Urban Meyer's not a touchy-feely kind of guy -- throughout his tenure at Florida, in fact, he's been more of a "point and destroy" coach, a hardware-seeking mercenary who rarely smiles, often burns holes into players' and officials' souls with his steely gaze, constructs the facade of a humorless mumbler in front of the media and is always at ease dropping huge numbers on fleeing opponents if it suits his purposes. The grudging grins he flashed on stage during the Gators' championship celebrations in 2006 and again last January seemed somewhat obligatory, like his face would probably be sore for a week afterward.

When it comes to this year's wildly successful senior class, though, heading into its final home game Saturday against Florida State, the big galoot just can't ... he just ... can't quite ... keepittogether:

Patient viewers may have caught the best part of the interview that didn't involve a frog trying to crawl out of Meyer's throat: Because of the impact Tim Tebow has made on college football, "it's almost like selflessness is now a cool thing."

At last, after the toil and strife of Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, countless obscure and impoverished humanitarians, teachers, clergy, parents and the fundamental moral basis of the overwhelming majority of human societies throughout the history of civilization, selflessness is finally "in" -- all thanks to Tebow. Now the Ayn Rand crowd knows on exactly which to nail its next 95-page theses.

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Hat tip: SBN

Why any system that excludes the Horned Frogs is rubbish.

Barring a colossal upset at the top of the polls this weekend, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that undefeated TCU doesn't have a chance of overtaking Texas or the winner of the SEC Championship game for one of the two slots in January's BCS title game -- and the Frogs may not even make it even with the benefit of a shocker, depending on how the dominoes fall. Assuming TCU finishes off 1-10 New Mexico to complete a perfect regular season, here's why that should bring out the rhetorical torches ad pitchforks (again) against the BCS' "two-team playoff":

• Quality wins. The Frogs have as many wins over teams in the current BCS top 25 as Alabama (three apiece) and more than Florida and Texas (one apiece) combined. In fact, TCU's best wins -- at No. 18 Clemson and No. 19 BYU and in a home romp over No. 21 Utah -- give it as many wins over ranked teams as any team in the country, and puts the Frogs' overall strength of schedule within a hair's breadth of the Tide's, Gators' and Longhorns' according to BCS computer gurus Jeff Sagarin and Anderson & Hester.

• Dominance. It's easy to knock the Frogs' schedule, but they pound lesser teams into dirt at the same grisly rate as more storied heavyweights: The last six games (including the 31-point win at BYU and 27-point win over Utah) were all out of hand by halftime and eventually decided by at least four touchdowns; TCU has only trailed in the fourth quarter once, in the comeback win at Clemson, which has only lost one game since en route to the ACC title game. The average margin of victory (27.1 points per game) is right behind Texas' as the most lopsided number in the nation.

This is the biggest difference between TCU this year and last year's undefeated Mountain West darling, Utah, which was a master of the squeaker. The Utes won four games in '08 by three points or less (including a stunning, last-second comeback over TCU in which they were outgained by 141 yards), and employed an All-American kicker who was 11-for-11 on field goals in those four games. Against an arguably identical schedule, the Frogs are blowing the doors off and haven't left anything up to the kicker.

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Profiles in Disillusion follows the weekend's conquered favorites and other notables through the stages of grief.

Depression. Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson: Your team has lost five straight games after Saturday's 23-13 loss to UCLA, and seven straight to teams from outside of the state of Washington, securing back-to-back losing seasons at ASU for the first time in 62 years. What do you tell your team to keep the locker room positive and psych them up to salvage the season with an upset over hated rival Arizona?

"The good news is, there's only one game left," Erickson said.

Uh, thanks for the pep talk, coach. Other terms used by Erickson to describe various aspects of the Sun Devils' performance over the last two seasons: "Horrifying" and "frickin' ridiculous." No wonder his charges looked like they were in cut-myself-just-to-feel mode after coughing up six turnovers and two defensive touchdowns to the offensively-challenged Bruins. For Devil fans, the longer the Erickson era drags on, the worse it's beginning to smell.

Anger. Les Miles has brought two division titles, two BCS bids, four straight bowl victories and a national championship to LSU. But bungling a two-minute drill in a game with nothing but regional pride on the line? Tiger blog And the Valley Shook has seen enough:

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Making the morning rounds.

