In what could be a potentially a huge move towards future notoriety, the Cotton Bowl Classic will leave their self-named home in 2010 and move to the new state of the art stadium being constructed for the Cowboys in nearby Arlington.

The Cotton Bowl has been played at Cotton Bowl Stadium since it’s inception in 1937. A long time showcase for the old Southwestern Conference, the game was considered a major bowl game through the mid-1980’s.

The Cotton Bowl Athletic Association hopes that the move will restore that prestige, setting up a tie-in with the Bowl Championship Series. The game currently is broadcast by FOX, the current BCS rights holder.

This year’s game featured Nebraska, losers of the Big 12 championship, and Auburn, a strong BCS contender.

The ‘08 and ‘09 games will remain in Dallas proper, along with the Red River Shootout between Oklahoma and Texas. The Grambling-Prairie View game remains at the venerable old stadium as well.

The Cowboys played 11 seasons at the Cotton Bowl before moving to Irving in 1971.

It doesn’t matter if you are a product of the system or not when someone throws for 5549 yards with 58 touchdowns and only 12 interceptions you have to take notice. If that touchdown to interception ratio doesn’t catch your eye the 72.9 percent completion percentage might. In his two years starting for the Hawaii Warriors, Brennan has thrown for 9800 yards and 93 touchdowns with 25 interceptions. He is a legitimate Heisman Trophy Candidate for next year. Here is a video of his highlights of 2006.

Who would have thought last fall that the savior of Big East football would have come from the State University of New Jersey. Yep, Rutgers.

Now before you think I’ve lost my mind, hear me out on this.

After Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami took the money and bolted to the mediocre ACC, you could hear the death knell for the Big East as a major power. It was a given that West Virginia and Louisville would remain elite, yet as Syracuse and Pitt fell apart, the strength of the elite would be questioned as the WVU/Louisville game would be the only good measure for the country.

A funny thing happened on the road to WAC’dom, West Virginia beat Georgia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, in Atlanta. The conference got a mulligan for an off 2005. UConn and South Florida were young programs with potential, but in this instant culture, potential doesn’t pay the bills.

Enter Rutgers. Rutgers who had played in one bowl game in their entire history until 2005, and even that was in New Jersey, made a bowl game. A pounding by Arizona State and their pinball offense later and the Scarlet Knights were forgotten again. Until September anyway.

They started 2006 right where 2005 left off, they were winning. North Carolina didn’t impress many people, but Ray Rice rushed for over 200. Other wins followed. A trip to Annapolis beckoned and some figured that the mini-Rutgers run was over. Navy failed to score.

After the dust settled from Louisville’s crowning defeat of WVU, most again figured that the Soprano’s ride was over. We were wrong.

Yes, they eventually were beat. Yes, they played in a lower tier bowl game, that by the way they destroyed Kansas State in. Yes, there were and are questions, but something funny happened on the way to the ball, Greg Schiano, who has built the program, turned down the Miami Hurricanes, a program dripping with tradition, to stay in Piscataway.

Never mind the hot blonde, lets stay with the brunette next door.

In two short seasons, after taking a few years to right the ship, Rutgers won their first bowl game, finished in the Top 15 in the country, and had their first double-digit win season.

Why does Rutgers and Schiano’s new contract make the Big East stronger? Well, having three major programs will make us much more likely to give credence for whomever gets hot in the Big East. An undefeated team will have to slay two Goliaths to get to the BCS Title game. You can obviously recruit better if you have a program that could seriously get all the way to the top. Finally, the pressure from the conference will be off to either plead a deal with Notre Dame or pushing the newer programs to make even bigger strides.

There is no guarantee that Rutgers will remain an elite team, but the emergence in that direction not only keeps the locals happy, it keeps Louisville and Morgantown happy, and when the new TV deal comes in, it keeps the bean counters happy.

Tell that to the parity filled ACC.

It is always hard to compare high school athletes to those in the NFL and even in college, but it is fun to speculate who they might emulate the most. Thanks to my good friend Mike Rizzo, he found this little highlight video of a player being touted as the next Vince Young. The awards are already piling up for this young superstar. Terrelle Pryor has offers from over 30 schools already. Most of them are looking at him at both football and basketball.

He has the makeup of a great dual threat quarterback with his 6 foot 6 inch and 210 pound frame. In his junior season for Jeannette High School in Pennsylvania he completed 92 of 163 passes for 1,732 yards and rushed for 1,676 yards on 197 attempts. He threw for 15 touchdowns, ran for 13, and caught 1 touchdown. Rivals.com tabbed him as the junior of the year. Let me tell you that this guy is worth every bit of hype he is getting. I have personally seen him play twice, once on field level and watched him numerous other times on television. So check him out in the video below.

