Making the morning rounds.
• The Informant. If you were wondering about the "mitigating circumstances" that reduced Alabama defensive end Marcell Dareus' suspension for accepting improper benefits to two games from the usual four to open the season, here's a good hint: The reigning BCS Championship MVP reportedly turned state's witness when the NCAA came calling this summer, telling investigators that he had been pushed toward agent Gary Wichard by then-North Carolina assistant John Blake.
That's according to the ongoing series of reports into Blake's UNC tenure by Yahoo! Sports, which has already established fishy links between Blake and Wichard, as well as between Wichard and one of Blake's best players at UNC, suspended defensive tackle Marvin Austin. In the latest edition, anonymous sources told reporters Charles Robinson and Dan Wetzel that Dareus also fingered suspended South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders to the NCAA as a Blake target. If so, that potentially puts all three players named so far in the infamous South Beach party tour over Memorial Day weekend – Austin, Saunders and Dareus – in the Blake/Wichard camp. [Yahoo! Sports]
• Signs of the times. Off back-to-back losses to UCLA and Oklahoma, Texas missed the cut in the latest Associated Press poll for the first time in a decade, ending the longest active poll streak in the country. The Longhorns hadn't been left out by the AP since 2000, when they dropped from No. 11 to No. 25 after a 63-14 loss to eventual BCS champ Oklahoma in mid-October, and then out of the poll a week later despite a 28-14 win over Colorado. The 'Horns were back in the following week and finished No. 12 after six straight wins to close the regular season. With a bye week ahead, they're likely to spend consecutive weeks outside the rankings for the first time since 1999. Then comes the trip to Nebraska.
Another watershed departure: USC is also gone following its 32-31 loss to Washington. The Trojans briefly dropped from the AP poll on one vote last year after falling to 8-4 to close the regular season, snapping an uninterrupted, eight-year run in the polls since the start of 2002. But they'll have to pull the upset Saturday at Stanford – yes, Stanford is opening as an eight-point favorite over USC – to avoid their first back-to-back poll snubs since 2001, when they started 2-5 under first-year coach Pete Carroll. [Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman]
• The U is momentarily back in contrast to the sagging fortunes of a small faction of its peers, baby! In other poll matters, the combination of Miami's win at Clemson and Florida's grisly loss at Alabama made the 13th-ranked Hurricanes the highest-ranked team in the Sunshine State for the first time in almost five years, according to the AP. (Though the Coaches' Poll doesn't agree.) The last time that happened was in the final regular season poll of 2005, just before the 'Canes were trounced by LSU in the Peach Bowl to initiate the collapse of the Larry Coker era over the following year. [Miami Herald]
• Sometimes you just gotta live, man. LSU coach Les Miles told reporters Sunday that the abysmal clock management that nearly cost his team another win Saturday against Tennessee was "embarrassing" and "eats at you." But that doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate the W: "As an experience, I’m going to enjoy that one, as much as I hate to admit it," Miles said. "[The wild ending] something that I don't know that I've ever seen in my entire life. They just called (Tennessee) the winner, and then, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, come on back here, and then they called us the winner." [Associated Press]
• Not-so-happy trails. The first casualty of BYU's alarming 1-4 start: Defensive coordinator Jaime Hill, who was summarily fired after his unit allowed 434 yards in a 31-16 loss to cross-state punching bag Utah State on Friday night. Hill's defense has been unusually bad (the Cougars rank 101st nationally in total D and dead last against the run), but it's not like it's the problem: The offense is averaging a paltry 15.2 points per game, less than half what it averaged in any of head coach Bronco Mendenhall's first five years. [Salt Lake Tribune]
• Tough break. Ohio State linebacker/safety Tyler Moeller, best known for battling back from the brain surgery that sidelined him for all of 2009 (and the righteous head scar he suffered as a result), may be headed for season-ending surgery to repair a torn pectoral muscle, pending the results of a Sunday MRI. Moeller, a fifth-year senior, was already planning to lobby the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility in 2011. [Columbus Dispatch]
Quickly... Lane Kiffin on his fateful decision to attempt a field goal instead of go for before Washington's game-winning drive in the fourth quarter. ... Trojan fullback Stanley Havili played most of the game after separating his shoulder in the first half. ... Penn State loses another tight end to an ACL injury. ... South Carolina linebacker Shaq Wilson may be done for the season with a bum hamstring. ... If there was any doubt, Terrelle Pryor expects to play against Indiana. ... Caleb King's fourth-quarter fumble at Colorado "felt like death" to Georgia defensive end Demarcus Dobbs. ... How old hands Tom Osborne and Bill Snyder have stepped in to save their wayward babies. ... And Florida's only bright spot on Saturday night.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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