Cam Clear, pictured here on National Signing Day 2011, was arrested after stealing a laptop from a Tennessee baseball player. (Landov)

Continuing a proud tradition of SEC football players named Cameron operating in a state of blissful oblivion regarding how easy stolen laptops are to track, backup Tennessee tight end Cam Clear was arrested Tuesday for felony theft after being caught with a Vol baseball player’s laptop. This being a college-athlete-swiping-electronics story, it will not surprise you to learn that he was apprehended in the dumbest possible fashion:

UT police detected Tuesday someone was using the laptop to log into the university’s wireless network and caught Clear sitting at the keyboard, according to the warrant.

We’ve said this before in about five different ways, but in today’s rapidly evolving world of technology, it disturbs us deeply that young Americans can reach their majority without understanding how easy it is to track gadgetry. Clear regretfully neglected to finish the drill in classic Cameron fashion by printing his name on the computer in letters visible from space or flinging it out the window in an effort to evade capture. No word just yet on his status with the team (UPDATE: indefinite suspension, ahoy!), but best case scenario, a stint in junior college and monster one-year career with an SEC West team will precede early entry into the draft. (Worst case scenario, he ends up in the What To Expect When You’re Expecting sequel.)

*And what the blue heck is James Cameron up to on the bottom of the ocean, all by himself? We’ll never really know, will we?

An SEC television network could be a thing! (Again!) From Sports Business Journal:

The 14-team conference has been negotiating with both networks this year after the SEC expanded with Texas A&M and Missouri. That triggered a clause in the SEC’s deal that allows the league to go back to the negotiating table with its partners [...] The bigger negotiation is with ESPN, and talks appear to revolve around an SEC-branded cable channel that could launch as early as 2014.

For viewers of a certain age, this reemerging possibility triggers one thought and one thought only:

Is the SEC Network going to get Dave, Dave and Dave back together?I hope so.

— CAPS LOCKA FLAME (@matt_T) May 21, 2012

I suppose this would be the ideal time to bring our secret Jefferson Pilot Sports Preservation Society aboveground. #teamdave #allofthem

— Holly Anderson (@SIHolly) May 21, 2012

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Learn something new every day. Dan Mullen just sat down and played “Stairway to Heaven” on the baby grand piano here at event.

— Joe Galbraith (@joestate) May 21, 2012

[UPDATE: Now with photo evidence!] Our enthusiasm for sitting through the polo-shirted cattle call of SEC Media Days just spiked mightily. We have already secured a borrowed keyboard for the occasion, and will be installing it in the lobby and shrieking requests at Mullen every time he passes. Top five, in descending order: 1. “Free Bird,” 2. Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” 3. “Shine On Harvest Moon,” 4. the entire songbook of Show Boat, 5. “Hot Cross Buns.”

Former West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart died Monday afternoon, the school announced, after collapsing on a golf course while suffering an apparent heart attack. Good football moments were trickier to come by on his watch in recent years, but our favorite Mountaineers game of the Stewart era was his first: that fateful date with Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

He is survived by his wife, Karen, and son Blaine. Our sincere condolences to the Stewart family. RIP, Whittlin’ Bill.

Beth Mowins (above) could see her profile increase after Pam Ward’s bump off the college football beat. (Porter Binks/SI)

More than a decade after becoming the first woman to call a college football game for a national TV network, Pam Ward is being moved off the beat in 2012. Via SI’s Richard Deitsch, here is ESPN’s statement on reassigning Ward away from college football coverage: ”For a decade, Pam has been a trailblazing voice on college football. She will continue to be a big part of our coverage plans across multiple sports including college basketball, softball, the WNBA and more.”

It’d be some kind of reverse sexism to defend Ward’s body of work because she has lady parts. I was never a particular fan. I like my announcers openly and brazenly biased (think the pair of relentless homers who do Hawaii games on the island’s local feed), unable to contain their glee (Verne Lundquist, whose chortles are a national treasure) and susceptible to stunts (Tessitore-Gilmore, who were famous for rifling through college students’ unmentionables on camera long before they became America’s Friday-night shootout sweethearts). But I can and will envy her ascent* and freely admire that she was there at all.

I’m also not big on the concept of “favorite female sports announcer,” because it’s a tiny pool and needlessly lops off a big swath of the population doing the exact same job that doesn’t change on account of plumbing. (It’s like saying “favorite freckled barista.”) But if I had one, it’d be Beth Mowins. If the Ward move leads to an increased profile for Mowins, that’s to the good, because she’s good at her job.

