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--- ESPN's Bruce Feldman says freshman Joe McKnight didn't disappoint at USC's first practice.

Before the Trojans headed off the field, [running backs coach Todd] McNair motioned for all of his running backs to gather. He saw McKnight off in the distance giving a hug to a little toddler.

"Quit PRin' and let's go," the coach told his heralded new tailback. Actually, if McKnight looks this sharp when the Trojans put pads on, there's no telling how far the PR campaign will go.

Also: Saturday specialists deliver difference-making results.

"[Georgia Tech linebacker Phillip Wheeler is] a freak of an athlete," said a line coach whose team played against Tech last season. "You don't want to have him matched up with your tailback, but [Tenuta] does such a good job with his pressure packages, that's usually what you're stuck with. And then Wheeler just tosses your guy. He's really good with his hands.

"He was the best linebacker we saw last season."

--- ESPN's Ivan Maisel looks at how some have-nots have made progress in catching up with the BCS haves.

"When they want us to play Sunday mornings at 2, I'm going to play. … If you want to be a great program, as we aspire to be, you want to be a highly ranked program, you play on the nights that are going to help you," Jurich said. "What that did was get us in homes from a recruiting standpoint. Kids aren't watching games on Saturdays. Weekdays, you have a captive audience."

The haves vs. have nots setup is boring and misleading. The great untold story of college football is that every program came from nowhere at some point. Through pluck, ingenuity and the singular genius of a particular coach or athletic director programs are constantly on the rise (forcing others into decline).

To plug Bruce Feldman's book for a moment, 'Cane Mutiny is a great tale of how Miami went from literally nothing to one of the game's dominant programs for three decades running. They did it against the backdrop of suffocating control by the powerful teams.  For such a stifling atmosphere, there sure seem to be a lot of Cinderella's in the game, huh?

Cinderella stories aren't made through Congressional intervention into the BCS process but by vision and finding the right coach or coaches. Boise State is a success now because they had an amazing run of coaches to build that thing. Who was the coach in 1997? Houston Nutt. 1998 to 2000? Dirk Koetter. 2001 to 2005? Dan Hawkins. 2006? Chris Petersen.  It's nice that they made the Fiesta Bowl and won, but their story was gold even before that.

USC was nothing more than an average football program until Dean Cromwell and Gus Henderson started winning some games in the early 1900's. The program then asked Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne to recommend someone he respected to their next coach. He pointed them towards Iowa's Howard Jones. Jones took the keys from Henderson and drove the school to several championships and got that ball rolling enough that John McKay could inherit a mess 20 years later, dust off the cobwebs of a former winner and deliver USC to its modern prestige.

Penn State got Paterno. Florida State got Bowden. Utah had Ron McBride who gave way to Urban Meyer and made that place competitive. BYU had LaVell Edwards. Competition breeds innovation and inevitably there are winners and losers. But winners don't forever stay winners (think Alabama fans have been truly happy with the last 10 or so years? USC fans from the end of Robinson I to Carroll? Notre Dame fans since 1993?) and leave openings for others to fill the void.

Have vs. Have Not/woe is the Have Not is just a strange narrative, the game is too fluid and the underdog tales too many for that. Maisel paints a somewhat rosy picture in that setup, but couches it within the framework of Congressional intervention when places like Boise State and Louisville built their success before things were as open.

--- ESPN's Pat Forde lists the top 25 pressing quarterback questions.

Also: The Michigan/Harbaugh feud.

How often, in the history of major-college athletics, has a current player just shredded a former hero from the same school? A guy who took Michigan to a Rose Bowl and was a first-round NFL draft pick, who grew up in Ann Arbor and whose dad was a Wolverines assistant under Bo Schembechler, is thrown out of the Michigan man club by a guy still in college?

Also: Gambling and trickeration is "in".

Pete Carroll gets cited here, but he's a bit of an enigma. Some things he's done in the last two years are deeply conservative and run counter to his aggressive streak.

