Virginia Tech may not have been the typical Virginia Tech team in 2011, but the previous year should be a good learning curve for the Hokies as they move in to 2012. Before the Hokies put a cap on their spring schedule with their spring game on Saturday (4 p.m., ESPN3.com), here are five things we are paying attention to for the Fighting Frank Beamers.

1. Who will Logan Thomas be handing off to?

We'll get to the Hokies quarterback in a minute, but the more pressing concern this spring has to be the running back situation. Virginia Tech loses David Wilson, who set a Virginia Tech school record 1,709 yards last fall. That is a lot of yardage to replace, and when the leading backs returning in 2012 combined for under 60 yards on the ground last year, the running back position deserves special attention.

Frank Beamer will hope to see Daniel Dyer and Michael Holmes emerge as a dependable running back, and given Virginia Tech's history the running back position may be on fine shape. Thomas is more than capable of tucking the football and taking off when he needs to, but if Virginia Tech is going to make a run in the ACC then they will need to have an option to hand off to as well.

Spring football is a time for optimism everywhere in college football, but nowhere is the optimism higher than in Columbus, OH, where fans are eager to see what Urban Meyer cooked up in his first spring on the job. Excitement is so high, that there have already been 54,000 tickets sold (yes, sold) for Saturday’s Scarlet and Gray game, meaning Meyer and company won’t play to an empty house.

So what should you watch out for Saturday when the Buckeyes take the field? Let’s investigate

1. Will we learn anything about Braxton Miller we didn’t already know?

From the beginning, it was obvious that there wasn’t a single player that would benefit more from the transition from the Jim Tressel/Luke Fickell pro-style offense to Meyer’s spread scheme than Miller. And so far, the reports on the sophomore from Huber Heights, OH are through the roof. He’s throwing the ball well, he’s running the ball well, and basically doing everything Ohio State fans hoped for when it was announced that Meyer was coming to town.

As for Saturday, whether anyone actually gets to see those skills on full display will be another story all together. Meyer has already said that the scrimmage will be non-contact for his quarterbacks, and with the two teams divided up (the coaches held a draft, as opposed to putting the first team offense against the first team defense), many of the skill position players and offensive linemen that Miller will count on in the fall, will actually be playing for the other team Saturday.

Expect Miller to have a huge sophomore year. Just don’t expect to see much on Saturday.

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Ten or 15 years ago, the article by Sam Alipour published this week in ESPN The Magazine on the prevalence of marijuana usage among Oregon football players might have left a crater in the program. Instead, as the smoke has cleared, we've found that the article has seemingly left little more than a vapor trail in the national dialogue. In fact, the perceived naivete of the article's underlying premise – football players getting blazed is a big deal – has given the online snark peddlers plenty of fodder.

So here's your opportunity to out yourself as a complete square. Is there fire behind all this smoke, or is this just trifling for a major football program? Should schools and coaches be more proactive about weeding out the stoners?

Ty Hildenbrandt: I was disappointed with the ESPN article, but look forward to their investigative piece on gravity's communist rule over the forward pass.

Seriously, is it even news that college football players dabble in pot? I want to meet the one guy on planet Earth who read the piece and was like "HEAVENS TO BETSY!" I want to e-mail his Juno account and see what he does when his baud modem can't connect to CompuServe. I want to walk in his shoes, down that slippery slope -- where older, disconnected people become completely oblivious -- just so I can understand it.

The Georgia Bulldogs, defending SEC East champs, wrapped up spring football last weekend. The esteemed Senator Blutarsky of UGa site Get The Picture joins CBR's Allen Kenney for a podcast with all the details on the offseason practices in Athens.

Allen and the Senator break down:

• Concerns about the Bulldogs' offensive line.
• Replacing Orson Charles at tight end.
• Plans for wide receiver Malcolm Mitchell to play both ways.
• Georgia's patchwork secondary.
• A ferocious front seven.
• And a host of defensive newcomers to watch.

(Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.)

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2011 did not go the way the Volunteers wanted or expected it go. The Vols faithful knew it would be a trying year but they still expected to head to bowl game in December and have hope for the future. However, that did not happen as Justin Hunter and then Tyler Bray went down early, hamstringing the Volunteer offense.  Games against LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas didn’t make things any easier.

