ESPN College Football

Arizona will announce Greg Byrne as its new athletic director today, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Interesting factoid: Byrne, 38, who's been Mississippi State's AD for two years, is a graduate of Arizona State.

Here's the story from Pat Forde.

Byrne will replace Jim Livengood, now UNLV's athletic director.

This notebook from Ryan Finley is overflowing with interesting Arizona news and notes.

• Offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes denies the rumors that he's going to follow former Wildcats athletic director Jim Livengood from Arizona to UNLV and become the Rebels' head football coach.
• New co-defensive coordinator Greg Brown, formerly Colorado's secondary coach, is attending practices. He will team with linebackers coach Tim Kish to replace Mark Stoops, who was hired by Florida State.
• Running back Nic Grigsby (shoulder) and receiver David Douglas (thigh bruise) are feeling much healthier and should be ready to play against Nebraska in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl on Dec. 30.
• Linebacker Sterling Lewis isn't going to party before this bowl game. He learned his lesson on that last year.

Being healthy on offense -- and having Dykes in place -- will be critical against the outstanding Cornhuskers defense, which, of course, is led by otherworldly defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh.

Brown was a longtime NFL coach, specializing in the secondary, before joining Dan Hawkins' staff four seasons ago. Read his bio here. Stoops will coach the Wildcats through the Holiday Bowl.

Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood has landed on his feet after his contract was not renewed in Tucson.

Livengood will be named UNLV's new athletic director Thursday afternoon.

And there's relevance to football here: Livengood will immediately jump into the task of finding a new football coach for the Rebels. Mike Sanford was fired in late November.

There are a few rumors he might go after current Arizona offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes. The Wildcats already lost defensive coordinator Mark Stoops to Florida State since the end of the regular season.

Consider this from the Las Vegas Sun:

On Tuesday, Livengood didn't completely squash rumors that he potentially could bring Arizona offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes with him to Las Vegas to run the show at Sam Boyd Stadium. However, he was persistent, like the other finalists, in saying that previous head coaching experience would be preferred.

"Do I think he's a good football coach? Yes," Livengood said of Dykes. "He's done a remarkable job at Arizona. But, I also said I think in some context, this job might require head coaching experience."

Even if Livengood goes another direction, it's possible a Pac-10 assistant coach or two might be poached by whoever ends up with the UNLV job.

You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You're a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk.
Mr. Grinch.
The three words that best describe you,
are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk."

• Arizona will be looking for a new athletic director because Jim Livengood is leaving whether UNLV hires him or not. The Wildcats are bringing in some defensive talent.
• Chip Kelly isn't the only reason Oregon's offense is clicking.
• Applause from John Canzano on Oregon State's apparent decision to add TCU to its 2010 schedule. Mike Riley and Bronco Mendenhall have a history.
• Stanford running back Toby Gerhart was a unanimous choice for the AP All-America team.
• UCLA Bruins are piling up postseason honors.
• With Josh Pinkard out for USC, it will be interesting to see who emerges in the Emerald Bowl at cornerback. Where does Matt Barkley rank among the deep roster of Pac-10 QBs in 2010?
• A history of Washington players who left early for the NFL draft, a list that quarterback Jake Locker won't be on. Jim Moore has more to say on Locker's decision to return.
• Maybe the bowl season will reveal the best conference of the 2009 season.

There's a lot going on at Arizona. Start with this story about Arizona's 21-17 win over USC.

That was the Wildcats' first win over USC in seven games.

But there's more!

• Arizona has been invited to the Holiday Bowl, as expected.
• Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood may be headed to the same post at UNLV.
• And defensive coordinator Mark Stoops is a hot head coaching candidate. He may be headed to Youngstown State. Or following Livengood to UNLV.

Stoops had this to say to the Arizona Daily Star on the various rumors and reports: "I really don't have a comment. All I wanted to do was finish this thing, and that's why, emotionally, it means so much to me. I've invested my heart and soul to this program, and I wanted to see it through. We'll see whenever things happen."

Posted by ESPN.com's Ted Miller

In an informal poll conducted by the Pac-10 blog, conference coaches voted 6-4 in favor of ending round-robin conference scheduling and reverting back to an eight-game slate, which was how things were before a 12th game was added in 2006.

That's about how a straw poll went in May during the Pac-10 meetings in Phoenix, and feelings were strong enough against the nine-game conference schedule that the athletic directors will review the issue during their June meetings in San Francisco.

The vote mostly split like the current conference standings, with the top-half teams favoring nine games and the bottom half teams wanting to go back to eight.

