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1. I thought from the get-go that Florida offensive line coach Tim Davis's reference to Alabama coach Nick Saban as “the devil himself” sounded like a measure of respect wrapped in a throwaway joke. I think that’s how it should have been taken. The way I hear it, when Gator coaches hear that Alabama is looking at a recruit, they watch the recruit’s video very carefully. They don’t afford that level of respect to any other staff, whether the head coach has horns or not.

2. Texas A&M signee Kohl Stewart is supposed to be one of five quarterbacks reporting for summer workouts next month. The question is how long he will stay. ESPN.com insider Keith Law projects the Minnesota Twins will take Stewart with the fourth pick of the Major League Baseball Draft on June 6. That’s why the Aggies also signed quarterback Kenny Hill in February, and why both prospects had no problem signing with the same program. “They understood the whole time,” head coach Kevin Sumlin said.

3. I went to see Brad Paisley in Hartford on Saturday night (if you get the opportunity to see him, go) and in the middle of a very entertaining hour-and-40-minute set, he delivered a quick one-liner about everyone’s favorite former Notre Dame linebacker. From his 2007 album 5th Gear, Paisley played “Online,” a song about assumed identity on the internet. Except that he called it, “Online, or The Ballad of Manti Te'o.”

1. Tedy Bruschi’s election to the College Football Hall of Fame, coming two years after the election of his Arizona defensive line teammate Rob Waldrop and four years after former Wildcat defensive back Chuck Cecil, is a tremendous tribute to former Arizona head coach Dick Tomey. The Wildcats made their bones with Tomey’s Desert Swarm defense. Bruschi, on the ESPNU College Football podcast Wednesday, said many former Wildcats returned to Tucson recently and celebrated Tomey as he turned 75.

2. One other point to be made regarding the top academic schools that have risen into the Top 25: staff stability. Northwestern has lost only two coaches in the past five years. Stanford has largely promoted from within. Vanderbilt and Notre Dame are among the nine staffs that remain intact from last season. Four of the nine -- Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio State, and yes, Northwestern -- play in the Big Ten.

3. Duke coach David Cutcliffe’s idea that every FBS coach should vote in the coaches poll is a welcome bit of fresh air and about 20 years too late to matter. The ACC coaches are pushing for the coaches poll to be used beginning next year by the playoff committee. But what “official’ role would it play? The committee members presumably will use every bit of information they can ingest. But in the end, they will make the decision, whether it agrees with the coaches’ poll, the media poll or the guys in your barbershop.

1. Stanford has 26 walk-ons, and head coach David Shaw prefers that their identity remain a secret. “Nobody needs to know,” Shaw said, adding that even the players don’t always know who has a scholarship and who doesn’t. “I think that’s a good team thing,” Shaw said. “Everybody is treated the same. We’re hard on everybody. We push everybody. Nobody’s pushed any harder than anybody else. Nobody’s ostracized. They’re all in the same boat together.

2. Once head coaches decided to take themselves off the road for May recruiting, they have nothing left to do but talk to the media and to their schools’ fans. All I can say is thank goodness. That’s how we get Michigan coach Brady Hoke saying that Notre Dame is “chickening out of” its rivalry with the Wolverines, or Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops saying the SEC isn’t all that. Coaches who speak their minds and get ripped can get gun-shy. But I hope Hoke, Stoops and the rest of them talk like it’s May all year long.

3. Mount Union head coach Larry Kehres has a record of 332-24-3 and has led the Purple Raiders to 11 Division III titles, and yet he could walk naked through the set of "College GameDay" without anyone noticing. Retiring in May is just another way not to attract attention, and a pox on all journalistic houses for not making this guy a household name. In retiring as in coaching, Kehres is the Chinese Olympic diver of coaches. He executes his skills and barely makes a splash.

