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1. West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck, at the Big 12 spring meetings at the Arizona Biltmore this week, viewed the coming four-team playoff as an endorsement of his school’s decision to leave the Big East. Luck said West Virginia needed to be “across the fault line” dividing the haves and have-lesses before the BCS changed. One problem, Luck added: West Virginia now must pay Big 12 salaries. Dana Holgorsen’s three new defensive assistants got significant raises; the school’s other coaches won’t be far behind.

2. After hearing a BCS playoff update from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott at a meeting Tuesday morning at the Biltmore, Chip Kelly of Oregon said the league coaches don’t care about when and where the games will be played. They want to know the criteria for making the Final Four. “Just tell us how to get there,” he said. With Pac-12 champion Oregon finishing No. 5 last season behind two non-champions (Alabama and Stanford), it’s no surprise that Kelly endorsed conference winners only for the new playoff.

3. If you didn’t know that Stanford coach David Shaw expected an immediate contribution from offensive lineman Andrus Peat, the 6-foot-7, 300-pounder from Tempe, Ariz., you’ll figure out from the uniform number Peat will wear. “I asked him, ‘Do you know who wore No. 70?'” Shaw said. That would be Shaw’s Cardinal teammate, Bob Whitfield, who started as a true freshman, became an All-American as a junior in 1991 and played 15 seasons in the NFL. The most impressive thing about Peat? “He knew,” Shaw said.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Darwin Cook's life changed with one look on one day during his sophomore year of high school.

He arrived home and hid his report card from his mom, Corie Cook, a single mother raising two high-school boys and working two jobs. Cook's older brother had his report card though, so it wasn't long before his mom came calling for Darwin's.

"I had like a 0.3 GPA," Cook said. "I was in the wrong crowd doing the wrong things."

Normally, he'd be in for a loud lecture or a screaming match. This time, it was different.

"She had just a look of disgust on her face," Cook said. "She had that look of sadness and disappointment and just told me to go upstairs and pray to God."

Cook did. For the first time in his life, he really thought about what his life would look like if he continued down his current path. He decided to make some changes.

"My life just changed," Cook said.

The rest of his high school career, Cook says he managed a 4.0 GPA and was on the honor roll. That's only half the story, though.

Cook's relationship with football was always an odd one. He played in youth leagues growing up, but when he showed up to high school to play as a freshman, his coaches put him at fullback and on the offensive line, mostly at left tackle.

"I didn’t enjoy that one bit," said Cook, who's now a 5-foot-11, 204-pound junior safety for the Mountaineers. "I used to play left guard, too. I used to pull. That’s crazy, ain’t it?"

Motivation to play the game waned. His grades rendered him ineligible as a sophomore while his brother, a year older, played for his team in East Cleveland, Ohio.

"I used to go out in the high school practices just to watch. You know how Radio was?" Cook said. "I used to just watch, even in the rain. I used to be the kid on the sidelines just watching, don’t nobody know I can play football."

He'd played with his brother growing up, and knew he could compete. As a junior, with his grades in order, he tried out for the team. His coaches put him at defensive end.

"I was like, I don’t care. It’s football," he said. "I just wanted to hit some people. I don’t care about no college or nothin’."

After his junior year, Cincinnati offered him a scholarship.

"And at that point, I’m like, I really didn’t know what the scholarship was for, because I wasn’t reading into that," Cook said.

He quickly realized football could be the key to attending college based on his on-field efforts. A couple years after that day when his mom's disappointed face changed his life, he picked West Virginia.

Without it?

"I don’t know where I’d be right now," Cook said.

He came to Morgantown as a defensive back, but when he stepped on campus, he'd never actually backpedaled. His first drill in his first practice came against Jock Sanders, who graduated as the school's all-time leader in reception. It ended with Cook futilely grasping at Sanders' jersey and being sent into the stands.

"It was a rough time my first year, but I kept learning my first year and coach [Steve] Dunlap, he stuck with me and he showed me the techniques and basics of the game," Cook said. "Without him, I’d probably not be here right now."

Off the field, though, his transition was easier after developing good study habits in high school. He's a sports and exercise psychology major with a 2.72 GPA.

"I was really on my books and studying a lot, so that wasn’t really a bad transition, but on the football field?" Cook said. "It was terrible."

That changed his sophomore season in 2011, when he was the Mountaineer's second-leading tackler with 85 stops. Cook memorably scored a 99-yard touchdown on a fumble return in WVU's 70-33 Orange Bowl win, tackling the rotund bowl mascot at the end of his sprint into the end zone.

Cook's younger sister just enrolled in college and he's happy to set an example for his seven-year-old brother, too.

"Growing up, we didn’t have a lot. We didn’t have anybody to look up to," Cook said. "Now, they don’t have a choice. It’s either college or college. Because their brothers both grew up and went to college and that’s all they know."

As for his mom's face when she sees her son? It's a whole lot different these days.

"I just see her smiling all the time," Cook said. "It’s a good feeling."

