Wanna get away?

No, we’re not talking about the old Southwest Airlines tagline, but instead what many high school football recruits around the Southeast are saying as we head into Memorial Day weekend. The preferred destination for most: Auburn University, for the fourth annual “Big Cat Weekend.”

What is “Big Cat Weekend?” Well, it’s just about the most exclusive, unique and (apparently) fun weekend, any high school junior with SEC talent can take. This isn’t a “junior day” per se, and definitely isn’t the summer camp scene that every college program will be involved with later this month. As a matter of fact, Big Cat Weekend has little do with football, and more to do with getting to know a campus, coaching staff and potentially future teammates as well.

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Sue Paterno (right) will continue to donate money from Joe Paterno's pension back to local charities such as the Special Olympics.

Joe Paterno and his wife spent years helping to raise funds to expand the Patte Library, Penn State's university campus. When all was done, the Paternos fueled enough energy to help raise $13.5 million to build an additional wing on to the library, which bears the Paterno name to this day. As reported Tuesday by the Associated Press, the Paterno family will receive pension payments in the amount of $13.4 million from Penn State over the course of the coming years, and the family is already prepared to donate a portion back to university-related and local charities.

This should come as little surprise, of course. During his career Joe Paterno donated plenty of money back to the community and university, in addition to the money he donated to the school for the library. The Paternos have always been humble people, as you could probably tell by the looks of Joa Pa's home when compared to the mansions of some other coaches. Sure, perhaps Paterno made a fraction of what the elite coaches receive from other schools, but perhaps that is the point here. Paterno was never about making top dollar. Instead he and his family were about donating money to better benefit others.

How else would you explain $4 million and counting in donations to the university, the Special Olympics, THON and more? Former Board Chairman at Sheetz, a regional chain of gas station convenience shops, Buddy Casado said the Paternos were among the most active supporters of the Special Olympics.

"The time that they give is unbelievable - behind the scenes and all the effort - they're always there for us  - for the athletes," Casado said in an interview for WeAreCentralPA.com. He continued, "The Sheetz family has been involved with Special Olympics for 20 years. I have seen many supporters come and go over that time, but Joe and Sue their commitment has been unwavering for decades."

Mark your calendars, fire up the grill, and send your wife to the mall for the day: The biggest game of the college football opening weekend is now officially set!

That’s right, the announcement we’ve all been waiting for officially came yesterday, when the powers that be let us know that the September 1 showdown between Alabama and Michigan at Cowboys Stadium has received the coveted 8 p.m., ABC kickoff. You can now set your clocks accordingly.

This, from RollBamaRoll.com:

The kickoff time for the 2012 Cowboys Classic football game pitting Alabama against Michigan has been set for 7 p.m. Central Time on Saturday, September 1, with ABC Sports televising the contest to a national audience.

Alabama will be the home team and the Wolverines will be the away team. The game officials will be from the Big 12 Conference.

But seriously, are you ready for some football?

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Blame the end of final exams. Or the slow last weeks of May before summer workouts begin.  Or the simple fact that the police blotter doesn’t seem quite as active as usual. But without much real “news” to cover here at Crystal Ball Run, we’ve been left with little choice but to dip our toes into the extremely subjective and objectionable world of high school football recruiting the last couple weeks! Can you feel the excitement!

Well, we’re back at it again today, with another big name commitment, heading to another SEC superpower. That’s because a week after Alabama got their quarterback of the future, it appears as though LSU has theirs as well. His name is Hayden Rettig, and come the fall of 2013, he could be coming to an SEC stadium near you.

First the essentials on Rettig: Listed at 6’4, 210 lbs., Rettig appears to be a perfect fit in the pro-style attack that Les Miles and company run down on the Bayou. Rettig is ranked as the fifth best pro-style quarterback in the class of 2013 by Rivals.com, a ranking that is all the more impressive considering that he missed almost all of his junior year with an ACL injury. The Los Angeles native held scholarship offers from most schools in the Pac-12, including Arizona, Arizona State, Washington State and Oregon State, and if you’re looking for a fun fact of the day, it’s that Rettig is the brother of current Boston College starter Chase Rettig. Feel free to throw that one around at your next cocktail party.

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There’s an old saying that goes “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” and in the case of new Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, he takes that saying quite literally. The man who proudly boasts of his role in the movie “The Blind Side” also isn’t afraid to drum up some excitement on the recruiting trail… by offering just about every high school football player in the country with two arms and two legs.

Ok, so that may be a bit of a slight exaggeration, but on Tuesday morning the Clarion-Ledger down in Jackson, MS did a fascinating piece on Freeze’s very liberal recruiting practices. In an effort to drum up interest in their program, Ole Miss has offered a staggering 246 football players college scholarships for the fall, which, for the math majors out there, is more than 1000 percent higher than the NCAA allotted 25 per year.

However, if you think that there isn’t a method to Freeze’s madness, well there is. In the hyper-localized areas in and around Mississippi (specifically Alabama, Louisiana and Memphis), Freeze and his staff are much more liberal in handing out their scholarships. According to the Clarion-Ledger, Ole Miss has offered just 13 high school football players in Mississippi, while they’ve offered 57 in Florida alone.
Freeze explains why:

"You're more careful here, localized, to not just throw offers out," Freeze said. "Because it's not as easy. These relationships here, they are so vital to us. One in California, not that they're not important, but it's a different dynamic."