1. It probably won't be a surprise to anyone who understands the football culture of the SEC, but InsideHigherEd.com reported earlier this week that the league has the highest discrepancy in teaching salaries and coaching salaries. According to the website, the SEC had the highest increase in football coaching salaries between 2005 and 2011. InsideHigherEd.com also reported: "In that conference -- home to about a quarter of the nation’s 23 athletic programs where revenues actually outpace expenses -- instructional salaries rose 15.5% between 2006 and 2011, from $70,886 to $81,758. At the same time, football coaching salaries increased 128.9%, from $3,147,149 to $5,928,989.”

2. After striking out on former FSU quarterback Clint Trickett, Michigan might have found its safety net at quarterback. Brandon Mitchell, who announced earlier this week that he's leaving Arkansas, is considering transferring to Michigan. ESPN's Joe Schad reported Mitchell's other choices are NC State, UAB, Louisiana Tech and FCS program Northwestern State. The Wolverines desperately need a backup quarterback. Devin Gardner is replacing Denard Robinson under center this coming season, but the Wolverines don't have an experienced backup after Russell Bellomy suffered a season-ending knee injury in spring camp. Mitchell attempted only 43 passes in three seasons at Arkansas, after playing receiver last season. He'll graduate from Arkansas this spring and will be eligible to play in 2013.

3. Hard to fault Herschel Walker's nephew for not wanting to play at Georgia. Milan Richard, a highly recruited tight end from Savannah, Ga., verbally committed to play at Clemson earlier this week. UGA, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt also recruited him. Richard's interest in the Bulldogs seemed to wane after Jeb Blazevich, another highly regarded tight end, committed to Georgia. Few players are more singularly identified with their schools than Walker is to UGA, so Richard undoubtedly made the right decision. He can go to Clemson and blaze his own trail.

1. Of course the Fighting Irish are looking to expand Notre Dame Stadium. These days, any venue that hasn’t been touched in 17 years is nearly obsolete. But what I like about the approach described by athletic director Jack Swarbrick is that this is not a seat grab. For all of the plans described by Swarbrick, capacity would increase by only about 4,000 seats. The expansion is about facilities and creature comforts, and yes, we will all still be able to see Touchdown Jesus.

2. Oregon offensive lineman Tyler Johnstone said that new assistant O-line coach Joe Bernardi differs in style from the old-school ways of veteran coach Steve Greatwood. For instance, Greatwood wants bare arms in cold weather, the traditional show of toughness. But, oh, those styling Duck unis with matching sleeves. “You want to look good because you’re looking to play good,” Johnstone said. “Coach Bernardi agrees with that. He wants us to walk out there like you’re the baddest mother on that field. He wants the other team to know that, too.”

3. The power struggle at Penn State continues. Alumni who are upset with the board of trustees for its endorsement of the Freeh Report and its blind acceptance of the NCAA penalties, voted out three trustees last week and its harsh dismissal of the late head coach Joe Paterno. What has been dismissed as nothing more than rabble-rousing has in fact roused the rabble to act. The story is not going to go away anytime soon.

1. One of the small effects of the reduced roster on the Penn State players is that the players have to space out their reps over the course of practice. Wide receiver Allen Robinson said that his position coach, Stan Hixon, kept a close eye to make sure the receivers didn’t get overworked. That, head coach Bill O’Brien said, is by design. “I spend more time with our staff planning for practice every day personally than I have ever been around,” said O’Brien, who’s been coaching for more than 20 years.

2. Oklahoma junior quarterback Blake Bell gained a reputation over the past two seasons as the 6-6, 254-pound “Belldozer” who excelled in the Sooners’ goal-line and short-yardage offenses. But as Big 12 blogger David Ubben pointed out on the new ESPN College Football Podcast, the Sooners recruited Bell as a passer. He threw for nearly 6,000 yards and 69 touchdowns in 2008-09 at Wichita (Kan.) Bishop Carroll High. In a league in which no quarterback has more than 18 starts, the Sooners should be fine.