• Choose your late night cruising friends wisely. As suggested by his quick release and ongoing status as "Tennessee football player" when his alleged accomplices were summarily booted from the team earlier this month, Vol safety Janzen Jackson has been effectively cleared of armed robbery charges by Knox County prosecutors, who dropped charges against Jackson and the alleged getaway driver in the high profile stick-up. The investigation determined that neither Jackson nor the driver not only didn't have any advanced knowledge of a robbery, but were still unaware anything had gone down when they started to pull out of the parking lot.

Legal clearance opens the door for the hyped freshman's official return to the roster, possibly in time for a bowl game. Booted teammates Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards, meanwhile, are scheduled for preliminary hearings this morning on felony counts; the driver will still face charges for marijuana possession. [Knoxville News-Sentinel]

• Wolverine arrested, not charged. Even with a strong vote of confidence from his athletic director, this isn't exactly what Rich Rodriguez needed hours after capping a seven-game conference losing streak with a lopsided loss to Ohio State: An unnamed Michigan football player was arrested for sexual assault Sunday morning on a complaint at a campus party. There are enough details -- the player is 18, a freshman who didn't play at all this year but was apparently expected to start in 2010 -- that Wolverine fans can probably guess the alleged culprit. Note, though, that no formal charges have been filed. [AnnArbor.com]

• No "that's a lot of twinkies" jokes, please. Following Notre Dame's lead, "sources who have been briefed on the financial details" of Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen's contract told the Washington Post Sunday that Fridge's $4 million buyout won't save him from the chopping block on the heels of by far the worst season of his nine-year tenure. The Terps went down 29-26 Saturday at Florida State, their sixth straight loss and a possible prelude to the first 10-loss season in school history with another flop against Boston College in this weekend's finale. [Washington Post]

• This is not what we meant by "slingin' it." Along with his hair, ridiculous fashion sense, insistence on the deep ball and generally off-kilter flair, Miami quarterback Jacory Harris has wormed his way into out hearts despite (and in some sense, even because of) his status as the most interception-prone quarterback in the country. After this weekend, the cult of Jacory may also admire the sophomore's talent for pranking reporters: After passing for a career-high 348 yards with two touchdowns in a 34-16 win over Duke, Harris showed up to the postgame press conference wearing a sling on his throwing arm -- for no reason whatsoever. 'Cane coach Randy Shannon assured the room his quarterback -- who did play with a sore thumb under a layer of tape -- was "fine" and just "getting some of you guys." [Associated Press]

Quickly ... Oklahoma is probably headed for the Sun Bowl, which seems pretty generous at this point. ... Mike Leach says no way is he leaving Texas Tech any time soon. ... Charlie Weis' name still carries weight with the Kansas City Chiefs, apparently. ... And when did Mark Mangino get so nice all of a sudden?

Everybody was too busy writing Charlie Weis' obituary at Notre Dame to pay much attention to Randy Edsall -- his emotional postgame interview with NBC's sideline reporter immediately after the game, one of the best moments of the season, hasn't even been uploaded in any of the usual places -- but it's hard to imagine a much more uplifting counterpoint to the grim reality in South Bend than a beleaguered coach soaking in what he kept insisting was the biggest win in the history of the program he guided from obscurity.

Consider first where UConn has come from under Edsall, who brought a run-of-the-mill I-AA program into the I-A ranks in 2000, to its first bowl game in 2004, to its first co-Big East title in 2005 and now to a win on one of the most hallowed pitches in America, more recent indignities notwithstanding.

Then consider what UConn has endured as a team over the last month, toiling under the constant pall of the grisly homecoming murder of teammate Jasper Howard: Over the subsequent three games, the Huskies blew a fourth quarter lead at West Virginia in a game that wasn't decided until the final minute, then boarded a plane directly for Howard's funeral in Florida; blew another fourth quarter lead at home on an 81-yard touchdown reception by Rutgers' Tim Brown, one of Howard's best high school friends from Miami; lost its starting quarterback for the season; and scored twice as many points as any other team against undefeated Cincinnati on the road, pushing the Bearcats to the brink in a two-point loss that secured UConn's longest losing streak in three years. Before finally overcoming the Irish in overtime in South Bend, the Huskies had to endure watching two game-winning touchdowns negated by a pair of bogus holding penalties and then a game-winning field goal attempt sail wide on the final play of regulation, moments dripping with the "here we go again" doom Edsall referenced after the game.

