(USA Today Sports Images)Gary Andersen was adamant this month that he was staying at Utah State, that the other offers were nice but when he looked into the eyes of his players he knew he needed to be with the Aggies.

Then Wisconsin came calling and, like many college coaches who have professed a desire to stay, he changed his mind.

Andersen will be the next coach at Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, ending a coaching search that began two weeks ago when Bret Bielema left for Arkansas.

New Temple coach Matt Rhule (USA Today Sports Images)

College programs have a few outlets for finding a new head coach, and one is mining the staffs of NFL teams. Two college programs turned to NFL assistants to fill their openings.

Temple hired New York Giants assistant offensive line coach Matt Rhule and Western Michigan has hired Tampa Bay Buccaneers receivers coach P.J. Fleck to lead their programs.

Even though both coaches come from the NFL assistant ranks, their paths to the jobs have been different.

(USA Today Sports Images)In coaching search time, 13 days is a really long period. Most schools with a vacancy operate at a breakneck pace. Cincinnati, for example, didn't seem to take 13 hours before replacing Butch Jones with Tommy Tuberville. If you are patient, you will likely watch as every decent candidate goes somewhere else, and you run the risk of assistants fleeing around the country while you wait.

This is what has happened at Wisconsin.

Since Bret Bielema left suddenly for Arkansas on Dec. 4, there has been very little news out of Wisconsin about its coaching search. When Eddie Faulkner took a job at NC State, he became the sixth assistant coach to leave the Badgers staff in the past two weeks.

But, despite all this, Barry Alvarez told Wisconsin fans not to worry.

(AL.com)As President Barack Obama spoke in Newtown, Conn., on Sunday night about the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, North Alabama football player Bradley Patterson thought the appropriate response was to tweet out a horribly racist comment about Obama.

And, in turn, North Alabama thought the appropriate response to that was to publicly tell everyone it had booted Patterson off the team.

Thank you, North Alabama.

(Associated Press)Josh Brent spent Sunday's game on the Cowboys sideline, a jarring sight a little more than a week after Brent was charged with intoxication manslaughter following a car accident that killed teammate Jerry Brown. But Brent's presence was requested by his teammates.

Brent, a defensive tackle who is on the reserve/non-football injury list for the rest of the season, wore a Cowboys sweatshirt and hat on the sideline through the team's win against Pittsburgh. Brent had Brown's No. 57 jersey draped over his shoulder during the national anthem according to some reports, including one from the Dallas Morning News.

[Slideshow: Sports world honors Connecticut shooting victims]

"His teammates asked him to come and be down there with him, so that's where we are," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said, according to DallasCowboys.com. "I do know that certainly there's the other side of the coin, but this is the case of the people that he's arguably the closest to really wanted him around." Brent's presence on the sideline was criticized during CBS's halftime show of the Steelers-Cowboys game.

(@cjzero)Football players grab at whatever they can to bring a runner down, and sometimes that can lead to wardrobe issues.

Just ask Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray, who was pantsed on national television as he was tackled against the Steelers.

When the Cowboys were rebuilding their secondary this offseason, they dropped $50.1 million over five years on cornerback Brandon Carr.

That's a lot of money, but, what's being in a playoff race worth?

Carr's interception and return to the 1-yard line set up Dallas' game-winning field goal in overtime, giving the Cowboys a 27-24 victory over Pittsburgh and adding another contender to what is turning into a jumbled, beautiful mess of a NFC playoff picture.

[Also: Fantasy owners rue leaving WR James Jones on the bench this week]

There used to be a time when Pete Carroll was bothered by teams running up the score. Of course, he was all about sportsmanship when it was his team having the score run up against it.

The same guy who famously scolded Jim Harbaugh for going for a two-point conversion with a huge lead while Carroll was at USC and Harbaugh was at Stanford didn't care so much about Buffalo coach Chan Gailey's feelings on Sunday.

With Seattle ahead 47-17 in the fourth quarter against the Bills, Carroll called for a fake punt.

[Also: Falcons TE Tony Gonzalez delivers age-defying outing vs. Giants]