Jon

There's a report that Brent Pease, newly hired Indiana OC and former Boise State WR coach, is headed back to Boise State for their now vacant OC position.

DE Aldon Smith leaving Missouri. Also, Luck's father said there's "zero chance he will change his decision."

Harbaugh leaving by itself doesn't make a huge impact on Luck's senior season. If there are changes at OC and/or QB coach, though, Luck may reconsider depending on how things shake out over the next few days.

Texas Tech has instituted self-imposed penalties for text message violations from 2007-2009, which the NCAA has accepted. The penalties include two years probation.

If you watch SEC football casually and don't pay the closest attention to the broadcast, Verne is fine. You just need to be multitasking as you watch.

Schefter says the 49ers have called a press conference for this afternoon. It's supposedly a 5 year, $25 million deal.

And a lot of coaches looking for extensions are going to be expecting to get paid. Lovie Smith, for example. As I mentioned in the college thread, coaches' salaries (including assistants) is the new arms race in college football rather than facilities. It'll be pretty interesting to see how that affects the NFL.

Per Adam Schefter, Harbaugh is "expected to agree to a five-year contract with the 49ers." That man is going to be rich.

Eric Olson, an AP writer who covers Nebraska:

49ers too. Yeah, I haven't seen anything to indicate that Michigan is under consideration. It seems like Stanford vs. 49ers right now.

There was a report yesterday that Stanford could match or even exceed the offer that the 49ers had on the table for Harbaugh. Of course, now Jay Glazer says that a deal with the 49ers could get done tonight for over $6 million per season.

According to Jay Glazer ,the Dolphins are going to stick with Sparano. So much for the "done deal" reports for Harbaugh (again).

How good does Les Miles' skill set even translate at Michigan knowing that the Big Ten won't let him get away with the oversigning crap that's a way of life in the SEC?

According to Joe Schad, Michigan wanted to meet with Fitz to discuss the opening, but Fitz shot them down before any meeting could take place.

Everything the Cubs are doing now is to set up future events. They're not looking at these kinds off events as one-off deals. They went all out for Northwestern for the football game not because they just wanted to be nice, but because they wanted to get a future commitment for more games and work their way into a potential bowl game.

JJ Watt declared.

Fox got its second championship game, the Pac-10 championship game, for 2011 at a cost of $14.5 million. There's another $10.5 million in the deal for other games as a result of the expansion from 10 to 12 teams. This means that ESPN will have just the ACC championship game.

CFTalk saying the same thing.

The fan support will go wherever the wins and losses go. The Michigan Man angle is a bunch of hokum. It maybe has an effect on the length of the honeymoon period but that's about it. After a few years, sure. But a couple of years of 7-5 or 8-4 could be be interpreted very different if it's under a coach the fans like (rebuilding) than someone they don't (hiring failure). A Michigan guy could get a legitimate chance to build a program. I'm not sure the same is true for another outsider.

I think keeping the Michigan fan community together is a really important issue for them. They're at a point right now where the fan support can go one of two ways. It impacts a lot of things, including recruiting. Didn't Robinson decommit at one point, citing fan negativity? Recruits really do spend time on the internet, for better or worse, and that's where they build their impressions of the fan bases. Unhappy fans in a big program like Michigan lead to program instability, which results in an inability to recruit. Unfortunately, since keeping the fans happy is so important to the success of that program, it may cause Brandon to make a less than ideal selection for head coach.

Same problem with running a spread offense. It's not "Michigan football." Too bad Rodriguez couldn't just do what Lovie Smith does and tell the reporters over and over again that Bears football means running the ball but then just do what's actually best for the team. Saying that beating the Packers was goal #1 right when he was hired helped, too. But Rodriguez wasn't in a position to just BS his way to placating the local media and fan base.

Brandon and the fans will probably have less patience with the new coach, as well. Especially with the late firing, it could take a few years before the new coach can really put together a staff he likes. Add in the effect this will have on the recruiting class next month and potential transfers and you've got a recipe for taking a step back. Big name programs are going to be coming across this problem more and more. This isn't pre-1993 college football. Coaching changes, particularly frequent ones, can be very damaging to football programs and the big programs rarely have the necessary patience to let a coach build a program. I think big time programs think they can just grab a coach and people will flock to their school because of there name (the schools name) thus they think they can fire a coach when ever they need to. The problem is when every school is on all the time recruits can watch everyone play so it's not like all the exposure is to big time schools like it used to be. With national TV exposure and limits on scholarships, schools like Michigan just can't maintain the recruiting advantage that they once enjoyed, particularly when it comes to depth. It's very, very hard to avoid taking a step or two back when making this kind of change. Brandon said that Michigan had been in the middle of the pack in regards to coaches' salaries, but that's going to change. It seems like this is the new arms race. Rather than just pouring everything into facilities to attract recruits, athletic departments are going to start throwing much more money at head coaches and assistant coaches in order to keep pace.

Brandon and the fans will probably have less patience with the new coach, as well. Especially with the late firing, it could take a few years before the new coach can really put together a staff he likes. Add in the effect this will have on the recruiting class next month and potential transfers and you've got a recipe for taking a step back. Big name programs are going to be coming across this problem more and more. This isn't pre-1993 college football. Coaching changes, particularly frequent ones, can be very damaging to football programs and the big programs rarely have the necessary patience to let a coach build a program.

A Michigan beat writer just reported that an assistant told him Rodriguez and the entire staff have been canned.