ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg

A little less to link this time of year. Bear with me. 

• Joe Paterno might be the old guy, but the Big Ten is well behind the times with its resistance toward expansion, Bob Hunter writes in The Columbus Dispatch.

Paterno said that when he starts talking about this to the Big Ten folks, "They're polite, but they snicker." Anyone who has ever seen a 13-year-old kid humor his elders knows the snicker.

"They don't know I know they're snickering," Paterno said.

They also apparently don't know what they don't know. The Big Ten has lost its edge in football, partly because its best teams are sitting around, waiting for their bowl game while rival conferences such as the Southeastern and Big 12 are playing widely watched league championship games. 

• Michigan's newest commit can be used in a lot of ways, Mark Snyder writes in the Detroit Free Press. Speaking of recruiting, Penn State added another 2010 commit in running back Silas Redd, Philip Cmor writes in The Altoona Mirror.
• Dismissals, defections and transfers contributed to Minnesota becoming the first Big Ten program to lose scholarships because of a low APR score, Dennis Brackin writes in the Star Tribune. 

"There's no doubt that some of the kids [from the 2007 class] were academically challenged," athletic director Joel Maturi said. "But we were trying to get a recruiting class at the end [after Tim Brewster's hiring in January] and we took some gambles, and lost on them."

• Bob Sanders and Robert Gallery top the list of the 15 best players in Kirk Ferentz's tenure at Iowa, Pat Harty writes in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. No Aaron Kampman?
• Former Indiana defensive tackle Greg Brown worked out for the Chicago Bears this weekend, while former Northwestern teammates C.J. Bacher and Eric Peterman balance NFL dreams with academic responsibilities, the Daily Herald's Lindsey Willhite writes in his blog.  
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jeff Potrykus wants to see if Devin Smith can push Niles Brinkley for a starting cornerback spot at Wisconsin.