There's a good reason for that. Nine conference games insures five conference teams will lose an extra game every season, which could be the difference between earning bowl eligibility or not.

Two Pac-10 teams, Arizona State and Stanford, finished 5-7 in 2008. If both had finished 6-6 then the conference would have filled all seven of its bowl contracts.

There are a number of reasons the nine-game schedule was adopted in 2006.

• Equity: With no misses in the conference, the schedules are equal, with no team, say, missing USC while another misses a team at the bottom of the conference.
• Easier scheduling: It's easier to schedule conference games than to go looking for another nonconference opponent. Also, the home and road arrangements alternate every year, so there is little mystery where UCLA and Oregon will be playing next fall if they square off in the Rose Bowl this season.
• Balance: An eight-game schedule led to some screwy home-and-road arrangements over a series of years because multiple teams wanted special guarantees, such as the California schools wanting to play every year. Moreover, in the eight-game format, coaches from Arizona or the Northwest would get angry when they missed an annual trip to the recruiting hotbeds of Southern California. And with the nine-game slate, each team gets at least one visit to each Pac-10 state a year.
• Fan interest: A conference game is easier to sell to a fan base than a game against a lackluster nonconference foe.

"When the schedule went from 11 to 12 games, it seemed like the logical thing to do," said Jim Muldoon, the Pac-10's associate commissioner for communications.

A funny thing happened on the way to a logical, equitable decision: No other conference followed suit. And it benefited them.

Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh is a strong advocate of reverting back to the eight-game schedule, and he presented his case to the coaches in May.

"There's a reason no other conference plays nine conference games," he said.

The biggest, of course, is most teams use a fourth nonconference game to schedule a certain victory.

If the Pac-10 did the same, it would not only increase the number of bowl-eligible teams, it also would increase the odds of getting two teams into BCS bowls, which the conference hasn't done since 2002. The strength of the conference, both as a mathematical part of the BCS formula and as a perception issue within the college football nation, would improve because records would be better.

"I probably have changed on this," Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood said. "I believed [adding a ninth conference game in 2006] was the right thing to do. It just seemed to be fair to go around and play everybody.

"Now that we've been through it, I'm probably on the other side totally. I'm not sure it's a great idea any more."

Which format generates more revenue in the regular season? That's a tough one. Livengood said he doesn't think there's much difference.

During even-numbered years, he noted, Arizona gets five Pac-10 home games in the current format, and that generates a good gate. Harbaugh, however, pointed out that the a fourth nonconference game could always be scheduled as a home game, which then would operate as a two-for-one deal vs. the nine-game, round-robin schedule.

A Pac-10 team then could play a nonconference game on the road annually and still get seven home games every year. Stanford only had five home games last year because it opted to play at TCU and Notre Dame and played five conference road games.

Even with one marquee nonconference game, most Pac-10 teams could schedule their way to a 3-1 or even a 4-0 start, which is what nearly every other BCS team does.

It's the new strategic paradigm. It's the strategy of the BCS, which is about smart scheduling and public perception.

Still, it figures to be a contentious issue in June.

"A bigger part of it is how to get out of it," said Livengood, pointing out that all the old scheduling controversies will again arise. 

Getting out of it might be complicated.

The ultimate question, though, is whether the conference can afford to stay in it.

Posted by ESPN.com's Ted Miller

Fifth in a series looking at potential dream and nightmare scenarios for all Pac-10 teams, starting from the top of our preseason Power Rankings and working down.

Up next: Arizona

Best case

The soft early schedule, as many expected, helped, but the 47-13 beat-down delivered to a respectable New Mexico team sent a message -- the offense was as-advertised but the defense was a lot better than previously thought.

That became clear after a solid victory at UCLA when Washington and quarterback Jake Locker came to town. The 2-2 Huskies had moved the ball on everyone, including during a close loss to Oklahoma. But the Wildcats jump on the Huskies early, building a 14-0 first-quarter lead, while the defense forces a pair of turnovers. Washington, forced to play catch-up, can't, and the Wildcats improve to 5-0 with a 45-20 victory.

Make it 6-0, though Stanford becomes the first defense to consistently pressure QB Willie Tuitama. Still, "hot-seat" talk for coach Mike Stoops ends when the Wildcats become bowl-eligible by midseason.

Of course, the tough part of the schedule is ahead. California and spectacular running back Jahvid Best become the first team that scores with the Wildcats. Best gains 262 total yards, and the outlandish dreams of a perfect season end when Bears kicker Jordan Kay connects on a 45-yard field goal with less than a minute left for a 33-30 Arizona loss.

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