Folks like rankings, which is why a lot of you had opinions on both Athlon Sports and our rankings of Pac-12 coaches this week.

There are very few naysayers to the idea that Oregon's Chip Kelly is an obvious No. 1. In fact, I'm not even sure how you gainsay that.

But who's No. 2?

That's the question before your faithful Pac-12 bloggers.

Kevin Gemmell: Since you went first last week, and I used it as an opportunity to take a shot at you about Darron/De'Anthony Thomas Top 25 incident, I'll take the lead this week and suffer whatever ribbing comes from it.

To be honest, I was pretty torn when trying to figure out who I would put at No. 2 in the conference. I think you can easily make an argument for three or four different guys. But I've also seen what Kyle Whittingham has done at Utah from the very beginning when I used to cover the Mountain West Conference.

His résumé is stellar, and his credentials are without question. He has an undefeated season to his credit and two BCS bowl game victories (I believe the NCAA credits him and Urban Meyer both for the Fiesta Bowl win). If I'm wrong on that, he still has a BCS bowl victory at a then mid-major program.

He's 7-1 all-time in bowl games. That means he's a closer. The only bowl loss was in 2010 to Boise State -- the Broncos' second football game following the Nevada field goal debacle. There weren't many that thought Boise would lose that one.

What I think is the most impressive thing about Whittingham, though, is that he's proven to be his own man. He easily could have fallen into the trap that David Shaw now finds himself in at Stanford. Critics will constantly question Shaw about if he can do it outside of Jim Harbaugh's shadow and without Andrew Luck on the roster. Whittingham faced similar charges in the face of Meyer's departure.

In that time, he's gone 66-25 and stewarded the program into the Pac-12, where the Utes went 8-5 last season, including a come-from-behind win over Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl. Sustained success means several things. He can recruit. He can reinvent himself and the team with each new generation of players. And he makes good hires.

We all know one bad recruiting class can set a program back several years. Bad hires can have an even longer impact. Whittingham is not afraid to take gambles -- and the latest one is naming former quarterback-turned quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson his offensive coordinator. At least some see it as a gamble. But Whittingham has given us no reason over his career to think it's not going to be a great hire.

The fact is, Whittingham wins year after year. Can't ask for much more out of your coach.

Ted Miller: I deserved the snark over the twin No. 12s. That was a moment of clumsy compensation for a boneheaded oversight on my part. Of course, you did steal my No. 2 coach, which I will write off to your savvy and your foreknowledge you got to go first this week.

And it gives me a chance to tout a guy who might shortly challenge for the top-spot on this list: Arizona's Rich Rodriguez. In fact, if we could make Rodriguez's ill-fated, three-year tenure at Michigan magically disappear, and then view Rodriguez as arriving in Tucson after a brilliant run at West Virginia, you would be able to make a case for him against even Kelly.

Before the disaster in Ann Arbor, Rodriguez was widely viewed as among the nation's best coaches. He'd been successful everywhere he went, and was considered one of the nation's truly great offensive minds -- not unlike Kelly. He went 60-26 at West Virginia and, after going 3-8 his first year, never won fewer than eight games. He also won a Sugar Bowl over Georgia, and his team won the Fiesta Bowl over Oklahoma after he bolted for Michigan. The Mountaineers won 33 games his final three seasons. According to this high-powered calculator, that's an average of 11 wins per season.

But what about Michigan? Well, as we've said before and surely will say again, his failure at Michigan was more about Michigan than Rich Rodriguez. It was a bad fit from the get-go in terms of his personality versus the "Michigan way"; Rodriguez wasn't able to hire his defensive coordinator, as he has done at Arizona with Jeff Casteel; he was shamefully betrayed and undermined by a Machiavellian Lloyd Carr; and it's not unreasonable to question the agendas of some of the media coverage he received.

Some Michigan fans take issue with that perspective on Rodriguez's Michigan tenure, much of which is detailed in John Bacon's book "Three and Out." But only because they love the Wolverines more than the truth, at least in this instance.

Rodriguez repeatedly has said he's not a quick-fix guy -- he, by the way, told the folks hiring him at Michigan exactly that -- and that it will take three years for his systems and recruiting to truly take hold. I doubt Wildcats fans are exciting about waiting that long, but the smart money is on Rodriguez finding a way to get it done in Tucson.

And, yeah, that means it's legitimate to dream about a first Rose Bowl within five years.

Wouldn't it be fun if it were against the Wolverines?

Oregon coach Chip Kelly was baffled in a phone interview before the Rose Bowl. How the heck could little-old-him be important to a reporter?

"The big story," he said conspiratorially,"is all these new coaches."

Well, it's the big story now as the Pac-12 turns its attention away from the 2011 season and toward 2012 spring practices. And, of course, Kelly is part of a reason there are four new coaches in the conference. Mike Stoops, Dennis Erickson, Rick Neuheisel and Paul Wulff -- fired at Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA and Washington State, respectively -- never beat Kelly and, in fact, came within double digits of his Ducks only once (Arizona, with a 44-41 loss in 2009).

