Dan Hawkins' somewhat manic mind has been dealing with his imminent departure from Colorado from the very first moments of a disastrous season. With Colorado's fourth straight losing season already assured heading into Friday's finale with Nebraska, Hawk was in an openly reflective mood Monday, trying to defend his "pie in the sky" and glass half-full" philosophy even while admitting his "10 wins and no excuses" prediction in the preseason was slightly too optimistic and occasionally indicating he sees the writing on the wall. And nowhere did he seem more resigned to his fate than when he admitted he probably shouldn't have recruited his son to play quarterback:

As the Denver Post quipped, that just about makes it unanimous: No one has suggested Cody Hawkins isn't a hard-working, stand-up guy who's handled being yanked in and out of the lineup over the last two years like "a man's man," but hasn't quite fit as a Big 12 quarterback. Physically, Cody's height and arm have always been regarded as liabilities, and after a respectable debut as a redshirt freshman, he's finished as the lowest-rated regular passer in the conference each of the last two years. The pick-six that turned the tide of a potential upset bid and got him pulled from the game at Texas must be one of the worst combinations of bad decision/bad throw anyone has made this year. Cody still has another season, but to hear his dad talk, it sounded like the verdict is already in.

And as far as the elder Hawk's tenure is concerned, maybe it is -- when the local paper starts drawing eerie parallels between you and Bill Callahan, who had no hope of remaining at Nebraska going into the 2007 finale in Boulder, it's pretty much over; Callahan was so fired at the end, the rest of the Big 12 might as well make it a verb for all lame-duck coaches as they play out the string: Win or lose Saturday, Hawkins seems destined to be Callahan'd by this time next week, after which he'll have plenty of time to reflect on his alternate history memoir.

And hey, glass-half-full: Maybe the school can't afford the buyout, and Dan will get to see his self-described mistake through to the end. Keep reaching for that pie.

Making the morning rounds.

• "I'm responsible. I’m the head coach." After claiming ignorance despite video evidence to the contrary after the game, LSU coach Les Miles took full responsibility Monday for his team's inexplicable clock management gaffe at the end of its 25-23 loss at Ole Miss. Miles admitted "we had no second play called prior to the Hail Mary" on the 4th-and-26 play that set up anticlimactic finish, because that pass was supposed to go into the end zone. It was letting 17 seconds tick away before calling timeout prior to the fourth down heave, though, that brought the most scorn -- from critics and from Miles himself: "I let the clock get away from me. That was my fault, my mistake. ... At that point in time, I had lost the opportunity for the team to win by squandering seconds."

• What? We all know it's coming. Monday's best headline, courtesy the Associated Press:

Oh, but they will, right AP? Nothing in the subsequent article suggests Rodriguez is in any immediate danger, but they will.

• Good luck with that. Winless Western Kentucky was the first team to let its coach go earlier this month, and Monday became the first team to fill its vacancy by hiring Stanford running backs coach Willie Taggart, a WKU alum and Jim Harbaugh's brother from another mother. Fired coach Dave Elson will stay on for the Hilltoppers' final two games in search of one last (and, this year, first) victory.

• How much is firing Ralph Friedgen worth to us? Word to the Washington Post over the weekend was that Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's $4 million buyout wouldn't be an obstacle to ditching Fridge as the 2-9 Terps hurtle toward one of the worst finishes in school history. The Baltimore Sun doesn't quite think so: With the general budget crunch at UMD, Friedgen will either have to resign or be targeted by deep-pocketed boosters to get around that number.

• Godspeed. Good luck to N.C. State offensive coordinator Dana Bible, a longtime hand at several schools who has been diagnosed with leukemia. Bible missed the Pack's game at Virginia Tech Saturday and won't coach against North Carolina as he undergoes tests in Boston and begins his fight.

Quickly ... Urban Meyer insists he's not going to Notre Dame. So is he just waiting until after the SEC Championship game to take the job, or what? ... Rich Brooks has had enough of this retirement crap. ... Forbes explains how Doug Flutie changed the game. ... The Mountain West reprimands a BYU player and assistant coach for criticizing Air Force's cut blocks. ... And I-AA Northeastern drops its football program after 74 years, leaving the Red Sox and Patriots with one less obstacle in commanding the attention of the Boston sports scene.