That was where Edsall was when NBC's cameras caught him on the sideline after the final gun, struggling against the most deserving wave of tears any coach has ever choked back on national television. Here's to holding it all together when it counts, coach, and may all your International Bowls be sweet.

In a perfect world, the Doc would be given carte blanche to publicly torch the Bowl Championship Series in effigy and institute the elaborate, double-elimination battle royale of his dreams. But we live in the world we live in, so each Sunday the Doc looks at what the new BCS numbers mean for the rest of the season. Rooting interest: chaos. Always chaos.

• The more things change ... well, actually, we wouldn't know about that. We knew going into the weekend that there was infinitesimal chances of movement at the top, so to dispense with the formalities: The top seven is identical to last week's top seven, which was identical to the top seven the week before that. Florida, Alabama and Texas have occupied the top three slots in various orders in all six BCS polls this year and have no realistic expectation of relinquishing them, probably even after the Gators or Tide take a hit in the SEC Championship game. The only team that fell out of the top 10 was No. 9 LSU, which was probably overrated with no really quality wins, anyway (and remains so at No. 15 after its loss at Ole Miss, which somehow checks in 10 full spots below the Tigers, at No. 25, despite the head-to-head win, an identical record and a practically identical set of wins. But if we get into the injustices outside of the top 10 -- BYU is still in the top 20? For what? -- we'll be here all night).

The time is coming to roll out some moral outrage on behalf of undefeated TCU and Cincinnati for their pending snubs from the championship game, but by the system's logic, there's less and less point discussing their chances of crashing the Rose Bowl as the chances of any of the top three losing keep going down. (See below.)

The only relevant discussion left, then, is the jockeying for position for the last two at-large spots.

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If you didn't know any better, you'd think Les Miles had nothing to do with quarterback Jordan Jefferson's baffling, ill-fated decision to attempt to spike the ball with one second on the clock at the end of LSU's 25-23 loss at Ole Miss, thus ending the Tigers' comeback bid without a shot at a winning field goal or a throw into the end zone. Miles himself, after all, said after the game: "I do not know who told him to clock it. ... You cannot clock that ball. I don't know that that call was ever made." From that, we can assume the sophomore quarterback took it upon himself, in the heat of the moment, to take the only action in that situation that essentially assured a Tiger loss.

Thanks to a Baton Rouge television station, however, we do know better:

That clip compounds the already searing indictment of LSU's horrendous clock management on the game-winning drive: On top of allowing 16 precious seconds to tick away before heaving up a desperate fourth-down pass with only nine seconds left, and apparently failing to have any plan for getting the field goal team onto the field or getting off a throw into the end zone when that pass was completed, Miles a) Vigorously signaled for his quarterback to throw the team's only remaining chance to win into the turf, and b) Proceeded to either forget what he was thinking in that crucial moment or outright lie about it, effectively making his sophomore quarterback the scapegoat for the boneheaded decision.

It's not the first time Miles has lost his head in the heat of a crucial moment or seemed to lose track of the clock at the end of a game. It was bound to burn a man whose brain seems to lie entirely below his sternum eventually. But to throw your own quarterback to the wolves -- intentionally or unintentionally, since it's not clear at all Miles was technically conscious when he was frantically instructing his team to spike the ball -- that's hardly the stuff of a $4 million man.

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Hat tip: Sports By Brooks.

Charlie Weis doesn't want to talk about it. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick doesn't want to talk about it. Even the most Irish-centric newspapers, having already called for Weis' dismissal, don't have anything left to say except to sympathize with the seniors and open the bidding on the future. Weis was already so fired before Saturday's coffin-slamming loss at the hands of UConn, there's nothing left but waiting for the other shoe to fall after next week's season finale at Stanford.

The eerie calm reminds me of waiting for a devastating hurricane to come ashore after all the preparations have been made: The windows are boarded up, the pantry is full of supplies, the skies have taken on a greenish-gray hue, the wind is blowing mockingly and everyone is sitting on the porch, laughing nervously until the lights go out and everything begins to rock and howl in the throes of the storm. Weis had the same kind of chuckle amid the grim atmosphere at his regular Sunday press conference, where he insisted he planned to spend what will surely be his final week as Notre Dame's coach focusing on Stanford, trying to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family and refusing to consider resignation. Sometime after that, next Sunday or Monday, he'll be handed his walking papers and the epic storm of the '09 Notre Dame coaching search will land with full force.