Chris Petersen: "Since coach [Dan] Hawkins was here [at Boise State], that's been our philosophy. We don't want kids to pucker. We want them to be risk takers. We want, as coaches, to be risk takers in an educated way."

Also: The evolution of Kentucky quarterback Andre Woodson. Good read.

Also: Perseverance runs in the McFadden family.  Another great read from Forde.

--- ESPN's Mark Schlabach writes that top programs have questions to answer.

Also: Florida must replace nine starters on defense. I think they'll be fine.

Also: Coaches on the "hot" seat.

Former Texas Tech football coach Spike Dykes once said a coach loses 10 percent of his team's fan base with each defeat.

The way Clemson coach Tommy Bowden figures it, he has even more to lose as he begins his ninth season with the Tigers.

"We just set a record for ticket sales, so I have a bunch of people who don't like me -- most in Clemson history," Bowden joked last month at the ACC Kickoff news conference in Pinehurst, N.C.

Also: Assistant coaches salaries are going up. Way up.

Also: Seven college football secrets in 2007. Learn about South Florida's cornerbacks and USC's exciting fullback.

Also: WAC vs. Conference USA.  WAC all the way, no brainer. 

--- Sport Illustrated's Stewart Mandel reveals the results from SI's 2007 CFB Players' Survey. It's got fans talking.

Over the past month, our reporters conducted telephone surveys with a starter from every Division I-A team. It is believed to be the most comprehensive player survey -- 119 different schools are represented -- to ever appear.

Survey Results.

Players heavily tilted towards favoring a playoff (boo!), but said some interesting things.

An ACC player's opinion encapsulated both sides of the debate: "I have mixed feelings just due to the fact that the playoff system would be great at finding out the best team in college football, but the bowls and the BCS are what college football is all about -- the arguments and all that. It makes every game that much more important and exciting." ... One Big 12 player whose team played in a bowl game last year said, "I like the bowls. Some years you say it wouldn't be fair, but realistically, the teams that should make it do. And everyone knows at the beginning of the season that you have to win your games."

Also: The Mailbag. Georgia's national status and the much-critiqued "Montana Test", the effect of offensive line coach Rick Trickett's departure on national title contender West Virginia, Lloyd Carr retirement talk, Steve Spurrier's Duke vote in the USA Today/Coaches poll draws criticism, whether Oklahoma State can rattle the cages of Oklahoma and Texas, selling Mandel's new book, Hawaii's chances, Oregon's shaky play of late and whether it gets better in 2007, Florida's other football schools not in the "Big Three", Mailbag Crush criticism (again), and this gem:

I just wanted to let you know that not everyone in Bulldawg Nation is insane, and we really do appreciate how lucky we are to have Mark Richt as a head coach. You are also correct about UGA being more of a regional power, but I think (and sincerely hope) that AD Damon Evans is taking steps to create a more national schedule and presence.

Also, while I am an SEC homer, I live on the West Coast and appreciate Pac-10 football. Honest.
--Robert, Portland, Ore.

Robert: It sounds to me like you're a rational, grounded, open-minded SEC fan.

Please ... see a doctor.

Also: Virginia Tech football hits the field for the first time since April's deadly one-man murder spree on campus.

Mercifully, the majority of the article focuses on football and is quite informative.

Also, from Mandel's Blog: Coaches plotting effects of new kickoff line.

But Florida coach Urban Meyer doesn't think it's any small matter. He had his staff chart tape and determined that the average kick will now land at about the 9-yard line (as opposed to the 4-yard line previously). "You give [Gators kick returner] Brandon James the ball at the 9-yard line with a running head start? Whew, that's big right there. That's going to have a major impact. You have to have a horse to kick that thing out of the end zone now."

Meyer is so intrigued by the rule, in fact, that he's already decided if his team wins the toss in its opener against Western Kentucky, he will elect to receive. "In the past," said Meyer, "we deferred about 86 percent of the time."