But the story isn't just four new coaches. It's four new coaches whom folks have heard of, each of whom is getting a big-boy salary that would fit in among the SEC or Big Ten. Big salaries are the new normal in the Pac-12 after the conference signed a $3 billion TV deal with ESPN and Fox.

So out goes Stoops and his $1,456,000 salary, and in comes Rich Rodriguez and his $1,910,000 paycheck. Out goes Erickson and his $1,503,000 salary, and in comes Todd Graham and his $2 million tab. Out goes Neuheisel and his $1,285,000 salary, and in comes Jim Mora and his $2.4 million annual take. Out goes Wulff and his $600,000 salary, and in comes Mike Leach and his $2,250,000 price tag.

The chief idea is obvious: Pac-12 schools are paying for an upgrade in coaching talent, and there are high expectations for getting their money's worth. And, by the way, there's an added bonus for each hire: Each new coach has a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.

• In 2010, Rodriguez was ingloriously dispatched at Michigan after three tumultuous and unsuccessful years. Athletic director Greg Byrne is betting that Rodriguez is far closer to the highly successful coach he was at West Virginia than the one who got run out of Ann Arbor, and Rodriguez surely wants that impression to be his legacy. It helps that he got his man, Jeff Casteel, to run the Wildcats' defense, which he failed to do at Michigan.
• Graham took a lot of heat from a pandering, sanctimonious media and a whiny Pittsburgh fan base for how he left the Panthers. "He didn't even say goodbye," they collectively sobbed. "Waaah." Of course, Graham does have an unfortunate habit of describing every job as his "dream job." All that stuff is mostly hogwash, though. What matters is winning, and if Graham does that, the media will all come down en masse to Tempe pretending they didn't trash Graham's character for taking a better job, in a better conference, in a better place to live while making his family happy in the process.
• Mora was fired in 2009 after only one season with the Seattle Seahawks, and he's bided his time looking for another head-coaching job. Seeing that he was two or three names down UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero's coaching list -- Chris Petersen! Kevin Sumlin! -- some Bruins fans reacted with disappointed smirks to Mora's hiring. Then Mora hired an outstanding staff. Then he reeled in an outstanding recruiting class. Some of those frowns are turning upside down.
• Leach was fired at Texas Tech in 2009. He's one of the best offensive minds in the nation, and the almost universal reaction is athletic director Bill Moos hit a home run with this big-name hire. The Pirate Captain looks like the perfect match for Pullman and the Cougs, and he'll be plenty motivated to prove his critics wrong and erase the bad ending in Lubbock.

It's fair to say these four hirings have generated positive momentum for these programs, though, of course, to varying degrees. There's a hope among the fan bases that these four can create quick turnarounds.

And that also leads into another major coaching story entering the spring: The Pac-12's most senior coaches, California's Jeff Tedford and Oregon State's Mike Riley, sit on the hottest seats.

Tedford enters his 11th season in Berkeley having followed up his first losing campaign -- 5-7 in 2010 -- with a middling 7-6 finish in 2011. Riley, the man deserving the most credit for making one of the worst programs in college football respectable, enters his 12th year in Corvallis -- two tenures wrapped around an ill-fated stint with the San Diego Chargers -- burdened by consecutive losing seasons, including a 3-9 finish that felt so 1987.

Spring practices for Tedford and Riley will be about setting up turnaround season that give their frustrated fan bases hope -- and keep their athletic directors from issuing dreaded votes of confidence while checking their coaching Rolodexes.

Meanwhile, Kelly and USC's Lane Kiffin, still relative coaching newbies in the conference, enter spring likely trying to tone down the positive hype. Both will begin the 2012 season ranked in the top 10. USC could be preseason No. 1. Both are overwhelming favorites in the North and South Divisions. And their meeting on Nov. 3 in L.A. could have national title implications.

But that's looking ahead.

The big story this spring in the Pac-12 is newness and rebirth. One-third of the conference's teams hope that newness at the top of their programs will create a rebirth in the Pac-12 standings.

1. In a matter of hours after Fort Worth police arrested four TCU football players for selling drugs, they became “separated from the university.” TCU’s response gets no argument from me. The swift reaction will send the message that playing football for a free education is a privilege. But I can’t help but wonder if the zero tolerance policy is a reaction to the dithering that went on at Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky case. I expect universities will be quick, open and forthright in such cases from here on out.

2. As soon as West Virginia and the Big East agreed on their divorce, the Big 12 released its 2012 schedule that included the Mountaineers. And for all of the talk that West Virginia has played against distant conference opponents before, the consecutive games at Texas (1,400 miles away) and Texas Tech (1,465 miles away) illustrate just what the Mountaineers are in for. I’d say on the way home from Lubbock, West Virginia officials are going to be thinking, “We paid $20 million to put our teams through this?”