Readers who can still recall September (congratulations on that, by the way) may remember the helmet-to-helmet collision between Minnesota receiver Eric Decker and California safety Sean Cattouse, who briefly knocked Decker out of the game and opened up an ugly gash on the senior's chin. It was one of the more impressive, frightening-looking shots of the year -- so much so, in fact, that Minnesota set a physics professor loose to quantify the damage:

According to my physics education by Google, 10.78 g is significantly more force than Apollo 16's reentry to Earth and more than twice what the body can typically withstand for any sustained period (in a fighter jet or roller coaster, for example), but in football terms may be fairly tame: In Malcolm Gladwell's much-discussed New Yorker article on the debilitating long-term effects of head injuries, linemen are routinely recorded sustaining hits well above 60 g, and the general threshold for concussions seems to be somewhere between 50 and 75 g. So either there is some significant disconnect in those calculations and the ones scrawled out by Professor Dahlberg here, or you should shake it off, Decker (when your foot heals, I mean).

I haven't been doing this very long compared to some people, but I'm pretty certain that if any random straw poll of fans was asked to respond to the question "Which college football player would you most like to punch in the face?" no player over the last five years would finish in the same ballpark as Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the perfect storm of hype, hair gel and unearned entitlement at the most high profile position in the most widely-despised program in America. Not that Jimmy deserves to be punched in the face or anywhere else, of course, but still -- there are no doubt a lot of smiling people tonight living vicariously through an anonymous patron of CJ's in South Bend, where Clausen was reportedly dealt at least one shiner a few hours after the Irish's deflating double-OT loss to UConn:

Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen was involved in a fight outside a South Bend bar early Sunday morning, according to a report Monday evening by WGN-AM's David Kaplan.

According to Kaplan, Clausen has two black eyes from the altercation at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday. ... The Tribune's Brian Hamilton reports that a South Bend police spokesman said Monday no police reports were filed over the weekend that involved Clausen. The particulars of the confrontation are thus unclear, though a person answering the phone at CJ's, the bar in question, said the incident "absolutely did not take place inside the bar."

The Worldwide Leader's Joe Schad also confirmed Clausen has a swollen eye, at minimum, after being "sucker-punched" outside a bar. If true, it follows Clausen's citation for underage possession as a freshman and starring role in the '08 "Beer Olympics" to keep his career average for minor off-field incidents at one per season.

On the bright side, everyone may be too busy examining Clausen's face for the rest of the week to concentrate on the growing speculation that he'll follow coach Charlie Weis into the NFL by tossing his name into the pool of early entrants for the draft following Saturday's regular season finale at Stanford. If there's anywhere a highly visible party hound can go to keep his after-hours exploits under wraps, it's the NFL, right?

[UPDATE, 12:40 p.m. ET] Via Brooks, the South Bend Tribute reports Clausen was sticking up for his date after a family dinner and got into brief scrum when someone outside the bar pushed her; police showed because of "other skirmishes" at the bar but made no arrests. If there was any question, Clausen will start the Stanford game.

Charlie Weis has never been a particularly popular figure at Notre Dame, even when the Irish were winning in his first two seasons, and John Walters' all-access, "Dead Coach Walking" tour for AOL FanHouse -- while never condescending to suggest Weis may not be fired after Saturday's trip to Stanford -- tugs openly on the heartstrings wherever possible. It's not hard to sympathize: Weis shows up for work hours before sun-up every day, staying well into the night; he's an obsessive recruiter; he totally eschews camera-friendly artifice; he actually lost a chunk of his knee in last year's ugly sideline collision against Michigan, an injury that resulted in multiple surgeries and follows him for days each week after spending hours on his feet on game days but brought mainly fan jokes from fans, etc. Walters, a Notre Dame guy, is convincing at least that Weis isn't being bounced for a lack of old-fashioned elbow grease.

About those fat jokes, though -- whether or not the hecklers, Photoshop artists and ruthless commenters ever considered the impact on their target, the endless digs haven't exactly been rolling gracefully through the years like water off a duck's back. From the sound of it, it's more like they penetrated Weis' heart and coalesced into a dense, black, malignant amulet of bitterness that he vows to carry with him forever:

"The damage to Maura and Charlie Jr. is irreparable," says Weis, referring to the personal nature of the attacks he has been subject to for years now. "It's watching me get hammered. I'll never forgive the people who character-assassinated me without even knowing me. Those people did irreparable damage to my wife and son, and I'll never forgive them."
[...]
"They have the right to criticize the coach for being 6-5," says Weis. "They have that right. It's all the other stuff. You think I don't know that I'm fat? Duh!"

Asked if he should be gone, where would Charlie Jr. would go to college, the coach reponded: "I know where he won't be going to college."

I'd like a precise statistical estimate of Weis critics since 2005 who are actually asking for forgiveness for their juvenile cruelty. Because I know I can name a few who are proudly standing by it.

I'm no kind of "insider" like Walters, who does his best in the service of a positive spin. But when the still-technically employed head coach bitterly promises that his emotionally wounded son won't be following in his footsteps at the old alma mater, it's hard to pretend this split is going to go down amicably.

