Dana Holgorsen comes out of the Hal Mumme/Mike Leach school of prolific, up-tempo spread offenses, which is exactly what West Virginia was bargaining for when it poached Holgorsen from Oklahoma State last December to remake the stale-looking Mountaineer offense in the image of his top-ranked attacks at OSU and Houston as offensive coordinator and head coach-in-waiting. With the prolific passing game, though, comes an heir apparent with more than a little bit of the Captain in him: Holgorsen is a bachelor as he nears age 40, spent his entire year in Stillwater living out of a hotel and openly pounds Red Bull on the sideline.

And as of last week, according to the Charleston Daily Mail, he's under investigation by West Virginia for reportedly being forcibly removed from a local casino in the wee hours of a weekday morning:

Multiple sources told the Charleston Daily Mail Holgorsen was removed from Mardi Gras Casino & Resort after 3 a.m. May 18. Holgorsen had been at a Mountaineer Athletic

There's never been any shortage of obscure, one-sided feuds in sports that continue to baffle outsiders — except for the "one-sided" part, this pretty much describes the whole of international soccer — but nowhere do they come more baffling or more one-sided than the grudge Tennessee fans carry to this day against ex-Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson, the unworthy interloper who "stole" Peyton Manning's Heisman Trophy more than 13 years ago. The wound has only festered with time: As Vol villains go, Woodson remains even more despised by Tennessee fans than their old Florida nemesis, Danny Wuerffel, whose head-to-head ownership of Manning in the Gator routs of 1995 and 1996 planted the seed of Manning's fate as the consummate runner-up in the first place.

But Woodson is only one half of the equation. The other half, of course, is the media that — in collective Vol memory, anyway — relentlessly stumped for a sexier candidate to add some spice to a one-man race featuring a boring,

When Michael Floyd survived his brush with Notre Dame's notorious disciplinary council last month, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the Irish's most lethal offensive weapon would be back to terrorizing opposing secondaries this fall. And it probably still is — just as soon as coach Brian Kelly agrees to life the indefinite suspension he slapped on Floyd in the wake of an early morning drunk driving arrest by campus police in March, Floyd's third alcohol-related offense in as many years.

And Kelly's still insisting he's not going to give his ground that easily just to get his best player back:

"We're looking at Mike as an 'all in or not' situation," Kelly told the South Bend Tribune. "In other words, he's changing his life or he's not. If he changes the way he's lived his life, he'll play every game for us. If he doesn't, he won't play one down here at Notre Dame.

"He is at that level. This is not, 'I'm going to slap you on the hand and sit you for two games' — because I don't

Assessing 2011's most intriguing players, in no particular order. Today: Clemson sophomore receiver DeAndre Hopkins.

• Typecasting. Hopkins wasn't tabbed as the "instant impact" guy in a recruiting class that originally included a more hyped receiver from just down Hwy. 76 — recruiting services weren't even certain what position Hopkins would play in college — but he wasn't supposed to be arriving in such desperate times: Even at Clemson, a program that seems whose own fan base seems to regard it as a perennial underachiever for going on two decades, there's a special place for the disappointment of the 2010 offense. Armed with a second-year starter at quarterback, two soon-to-be draft picks and six other returning starters, the Tigers limped in at 10th out of 12 teams in the low-octane ACC in total and scoring offense, leading the charge to Clemson's first losing record since 1998.

After a midseason injury to leading rusher Andre Ellington, the search for signs of life turned to

Making the morning rounds.

• At least he didn't sell his jersey. Former Auburn safety Mike McNeil, one of the four Tigers indicted last week on multiple felony counts stemming from an alleged armed robbery in March, had just been evicted from a second apartment and faced a lawsuit for thousands of dollars in unpaid rent when he was arrested. Court documents show that McNeil and former teammate Mike Blanc were served eviction papers in April 2010; both were later evicted along with cornerback Neiko Thorpe from a second apartment on March 4 of this year, a week before the alleged robbery. (Neither Blanc nor Thorpe was involved in the robbery; Blanc is an outgoing fifth-year senior, and Thorpe remains on the team as the only returning starter in the secondary in the wake of McNeil's premature exit.)

A summary judgment in favor of the landlord on March 27 left McNeil and Blanc with a $12,385 bill for the first eviction, including $3,500 in attorney and filing fees. [al.com]

• At least it's

If you're one of the legions of drunk SEC fans who have ever boasted "Even I can play for Vanderbilt" — or one of the legions of sober fans who have ever thought it — well, maybe you're right. Back in February, Vandy held open tryouts for the first time in school history for any floppy-haired frat boy in the student body with a high school letter and the guts to show up:

… and after spring practice, went back to catch up with the handful who actually made it:

Sadly, this guy…{YSP:MORE}

… didn't make the cut. But if the Commodores don't give him a chance to bust his enthusiastic hind quarters for the role of "Mr. C," at least, they're missing a huge opportunity. Honestly, what's the worst that could happen?

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Hat tip: Blutarsky
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

Breaking down the preseason favorites for the BCS championship. Previously: LSU, Stanford, Oregon. Today: Oklahoma.

• Hide the women and children, and most of the men. If football is a metaphor for combat, Oklahoma's offense amounts to a carpet-bombing raid. The Sooners ran significantly more plays than any other offense in college football in 2010, and second-year starter Landry Jones put the ball in the air more often than any other quarterback, with mostly blockbuster results. Jones hung at least 300 yards and multiple touchdown passes on nine different opponents, including Florida State (380 yards, 4 TDs), Missouri (303 yards, 3 TDs), Colorado (453 yards, 4 TDs), Texas Tech (317 yards, 5 TDs), Oklahoma State (468 yards, 4 TDs) and UConn (429 yards, 3 TDs in the Fiesta Bowl), regularly putting in a full day's work for most QBs by halftime. For the year, Jones led the Big 12 and finished second nationally in both yards and touchdowns, behind only Hawaii's Bryant Moniz.

Jones didn't

America's most infamous, supplemental insurance-pushing waterfowl has a new voice this season, and now a new, hallowed platform from which to shout it:

ATLANTA (AP)—The insurance firm Aflac is sponsoring the Heisman Trophy next season.

The company said Friday it will offer its key accounts and brokerage partners access to Heisman-themed events. The vice president of sponsorships and emerging markets says the company is working with major universities to line up the events.

Vice president Danny Fleishman says the company is honored to be partnered with the Heisman and he is excited about the future of the sponsorship. Fleishman says the Heisman Trophy Trust and Aflac have a mutual level of respect.

A mutual level of respect, indeed: One evokes a 76-year-old legacy of mahogany-paneled excellence, the other evokes a spokesduck that has been cruelly bred to communicate a single word and introduce trivia questions. (As well as, more recently, with inappropriate jokes about the Japanese