3. The key to minimizing the effects of a stroke depends on how quickly the victim can get treatment. It sounds like North Texas head coach Dan McCarney is one of the fortunate ones. I don’t know how long-term the effects will be of the numbness McCarney suffered on his left side. But I know this: McCarney talks fast and works faster, and no one has a more upbeat attitude. My money is on him making as full a recovery as modern medicine can provide.

1. Now that recruiting season is over, college football's version of pre-spring-ball Hot Stove League returns to a discussion of how to fix the BCS. The Chicago Tribune reported Monday that the Big Ten is kicking around an idea of playing semifinal games on the home campuses of the higher seeds rather than as part of the bowl system. That solves the issue of fans traveling to more than one postseason game. But can you remove the top-four teams from the bowls and “protect” the bowls? I’m not sure how.

2. Army will play its spring game at Fort Benning in Georgia. Kudos to the NCAA for allowing West Point an off-campus exemption. And kudos to West Point for promoting football on the base, which has revived the sport. In 1926, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned down the head-coaching job at Fort Benning and became an assistant. He wanted to be known as an officer, not a coach. After the season, a colonel assessed Eisenhower as an “above average” officer and a “superior” coach. Eisenhower decided not to coach anymore.

3. West Virginia’s buyout of its game against Florida State on Sept. 8 underscores the school’s intent to move to the Big 12 this year, not in 2014, as Big East rules mandate. That’s why the conference and the school are suing each other. The Big East filed suit in Rhode Island, where it’s based; WVU filed in West Virginia; in the law, as in football, home field is important. The buyout signals West Virginia’s determination to throw money at the problem. Can an expensive settlement with the Big East be far behind?

1. It’s impossible to know whether Gunner Kiel will turn into the Next Great Notre Dame Quarterback or just another guy. But the last-minute decision by Kiel, from Columbus, Ind., to spurn LSU and drive to the South Bend campus only three hours from home is a warming balm for Irish fans frustrated with the pace of head coach Brian Kelly’s progress. A pair of 8-5s is noticeably lacking in face cards. Notre Dame endorsed Kelly a few days ago by adding two years to his contract. Kiel endorsed him by showing up.

2. USF announced the other day that it has scheduled a home-and-home with Nevada, beginning with a trip to Reno on Sept. 8. The Wolf Pack will play in Tampa in 2015. That’s a nice get by the Bulls, but they buried the lead. More important is that in 2012, as it did three years ago, USF will play Florida State and Miami. They also played Florida and Miami in 2010. As the Big East and ACC struggle to create schedules in the wake of their realignment, here’s hoping USF continues to play the state’s bigger names.

3. Speaking of which: here are the five most interesting intersectional games for next season, excluding the traditional non-conference rivalries: Boise State at Michigan State on Fri., Aug. 31; Alabama vs. Michigan in Cowboys Stadium on Sept. 1; West Virginia at Florida State on Sept. 8; Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati at FedEx Field on Sept. 29; Notre Dame at Oklahoma on Oct. 27.

The way out of West Virginia to Tucson for Jeff Casteel has been a winding road, but it appears to be close to an end.

A number of news reports have Casteel shortly -- finally -- joining Rich Rodriguez's staff at Arizona. They previously worked together at West Virginia.

The Tucson Citizen reported, "Rodriguez will announce West Virginia’s Jeff Casteel as his defensive coordinator on Wednesday afternoon, when the other three staff vacancies could also be filled."

Casteel's name was immediately part of the discussion when Rodriguez was hired in November.

It also appears that Casteel will immediately become one of the highest paid assistant coaches in the Pac-12, perhaps only trailing USC's Monte Kiffin and Washington's new defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox.

With the transfer of the nation's second leading tackler, Arizona's glaring need at linebacker just got a boost.

Akron linebacker Brian Wagner will enroll at Arizona this week and will be immediately eligible due to an NCAA rule that allows athletes pursuing graduate degrees not offered at the former school to play right away.

Wagner, 22, averaged 13.36 tackles per game in 2011, and considering top tackler Luke Kuechly of Boston College is off to the NFL, Wagner will be the top returning tackler in FBS football.

Wagner, who earned first-team All-MAC honors, is taking advantage of the same transfer rule that was used by Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson.

Why is this a big get for Arizona? Because its top two tacklers, Derek Earls and Paul Vassallo, are graduating, and the Wildcats' top two returning linebackers -- sophomores Hank Hobson and Rob Hankins -- combined for four starts and 18 tackles last season, in large part due to the Wildcats using a base nickel formation much of the season. But when you toss in 2010 starter Jake Fischer, who is coming back from an ACL injury, you have four experienced guys for three spots.

And, yes, you can essentially pencil Wagner, 6-foot, 235 pounds, into the starting lineup.

From the Tucson Citizen:

He played middle linebacker in a 4-3 scheme at Akron. Exactly where he fits into Arizona’s scheme is to be determined, Wagner said, with the Cats presumably running a 3-3-5, no matter who coach Rich Rodriguez eventually brings in as defensive coordinator.