3. Work on the new, $66 million College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta began in January. It fell behind a couple of weeks early because work crews found the foundations of 19th-century dwellings beneath the surface of the land. Hall president John Stephenson said that workers also found a layer of ash -- the residue left when Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta during the Civil War.

1. The college football world is tapping its fingers impatiently waiting for The College Football Playoff. That’s too bad for a couple of reasons. First, no matter the excitement, the game won’t be here for 20 months. Second, the final BCS title will be played in Pasadena a week after the 100th Rose Bowl. That’s a legendary doubleheader at the most historic site in the game. Sign me up.

2. Stanford released its post-spring depth chart on Monday. Fifth-year seniors Anthony Wilkerson and Tyler Gaffney are listed as co-starters at tailback. Redshirt freshman Barry J. Sanders needs to learn pass protection before he moves up the chart. But he’s one of six backs who will play. Offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren laughed as he told this story: “Tavita Pritchard is our new running backs coach. We watched Barry make six cuts and make 10 people miss, and somebody said, ‘Tavita, you’re doing a helluva job.’”

3. Wake Forest won the 2006 ACC championship in part because head coach Jim Grobe annually does a great job of redshirting. Having older, more mature players has been a way for the have-nots to play the haves. But as Demon Deacons offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke told my colleague Heather Dinich, Grobe is getting impatient. He wants to win now. To do that, he believes playing freshmen is more important than saving them. Is this a message that freshmen are more ready then ever? Or is it merely the work of a coaching lifer who wants to keep coaching? I think it’s the latter.

1. About the College Football Playoff: I like the name. The Super Bowl isn’t going to morph into the Pro Football Playoff anytime soon, and Mercedes-Benz isn’t going to rename its S600 the Luxury Sedan. But the College Football Playoff has clean lines. It is Zen. And after the complicated, godforsaken, unloved BCS, the College Football Playoff is exactly what the sport needs. At long last, no one has to explain anything. On the other hand, the BCS sure drummed up attention. Can the Playoff match it?

2. Former Oregon head coaches Rich Brooks and Mike Bellotti visited the Ducks’ practice Monday morning at the invitation of new head coach Mark Helfrich. Afterward, Brooks couldn’t get over what he saw from third-year sophomore quarterback Marcus Mariota. “He’s so accurate,” Brooks said. “That’s unusual for a young player. I was amazed at his accuracy last year.” Mariota completed 230-of-336 passes (.684) in his first season and led the Pac-12 in passing efficiency. Wait until Oregon opens up the playbook for him.

3. Iowa offensive line coach Brian Ferentz, in describing how his young players learned their jobs this spring, gave a perspective on his head coach that only a son can provide. “It’s kind of like I remember watching Steven learning how to swim,” Brian said of his younger brother, now a Hawkeyes lineman. “My dad (Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz) picked him up and threw him in the water and he learned how to swim.” Not to worry: Steve wore floaties. But that’s not the point. “You throw them in,” Brian said, “they splash around the water a little bit, and they figure out it’s not that bad. They are floating. They will live.”

1. The ACC administrators all leapt to praise commissioner John Swofford on Monday for keeping the league united for the next 14 years. OK, fine. But it seems to me that the praise belongs to the schools themselves. North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Florida State, Clemson -- nearly every ACC institution has had its name linked to another league. The schools decided they had enough money, and stuck with their history and tradition. They stuck with each other. And Maryland will go play Purdue.

2. Oklahoma State senior cornerback Justin Gilbert picked off two passes in the spring game Saturday and returned them for 108 yards. Head coach Mike Gundy praised him, of course, but Gundy’s comment last week is what caught my eye. “Justin’s had a really nice change of attitude in the past few months,” Gundy said. Or, as Hall of Fame coach Don James of Washington once said. “When they’re freshmen, you wonder why you recruited them. When they’re seniors, you wish they would never leave.”