And then there's this scenario someone laid out to me last week: Let's say a team scores a touchdown to go up two with less than a minute left. Understandably, the guys on the field will be excited, and, as is often the case in such situations, the refs might flag them for excessive celebration. That's a 15-yard penalty tacked on to the ensuing kickoff -- which will now start at the 15. You might as well just go ahead and let the other team try its game-winning field goal.

--- Sports Illustrated's Cory McCartney files a "postcard" from Florida (similar to Mandel's above visit to Virginia Tech).

Also: Fifteen true freshmen who will produce this season.  There's an outstanding crop of frosh this year, should be fun watching them all develop.

--- CBS SportsLine's Dennis Dodd previews the Independents.

Notre Dame must cut down on the big plays. The kid from Chicago already understands the atmosphere.

"I used to watch Michael Stonebreaker, Frank Stams, Chris Zorich, Todd Lyght, Bobby Taylor ...," [new defensive coordinator Corwin] Brown said. "I know how they played. In my mind, there's no reason why we shouldn't play like that."

Brown has just mentioned five consensus All-Americans.

I don't see an All American on that Irish defense. Yet.

Also: Games of the year.

Also: Boise State and its place in the world months after the Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma.

--- CBS SportsLine's J. Darin Darst previews the WAC. 

Also from CBS SportsLine: Conference USA Preview (Brian De Los Santos), MAC Preview (Eric Kay).

--- The Sporting News' Matt Hayes writes June Jones has made Hawaii football matter.

Also: USC quarterback John David Booty is a guy you could build a team around.

This argument is about the college game, not the NFL. And the college game has been overtaken by dual-threat quarterbacks: guys that can hurt defenses with their arm and legs.

But other than White, there are few dual-threat guys I'd take at this point. Sophomores Tim Tebow and Matt Grothe are two possibilities, but I want to see both do it when teams specifically game plan them. Chase Daniel has put up good numbers at Missouri, but has done little in big games.

I'm still a pro-style guy. I want someone who can take his steps, read the defense and fire a strike. Because those are the guys -- players like Booty, Colt Brennan and Brian Brohm -- who can dictate a game with a flip of the wrist. At some point, dual-threat guys have to throw the ball, have to make a play in the passing game. If they can't, they're one-dimensional and easier to game plan.

And then the offense is lost without a guy who can make a third-and-nine play in the passing game.

That's why I'll take Booty. He's a pure drop-back passer with a terrific arm and touch. He's tough and his teammates thrive off his moxie. He has played -- and played well -- in big games. What more could you want?

Also: Meet 2007's breakout college football players.

--- The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart writes, as a counterpoint to Matt Hayes' John David Booty piece (above), that LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey is the kind of guy you build a team around.

But a player of Dorsey's ilk can't be quantified in numbers. It takes me back to a conversation I had with Tom O'Brien a few years ago. I asked the sage and astute OB what was the most difficult position to find difference-makers. O'Brien didn't hesitate: He said defensive tackle.

The quest for big, fast, athletic DTs extends to the NFL, where time and again franchises reach for defensive tackles in the draft. They almost always are over valued because really good ones are so rare. Guys are either big and slow ... small and quick ... or big, quick and lazy. Few combine every attribute as well as Dorsey.

Dorsey changes blocking schemes, which frees operating space for teammates. And even though Dorsey draws special attention, he still makes plays.

Also: A time of healing for Virginia Tech.

Also: Keep an eye on these opening games.

Also: Notre Dame sure looks like a rebuilding team.

By my estimation, Weis' biggest wins last year were at Georgia Tech and vs. Penn State at home. In 2005, Weis' major triumphs were at Michigan and vs. Tennessee in South Bend. And I'm being generous, people.

Impressed?

THIS is a team that deserved to go to back-to-back BCS games? I think the thumping ND took from Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl and LSU in the Sugar Bowl says it all.

Knowing all of this, do you really, deep down in your heart, think ND would have had a much worse record had Ty Willingham remained coach?

Come on, be honest.