As for that defensive coordinator, nothing yet -- I found this to be an interesting narrative on back-and-forth with West Virginia DC Jeff Casteel. Speculation that Penn State also might be a player with Casteel raised one of my eyebrows, though Casteel's 3-3-5 doesn't sound like a Penn State defense.

Has something seemed odd to you about the BCS bowls this year? Does it seem like ... oh wait, West Virginia just scored again.

Does it seem like ... wait, there goes De'Anthony Thomas. Don't think he'll get caught from behind.

Does it seem like ... wait, would somebody please tackle Justin Blackmon?

Does it seem like there have been a lot of points this bowl season?

It's not just you. There have been a lot of points. More points than ever before. And by huge quantities.

So far, BCS bowl teams have averaged a total of 77 points in the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls. That, folks, is nearly 26 points more than last year (51.6). And it's nearly 11 points better than the previous high of 66.3 from 2001-02.

Perhaps pairing two SEC teams in the title game has created a black hole sucking all defensive stinginess into the LSU-Alabama rematch, which you might recall went 9-6 with no touchdowns in their first meeting. West Virginia scored 10 touchdowns -- 10! -- against Clemson. Alabama gave up 12 TDs all season.

Speaking of Clemson: ACC. Well, well, well.

After the Tigers ingloriously fell 70-33 to the Mountaineers, we got our second story from the BCS bowl season: The ACC's insistence on throwing up on itself in BCS bowl games.

The conference that was once expected to challenge the SEC is now 2-13 in BCS bowl games. That's hard to do. You'd think in 15 BCS bowls the conference could get lucky at least five or six times. But no, it insists on making ACC blogger Heather Dinich, a genuinely nice person, into some sort of Grim Reaper every bowl season.

Heck, the Big East has won seven BCS bowls -- second fewest among AQ conferences -- but it's 7-7.

Of course, this all ties together, and we're here to bring out a bow, but first a warning: If you don't want to read about how good the SEC is for the 56,314th time this year, then stop reading. I'd recommend an episode of "South Park" or perhaps a John le Carré thriller as an alternative for passing the time.

We can all agree the SEC plays great defense right? Alabama and LSU will play for the title Monday with the nation's top-two defenses. Do you think perhaps that it's not a coincidence that the conference that is 16-7 in BCS bowl games plays great defense?

The only other AQ conference with a winning record in BCS bowl games is the Pac-12, which is 11-7. The Pac-12 isn't known for defense, either, but USC was when it won the conference's last national title in 2004.

The only team to win a BCS national title without an elite defense was Auburn in 2010, but the Tigers' defense seemed to find itself late in the season. Since 1999, eight national champions had a top-10 defense. Other than Auburn, the lowest-rated defense to win a BCS national title was Ohio State in 2002. It ranked 23rd in the nation in total defense.

Three of the four BCS bowl games have been thrillers. Two went to overtime. We've seen big plays all over the field in the passing game and running game. Yet, if things go according to script in the title game, we'll see none of that. We might not see more than a couple of plays that go for more than 20 yards. We might not see any.

Some might call that boring. It might seem that both offenses are so paranoid of making a mistake that they are stuck in mud, both in game plan and execution.

But, snoozefest or not, when the clock strikes zero a team from the SEC will hoist the crystal football for a sixth consecutive time.

That might say something about playing better defense.

1. West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen told me that he enjoyed his first Christmas without work since 1999. The Mountaineers don’t play in the Orange Bowl until Jan. 4. Then Holgorsen pointed out that early bowls present scheduling problems not only for players dealing with final exams, but for coaches trying to prepare a team and recruit. The recruiting dead period didn’t begin until Dec. 18. The more a team wins, the later it gets to play in the postseason.

2. USC performed masterfully in staging junior quarterback Matt Barkley's decision to return to the Trojans in 2012. The press conference with a marching band couldn’t have been more different than the lack of hubbub at Stanford a year ago when Andrew Luck spurned the NFL. Stanford is not USC -- the schools take pride in their differences -- but it seems to me, in a season when the 11-1, No. 4 Cardinal fell short in beauty contests for the BCS and the Heisman, that the Farm could use a little more Troy.

3. Missouri finished with four straight wins, including a rout of North Carolina, 41-24, in the Independence Bowl. But don’t get carried away with the Tigers as they head into the SEC. The Tar Heels came in as an underachieving team with a lame-duck interim head coach. More important, Missouri went 1-1 in overtime, 1-1 in games decided by four points or fewer, and 5-4 in the Big 12. The Tigers beat the five league teams they finished ahead of, and lost to the four teams they finished behind. Mizzou, thy name is mediocrity.

A glimpse at the future ...

On the evening of Jan. 17, an Arizona State pep rally broke out in the most unlikely of places -- at a basketball game.

With the Sun Devils cruising to a win over Northern Arizona, the Sun Devils' newly minted head football coach, Todd Graham, took the microphone at halftime.