3. The performance of the spring in the SEC goes to the Auburn fans. The Tigers are coming off a 3-9 season and have lost 10 consecutive SEC games. Yet 83,000 fans turned out for the spring game Saturday, about 5,000 more than rival Alabama, the BCS champion, drew at the same time. Yes, the Auburn fans went to say goodbye to the trees at Toomer’s Corner. But the truth is, that spirit is more important than the changes made by new coach Gus Malzahn. That spirit will keep Auburn from staying down long.

1. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, speaking on the Longhorn Network, sounded genuinely excited about the new college football playoff. “I really feel like we are close to getting it right,” Bowlsby said. And here’s a nugget for those of us old enough to remember the special feeling of the New Year’s Day bowls. With the semifinals, Bowlsby said, “We will recapture December 31 and January 1 for college football. And that’s going to be a special festival.”

2. The relationship between the University of Oregon and Willie Lyles, the Texas-based talent spotter, wedged itself into the space between the lines of the NCAA Manual the moment that Oregon paid Lyles $25,000 for outdated, slapdash evaluations. But according to the media reports on the document dump executed by Oregon this week, the gray area is more light than dark. If the NCAA didn’t find a lack of institutional control, then Oregon is guilty of a misdemeanor, not a felony. That makes all the difference.

3. The Alabama football team made its third trip to the White House in the past four years. In 2010, President Obama hosted the Crimson Tide in the East Room; in 2012, on the South Lawn, and on Monday, on the South Portico. “They are starting to learn their way around the White House,” the President said. “I was thinking about just having some cots for them here, they’re here so often -- except we couldn’t find any that were big enough.” The Alabama traveling party left the White House just 20 minutes before the explosions in Boston.

1. A terrorist attack is temporary. The changes it renders to society are not. Security around major American sporting events tightened after 9/11. It would be no surprise if events on the level of the Boston Marathon -- such as college football bowls and major rivalries -- will take on the added responsibility and the added burden of increased security. And all of us as a society lose another bit of innocence.

2. Georgia coach Mark Richt went from the regular season to bowl season to recruiting to offseason conditioning to spring practice. Now that the Bulldogs have finished and Richt has room to breathe, he has circled back to last season to begin watching every game -- the TV video, not the coaches' video. Richt said he gets a better sense of the emotion of the game and of what Bulldog fans see. And, Richt said, watching the games keeps him on the treadmill another 30 minutes.

3. It is to my enduring regret that my exposure to Frosty Westering, who died Friday at age 85, was limited to a handful of phone conversations. Westering coached at Pacific Lutheran, where in more than 32 seasons he won 305 games and four national championships (NAIA and Division III). Westering taught his players football, but he taught them so much more about how to live a live filled with gratitude, with charity and with love. He was an American original. Read Chuck Culpepper's remembrance here.

1. Penn State senior guard John Urschel, a grad student in mathematics, is teaching a trigonometry class this semester. “I get these printouts of kids that have to leave practice early because they have exams,” head coach Bill O’Brien said. “They color-code it. A freshman, it’s yellow. A sophomore, he’s red. If a kid’s a junior, it’s blue. Whatever. So Urschel is purple. ‘What is this color?’ I asked. He said, ‘He’s leaving practice because he’s giving the exam. He’s the professor!’” O’Brien laughed. “I’ve seen it all now.”

2. With the decision of former Notre Dame quarterback Gunner Kiel to transfer to Cincinnati, the head coach formerly known as the Riverboat Gambler is on a hot streak. Kiel is everything Bearcats coach Tommy Tuberville could want. Big body (6-foot-4, 210), big arm, relatively local, and itching to prove himself. Plus, Tuberville has two seniors who can play while Kiel sits out this season. Credit UC quarterback coach Darin Hinshaw with making the sale. Credit Tuberville with making an early splash.

3. My colleague Ted Miller posted an interesting analysis of the Pac-12’s turnover margin over the past three seasons. USC is a cumulative plus-1 under head coach Lane Kiffin, who had a veteran quarterback (Matt Barkley) all three seasons. In Pete Carroll’s glory days, the Trojans dominated that statistic. They went plus-21 in 2005, the last Trojans team to reach the BCS championship game (has it been that long?). The three Rose Bowl teams that followed went a combined plus-13. USC doesn’t protect the ball like that anymore.

