College football expansion seems to change every day and on Tuesday, Missouri found itself on the realignment carousel after a report in the Kansas City Star cited a booster claiming the university had received an invitation from the SEC.

The Southeastern Conference has an offer on the table for Missouri to join its league, and SEC officials are willing to wait for an answer from Missouri until the future of the Big 12 is decided.

That information has come to The Star through a Mizzou booster who spoke directly to a MU official. Another source told The Star on Tuesday that an Oklahoma official had said the SEC is interested in Missouri.

The Missouri Board of Curators announced that it will hold a public meeting Thursday.

Of course, the SEC denied it. SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that no invitation had been extended to the Tigers.

"The SEC has not extended an invitation to any school beyond Texas A&M since it extended invitations to Arkansas

Utah Arbys

**UPDATE** According to a story in the Salt Lake Tribune, Arby's shift manager Chance Bowen said the promotional play on the game was an accident. The billboard actually went up the Friday before the game and was part of a series of promotions the restaurant runs during game weekends. If that's how this went down, that's really unfortunate for that particular Arby's.

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Utah and BYU are no longer in the same conference, but the fiery rivalry of the Holy War rages on.

But rarely do the towns of the respective teams turn on their own.

Until this week.

After BYU committed seven turnovers in the 54-10 loss, a South Provo Arby's restaurant decided to have a little fun by offering a free turnover with a ticket stub from the game.

Ouch.

From muffed kickoff returns to botched snaps to miscues in the running game, the Cougars were playing a game of hot potato while the Utes were playing, well, football.

"Even when you're a much better team than your opponent when you turn it over seven times

In the wake of Pitt and Syracuse leaving the Big East for the ACC and both Texas and Oklahoma officially setting a course to the Pac-12, the Big 12 and Big East could be looking at a possible merger.

The Associated Press is reporting that officials from both conferences have been discussing a possible merger if Oklahoma and Texas leave the Big 12, soon to be followed by Big 12 mates Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. They're not the only leagues with that bright idea: Conference USA and the Mountain West are thinking about joining forces, as well, per Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson.

The move could be interesting for TCU, which has remained noncommittal about its conference future. The Horned Frogs are scheduled to join the Big East next year — their their fourth different conference home since the demise of the Southwest Conference in the mid-nineties — but in an emailed statement, TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte says he's going to do what's best for the school.

"Thanks

Whitney Hotel

Living the high life in a posh downtown hotel is about to end for 12 South Carolina student-athletes, including 10 football players.

The NCAA released its notice of allegations to South Carolina stating that 12 student-athletes received $47,000 worth of impermissible benefits from the Whitney Hotel, a luxury establishment near campus.

According to the NCAA, South Carolina athletes were given reduced room rates and nine athletes were given extra time to pay their rent. Athletes were given rooms that were normally rented $57 a night for extended stays of three months or more for $14.59 a night. So, instead of paying $1,710 per month like a regular tenant, South Carolina athletes were paying roughly $438 a month.

Not a bad discount.

ByrdThe statement named three football players, which were blacked out, but The State noted that 10 football players were involved in the allegations and that nine had deferred payments on their rent. The three players named are the most egregious offenders as

Weekly notes from the undercard.

Pregame announcement: Today marks my foray into the weekly non-AQ review. Just want to put out there that I wanted to change the name to the "Non-AQ Notebook," but because this has been a staple on Dr. Saturday for quite some time, the name stays. Just know that I was looking out for you, non-AQ fans.

Moving on…

The third weekend of the college football season brought more non-AQ surprises, including the continued success of Florida International. The Panthers defeated reigning Conference USA champion Central Florida 17-10 on Saturday to move to 3-0 this season, one of just six non-AQ teams with an undefeated mark. FIU is even receiving votes in the national polls for the first time in its short history.

This is the same FIU program that won just six games in its first three years of existence. It won three games in all of 2009.

But coach Mario Cristobal has had Florida International on a steady rise. It shared the Sun Belt Conference title a year ago

The least you should know about the 2011 Rebels. Part of SEC Week.

• Losing the state? Driving into Mississippi from Louisiana, it's hard not to notice the billboard that reads "Welcome to our State" with Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen's face on it. It's irked the Ole Miss contingent, but it signifies a shift in the swagger among the state's schools.

For the past two seasons, Ole Miss has watched MSU win the head-to-head battle, and while last year was the first time since 2007 the Bulldogs finished with the better record than the Rebels, it has put coach Houston Nutt squarely on the hot seat.

"It's all about winning," Nutt said during SEC media days. "And the reason they're loud right now is they've won the last two years. But, again, my energy is going to be on what's going to help us win."

But it's still a question whether that winning is going to come sooner rather than later? Ole Miss, coming off a 4-8 season that featured only one conference win, returns nine players,

Who doesn't love a little rookie humiliation, huh?

USC quarterback Matt Barkley does his best Masterpiece Theatre impression as he introduces freshman offensive lineman Cyrus Hobbi, who, during fall camp, stripped down to a thong and a cowboy hat and did the "Party Boy" dance for all his teammates. If the "Party Boy" looks familiar, that's because you've seen it performed by Chris Pontius on the MTV show "Jackass." If it doesn't, well, consider yourself lucky.

As Barkley notes, "It was pretty amusing and he scared a lot of people. It might have scarred some eyes, his dancing with nothing on."

The video is… interesting, no doubt, but don't worry parents, it's relatively PG-rated.

The Hobbi video is a small section of Barkley, seemingly USC's most charismatic player, starring in an episode of "USC Football Unfiltered" on YouTube. During the nearly 3-minute episode, Barkley talks about fall camp, defensive end Devon Kennard and coach Lane Kiffin hounding him about staying for his senior

Marcus Lattimore hasn't been shy about talking about his desire to win the Heisman this season.

During SEC media days last month, the sophomore running back from South Carolina stated plainly that after rushing for 1,197 yards and 19 touchdowns a year ago, he knew he needed to do more to get to New York.

"Get more yards than I had last year," Lattimore said. "Get more touchdowns. I want to win the Heisman."

However, since his initial comments about the bronze statue in July, Lattimore hasn't shut up about it and now coach Steve Spurrier wants him to stop.

In all fairness to Lattimore, the media has continued to ask about it especially after BoDog gave him 7-to-1 odds to win.

"We don't talk about individual awards," Spurrier said. "That'd be like me coming up to you guys and being like, 'Man, I want to win national coach of the year this year.' Coaches don't talk about that. Players don't talk about individual awards. What's happened is people keep asking him about it and there's