"One of the things I can guarantee you is we will be blue collar, hard-nosed and physical," Graham told the spirited crowd. "We are going to restore the Best of the West!
We will work to bring Pac-12 championships, BCS bowl championships and a national championship to Arizona State!"

The above is plagiarism. Apologies. It's a paraphrase of Graham's introduction from his official bio on the website of the Pittsburgh Panthers, where Graham bolted Wednesday for Arizona State after just one 6-6 season.

College football is a crazy business. Sometimes it makes you want to take a shower. But to employ a hackneyed term that has become so because it's so convenient: It is what it is.

Graham is going to get hammered in Pittsburgh and all points outside -- and some points inside -- Tempe. Graham, for a second time in his career, is one-and-done. He previously bolted Rice for Tulsa after a single season in 2006. Not only did Graham suddenly leave the Panthers in the lurch, but he announced his decision to his players via a secondhand text message.

That won't play well with many folks. Panthers players are blistering him on Twitter. And it will stick to Graham for a while. It looks cowardly and reminds folks of the horrible transition for Randy Edsall from Connecticut to Maryland, where his first year was an absolute disaster. When the media comes calling this spring and next fall, it will be a central part of their "Meet Todd Graham at ASU" stories.

It will mostly be malarkey. But it will be everywhere, which is often how malarkey becomes accepted truth.

Look, folks: Being a college football coach is a job. It is not a charitable calling. Loyalty? There are going to be more than 25 coaching changes next fall. There are 120 FBS teams. The nature of the business is to get fired or to climb. It's best to do the latter.

Todd Graham wants to coach at Arizona State more than Pittsburgh. Most folks would. So instead of doing something he doesn't want to do, he's doing what he wants to. His only loyalty should be to his family and friends, not his bosses.

Some will throw around insults like "liar." They will say things like Graham told his players he was staying. Well, he was staying. Until he got a better offer. The lesson the players should learn from this is to be ambitious and to learn how the big-boy world works. In other words, Graham just helped them grow up.

By the way, this is not an inconsistent opinion from me. Some Arizona State fans might recall this about former Sun Devils coach Dennis Erickson when he left Idaho.

Is this a ringing endorsement of ASU's hiring of Graham? No.

Understand: The only Pitt game I watched this season was the Panthers' home date with Utah. The Utes won 26-14, manhandling what looked to me like a feckless team with the worst offense in the history of the world.

That said, Graham has a solid track record. Sure, he bolted Rice after one season. But he did so after taking a 1-10 team to its first bowl game in 45 years and winning Conference USA Coach of the Year.

At Tulsa, he went 36-17 and 3-0 in bowl games. His final season, 2010, he won 28-27 at Notre Dame.

He's a defensive guy -- he got his start in big-time college coaching working for new Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia -- who is known as much for potent offenses. To use his term, he likes "high-octane football." He's a longtime believer in the no-huddle, spread-option.

He had some clumsy media moments this past season. He's a fast talker who doesn't shy away from taking shots at players. But the general feeling among Pitt fans was positive. Until he left. Now he's the second coming of Lane Kiffin.

How's the third coming of Lane Kiffin going?

Still, it's impossible to ignore the reality that being a perceived mercenary climber brings baggage that will make Graham's job more difficult.

It's likely some Sun Devils will greet any early talk of "family" and "the Sun Devil way!" with eye rolls. Graham's reputation will make it more difficult for him to mend a fractured locker room. Selling loyalty and commitment to recruits will not be easy. It also will make it harder for school administrators to get boosters to open their wallets.

The first question some will ask: "What's his buyout?"

Here's a statement from Arizona State:

"Criteria for our head coach was established, and the word that was at the forefront of discussions was `energy'...energy towards promoting our program in the community and with former players. Energy towards instilling discipline, leadership and in recruiting. Energy towards representing our brand in every facet of the program," notes Love. "In Todd, we have not only hired a young and sitting head coach, but one with a history of success on the field and in hiring top-notch assistant coaches. For the first time in his career, he will be taking over a program with a strong nucleus at the beginning. We are excited to watch Coach Graham take over a very well-positioned program and elevate it to the next level."

So: boilerplate.

Arizona State's coaching search was sloppy. Graham was well down the list of top candidates. And the June Jones debacle -- no matter how the school has tried to spin it afterward -- was embarrassing.

But the ultimate measure of this coaching search is no different than the ultimate measure of Todd Graham. And it is devoid of sentimentality: wins and losses. Stay out of trouble with the NCAA. Graduate players who stay off the police blotter. Yes, in that order.

It appears that Arizona State's coaching search will end after 17 days with the hiring of Todd Graham, who coached Pittsburgh for a single season after being hired away from Tulsa in 2010.

Graham went 6-6 at Pittsburgh this year and is 49-29 overall. Graham told his players at Pittsburgh about his departure via text by assistant athletic director/football operations Blair Philbrick, which was first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head-coaching position at Arizona State," Graham said. "Coaching there has always been a dream of ours and we have family there. The timing of the circumstances have prohibited [me] from telling you this directly. I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless. Coach Graham."

