The Wiz of Odds

Reporters Notebooks

Darren Everson, Wall Street Journal: Which teams rule bowl TV ratings? No team draws viewers like USC. Also bringing them in: Florida State, Notre Dame, Miami and Michigan. No team turns viewers off like Virginia. Also among teams that hurt ratings: North Carolina State, Georgia Tech, Louisiana State and Clemson.

Kate Hairopoulos, Dallas Morning News: Army fans may outnumber Southern Methodist fans in Thursday's Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, played at Ford Stadium, the Mustangs' home field.

Mike Hlas, Cedar Rapids Gazette: Every day is sunny for bowl committee people, who feed on universities.

David Briggs, Columbia Tribune: Why Iowa and Missouri, whose campuses are only 192 miles apart, haven't met in football for 100 years.

Mark Brennan, Fight On State: Those rumors about Joe Paterno retiring? "Who started the crazy rumors?" said Sue Paterno, JoePa's wife. "He's fine. No one has to identify who starts it. We don't even know where it starts. It's just lies."

WBNS-TV: Yet another rumor shot down. Ohio State's Jim Tressel meets with team and tells them he's staying.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: A day after Texas Tech announced James Willis was no longer its defensive coordinator, police were answering questions about a domestic violence call at a home last Wednesday morning. A source told the Avalanche-Journal that Willis was connected to the incident.

Associated Press: Alabama governor Bob Riley's office accepted 20 free tickets to this year's Alabama-Auburn game while state legislators were preparing for a special session on ethics that resulted in a new law making it more difficult for officials to accept such perks.

Dallas Morning News: Snubbed? Wisconsin Rose Bowl champion T-shirts available for sale; Texas Christian title shirts nowhere to be found.

Tony Krausz, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: Miami quarterback Jacory Harris calls right tackle Sentrel Henderson "our Great Wall of China."

Brent Schrotenboer, San Diego Union-Tribune: How the Holiday Bowl lost its luster.

Kevin Scarbinsky, Birmingham News: Terrelle Pryor isn't Cam Newton, on or off the field. And if any compliance office should have been educating its players about the evils of extra benefits, it was Ohio State's.

Reporters Notebooks

Jon Solomon, Birmingham News: Ticket policies for the Bowl Championship Series title game cater to the wealthy.

Dom Amore, Hartford Courant: Connecticut still has 12,900 tickets to sell for the Fiesta Bowl and to make the problem worse, there is a plentiful supply of tickets well below face value available on the Internet.

Kate Hairopoulos, Dallas Morning News: Some Southern Methodist players are disappointed with their bowl assignment. "I did not want to be in Dallas for Christmas," left tackle Kelvin Beachum said.

Judy Battista, New York Times: An academic study has found that the practice of icing kickers in the NFL by calling a delaying timeout really works.

Ted Lewis, Times-Picayune: Scandal and strife have taken cheer out of the bowl season.

Drew Sharp, Detroit Free Press: It won't matter how loud the righteous scream: The NCAA happily will exist within its hypocrisies because those funding the double standards — the bowls, the TV networks and, yes, the fans — will never demand accountability.

Brad Rock, Deseret News: The secret to Boise State's success? The Broncos have played on an ESPN channel 49 times in the past decade.

Neal Rubin, Detroit News: Give Rich Rodriguez time and he'll have Michigan back among the elite teams. The problem is, he'll still be Rich Rod — the guy at the party who's scanning the room as he talks to you, looking for someone more glamorous to spend time with.

Bowl Game Confidential II

Trying to make sense of 35 bowl games in 24 days is a task too big for mere mortals, so we asked Mike Hlas, the award-winning Cedar Rapids Gazette columnist and force behind The Hlog, to review each of the games. Here is his second installment of Bowl Game Confidential.

Beef O'Brady's Bowl: Louisville 31, Southern Mississippi 28. Announced attendance: 20,017. ... USM used only 3,000 of its allotted 10,000 tickets. Louisville sold all 10,000. ... Louisville wanted to avoid any bowl that would have conflicted with the Dec. 31 men's basketball game against Kentucky, which would have cut deeply into the football travel base.

Fun Stat: The much-maligned Big East is 3-0 in this bowl, all at the expense of Conference USA teams.

Tweet: @MattBellner I've seen a lot of great Beef O' Brady Bowls in my lifetime but tonight's was the best ever!

Las Vegas Bowl: Boise State 26, Utah 3. Announced attendance: 41,923. ... It was the second-largest crowd in bowl history ... The two teams didn't get along at the welcome reception at the Hard Rock. "Some pushing and shoving, some dishes broken," said Mark Wallington, the media director for the bowl. ... Utah's nine-game bowl winning streak was snapped. ... Boise State had more tackles for loss (nine) than Utah had first downs (eight). ... "It's not the way you want to leave the program," Utes senior center Zane Taylor said. "It's hard and it hurts. It hurts bad."... Boise State's Kyle Brotzman, of missed-kicks-in-Reno fame, set the Division I-A record for points by a kicker with 439.

Reporters Notebooks

Susanne Craig, New York Times: Cantor Fitzgerald is one of the biggest brokers of United States government securities. He has expanded his business to Las Vegas and is banking on the next frontier in gambling: a license that would allow sports betting on mobile devices anywhere in Nevada, as long as the bettor had an account at a casino.

Mike Poorman, State College.com: Is Joe Paterno about ready to retire? No. This story is about the power of the Internet and its ability to take octane-fuel and untrue rumors and rocket them literally across the country.

Courthouse News Service: Lane Kiffin is still causing lawsuits in Tennessee. A body shop worker claims a Toyota dealer fired and defamed him because he had evidence that the dealer committed insurance fraud "for the benefit of then University of Tennessee head football coach Lane Kiffin." Thanks to Ben Maller.

Dan Steinberg, D.C. Sports Bog: ESPN's Scott Van Pelt, one of the most visible Maryland fans in the country, says the only viable option now is for the school to hire Mike Leach.

Lee Barfknecht, Omaha World-Herald: Bowl games are not to blame for teams running up a huge deficit going to a postseason event. It is the schools that through the years have entered into lopsided agreements with bowls, and it is the schools that have purposely overspent their bowl allowances.

Ron Maly: The most idiotic quarterback and the dumbest athletic director in America.

San Diego State Sinks Navy in Poinsettia

San Diego State's Brady Hoke gets doused in Gatorade after his team defeated Navy, 35-14, in Wednesday night's Poinsettia Bowl in Qualcomm Stadium. Ronnie Hillman ran for 228 yards and scored four touchdowns as the Aztecs scored their first bowl victory in 41 years.

Image of Sport was on the scene and you can view the full gallery by clicking here.

Boise State Has Moore Than Enough to Beat Utah

Kellen Moore and Boise State ended Utah's nine-game bowl winning streak with a convincing 26-3 victory in Wednesday night's Las Vegas Bowl. Image of Sport, the sports photography service for daily newspapers and editorial publications, was in the house. You can view Image of Sports' complete gallery by clicking here.