I don't know about record, but the program's in much better shape than under Willingham. They were listless and far from dynamic towards the end of his stay. The massive 20+ point losses are still there, but at least the offense has punch. As a bonus, Weis responded to his shaky defense by hiring a hotshot new defensive coordinator. It may work, it may not, but they're trying and the overall talent's up.

Also: Oklahoma State cornerback Martel Van Zant overcomes deafness.

But Van Zant needs his interpreter at his hip throughout the day--in classes, at practices. Teammates want to help by learning sign language. "But a lot of them, they want to learn the cuss words first," Van Zant says.

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy feels Van Zant would have been recruited by all the big-time schools had he not been deaf. Some were unsure how to work with a deaf player, but that didn't scare then-Cowboys coach Les Miles, who has a deaf brother and knows American Sign Language.

Although being oblivious to trash talk has its advantages, Van Zant does have one big issue to deal with: the referee's whistle. "I have to watch other players and wait for them to stop moving," Van Zant says. "I also have to wait for the receiver to move."

What about late-hit calls?

He has to have had a few of those. "No," says Van Zant.

Also: Top clashes between coaching titans.

--- Yahoo! Sports' Terry Bowden talks about a coaches' schedule and the future of the text messaging ban.

I have come to one quick conclusion: The players and coaches who prepare for the game work a lot harder than we folks who write about them.

Over the past two weeks, I have been in the office no later than 5:30 a.m. and left the no earlier than 10 p.m. every day.

Maybe the most difficult thing to get used to is that my Blackberry must remain turned off for most of that time. And this routine isn't just happening at FSU but on every football playing college campus in America.

--- CSTV's Brian Curtis is back with college football news and notes.

Last year, Arkansas had great success deploying sensational running back Darren McFadden in all kinds of positions. Sometimes he took direct snaps in the shotgun; sometimes he lined up outside at receiver; sometimes he would line up in the backfield but take a direct snap. You get the idea. Houston Nutt knew what kind of an athlete he had and he wanted to get him the ball as much as possible. Urban Meyer used Percy Harvin in a similar capacity. Well, like most things in college football, coaches have copied one another, so expect to see many teams using a "stud" like a McFadden to line up in different spots. I've been talking with teams across the country and don't be shocked to see six or seven teams utilize a speedster in various roles, including LSU, Tennessee and Illinois.

--- CSTV's Trev Alberts replies to reader mail again this week. Inside: the trouble with recruiting rankings, sentiments about the Big Three in Florida (Florida's overrated?), and the hiring/firing business.

--- CSTV's Adam Caparell ranks his Preseason Top 25.

Also: 2007 Football Schedule Planner - Week 12.

--- CSTV's entire Football Preview Index ("Back to School 2007").

--- CSTV's Jerry Palm writes about Notre Dame's cloak of secrecy.

--- Rivals.com is a content factory at the moment.  Check their latest (last Pundit Roundup was on 8/7) updates from Olin Buchanan, Steve Megargee and David Fox at this link.

--- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Star-Telegram's Wendell Barnhouse checks in with another College Football Insider.  Inside: Steve Spurrier's Duke vote, Charlie Weis' lawsuit defeat, Lloyd Carr's friendship with Russell Crowe, wild child quarterback Ryan Perilloux has been re-instated at LSU, Bo Schembechler's passing still felt at Michigan, Pitt's season ticket sale woes and Nick Saban's golf game.

--- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tony Barnhart continues to blog away at a torrid pace.  Notable: Why the SEC is smiling.

--- The Austin-American Statesman's Kirk Bohls checks out practice and says the 'Horns look impressive.

Also: No slap at TCU.

Since I challenged Texas’ non-conference football schedule in my Monday column, I have received several emails taking me to task because the readers thought I was denigrating TCU’s worth. Believe me, I was not.

I was referring to the foursome as a group, not TCU by itself. The Horned Frogs are a very fine team and will be among a handful of non-BCS conference teams challenging for one of the five BCS bowls. In addition, I included TCU in my Top 25 ballot that I filed for the Associated Press on Sunday. The poll comes out a week from Sunday.