Graham, who turned 47 on Dec. 5, will replace Dennis Erickson, who will coach the Sun Devils in the Las Vegas Bowl against Boise State on Dec. 22.

Graham is a native of Mesquite, Texas. Other than a stint at East Central University, he was a high school coach until 2000, but his rise through the coaching ranks was quick.

A defensive specialist, he worked under new Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia from 2001-2002. He was the defensive coordinator at Tulsa from 2003-2005. He spent one year as head coach at Rice in 2006, then was named head coach at Tulsa, where he stayed until he was hired at Pitt last year.

Obviously, we'll have more later.

Michigan State defeated Michigan 28-14 on Oct. 15 and finished one game ahead of the Wolverines in the Big Ten's Legends Division.

The Spartans played in the inaugural Big Ten championship game on Saturday night, falling to Wisconsin 42-39 in one of the most entertaining games of the season.

Yet, when the BCS bowl games were announced on Sunday night, the Wolverines were picked to play Virginia Tech in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, while the Spartans were left out and will play Georgia in the lesser Outback Bowl.

"Michigan sat home on the couch and watched us," Cousins said. "I don't see how you get punished for playing and someone else gets to sit on the couch and get what they want. If this is the way the system is, I guess it's a broken system."

Oklahoma State might be asking the question of Alabama.

Without a playoff system in college football, the BCS objective is to match the two best teams in the country in the Jan. 9 Allstate BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans.

Whether you like the sport’s system for determining its national champion or not, the BCS got it right this season.

No. 1 LSU will play No. 2 Alabama in the Mercedes-Benz Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans with a BCS national championship on the line.

The Tigers and Crimson Tide are the two best teams in the country.

There’s no debate about whether or not the Tigers deserve to be there, after they blasted No. 14 Georgia 42-10 in the SEC championship game on Saturday night to finish the regular season with a 13-0 record. The Tigers have defeated the Pac-12 champion (Oregon), Big East champion (West Virginia) and six SEC teams which were ranked when they played them.

The Crimson Tide, whose only loss came against LSU 9-6 in overtime on Nov. 5 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., edged Oklahoma State for No. 2 in the final BCS standings released on Sunday night. The Crimson Tide had a .9419 BCS average, slightly ahead of the Pokes’ BCS average of .9333.

Alabama (11-1) was ranked No. 2 in the Harris Poll and USA Today coaches’ top 25 poll, which make up two-thirds of the BCS formula. The Pokes (11-1) were No. 3 in both human polls.

Alabama was also No. 2 in two of the six computer ratings in the BCS formula; OSU was No. 2 in the other four. A team’s average in the computer rankings is the other one-third in the BCS formula.

“The system that we have is the system,” Alabama coach Nick Saban told ESPN. “Regardless of what anybody thinks [of the system], it sort of is what it is. I think there are a lot of people out there who think these are the two best teams in the country and want to see them play again.”

LSU coach Les Miles said he didn’t have a problem playing the Crimson Tide again, even though the Tigers have already defeated them on the road this season.

“We look forward to playing Alabama,” Miles told ESPN. “The upside is you understand your opponent and you’ve seen them play. You’ve studied them before and obviously you’ve played them. It will be played in the same fashion with great enthusiasm and want to compete.”

OSU coach Mike Gundy, whose Cowboys will play No. 4 Stanford in the Jan. 2 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, said his team did everything it could in trying to impress voters by blasting rival Oklahoma 44-10 on Saturday night.

“We were very disappointed,” Gundy told ESPN. “We felt like our team had worked very hard. We had a tough loss [37-31 in double overtime at Iowa State on Nov. 18], but we came back and did everything we could do to dominate the game against Oklahoma. We felt like we had an opportunity by the way we played in the game.”

Gundy didn’t criticize the BCS system, saying his school “bought into the system several years ago.”

“We wanted the opportunity to settle the debate that had gone on all year about the offense of the Big 12, the defense of the SEC,” Gundy said. “We thought our defense was a lot better than most people thought. For whatever reason, people decided they wanted to see a rematch of LSU and Alabama. There obviously weren’t enough people who wanted to see the Big 12 champion against the SEC champion.”

The BCS didn’t get everything right on Sunday night.

After then-No. 6 Houston was upset by Southern Mississippi 49-28 in Saturday’s Conference USA championship game, there was one at-large selection available to BCS bowl games. By finishing in the top four of the final BCS standings, Stanford was guaranteed of earning an at-large selection under BCS rules.

With the Cougars out of the mix, the Allstate Sugar Bowl selected No. 11 Virginia Tech to play No. 13 Michigan in New Orleans on Jan. 3. The Hokies were routed by then-No. 20 Clemson 38-10 in Saturday night’s ACC championship game in Charlotte, N.C.