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Here’s the bear I got the other day.Hunt will be broadcast on the Outdoor Channel (not sure when).Measured 7’4″. twitter.com/Coach_Leach/st…

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) May 20, 2012

Good morning! Here is Mike Leach with a seven-foot bear. We could probably convert this into a Mike Leach Doing Mike Leach Things blog without too much trouble. It’s May, so we’re halfway there already.

Light reading from the past week to speed you through your Friday.

Yesterday, I shot one of the biggest bears the guide had ever seen.He has been guiding for over 15 years.Over 7 feet and over 350 lbs.

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) May 17, 2012

He’s being modest. This was clearly a pistols-at-dawn duel with a bear, probably over a garbage dispute, which the bear lost because bear claws make drawing from gunbelts difficult.

In other vital Washington State news. It’s May, and you can’t tell yourselves you have anything better to do than peruse this history of squirrel-related police calls in Pullman.

Imagine a world where Idaho falls out of FBS — wait, what? SB Nation dug deep into college football fantasia this week, examining a hypothetical world of NCAA relegation.

No matter where it is, they should just call it “The Rose Bowl.” The SEC and Big 12 are looking out for their respective No. 2s.

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Former Cal QB Joe Ayoob’s paper airplane-throwing world record is under controversy. Maybe the story will be the next big hit in the box office? (AP)

We know all you readers, like us, lie awake nights wondering how the story of former Cal QB Joe Ayoob’s world-record paper airplane winging could successfully transition to feature film. It’s just too pat, we agree, to end in a poorly-lit airplane hangar in front of a crowd smaller than the ones cheering him on in Berkeley. No, what this tale really needs for a dynamic third act is some juicy courtroom drama populated with characters one might encounter in a Christopher Guest ensemble.

The Wall Street Journal is here to oblige us, with a report on the “controversy” surrounding Ayoob’s record:

“Competitive paper airplane flying had always been, in my mind, what can one person do with one piece of paper,” says Mr. Kreiger, a 23-year-old engineer. Using a ringer, he says, is problematic: “I don’t really think that’s the spirit of the competition.” [...] A Guinness spokeswoman says there was no internal debate about giving Mr. Collins credit. But some paper-plane purists are still aflutter.

[...]

Paper-plane enthusiasts have traditionally seen theirs as an individual sport. The question now: Is Mr. Collins’s ringer a bad precedent, or has he ushered in a new era in which designers can focus on better paper folds instead of muscle tone?

It’s all spooling out in your heads now, isn’t it? Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara and Jennifer Coolidge as take-no-prisoners, never-say-die, cutthroat paper airplane enthusiasts? Just picture Channing Tatum as Ayoob, defending his case in front of the Supreme Court against a string ensemble backdrop score, thundering to a close with this real life quote: ”We broke a world record. If people want to try and hate on that, then that’s all good.” Chills. Working title: Desperado Joe, the Faux-Throwin’ Bro of Strawberry Canyon.

A word to all our bros out there hitting the salon on the regular (and there are lots of you; stop lying, because who doesn’t like a good foot rub): Tip your pedicurists well, particularly if you put your feet through anything like D-I football.

Pedicure with my mom on her birthday. #swaginstagr.am/p/KvMLa8Nr-4/

— Tyler Bray (@tbrayvol8) May 17, 2012

When we visited Tennessee’s spring camp in April, Tyler Bray spoke about needing to fine-tune his footwork over the summer. He’s clearly drilling down into the tiniest details to make that happen.

Dana Holgorsen vs. Nick Saban? Yes, please. (AP)

It’s not a done deal just yet, but if you’d care to have a sympathetic crew of scientists cryogenically freeze you to make good and sure nothing happens to you during the next two football seasons, it’s an understandable impulse: Alabama and West Virginia are in negotiations to open the 2014 season as part of the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic. WVU officials confirmed the possibility to the Charleston Daily Mail.

We have spent more time watching these two teams than any other save our actual alma mater, but even if you despise both programs it’s hard to deny the curb appeal of BOOM GRR DEFENSE versus HISS SPAT OFFENSE. This particular game of Red Team Blue Team, still more than two years away, will be hard to top for other neutral-site organizers in terms of pure built-in narrative and mayhem potential. Start building your Walking Dead bunkers now, Atlanta residents, and disguise your couches as chest freezers for the duration of the weekend.