This year Derek Dooley is sitting firmly on the hot seat and Vols fans are thirsty for some sort of success. The spring game will be there chance to get a good look at a lot of the pieces that will be going into their 2012 campaign, including the big debut of their new defensive coordinator, Sal Sunseri. The game is set for Saturday at 3pm and you can watch all the action on ESPN3.

Here are five things to watch for in Tennessee’s spring game.

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Penn State's quarterback situation remains unsettled this spring. Photo: Kevin McGuire

Fans will finally get a glimpse in to what the new era of Penn State football will look like this weekend, when Penn State concludes their spring practice schedule with their annual Blue White Game. With new head coach Bill O'Brien generating a positive vibe out of State College the future of the program may be in better hands than expected, although that will remain to be seen for the fall when we can see O'Brien coach a game.

While the theme has been change and a breath of fresh air for the football program, many side themes remained the same. A quarterback competition for a third straight season has been the major story in State College, while players returning from injuries has been another.

Penn State's Blue White Game will start at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, and will be available to watch on Big Ten Network. Here are five things to watch for the game.

1. Will Paul Jones emerge as the leading quarterback?

Penn State's quarterback competition is heating up this spring, which has been the case each of the past two seasons. This spring the battle between Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin has continued, but with a twist. Paul Jones, finally eligible for playing time after a red-shirt freshman season and being academically ineligible his sophomore season, may be the best quarterback on the roster. With a strong showing in the Blue White Game there is an opinion that Jones could make a solid case to be considered to be named the starting quarterback for the Nittany Lions in the fall.

Of course, Bolden has started each of the past two seasons as the starting quaterback, and McGloin has ended them with bowl losses. Bill O'Brien is giving everyone a clean slate this spring, and he is not looking at game film from last fall. Will Jones take advantage of the opportunity?

Our buddy Beyond the Bets has the lowdown on a very early release of college football win totals for the 2012 season. The odds come courtesy of online book 5Dimes.com.

The juice is damn near extortionary, and the selection is limited. However, if you want a line on what the true college football experts think about the upcoming season, it makes for a nice start.

Check them out after the jump.

Although last Saturday was maybe the busiest weekend of the year in terms of spring football, there are still a handful of teams who continue practicing, and have yet to host their spring games.

One of those teams is Arkansas, which have made a lot of headlines this spring… but unfortunately, not many of them were football related. Bobby Petrino is the coach of the past, Taver Johnson is the interim for the present, and no one is quite sure exactly what to expect for the future.

But in the intermediary football has gone on, and on Saturday Arkansas will wrap up spring ball with their annual Red-White game Saturday at 2 p.m.

Here are five things Crystal Ball Run will be looking out for when the Hogs take the field:

As the old saying goes, there are only three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and Steve Spurrier keeping himself surprisingly interesting, even as he nears his 70th birthday. Whether he’s walking around practice without a shirt on, drinking a couples beers with his bros, or cracking jokes at the expense of Georgia’s police blotter, whenever there’s a camera, reporter or notepad in front of Spurrier, he’s guaranteed to deliver entertaining material.

And on Wednesday, he once again delivered.

Granted, Spurrier didn’t quite go all nuclear on another football coach or program, but again threw out a “suggestion” to folks in charge of the SEC, a suggestion that most certainly seemed to have garnet-tinged undertones. Apparently Spurrier isn’t happy with how the SEC Championship Game participants are decided. And he let Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples know it on Wednesday.

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College football is never one to be outdone by its little brother college basketball, which is why it only makes sense that in a week when Larry Brown was hired as SMU’s hoops coach, a college football coaching rumor came out late Tuesday that seemed to be just as out of left field as Brown-to-SMU.

That rumor? Well Arkansas fans, I hope you’re sitting down. Because reports indicate that your school…has contacted Phil Fulmer to coach their football team.

Yikes.

Only it does appear as though the two sides have at least talked, with Fulmer’s former defensive coordinator Doug Matthews telling Nashville radio show 3HL:

“I know Phillip has had conversations with them,” Matthews told the radio show. “And when I say with them, all that is going to take place behind the scenes.

“But everything I’m hearing from Arkansas is the spring game, I think, is this Saturday. ‘Let’s get through spring. Let’s see where we are.’ But I think they’ll either go with a guy that they’ve got on the staff or they’ll bring in someone to be — caretaker’s the wrong word — but bring someone in who has been through it all before.”

Oh my.

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