Sugar Bowl officials selected the Hokies over higher-ranked teams like No. 7 Boise State and No. 8 Kansas State.

The other BCS bowl matchups: No. 5 Oregon will play No. 10 Wisconsin in the Jan. 2 Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio and No. 15 Clemson will play No. 23 West Virginia in the Jan. 4 Discover Orange Bowl.

Here are a few other intriguing bowl games outside of the BCS:

• No. 6 Arkansas will play No. 8 Kansas State in the Jan. 6 Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas. The Razorbacks, whose only losses came against LSU and Alabama, probably would have played in a BCS bowl if they weren’t in the SEC (BCS rules allow only two teams from one conference to play in BCS bowl games). The Wildcats were just as deserving as Virginia Tech to play in the Sugar Bowl.
• Florida State and Notre Dame, two of the sport’s traditional heavyweights, will meet in the Dec. 29 Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, Fla. Both teams had disappointing seasons after high preseason expectations, but should bring back good teams in 2012.
• Penn State, which finished 9-3 and tied with Wisconsin for first place in the Big Ten Leaders Division, slipped all the way to the Jan. 2 TicketCity Bowl at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Nittany Lions will play Houston. It seems obvious that bowl games sitting higher in the Big Ten’s pecking order wouldn’t want PSU because of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
• Ohio State (which last week hired Urban Meyer as its new coach) will play Florida (Meyer’s old school) in the Jan. 2 TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. OSU interim coach Luke Fickell will coach the Buckeyes in the bowl game, but Meyer figures to be a very interested observer.

Here are five things I'll be watching in college football this weekend:

1. Can No. 14 Georgia keep it close against No. 1 LSU in the SEC championship game?

The Tigers are one victory away from completing a perfect regular season and earning a trip to the Jan. 9 Allstate BCS National Championship Game in New Orleans. The Bulldogs have won 10 games in a row since losing their first two and they're playing with a lot of confidence entering Saturday's SEC championship game at Atlanta's Georgia Dome. But Georgia hasn't played a defense as physical and menacing as LSU's. Can Georgia's offensive line protect quarterback Aaron Murray, who has thrown 14 touchdowns in his past four games? Will Georgia tailback Isaiah Crowell be able to start and finish a game? Georgia might have the second-best defense LSU has faced this season, behind Alabama's, which held the Tigers to only nine points. Will LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson continue to make big plays?

2. Will No. 10 Oklahoma beat No. 3 Oklahoma State for the ninth straight time?

The Pokes are still in the BCS national championship race, although they'll need some help from voters and computers to pass No. 2 Alabama in the BCS standings. OSU hasn't beaten the Sooners since 2002, losing eight games in a row in the Bedlam series. Saturday night's game will be played in Stillwater, and the Sooners aren't as explosive without leading rusher Dominique Whaley and star receiver Ryan Broyles. The Pokes haven't played since a 37-31 loss in double overtime at Iowa State on Nov. 18. They had five turnovers in the loss to the Cyclones and can't afford to turn it over against OU. The last team with the ball might win the game.

3. Which team will win the Big East?

If No. 23 West Virginia beats South Florida on the road on Thursday night and Cincinnati defeats Connecticut at home on Saturday, there will be a three-way tie for first place in the Big East standings. The Mountaineers, Bearcats and Cardinals will finish tied, and the tiebreaker would be decided by the highest BCS standing, which would favor the Mountaineers. West Virginia has been inconsistent in coach Dana Holgerson's first season, and the Bearcats are unpredictable without injured quarterback Zach Collaros. Big East football might be mediocre again this season, but at least it has been dramatic to season's end.

4. Will No. 15 Wisconsin get revenge against No. 13 Michigan State?

The Spartans derailed the Badgers' national championship hopes with a dramatic 37-31 victory in East Lansing, Mich., on Oct. 22. The Spartans won the game on quarterback Kirk Cousins' 44-yard touchdown pass to Keith Nichol on a Hail Mary pass on the final play of the game. Both teams lost in their next games, but recovered to win out to claim their divisions. The Spartans will have to slow down tailback Montee Ball in Saturday's inaugural Big Ten championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Ball has 29 rushing touchdowns and five touchdown catches; his 34 touchdowns are five shy of tying former Oklahoma State tailback Barry Sanders' NCAA single-season record of 39 touchdowns set in 1988.

5. Will No. 5 Virginia Tech win the ACC again?

The Hokies are one victory away from winning their fifth ACC championship in only eight seasons in the league in Saturday's ACC championship game in Charlotte, N.C. Virginia Tech will try to avenge its 23-3 loss to Clemson at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va., on Oct. 1. The No. 13 Tigers held the Hokies to only 258 yards and no touchdowns at home for the first time since 1995. The Tigers, who have lost three of their past four games, will have to limit Hokies tailback David Wilson, who has run for 1,595 yards with nine touchdowns. Wilson has already tied an ACC record with nine rushing touchdowns this season and he's 61 yards shy of breaking Ryan Williams' school single-season rushing record.