Georgia gets Bud Foster another contract improvement
You would think schools would learn their lesson when dealing with Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster. Georgia apparently hasn't.

"Some of it was just conversation and then the Georgia deal -- obviously he’s very interested and it was something that could have been an interest on my part," Foster told the Roanoke (Va.) Times. ...

Foster said he talked to Virginia Tech officials starting Saturday about a new deal that will add an annuity to his current five-year rollover contract. ...

"The thing is here, Coach (Frank) Beamer has been extremely good and I want to ride this thing out with him," Foster said. "I do. He’s been extremely good to me. We’ve been doing this for a long time together and there’s no reason to stop now, let’s go finish this thing. It’s a good deal all the way around, I’m extremely pleased."

 Foster also heard from Florida and Florida State. At this rate, he's going to have a better contract than Beamer.

McElwain reportedly turns down San Jose State offer
But since he can't talk, we don't know for sure. (HT: Roll Bama Roll)

You do have to specify that it's Paul that's leaving, don't you?
Arkansas Expats expects the other Petrino's departure to have little effect on the offense.

Garrick McGee is the new offensive coordinator
That didn't take very long.

McGee, a former starting quarterback at Booker T. Washington and Oklahoma, becomes the Razorbacks’ first black coordinator.

He joined head coach Bobby Petrino’s first Arkansas staff as quarterbacks coach in 2008 after serving as Northwestern’s offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2006-07 and receivers coach in 2004-05.

"His accomplishments as an assistant coach, including as an offensive coordinator in the Big Ten, demonstrate his ability and his outstanding leadership," Bobby Petrino said in a statement.

But how will he deal with ESS EEE SEE SPEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!?

Maybe that was a high three-star ranking
Roll Bama Roll takes a look at Mark Ingram as a recruit. Let's just say that I don't think Nick Saban is a Scout.com subscriber. Ingram was a three-star coming out of high school.

Specifically, it tells you that the "experts" are in many cases so utterly unqualified and incapable of doing what they purport to do that at times they literally cannot read the writing on the wall, and that many times outside factors that should have no effect whatsoever on a recruit's ultimate rating do in fact have an impact after all.

outsidethesidelines notes that the recruiting rankings are still useful for getting a sense of which teams are drawing the best talent. But another reminder that sometimes the exception is the most important part of the rule. 

Not that the Heisman is that much better at player evaluation
As someone who still thinks there's some inherent value in awards like the Heisman, it's hard to defend that view when you have people out there saying things like this voter did.

"The reason that I voted for Ingram, Tebow and McCoy was because I saw them play the most. I never saw Gerhart play an entire game (we work all day Saturday and Saturday night) and only saw a few minutes of Suh’s game against Texas. I refused to vote for somebody based on highlights. And I think you have to represent your part of the country; in fact, there used to be fine print on the paper ballots that instructed balloters to vote "with regard to your region." However, I think it’s wrong to leave a player off your ballot completely just to help a player from your region, as apparently the case with some Big 12 voters on Tebow year. So I, too, an still unhappy about that injustice."

If only there were some device on which the Nebraska games were transmitted, like the device that transmitted the Florida and Texas games. Wait -- there is! That "television" you apparently have also broadcasts the games from Lincoln the same way it does games from Gainesville and Austin. (HT: SBNation.com)

Tebow prayed with Ingram before Heisman ceremony
I have nothing cynical to say about this one. I think it's a touching moment between two players who were competitors a week earlier but fellow human beings on that night. 

And so when they say no one is likely to be fired, it means heads will roll
Vanderbilt Sports Line takes another look at the vote of confidence for Bobby Johnson from the Commodores administration.

This is the right way to do it
There are plenty of administrators at major college football schools -- including South Carolina -- that want more stringent admissions standards to try to keep up with NCAA rules on academics. That misses what I believe the point of the new rules are (or should be). Instead, we should be pushing for schools to have more Eric Norwoods.

It was a satisfying moment for a three-time All-SEC player who was denied admission to USC three times in 2006 before being accepted on appeal. On Monday, Norwood became the first member of his family to earn a college degree.

"It came down to this last class. But he dedicated himself and he pushed himself just like he does in football" said USC academic services director Raymond Harrison, who was the first to greet Norwood when he walked off the riser. ...

Norwood also got a push from his mother, Anna Norwood, after he initially announced he was giving up his senior season to enter the NFL draft. While Norwood thought returning to school would improve his draft prospects, his mother was more concerned with her son finishing what he started. ...

"She stayed on me," Norwood said of his mother. "Just from the fact that this (football) isn't going to last forever."

A student who might never have gone to college now has a degree that will help even when his NFL career is over. Isn't that what this sport is supposed to be all about?

Why the argument for a playoff is hurt by continuing expansion
One of the reasons I don't want a four- or six-team playoff for the FBS, even though I would like the idea in concept, is that it's almost impossible to think that it won't eventually turn into an eight- or sixteen-team monster that will destroy the regular season. And when you start adding more teams beyond that, as the FCS will next year when it goes to 20 ...

Montana coach Bobby Hauck, whose Grizzlies are in the championship game for the second straight year and seventh time overall, has a much different opinion.

"It's a disastrous decision on every level," he said. ...

"When we assessed it from our point of view at the University of Montana, we figured it was probably going to cost us another $100,000 to keep the kids over Christmas," [AD Jim] O'Day said. "The dorms are closed, the dining services at the university are closed, so we'll have to be (living) off campus and eating off campus." ...

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Russ Huesman said he liked the 16-team format because with only a few exceptions every team in the field had a chance to win the title.

"I think every team that's in the tournament should have a chance to win the tournament, and that's not the case (with the expanded field)," he said. "They're adding four teams that have no shot to win the thing."

So it's more expensive for some of the schools and the coach of a team who hasn't been to the playoffs since 1984 doesn't want to field to expand because he thinks teams that get in under the larger format don't belong.

You want this?

Not good
I might not be the biggest basketball fan out there and I'm truly puzzled by the RPI, but even I know this is bad.

Out of 347 Division I teams, Arkansas ranks 305th. To put that into some unpleasant context, that's behind all of the state's other four Division I teams (UALR is no. 149, ASU is no. 164, Central Arkansas is no. 266 and UAPB is no. 279).

The good news: At the rate the tournament is growing, that would make Arkansas a bubble team in a few years.