Missouri and Texas A&M are now in the Southeastern Conference, swelling its membership to 14. West Virginia makes the long commute to join the Big 12, along with Texas Christian. How do the transitions go, on the field and off? Is biggest still best for the SEC? Does the Big 12 embrace having a lone member thousands of miles outside its geographic footprint? And if you think these changes are jarring, wait until 2013 when realignment really takes hold.

2. If SEC hegemony continues, is it a bad thing? The league stands a solid chance of winning a seventh straight national championship, by far the longest streak for one conference in history. With dominance can come indifference in other parts of the country – do

Now that Shark Week is over, it's time for College Football List Week. Every day this week, Pat Forde will provide a list previewing some element of the 2012 season. Today: Forde's 10 most intriguing people in suits.

1. Mike Slive, SEC commissioner

Ushers in the bigger (we’ll see about better) SEC, with the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M, swelling membership to 14 schools. He is fresh off a victory this summer in pushing through a postseason playoff to take effect in 2014. And in case anyone has forgotten, Slive’s league has won the last six national championships. It’s good to be the king.Mike Slive would love nothing more than for his conference to win a seventh straight national title. (AP) 

2. Mark Emmert, NCAA president

With the backing of the NCAA presidents’ council, he expanded his powers with an executive beatdown of Penn State last month. With other high-profile cases in the crime-and-punishment pipeline (Oregon and Miami) or in the news (North Carolina), will Emmert intercede again or step back and watch?

3. Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame athletic director

He’s

Now that Shark Week is over, it's time for College Football List Week. Every day this week, Pat Forde will provide a list previewing some element of the 2012 season. Today: Forde's 25 most intriguing players.

1. QB Matt Barkley, USC

He's positioned to become one of the most beloved Trojans of them all, and that's saying something. He turned down the NFL to play his senior season and conceivably lead USC to another national title. He would be the human bridge from the Carroll Era through the Probation Era into what looks like another sustained run of West Coast dominance.

2. QB Denard Robinson, Michigan

Trying to become the first normal-sized, dual-threat quarterback to lead his team to a national title since Tommie Frazier and Charlie Ward did it in the mid-1990s. Doesn't have the size and strength of Cam Newton, Tim Tebow or Vince Young, which adds to the difficulty and danger of doing what "Shoelace" does. Can he stay healthy and complete enough passes to hoist the

Now that Shark Week is over, it's time for College Football List Week. Every day this week, Pat Forde will provide a list previewing some element of the 2012 season. Today, Forde's 25 most intriguing coaches.

1. Lane Kiffin, USC

Until last season, his head-coaching career could be summed up thusly: overemployed and annoying. Then he won 10 games and got Matt Barkley to come back for his senior year. Now the most prominent impediment to a seventh consecutive SEC national title is a coach who was ridiculed and reviled during his one season in the league. Yeah, pretty intriguing.

2. John L. Smith, Arkansas

No new coach has been handed as much talent and potential as Smith, who got the job in the spring after John L. Smith took over a talented team under unusual circumstances during the offseason. (AP)Bobby Petrino sent a motorcycle and his career skidding off a country road. Smith could win a national title, could be a bust, could be anything in between. No matter what happens, it won't be boring.

3. Nick Saban, Alabama

He should have a legitimate chance to win

Now that Shark Week is over, it's time for College Football List Week. Every day this week, Pat Forde will provide a list previewing some element of the 2012 season. First up, Forde's top 25.

I don't have huge disagreements from the preseason polls, mostly because we're all just guessing at this point. And since we're all guessing, I have no problem with someone – hi, Bob Asmussen of the Champaign (Ill.) News-Gazette – voting Michigan No. 1 in the AP poll. More power to you, Bob.

People get way too wound up about the polls, and there's now an attack mentality aimed at anyone who strays from the commonly accepted wisdom. Except how do we know the commonly accepted wisdom is all that wise? Especially in August.

That being said: No, I'm not voting Michigan No. 1.

My poll:

1. Alabama

Start with the best offensive line in the nation and an experienced quarterback, and the rest is just details. The Crimson Tide has recruited well enough to fill all skill-position gaps, and

Well, that didn't take long.

After the NCAA circumvented its own crime-and-punishment process and blew up Penn State last month, we all wondered how long it would take for a follow-up test case to measure the willingness of the "new NCAA" to flex its precedent-setting muscles again. Was the Penn State case a sign of a new era in policing of athletic programs gone bad, or an isolated blip brought on by a school's unique abdication of morals and responsibilities?

Lo and behold, we have the festering scandal at North Carolina to give us a quick answer.

As the Raleigh News & Observer and North Carolina State message-board vigilantes continue to go where UNC's timorous administration wouldn't in plumbing the depths of the Tar Heels' academic mess – at least until Thursday, when the school appointed an independent review panel chaired by former governor Jim Martin – the situation demands a signal from NCAA president Mark Emmert.

Will he and the NCAA executive committee cowboy up

LONDON – When American Morgan Uceny went down, she did not get up.

Not until after the race was over and her heart was shattered.

The rest of the finalists in the women's 1,500 meters completed the race. Still, Uceny was curled up on the track in grief, maybe 20 meters past the finish line, where she had been for a minute or more. Nobody came to her side. Nobody helped her up. The other women jogged around her as if she were roadkill, someone to be avoided rather than consoled.

Finally, Uceny forced herself to her feet, still sobbing. She held her left hand over her face, then both hands. She was the saddest sight of the Olympics for American track fans.

A minute earlier, before the dejection, there had been disbelief and rage. If you're old enough to remember Mary Decker's anguish after tangling with the bare feet of Zola Budd and falling in the 3,000 meters in 1984, you have seen this before. And you know it isn't pretty.

The right foot of Russian Tatyana Tomashova

LONDON – The association of two medal-winning American track athletes with a coach banned from the sport for doping is raising questions at the Olympics.

After winning medals Wednesday night, sprinter Carmelita Jeter and hurdler Jason Richardson were asked about their ties to Mark Block, an agent, event manager and former coach who's currently serving a 10-year ban for his role in the BALCO drug scandal.

The questions came from reporter Weldon Johnson of LetsRun.com, a website that covers track and field and has written about Block's recent presence at major track meets – including the U.S. Olympic Trials last month.

[ Video: Carmelita Jeter flies to silver in 100 ]

There was discernible tension in the room when Johnson posed his questions, yet both athletes gave Johnson an answer and neither backed away from their relationship with Block.

LetsRun.com ran the following transcript of the exchange with Jeter:

Johnson: "Carmelita, Mark Block has said he has been