I've joked before about having a "Charlie Weis is Fired" post in the can like the New York Times' pre-meditated obituaries of famous people, ready to toss up at a moment's notice when the time comes. The coming week, though, is going to amount to essentially the same thing, to the extent that all that will be left to say when the official word comes is "There it is." Stay tuned, kids, and make sure the pets are inside.

Snap judgments on Saturday's best.

Teachers' Pet(s): Jeremiah Masoli and Nick Foles. Oregon and Arizona's rocket-armed quarterbacks put on a laser light show in the 44-41, double-overtime game of the week to reaffirm the Ducks as Pac-10 frontrunners. Masoli was responsible for all six of Oregon's touchdowns -- three passing, three rushing -- and finished with 345 total yards. Foles kept pace nicely with 314 passing yards and four touchdowns that earned the Wildcats the respect of an exhausted but rapt nation. (You were rapt, right, Harris Poll voters?)

Most School Spirit: While the vultures were circling the opposing sideline, it got a little misty as longtime UConn coach Randy Edsall struggled to hold it together while declaring the Huskies' overtime win at Notre Dame -- their first after a series of razor-thin, disappointing losses since cornerback Jasper Howard was murdered last month -- the biggest victory in school history.

Most Unlikely Couple: Charlie Weis and the Cleveland Browns? Still no word this morning on the fate of Notre Dame's top dog, but if the Irish brass are really waiting for the Stanford game to pass judgment ... well, despite the Cardinal's troubles Saturday at Cal, we can't imagine them not dispatching the Domers with ease next week in Palo Alto.

Most Creative: Mike Locksley. New Mexico's punch-happy head coach finally has one in the W column, but only after multiple turnovers, five lead changes and a field goal with 12 seconds remaining to put away equally hapless Colorado State. Honorable mention: UTEP, which once again found a way to lose to a one of C-USA's irredeemable bottom dwellers -- in this case, Rice, which took out the Miners 30-29 despite passing for just 55 yards with a long gain of 17 for the game. Our sincere congratulations to the Owls on their two-game win streak after an 0-9 start.

Mister Personality: Rick Neuheisel. It's probably not how he envisioned his team would get there, and it's certainly later than UCLA partisans were hoping, but the Bruins are bowl-eligible after extending Arizona State's puzzling losing streak to five games. (A nice, round number to correspond to the five fumbles the Devils coughed up to the Bruins in a 23-13 loss, ending their own bowl hopes.)

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Box Scorin' looks at weird, wild and prolific numbers from Saturday's action.

• Nevada piled up 574 yards on 61 carries in a 63-20 obliteration of New Mexico State, the highest single-game rushing total for any team this season, and became the first team in Division I-A history to produce three different 1,000-yard rushers in the same year, Vai Taua, Colin Kaepernick and Luke Lippincott. The Wolf Pack now own the top four single-game rushing performances of the year and lead the nation in rushing average by almost 60 yards per game over No. 2 Georgia Tech; they're 24 yards per game ahead of the best average of the decade (Nebraska in 2000). The Pack's 7.8 yards per carry for the season is also on pace to obliterate the best number of the decade (6.7 per carry by West Virginia in 2006) by more than a full yard.

On a related note, Nevada's eighth straight win represents its best streak in 18 years, which goes on the line Friday night at undefeated Boise State. Winner takes the WAC championship.

• Beleaguered Syracuse quarterback Greg Paulus completed 13 of 16 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions in his final home game, a 31-13 romp over Rutgers for Doug Marrone's first Big East win as the Orange's head coach.

• Texas Tech rang up 549 total yards in its 41-13 win over Oklahoma, almost 200 yards more than OU has allowed in any other game this year and one yard shy of the highest single-game total against the Sooners in Bob Stoops' 11-year tenure (Kansas State hit 550 last October). It was also the first time an OU defense under Stoops allowed 40 points to a team ranked outside of the top 12 at kickoff.

• Houston scored touchdowns on eight of its first nine possessions, seven of them on drives covering at least 65 yards, in a 55-14 win over lame-duck Memphis. UH quarterback Case Keenum was his typically prolific self with 405 yards passing, five touchdowns and no interceptions, and the Cougars rolled up 689 total yards despite touching the ball only once (and punting) in the fourth quarter. Nine different Houston receivers had at least three receptions for the game.

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