased PSU’s only lead of the game and his second put things comfortably out of reach to end the first half. And what short work the Badgers’ stout defense made of Penn State’s feeble offensive efforts. The Nittany Lions gained 233 net yards of offense and committed four turnovers. [RECAP | BOX]

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Robert Griffin III threw for 479 yards as Baylor knocked off OU for the first time in school history (AP)

Snap Judgments from the Week 12 late shift. For early shift Snaps, click here. For swing shift Snaps, click here. For Stewart Mandel’s take on the BCS chaos, click here. For Andy Staples’ Nebraska-Michigan wrap, click here. To see how Top 25 teams fared, click here. For highlights from SI.com, click here.

• Baylor 45, No. 5 Oklahoma 38: You might not be able to imagine a scenario in which you’d want to urge Robert Griffin to play more football without giving your own team an opportunity to answer him, but then, you’re not Bob Stoops. Tied 38-38 with less than a minute to play following Blake Bell’s fourth rushing touchdown in five tries for Oklahoma, the Bears sent Terrance Ganaway up the middle, by all appearances attempting to run the clock out. Oklahoma called time out. And junior receiver Baylor Terrance Williams quipped himself into local legend: “All right, let’s play ball.” Two plays later, Griffin had run 30 yards down the field, into Sooner territory. The play after that, he hit Kendall Wright over the middle for a first down pickup.

The play after that, Terrance Williams caught a 34-yard pass from Griffin that won the Bears the game. Baylor would recover the ensuing kickoff, and the clock ticked down and stopped, and the turf at Floyd Casey was flooded with green and gold faithful.

The deciding factor may have been that one timeout, but trouble was brewing as far back as that last Bell touchdown. OU lined up to go for two, which would have given them a 39-38 edge, but a false start set them back far enough to have to kick for the extra point and the tie instead. The Sooners ended the game with nine penalties worth 91 yards.

It’s a mark of the evening’s high drama that we’re into the fourth paragraph without discussing Wright’s Sooner-aided 87-yard touchdown catch. You can watch it here. I’ll wait. And the rest, quite literally, is history: Tonight marks the Baylor Bears’ first-ever program win over OU. [RECAP | BOX] Read More…

USC's defense has a history of failing to contain Oregon star LaMichael James. (ZUMApress.com)

Plot threads to track in Week 12:

• No. 18 USC @ No. 4 Oregon: I’m not trying to reduce the Trojans to one guy, but if Robert Woods ends up having to sit out this game, it’s going to lose its appeal in a big damn hurry. Limited in practice with shoulder and ankle injuries this week, Woods is traveling with the team to Eugene, but he has yet to be officially cleared or ruled out for action. This game has so much potential to be good television, but a lot of that depends on watching Woods and Matt Barkley play pitch-and-catch. These things happen, particularly this late in the year, but what a shame if we don’t end up getting to see these two squads meet at full strength.

The factors that remain: First and foremost, LaMichael James having the Trojans’ number. They’ve never been particularly adept at stopping him, despite playing the Ducks at a point in the season when it’s obvious James needs bodies thrown in his way. He appears to be back in fine form after missing two games with a dislocated elbow, recording more than 300 yards over the past two weeks against Washington and Stanford. This year’s USC ground defense is statistically stingier than the 2009 or ’10 squads, so maybe the Trojans will make a game of it. They’d better, down their star receiver.

This isn’t to say USC lacks other offensive weapons. It is, after all, USC. Wee tailback Curtis McNeal is coming off a personal-best game against Washington, and wide receiver Marqise Lee, though not quite as gaudy a threat in the return department, is on pace to record more receiving yards as a freshman than Woods did last year.

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If you thought the pouring rain would prevent Case Keenum from throwing nine touchdown passes Thursday night against Rice, you were wrong. (US PRESSWIRE)

• No. 18 Houston 73, Rice 34: It’d be nice if more television types knew about the Bayou Bucket trophy awarded annually to the winner of the Cougars-Owls game. With torrential downpours soaking the field at Robertson Stadium Thursday night, bucket bailout jokes were low-hanging fruit, and criminally underused. The rivalry game will move to Reliant Stadium beginning in 2012, where perhaps the participants will enjoy better drainage.

Sopping conditions contributed to a first quarter that looked like it might lead to a ballgame. Before rain even began to fall in earnest, Houston’s Tyron Carrier returned the Owls’ opening kickoff for a touchdown, his seventh such feat, tying a previous record set by C.J. Spiller at Clemson. Rice fired back with a strong running game, returned a soggy Keenum fumble for a touchdown and seemed quite determined to hang with the Cougars until three consecutive touchdown passes from Houston put the game out of reach by halftime, 38-20.

And Keenum, you might have heard, broke Graham Harrell’s career touchdown passes record  with his fifth strike of the night — and just for kicks, fired off four more before relinquishing his helmet in the fourth quarter. Quoth the quarterback, postgame: “That was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing football.” Yeah, probably. [RECAP | BOX]

• Virginia 28, Miami 21: Available data gave the ‘Canes the edge in a Thursday night Coastal Division home stand. Never tell Mike London the odds. His Cavaliers employed a handful of trick plays and abandoned their previously favored quarterback rotation to ride Michael Rocco, Perry Jones and Kevin Parks to victory. [RECAP | BOX]

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