Simply put, if you’re Freeze, you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you, and in this case, the hand that feeds him is undoubtedly Mississippi.

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One of the saddest and most shocking news pieces to hit college football in many years came across the wire today, as West Virginia University announced today that former head coach Bill Stewart died of an apparent heart attack this afternoon during a golf outing. Stewart coached the Mountaineers coach from 2008-2010, accruing a record of 28-12 with three postseason wins, before resigning his post under turmoil last spring. He was 59-years-old.

Earlier, West Virginia President Jim Clements released a statement saying:

"Mountaineer nation is truly saddened today to learn of the untimely passing of Coach Bill Stewart. Our hearts go out to the Stewart family and Bill's many friends. He was a compassionate, energetic, and kind person. He loved his family dearly and was extremely community-oriented and very giving of his time. He will be greatly missed."

Reflecting back, Stewart will be remembered for two distinct things during his time at the school. One, was the highest of highs, and the other, a professional low.

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About this time every year I start to contemplate what my perfect fall would look like.

It involves an endless supply of cash, one of those John Madden-type buses and two or three of my closest friends. What will ensue? Well, I hope the greatest four months ever.

See, we're going to be on the road seeing as many college football games as we possibly can, while enjoying the scenery and local fare in each town. This isn't about picking the best game every week. Sometimes it might be the best game, but usually I'm looking for a different town and the ability to attend as many games as possible while traveling by with our supped-up bus.

You can bet we'll be sleeping a lot on that bus as we leave a game and head to the next location – especially during that first long weekend of action (my apologies to my wife and kids).

So in case I figure out a way to pull off this perfect fall, I better come up with a plan.

South Carolina at Vanderbilt (Aug. 30)

The season kicks off again on Thursday and what better way to start it than with Steve Spurrier and James Franklin? I'll take that match up, even if the Gamecocks should be able to outclass the improving Commodores. no comments

Welcome to this week’s “Case of the Mondays” where we at Crystal Ball Run take a look at the good, bad and the ugly in the college football world and beyond.

This week, we start with…

1. The dumbest storyline that isn’t really a storyline to hit college football in years: When it was announced late Friday that the SEC and Big XII had signed a five-year agreement starting in 2014 to have their conference champions play each other in a bowl game. The catch of course, is that the two champions will only play if neither is involved in the four-team playoff that is set to kickoff that year.

For about 30 seconds it caused an uproar around college football world: Wait, the SEC and Big XII champ in a new game? What about bowl tie-ins? What about history? What about those poor lost souls in the Big East and ACC. What about…

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Florida St. has apparently hit the eject button on the Atlantic Coast Conference, a move that would almost certainly scatter the league's top football programs.

According to a report from Ingram Smith citing two unnamed, highly connected FSU sources, the Seminoles' withdrawal frm the ACC and application to the Big 12 is "inevitable." The 'Noles would likely be joined by Clemson in defecting to the Big 12.

(That's assuming, of course, that the Big 12 is still on board with expanding. A cryptic tweet from ex-Tulsa World columnist Dave Sittler suggested that there may not be a total consensus in favor of such a move. Um, OK.)

The significance of this development for the ACC can't be understated. Losing its top football property in FSU and another marquee brand, Clemson, would leave the league vulnerable to more poaching by not only the Big 12, but the SEC and Big Ten as well. Even Georgia Tech, long thought wed to the academic prestige of the ACC, is in talks with the Big 12, according to Smith.

The big questions now:

• Will the Big 12 go beyond 12 teams?
• Does the B1G really have its eyes on the east coast?
• Where does this leave Louisville, which supposedly got left at the altar the last time the Big 12 expanded?
• Does the SEC really want to manage a league with more than 14 teams?

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The Big Ten and Pac 12 have long been on a stance that preserving the Rose Bowl is of the utmost importance. The SEC and Big 12 decided to create their own. Sort of.

The two conferences announced today that they have agreed to send their respective conference champions to a bowl game to face each other, in a similar deal the Rose Bowl has with the Big Ten and Pac 12. In the event that one of the conference champions from the SEC and Big 12 are eligible for a BCS championship or a four-team playoff entry (still to be determined of course), then the conference will send their second best option. All in all, it makes for a pretty intriguing match-up, but it does have legitimate criticism.

What are the odds that the conference champions from each conference will play in this game? It just simply does not happen often that neither conference has a player in the BCS picture. And if a four-team playoff takes precedent over the bowls, then the odds are pretty good that neither conference champ plays in the game.

"A new January bowl tradition is born," said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. "This new game will provide a great matchup between the two most successful conferences in the BCS era and will complement the exciting postseason atmosphere created by the new four-team model. Most importantly, it will provide our student-athletes, coaches and fans with an outstanding bowl experience."

"I am very excited by the prospects for a game between our champion and the champion of the Southeastern Conference," added incoming Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby.

Essentially, what we have is a Cotton Bowl match-up designed to pit the conference champs instead of best available. The odds are the game will take place in the Sugar Bowl, but other potential sites to be considered should be Cowboys Stadium (site of the Cotton Bowl and high-profile neutral site games in recent years), and possibly Atlanta's Georgia Dome (although with Arthur Blank hoping to get a new stadium built outdoors, who knows what the future is).