(Kelly Lambert/US Presswire)

The Zone Read is your morning college football primer to make you seem like the smartest person at the water cooler even if you're not.

Nick Saban has finally caved.

After some initial moans and groans about four-year scholarships, Saban said Tuesday he is in favor of offering four-year-grants for prospects for the 2013 class and beyond.

"We're going to offer four-year scholarships," Saban told TideSports.com. "Our whole conference is going to do it, all the schools, I think.

"And we're happy to do it.

[ Related: SEC spring football preview: New teams, new holes to fill ]

This, less than a week after Alabama was one of 60 schools to vote the measure down in a NCAA Division I-wide vote. The vote passed by the slimmest of margins much to the chagrin of 60 percent of Division I programs that voted to rescind it.

"Last year, it was something that was tabled," Saban said. "Then there was the vote to rescind. We just wanted to know exactly what the rule would be before we made a comment. What if we had started offering four-year scholarships and then the rule had been changed back?"

Of course Saban had to get on board with multiyear scholarships after Auburn and Florida started offering them and subsequently claiming a slight a recruiting advantage. Only Tennessee, LSU and Texas A&M voted to rescind multiyear scholarships.

If the entire SEC does move to multiyear scholarships, it would join the Big Ten as the only other conference to do so.

Two years ago, former Syracuse punter Rob Long was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The two-time captain had been suffering incurable headaches and nausea and his girlfriend encouraged him to see team trainers about the problem. On Dec. 2, 2010, after a multitude of tests, doctors told Long they had found malignant cells in his brain.

"Everyone else was standing but me and I kind of went to the floor and just sat there and I told them to leave me alone and let me hear what the surgeons are telling us," Long's mother, Mary Jo, said. "All I remember is Robert saying, 'OK, what do I do? What's next? Let's go. Get it out of here. Let's go. He was not even hesitating at the news of how bad it was. I knew from the way they reacted and what they were saying that this was not good news. And he's like, "OK, fine. What do I do? What's my next step?"

[ Related: Big East spring football preview: A league of mystery ]

Cancer had already ravaged Mary Jo's family. He father died of a brain tumor when she was seven and cancer also took her mother, brother and one of her sisters. Her other sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer the same day Long told his parents he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

(Andrew Weber/US Presswire)

Tommy Tuberville's job with Texas Tech, and, well, his (financial) freedom, might be in jeopardy after he and a partner allegedly defrauded investors out of more than $1.7 million.

Seven plaintiffs in Alabama and Tennessee filed suit Friday seeking damages against Auburn-based investment company TS Capital Partners. Tuberville and TS Partners co-founder John David Stroud are named in the filing.

According to the complaint, the two men "employed devices, schemes, and artifices" to commit fraud. Tuberville worked at TS Capital Partners in 2009 after he was let go at Auburn and before he signed on with Texas Tech.

Last week, Missouri athletic director Mike Alden said the university was going to undergo some big changes as it prepared to join the SEC in the summer. Those changes included higher ticket prices (which is very SEC of the Tigers), stadium upgrades ($1.5 million to replace the field logos), new uniforms (which look something like this blurry picture) and, as SEC associate director of media relations Chuck Dunlap pointed out on its Twitter page Monday, a Southern-based ad campaign.

Apparently, a move to the SEC means the Tigers are now flush with extra cash to look the part.

Joe Ayoob is finally known as something other than being the bust that replaced Aaron Rodgers at Cal - he's now a world record holder.

(Paul Sakuma/AP)On Monday, Ayoob threw a paper airplane 226 feet, 10 inches to break the world record by 19 and a half feet. Watch the video, it's impressive and a grade school teacher's worst nightmare.

The measurement still needs to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records before Ayoob can start making T-Shirts and signing book deals.

The only thing better than the throw itself is the commentary on the video and the pure elation after the thing lands. You'd think Ayoob had just led Cal to an 8-4 season. Oh wait…

This had to be a pretty proud moment for Ayoob (though he didn't really dress for a momentous occasion, did he?), who didn't exactly pan out as the highly touted San Francisco Community College transfer everyone expected him to be. Ayoob started nine games after Nate Longshore suffered an injury. Ayoob was 5-4 in 2005 and threw for 1,707 yards and 15 touchdowns. However, 2006 was less than spectacular. As a backup, he completed 9-of-22 passes for 187 yards and a score. He went undrafted and ended up in the arena league until 2010.

[Related: New coaches, wild offenses in Pac-12 spotlight this spring ]

(Bob Rosato/SI)

The Zone Read is your morning college football primer to make you seem like the smartest person at the water cooler even if you're not.

Apparently, Bill Hancock's BCS-positive emails and Facebook posts aren't doing enough for the BCS' image, so the group decided to hire a couple media consultants to help navigate the upcoming changes to college football's postseason.

According to the Sports Business Journal, the BCS is looking at Dean Jordan from Wasserman Media Group and Chuck Gerber, who used to work for ESPN. The two will work with the 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame to determine the most financially beneficial postseason plan. Yeah, not the plan that will fairly decide college football's national champion, the one that will make the BCS the most money. Hmmmm, might want to work on that PR strategy.

[ Related: Wetzel: Jim Delany gives stamp of approval to playoff ]

Gerber has ties to the SEC and Jordan has worked with the Big Ten, Notre Dame, ACC and Conference USA.

CBSSports.com reported that the new plus-one playoff format could be worth upwards of $500 million after the various television networks make bids on whatever playoff system is chosen.

Much like college football itself, Dr. Saturday is in transition. For the past three and a half years, Matt Hinton has helped Yahoo! Sports' college football blog become the go-to place for college football news, quirks and snark. And while the qualities that have made Dr. Saturday unique and engaging aren't changing, the editors are.

I'm Graham Watson. I've been here nine months and learned a lot from Matt and several of the other bloggers on Yahoo! Sports. My time at here has made me realize one undeniable fact: college football is fun. So, the writing should be fun, the writers should be fun and you, the reader, should come away feeling rewarded for investing your time. I can't promise you'll always feel that way. There will be times when you're annoyed, angry or dismayed; hey, that's part of being a college football fan. But for the most part, Dr. Saturday should improve your day and help you learn something along the way (no, I did not intend for that to rhyme, but I'm pretty happy it did).

(Washington Post)Stefon Diggs hasn't even enrolled at Maryland yet, but he's already getting a taste of how quickly a fan base can turn on him.

Friday, Diggs sent out a racially offensive tweet regarding New York Knicks star guard Jeremy Lin: "Everybody need to get off Jeremy Lin egg roll and dumplings he's good though."

Within minutes, the tweet was grabbed, published and Diggs felt a shockwave of anger and disappointment the likes of which the highly touted recruit had never felt before. So he did what any person who sent out an ignorant tweet would do — he apologized and closed his Twitter account.