In what can hopefully become a running feature of the site, we’re bringing you your daily/weekly player arrest report. For this day, let’s talk about South Carolina recruit Scott Stapp Stephen Garcia. Mr. Garcia, the 5th ranked QB in the nation, was arrested at Five Points last night, Columbia’s noted student drinking area. If you’ve ever been there, its pretty much set up like bar-hotdog stand-bar-bar-bar.

Garcia was arrested for underage drinking and public drunkeness. As the police called out his name, he ran.  Garcia is 19 years old, benches 300 pounds and runs a 4.7 40.  He’s known as a gunslinger on the field, so perhaps he thinks he’s Brett Favre.  Either way, there is nothing about the accompanying picture that says “I intend to get smashed and go to Denny’s at 3 a.m.”

This marks the second consecutive Gamecock QB to be arrested for drunkeness in the past year, with Barbaro Blake Mitchell being arrested last year for punching a bouncer.  Also, the previous year, former QB Syvelle Newton was arrested for stealing a poster from the stadium.

So to the children of South Carolina, we implore you, never play quarterback.

The clock changes that made many of us mad are no longer!!! The NCAA realized it made a mistake and stated the following…

In Rule 3-2-5-e, the committee altered its rule to have the clock start on the snap after a change in possession, as opposed to the 2006 rule which started the clock when the referee signaled the ball ready for play. Also, the committee returned its rules on free kicks to 2005 standards, starting the clock on kickoffs only when the ball is legally touched in the field of play.

Now the networks are going to have to find more creative ways to squeeze in more commercials.

Pete Carroll cannot get out of the spotlight. Whether it be for winning games, bringing in huge recruiting classes which he totes the line of fair and unfair, and now his name is surfacing for the job of the San Diego Chargers. A month ago remember that the Dolphins’ owner flew to Costa Rica to talk to Carroll about his interest in that job, but nothing came of it.

Now Pro Football Talk outlines what they might think could be Carroll’s ticket to San Diego and back into the NFL.

After it was announced that Schottenheimer would return to the Chargers, John Czarnecki of FOXSports.com reported that the Chargers would have cut Schottenheimer loose if they could have lined up the guy that they wanted to take his place. Czar didn’t name the mystery candidate, but our guess was/is that it is/was Carroll.

Four weeks later, Carroll was able to lock up another class of recruits, who signed their letters of intent on February 7.

Also, remember how Steve Sarkisian abruptly pulled out of the running to coach the Raiders? He said at the time that he wants to be a head coach at the college level, prompting speculation that he’d been given a wink-nod of his own that, if/when Carroll leaves, Sark will get the Trojans’ gig.

And that might have prompted USC co-offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin to look elsewhere so soon after Sarkisian said “no thanks” to the Raiders.

Then there’s the looming Reggie Bush mess, which could eventually cause serious problems for USC. But it’s generally accepted at the college level that the NCAA doesn’t come down as hard on a program if the coach who presided over the mess is gone when the poop hits the propeller.

Those are all good points but I think it would have to take a lot more to get Carroll out of USC. His Trojans are going to be the #1 ranked team come this fall and they have every recruit in the country wanting to come to his school. So unless he knows of some impending sanctions that the NCAA might slap him with he will end up staying at USC. But if he has done some shady things like some are speculating, he can leave USC and have another coach clean up his mess.

I am not a fan of the rule that recruits cannot talk to alumni, but the NCAA has made it a rule so it should be followed. In today’s edition of our weekly You Tubesday we look at what Joe McKnight said at his announcement that have sparked all these claims of recruiting violations against USC. If there was a violation will the NCAA step up and deal out the appropriate penalty? I doubt it.

It was brought to my attention by Josh over at the Double-A-Zone that the NCAA will meet this week to discuss some rule changes. The one that is on the forefront is everyone’s favorite, the clock rule. Corn Nation puts his two cents on this and I think he speaks for us all when he says that we need to go back to the 2005 rules.

SMQ does a great job breaking down on the time savings per network and notes that CBS was actually benefiting from new clock rule by adding in more commercials. Looking at his list from top to bottom we are talking about an average savings of 15 minutes. Is 15 minutes that important to keep these changes? We already saw once this year where Wisconsin took advantage of a loophole, and it is only a matter of time until more loopholes are found and used in bigger games. Also, more networks are going to follow CBS’ suit and start scheduling more commercials; making the games as long as they once were.

So I hope the NCAA takes this opportunity to realize they made a mistake changing the clock rules and revert them to what they were in 2005.

Where will the Mustain-Train pull in next?

When your recruiting class was ranked either 1 or 2 by most recruiting services you are living pretty good right? Well in a case of the rich getting richer, Pete Carroll got a recent visit from the #1 QB recruit of last year Mitch Mustain. Mustain had made visits to both Tulsa and Oklahoma but it is a little bit shocking to see him take a trip to USC. He has to figure that this is John David Booty’s last year and that would put him up against Mark Sanchez for the starting job after he (Mustain) sits out the 2007 season. At this point in the process I think Pete Carroll could sell oceanfront property in Arizona.