The other three teams on Texas’ schedule — Arkansas State, Central Florida and Rice — went a combined 17-20 last season. That scare anybody?

And do you really think USC would be frightened by playing TCU? I don’t think so. The presumably top-ranked Trojans play non-conference games with Nebraska and Notre Dame. If Texas were playing USC and Notre Dame this fall, school officials would be calling it the greatest nonconference schedule ever.

Also: Fiesta Bowl talk and upsetting both Boise State and Oklahoma folks.

--- The Birmingham News' Kevin Scarbinsky writes nobody throws tantrum, visor like South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier.

Examining the motives behind Spurrier's admissions tantrum last week.

Also: Alabama leads Auburn in recruiting war, but storm brews.

Also: Frosh quarterback Kodi Burns wows 'em at his first Auburn scrimmage.

"We saw exactly what we expected to out of Kodi," Tommy Tuberville said. "Nobody can tackle him. He threw the ball well for his first time in Jordan-Hare Stadium. It won't be his last."

Also: Getting hit hard part of playing the game.

A not-so-subtle call-out of the toughness of Auburn reserve quarterback Neil Caudle.

--- The Birmingham News' Ray Melick says Bill Walsh's offenses forged Auburn offensive coordinator Al Borges' philosophies.

When it came to running an offense, all Al Borges knew was the wishbone, that full-house, triple-option run-oriented attack that dominated football in the 1970s.

But as an ambitious young high school coach in California, Borges knew times were changing, and if he wanted to go anywhere in his chosen profession, he'd better learn the passing game.

"So I decided to try to learn from this fellow who just got the job as head coach at Stanford," said Borges, sitting in the cool of his office before heading back out into the 100-degree heat for another practice at Auburn.

"Bill Walsh wasn't a big name yet. But Stanford was only 50 miles away from where I was coaching, so it was the easiest place for me to get to.

"I went and watched and I had no clue what he was doing. But I kept going back. Bill wasn't too easy to get to in those days, but he'd let me talk to his assistants, and I just kept following him around."

--- The Mobile Register's Paul Finebaum writes that Alabama banks on star power.

The media guide didn't exactly leave the spring game platitudes on the front cover. On page 90, there is a chart of the last 10 years of A-Day crowds (seriously) starting in 1998 with the crowd of 8,968 going right up to this year. In case you were wondering, Mike Shula had 40,000 for his farewell A-Day. This spread goes for two pages and when you flip the book to page 92, you get a chart of the other 12 SEC schools and how they drew for their spring games starting with the Tide and going all the way down to Arkansas and Vanderbilt with a measly 2,000. There is another page of pictures and then there are two more of actual photos from the game. Could a Daniel A. Moore print commemorating the great moment be far behind?

In case you've lost track, that was six straight pages devoted to the A-Day game and if you add the second page of the book with the pictures from up above, that would mark seven total pages in a 208-page book. The media guide devoted a grand total of two pages exclusively to Bear Bryant. You may have heard of him.

The moral of this story: Bryant should have spent more time rustling up a crowd at A-Day than winning six national titles and 14 SEC crowns.

Oh, by the way, Gene Stallings was awarded two pages as well. So if you add up Bryant and Stallings' accomplishments in the media guide, it still pales to the epic spring game.

So what's really going on here?

Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Alabama football has put a temporary hold on Paul Bryant, Gene Stallings and everything that happened prior to Jan. 3, 2007.

Tony Barnhart, probably the most respected sportswriter covering the SEC, recently opined in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "I don't know how many games Alabama is going to win, but this season is really about one thing: Using the star power of Nick Saban to remind people that the Crimson Tide has one of the most tradition-rich programs in the history of college football."

Also: South Carolina President Andrew Sorensen (former president at Alabama) is up to his old tricks.

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To read articles and blog entries from many other college football writers, be sure and visit CFR's "The Punditry" links. You can either bookmark that link or find it via CFR's College Football Links section on the menu at left.

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