1. The appearance is that Louisville’s run in this academic year -- a BCS bowl victory, and the championship game in men’s and women’s basketball -- will catapult the Cardinals into being the top dog in the ACC when they arrive in 2014. The reality is that Louisville would be No. 1 anyway, if the measurement is athletic revenue. Louisville expected to bring in $85 million this year before it capitalizes on its competitive success.

2. Penn State used its three outdoor practice fields for 14 of 15 spring workouts a year ago. On Monday, the Nittany Lions went outside for only the second time in nine workouts to date. Snow -- then the mud underneath it -- forced the team into the indoor facility time after time. As for the other issue head coach Bill O’Brien cannot change, the shorthanded roster, Penn State is long on tight ends. If you like the Stanford offense, with two and three tight ends, you may love the Nittany Lions this fall.

3. The past week has illustrated the complete spectrum of what we love and despise about college athletics. The drug issues and charges of wrongdoing at Auburn, shoved aside by the coaching misdeeds and boardroom intrigue at Rutgers, cast a shadow on the Final Four weekends in Atlanta and New Orleans. And then, 7-year-oid Jack Hoffman runs for a 69-yard touchdown in the Nebraska spring game, a reminder of the emotion that compels us to love our teams in the first place.

1. As Tom Farrey’s report on "Outside the Lines" illustrated, NCAA president Mark Emmert’s emphasis on style and message is nothing without a foundation of competence. Emmert ratcheted up the pressure on his employees for change, and the Miami fiasco is the result. In the wake of questions about the Freeh Report, the harsh Penn State penalties meted out with a holier-than-thou flourish by Emmert last summer look like a ready-fire-aim effort. In this, the NCAA’s red-carpet week, the spotlight on Emmert is harsh.

2. That wasn’t hard, was it? The old Big East came up with a new name, American Athletic Conference, that contains geographic meaning (the league covers a lot of ground) and can be reduced to a simple acronym that sounds like the other top leagues. Who knows if the AAC will be a success on the football field? The odds are long. But the league found a good name, which is more than the Big Ten and the ACC can say about its divisions.

3. Chuck Fairbanks, who died Tuesday of cancer at age 79, won big at Oklahoma (52-15-1 from 1967-72) and lost big at Colorado (7-26, 1979-81) and coached in the NFL in between. He got the New England Patriots job after Joe Paterno took it overnight and gave it back the next morning. The coaches who replaced him at Oklahoma and Colorado, Barry Switzer and Bill McCartney, respectively, won four national championships between them.

1. Hope you read Kevin Gemmell's piece on USC junior wideout Marqise Lee, who, like most receivers, can be only as effective as the quarterback delivering him the ball. If you don’t believe me, ask the Cardinals' Larry Fitzgerald. We got a preview last season. In Matt Barkley’s 10 games, Lee caught 107 passes for 1,605 yards and 14 touchdowns. In the two starts Max Wittek made in place of the injured Barkley, Lee caught 11 passes for 116 yards and no touchdowns.

2. The labor agreement between the NFL and its players union stipulates that no one may play in the league until he has been out of high school for three years. That may not be fair to guys like Lee. A basketball player with his talent would have been in the NBA draft last year, after his freshman season. But as a college football fan, I’m thrilled with the rule. College football is thriving. College basketball suffers because of the one-and-dones. How cool would it be if Kentucky were trying to repeat?

3. As Texas joins the swelling ranks of no-huddle, uptempo offenses, it is worth noting that of the five SEC teams that finished in the final top 10 last season, four of them finished ninth or lower in the conference for offensive snaps per game. No. 7 Stanford ranked 10th in the Pac-12. Huddle-up offenses and tough defenses may be old-fashioned, but that’s what a lot of winning teams still play.