It took me a couple go-rounds this weekend to realize the headline "Bowl Championship Series hires ex-Bush administration spokesman to improve public image of BCS" wasn't another magisterial offering from The Onion -- the haphazard hand of reality couldn't possibly align such note-perfect satire on its own accord. But sometimes, I guess, you really can't make this stuff up:

Ari Fleischer Communications, a sports public relations firm headed by the former press secretary for President George W. Bush, has been hired by BCS officials to help remodel the tattered image of college football’s postseason system.
[...]
[New BCS executive director Bill] Hancock said in a statement the goal of the hiring was to help highlight the positive aspects of the BCS, which he called the best way to match college football’s top two teams, while preserving the bowl system.

It might seem slightly counterintuitive to hire the spokesman of an administration that ended in a state somewhat below "tattered" to un-tatter an unpopular system that's come under more and more fire each successive year of its existence. Let's not forget, though, what a public relations ninja Fleischer was in his days in the White House -- here, after all, was an ordinary-looking man who frequently bickered with members of the press corps, who once suggested publicly that citizens should "watch what they say, watch what they do," and who said adding additional information to the "mountain of evidence" that Saddam Hussein had accumulated and was planning to use weapons of mass destruction "is like adding a foot to Mount Everest" ... and who basically won. Fleischer was integral in selling the war in Iraq, and he was smart enough to exit the building before it self-destructed soon after.

So if anyone is equipped to deal with a few grandstanding Congressmen, a nascent playoff lobby and even a playoff-stumping president, it's one of the very few guys who got out of the Bush years relatively unscathed. And if Fleischer's firm is partially responsible for keeping Major League Baseball's head above water over the last few years, too, maybe there's some hope for the Series yet. I know I'm starting to like it more already.

Urban Meyer's not a touchy-feely kind of guy -- throughout his tenure at Florida, in fact, he's been more of a "point and destroy" coach, a hardware-seeking mercenary who rarely smiles, often burns holes into players' and officials' souls with his steely gaze, constructs the facade of a humorless mumbler in front of the media and is always at ease dropping huge numbers on fleeing opponents if it suits his purposes. The grudging grins he flashed on stage during the Gators' championship celebrations in 2006 and again last January seemed somewhat obligatory, like his face would probably be sore for a week afterward.

When it comes to this year's wildly successful senior class, though, heading into its final home game Saturday against Florida State, the big galoot just can't ... he just ... can't quite ... keepittogether:

Patient viewers may have caught the best part of the interview that didn't involve a frog trying to crawl out of Meyer's throat: Because of the impact Tim Tebow has made on college football, "it's almost like selflessness is now a cool thing."

At last, after the toil and strife of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, countless obscure and impoverished humanitarians, teachers, clergy, parents and the fundamental moral basis of the overwhelming majority of human societies throughout the history of civilization, selflessness is finally "in" -- all thanks to Tebow. Now the Ayn Rand crowd knows on exactly which door to nail its next 95-page theses.

- - -
Hat tip: SBN

Why any system that excludes the Horned Frogs is rubbish.

Barring a colossal upset at the top of the polls this weekend, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that undefeated TCU doesn't have a chance of overtaking Texas or the winner of the SEC Championship game for one of the two slots in January's BCS title game -- and the Frogs may not even make it even with the benefit of a shocker, depending on how the dominoes fall. Assuming TCU finishes off 1-10 New Mexico to complete a perfect regular season, here's why that should bring out the rhetorical torches ad pitchforks (again) against the BCS' "two-team playoff":

• Quality wins. The Frogs have as many wins over teams in the current BCS top 25 as Alabama (three apiece) and more than Florida and Texas (one apiece) combined. In fact, TCU's best wins -- at No. 18 Clemson and No. 19 BYU and in a home romp over No. 21 Utah -- give it as many wins over ranked teams as any team in the country, and puts the Frogs' overall strength of schedule within a hair's breadth of the Tide's, Gators' and Longhorns' according to BCS computer gurus Jeff Sagarin and Anderson & Hester.

• Dominance. It's easy to knock the Frogs' schedule, but they pound lesser teams into dirt at the same grisly rate as more storied heavyweights: The last six games (including the 31-point win at BYU and 27-point win over Utah) were all out of hand by halftime and eventually decided by at least four touchdowns; TCU has only trailed in the fourth quarter once, in the comeback win at Clemson, which has only lost one game since en route to the ACC title game. The average margin of victory (27.1 points per game) is right behind Texas' as the most lopsided number in the nation.

This is the biggest difference between TCU this year and last year's undefeated Mountain West darling, Utah, which was a master of the squeaker. The Utes won four games in '08 by three points or less (including a stunning, last-second comeback over TCU in which they were outgained by 141 yards), and employed an All-American kicker who was 11-for-11 on field goals in those four games. Against an arguably identical schedule, the Frogs are blowing the doors off and haven't left anything up to the kicker.

