Trash talking is as old as football itself. A player baiting another player with a taunt or threat is usually par for the course during any game, especially a game between rivals or with championship significance.

So, it was no surprise that Monday's Gator Bowl between Florida and Ohio State — two teams that have loved Urban Meyer — had a little more vitriol than usual. What was surprising was the type of caustic comments being said.

Ohio State linebacker Tyler Moeller said Florida players hurled racial slurs at him throughout the game and that that sparked some of the chippiness during the 24-17 Florida win.

DeAnthony Arnett has been officially #freed.

About a week ago, Arnett, a freshman receiver at Tennessee, made headlines after he claimed coach Derek Dooley refused to grant his release to return home to Saginaw, Mich., where he hoped to transfer to be closer to his sick father and play for either Michigan or Michigan State. According to Arnett, Dooley was only willing to release him to Mid-American Conference schools, which would have allowed Arnett to be closer to his father but at a lower level of play.

DeAnthony Arnett (Jeff Schrier/The Saginaw News)During a press conference Tuesday, Dooley changed his tune. Dooley said initially he was caught off guard after receiving a phone call from Arnett's brother to state the case for the release, but after some conversations with Arnett, he came to understand the situation better.

"Over the last two weeks, I guess, I've had some real good one-on-one conversations since all that hit out there on the social media," Dooley said. "I'm very comfortable carving out an exception for him and when he makes his request, which is not until today because our offices have been closed so that's another reason that has been a delay in releasing him where he wants to go close to home to get back to his father."

It's important to note that the reason this story reached social media or the media in general is because Arnett used it as a sounding board. He sent an email to multiple media outlets saying that he felt like he had "…earned the right to be released unconditional to all schools in Michigan."

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Ticket City Bowl: Houston 30, Penn State 14.
When the TicketCity Bowl was over, Case Keenum climbed through the stands and played conductor, leading the band in the school song. It was the encore performance to Keenum's swan's song, which he orchestrated to perfection as the Cougars used their high-octane offense to hand Penn State one final embarrassment in a forgettable season.

Keenum — already the NCAA's career leader in terms of yards and touchdowns — was in peak form, throwing for 532 yards, the second-most passing yards ever against a Penn State defense (BYU's Ty Detmer had put up 576 in the 1989 Holiday Bowl). He completed 45 of 69 passes, more than anyone has attempted in Division I this season. In Keenum's last game, the Cougars made sure they got every last drop from the most prolific right arm in college football history.

"I couldn't ask for much better right here," Keenum said of the way he wanted his career to end. "In the Cotton Bowl with all my friends, my teammates, a

The day before Illinois defeated UCLA 20-14 in Saturday's Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, the Illini took some time away from dealing with their disgruntled coaches to concentrate on someone other than themselves.

The team spent two and a half hours feeding the homeless at the St. Anthony Dining Room in San Francisco. While there, several players decided to break into an impromptu flow session with a gentleman in a wheelchair killing it on the piano. This guy was truly feeling the spirit and he followed the tune of the Illini rappers flawlessly. He even impressed the players, who kept pointing to him while they were flowing and gave him daps after the makeshift masterpiece concluded. Trust that the piano playing was a lot better than the singing.

There are a lot of teams who do charity this time of year, but this was probably one of the more entertaining, interactive and heartwarming videos that we've seen this season.

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Curtsy (female version of the hat tip) to Deadspin
Graham Watson is

ESPN's skycam went on the offensive Friday night, snapping from its cables, crashing to the field and nearly taking out Iowa receiver Marvin McNutt in the waning minutes of the Insight Bowl.

It was bound to happen eventually, but to see the was quite stunning and mildly hilarious (once we knew everyone was all right). It was like the camera became self-aware and tried to defend its turf.

Luckily, the skycam, which is quite heavy, didn't actually hit anyone, though McNutt did catch it on the bounce and avoided the cable that tried to take his head off. Once the renegade camera was subdued, it was dragged off the field in rather sad fashion while players on the Iowa sideline continued to dodge dangling cables.

The camera was a bit too late to thwart an Oklahoma win. By the time it made its move, the Sooners had all but secured a 31-14 victory to close the season at 10-3.

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Video courtesy of @thesportsgeeks
Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham

Other

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy has made YouTube for a variety of reasons - a classic rant against a reporter, a not-so-classic attempt at break-dancing - and for the next couple days he'll be famous for his bull riding skills.

It's an impressive showing, actually. Even though there's no sound, you can see Gundy is intensely concentrating on staying on the bull and not looking foolish in front of what is no doubt T. Boone Pickens' posse at Saddle Ranch in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the Cowboys are preparing for Monday night's Fiesta Bowl clash with Stanford.

And while the lack of sound makes the entire video a little awkward to watch, Gundy actually isn't a half bad mechanical bull rider. He stays on for about 35 seconds before sliding off the left side of the bull and onto the mat. You can tell he's upset about it, too because he seemingly stares down the bull in a brief yet epic man versus machine moment.

In any case, it's another addition to the thriving Gundy archive.

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BYU helmetIf you missed the Armed Forces Bowl — and shame on you if you did because it had a great ending — you missed BYU and Tulsa paying homage to the armed forces by turning parts of their helmets camouflage.

Tulsa_camoThe Golden Hurricane had camo in the "Tulsa" part of the helmet and on the stripes that line the top of the dome. BYU turned its signature blue "Y" a lovely shade of camouflage and also did the stripes on the top of the helmet.

It wasn't quite on the level of the head-to-toe camo motif Army pulled off last year in a win over the Virginia Military Institute, but it still struck the right note in keeping with the afternoon's military theme.

While BYU rarely messes with its helmet — the blue "Y" has been a staple for decades — Tulsa has been creative all year. In fact, Friday's game actually marked the sixth different helmet the Golden Hurricane have worn this year. The 24-21 defeat also marked the first time this season they've lost with an alternate helmet design.

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Curtsy (female

If there was still any doubt that Riley Nelson is the right man to quarterback BYU, he answered the skeptics Friday by breaking out his best Dan Marino impression on the Cougars' final play of the Armed Forces Bowl.

Trailing Tulsa 21-17 with the clock winding down in the fourth quarter, Nelson hurried the offense up to the line to stop the clock by spiking the ball after completing a pass to the Tulsa 2-yard line. Instead, he took a quick survey of the Golden Hurricane defense, called a "Red Alert" audible, faked the spike and found a wide-open Cody Hoffman in the front corner of the end zone with 11 seconds to play. Nelson's clever call caught Tulsa flat-footed, and Hoffman's third touchdown catch of the game sealed a 24-21 win for the Cougars.

Coach Bronco Mendenhall acknowledged after the game that the call for the spike did not come from the sideline. So if it didn't work, Nelson could have just as easily been the goat instead of the hero.

"We called him to spike it," Mendenhall