Making the morning rounds.• We love you, man, but wait your turn. Big Ten coaches voted Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson as the conference's Offensive Player on the Year, an obvious choice after the dynamic sophomore became the first player in NCAA history to rush for 1,500 and pass for 1,500 yards in the same season and spearheaded the No. 1 attack in the league. Somehow, though, the same coaches failed to vote Robinson to the All-Big Ten team as a quarterback, first or second team, reserving the honor for a pair of scrappy seniors: Northwestern's Dan Persa and Wisconsin's Scott Tolzien. [AnnArbor.com, BigTen.org]
Other year-end All-Something teams released Monday: The American Football Coaches' Association All-America team and the All-ACC team. Before clicking, quick: Who's the ACC Offensive Player of the Year? If you guessed the answer, give yourself a cookie.
• Who's laughing now? Speaking of the ACC, this weekend's chronically ignored conference championship game between Virginia Tech and Florida State is once again struggling to … wait, it's almost sold out? At last glance, the game's first go-round in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium was only 200 tickets away from the bottom of the box, meaning Saturday night's showdown will likely be devoid of hilarious overhead shots of empty seats and might even make the case to keep the title game in Charlotte on an annual basis. [Charlotte Observer]
• New and improved. Down SEC way, the Birmingham News' Jon Solomon has dubbed Saturday's championship game between Auburn and South Carolina the "Rivals.com Bowl" in honor of the teams' instant-impact MVPs, former five-star recruits Cam Newton and Marcus Lattimore. Neither is quite a one-man team, but it's rarely been so obvious, either, how essential a single player – much less a newcomer – is to his team's presence in Atlanta: "Nothing else better explains why two 3-5 SEC teams from a year ago are headed to the Georgia Dome. … [B]oth hang their hat on a special, once-in-a-generation-type player who makes their offense multi-dimensional."
That may be so, but Vegas is still concerned enough about South Carolina quarterback Stephen Garcia's assorted bruises after last week's win over Clemson that some gambling sites have taken the game off the board. [Birmingham News, BetUS.com]
• The waiting game. On the Big 12 Championship front, both teams are making contingency plans for forging ahead without their brightest star on offense: Oklahoma running back DeMarco Murray remains questionable to play with a knee injury (though his status was "looking positive" on Monday), and Nebraska may play two quarterbacks if Taylor Martinez's day-to-day ankle injury won't let him go the entire game – the fifth consecutive week backup Cody Green has practiced without knowing until game day whether he'd get the start. [Associated Press, The Oklahoman]
• Welcome to the Horseshoe ... after dark. Ohio State, following Michigan's lead, is considering adding permanent lighting to Ohio Stadium, instead of bringing in temporary lights for late afternoon and night games – an $80,000-per-game tab that TV networks later deduct from their annual payout to the conference. Considering the cost of adding new lights to the 'Shoe (in the $2 million range), though, the real catalyst is to move a few of those noon kickoffs to more attractive time slots later in the day. [Columbus Dispatch]
Quickly… TCU's move to the Big East won't really increase the Frogs' travel. … Southern Miss is likely landing in the Beef O' Brady's Bowl. … Mark Richt is looking to sign a "Dream Team" of Georgia prep stars. … Bobby Bowden and Gene Stallings will lead their own dream teams of former stars to play for U.S. soldiers overseas. … USC fires the first shot at UCLA in the '10 Prank Wars. … Colorado is changing coaches at the right time, roster-wise. … How this edition of the Big 12 Championship Game was forged in Ohio. ... And Dan Mullen declares Mississippi State is never losing to Ole Miss again, at least not while he's in Starkville. So that's valid for a few more weeks, anyway.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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