Read More »

Making the morning rounds.

• Choose your late night cruising friends wisely. As suggested by his quick release and ongoing status as "Tennessee football player" when his alleged accomplices were summarily booted from the team earlier this month, Vol safety Janzen Jackson has been effectively cleared of armed robbery charges by Knox County prosecutors, who dropped charges against Jackson and the alleged getaway driver in the high profile stick-up. The investigation determined that neither Jackson nor the driver not only didn't have any advanced knowledge of a robbery, but were still unaware anything had gone down when they started to pull out of the parking lot.

Legal clearance opens the door for the hyped freshman's official return to the roster, possibly in time for a bowl game. Booted teammates Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards, meanwhile, are scheduled for preliminary hearings this morning on felony counts; the driver will still face charges for marijuana possession. [Knoxville News-Sentinel]

• Wolverine arrested, not charged. Even with a strong vote of confidence from his athletic director, this isn't exactly what Rich Rodriguez needed hours after capping a seven-game conference losing streak with a lopsided loss to Ohio State: An unnamed Michigan football player was arrested for sexual assault Sunday morning on a complaint at a campus party. There are enough details -- the player is 18, a freshman who didn't play at all this year but was apparently expected to start in 2010 -- that Wolverine fans can probably guess the alleged culprit. Note, though, that no formal charges have been filed. [AnnArbor.com]

• No "that's a lot of twinkies" jokes, please. Following Notre Dame's lead, "sources who have been briefed on the financial details" of Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's contract told the Washington Post Sunday that Fridge's $4 million buyout won't save him from the chopping block on the heels of by far the worst season of his nine-year tenure. The Terps went down 29-26 Saturday at Florida State, their sixth straight loss and a possible prelude to the first 10-loss season in school history with another flop against Boston College in this weekend's finale. [Washington Post]

• This is not what we meant by "slingin' it." Along with his hair, ridiculous fashion sense, insistence on the deep ball and generally off-kilter flair, Miami quarterback Jacory Harris has wormed his way into out hearts despite (and in some sense, even because of) his status as the most interception-prone quarterback in the country. After this weekend, the cult of Jacory may also admire the sophomore's talent for pranking reporters: After passing for a career-high 348 yards with two touchdowns in a 34-16 win over Duke, Harris showed up to the postgame press conference wearing a sling on his throwing arm -- for no reason whatsoever. 'Cane coach Randy Shannon assured the room his quarterback -- who did play with a sore thumb under a layer of tape -- was "fine" and just "getting some of you guys." [Associated Press]

Quickly ... Oklahoma is probably headed for the Sun Bowl, which seems pretty generous at this point. ... Mike Leach says no way is he leaving Texas Tech any time soon. ... Charlie Weis' name still carries weight with the Kansas City Chiefs, apparently. ... And when did Mark Mangino get so nice all of a sudden?

Everybody was too busy writing Charlie Weis' obituary at Notre Dame to pay much attention to Randy Edsall -- his emotional postgame interview with NBC's sideline reporter immediately after the game, one of the best moments of the season, hasn't even been uploaded in any of the usual places -- but it's hard to imagine a much more uplifting counterpoint to the grim reality in South Bend than a beleaguered coach soaking in what he kept insisting was the biggest win in the history of the program he guided from obscurity.

Consider first where UConn has come from under Edsall, who brought a run-of-the-mill I-AA program into the I-A ranks in 2000, to its first bowl game in 2004, to its first co-Big East title in 2005 and now to a win on one of the most hallowed pitches in America, more recent indignities notwithstanding.

Then consider what UConn has endured as a team over the last month, toiling under the constant pall of the grisly homecoming murder of teammate Jasper Howard: Over the subsequent three games, the Huskies blew a fourth quarter lead at West Virginia in a game that wasn't decided until the final minute, then boarded a plane directly for Howard's funeral in Florida; blew another fourth quarter lead at home on an 81-yard touchdown reception by Rutgers' Tim Brown, one of Howard's best high school friends from Miami; lost its starting quarterback for the season; and scored twice as many points as any other team against undefeated Cincinnati on the road, pushing the Bearcats to the brink in a two-point loss that secured UConn's longest losing streak in three years. Before finally overcoming the Irish in overtime in South Bend, the Huskies had to endure watching two game-winning touchdowns negated by a pair of bogus holding penalties and then a game-winning field goal attempt sail wide on the final play of regulation, moments dripping with the "here we go again" doom Edsall referenced after the game.

That was where Edsall was when NBC's cameras caught him on the sideline after the final gun, struggling against the most deserving wave of tears any coach has ever choked back on national television. Here's to holding it all together when it counts, coach, and may all your International Bowls be sweet.