Northern Illinois University, currently a strong Mid-American Conference member, once dreamed big during a past era of conference realignment. After being independent upon their departure from the MAC, they decided to join the Big West in 1993. Why in the world would NIU do that? Because they seriously thought of it as a stepping stone to the Big 8 Conference.

From the '93 Chicago Tribune article:

Geography aside, all parties at Northern see the Big West arrangement as temporary, a step in a process that will end in Northern Illinois being the easternmost stop in a Midwestern league. Specifically, the Big Eight.

Nebraska and Northern Illinois playing for a trip to the Orange Bowl? Snicker if you will. So what if the required jump rivals anything achieved by Superman.

At Northern Illinois, with its enrollment of 25,000 students, university President John E. La Tourette gets paid to dream such dreams.

"This institution always had high aspirations," La Tourette said. "We've added a law school, we've added an engineering school. We've added a campus in Hoffman Estates. We've had a lot of dreams at this institution, and in the last 20 years, many of them have been realized."

La Tourette then cautioned, "This one may be tougher."

NIU had a Heisman Trophy finalist in LeShon Johnson in 1993, but went 4-7. They also went 4-7 in 1994 and then 3-8 in 1995 before crawling back to the MAC.

As the Big 8 is no more, joining a big boy conference is no longer a dream deferred for the Huskies, but perhaps a dream forgotten. When NIU honored La Tourette in 2010, they failed to mention the Big 8 dream or even his impact on the sports program at all.

As the summer approaches so does the newest installment of the NCAA Football series from EA Sports. Not quite a month ago, I posted a video of the gameplay trailer for NCAA Football 13.

Now, here's the dynasty mode improvement trailer. The video shows you how the game will more closely follow your Saturday viewing experience with live studio updates from other games. It also focuses way too much on the recruiting part of dynasty which is worthless unless your trying to go for game completion trophies. It also mentions the website enhancements for dynasty mode. That would be nice considering the website didn't work at all last year during the dynasty I hosted for Big East Coast Bias.

I'm heard you could pre-order the game for $45 on May 7 but looking at Amazon today on May 8, the game is regular priced. Oh well, I'm not even sure if I'll have the time to play this year's model.

While you'll have to wait until July to get the newest edition of college football's video game, NCAA Football 13, you can take a look at the newest gameplay trailer for the game.

There's no AI simulation of those people you play online who run back 40 steps with their QB to make a throw. However, there will no be 3, 5 and 7-step drops in the game. Another helpful feature is the ability to break out of play action which did not work at all when NCAA Football 12 was released.

Another new feature is wide receiver route awareness. Last year and in previous games, you could throw a ball at a wide receiver who was not looking and he would know the ball was coming. I'm not sure if that's changed from the video or if the defender won't know what pass you are throwing and run the route better than the receiver.

There will be more videos to judge before the game comes out so stay tuned.

Arkansas speedster Joe Adams, seen scoring a punt return touchdown in last season's Cotton Bowl in the video above, has taken home the first annual Johnny 'The Jet' Rodgers National College Football Return Specialist Award.

This award did not exist before the 2011 season, but it was rushed into being in time to give Adams the honor before too many 2012 spring games were out of the way before anybody else thought to create such an award.

Bravo, Joe Adams. If any of his returns last season won him the award, it was this one against Tennessee.

Adams said about taking home the award:

"I'm honored to be the first recipient of the Johnny 'The Jet' Rodgers National College Football Return Specialist Award," Adams said. "First of all, I want to thank my mom because she helped me get where I am today. Also, I'd like to thank Johnny for choosing me for this award and my coaches at Arkansas for putting me in a position to succeed. This award would not have been possible without the other guys on the punt return unit who made key blocks during my returns. I'm looking forward to going to Omaha to accept this award on behalf of our program."

New Washington State head coach Mike Leach would like to have a 64-team playoff for college football. That was the most interesting nugget to come out of Lisa Horne's article on Leach.

Here's Leach on college football playoffs:

"The minimum should be 16 teams,’’ he said. “I think 32 is better than 16, but I think 64 would be ideal," he started to explain to me, without taking a breath.

"You could cut the regular season down to 10 games, but guarantee everybody 12 games. In the end, the champion would play 16 games."

He didn't hesitate to call concerns about limiting study time for student athletes "a bunch of foolishness." He's right to point out other teams play more games than football and their seasons don't seem to care about the student part of student-athlete.

About this playoff, as much as I like Leach for the entertainment factor, 64 teams making the postseason in football is too many. There's no way that half of the teams in college football are deserving of making the postseason which is why I think there's already too many bowls rewarding a 6-6 or 7-5 season.

LSU football is going through Spring Practice once again. That means among other things, that the Big Cat drill is back. Here's some footage of it. As you can see, it was spirited.

Eli Manning helped the Giants win the Super Bowl this past season but over the course of the playoffs, he was also the top rated quarterback in the Positive Impact Factor (what's this?).

Here's how all the playoff quarterbacks ranked (PIF with sacks counted as rushes like the NCAA in brackets):

1. Eli Manning, New York Giants, 61.4 (63.5)

2. Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons, 56.8 (58.7)

3. Tom Brady, New England Patriots, 52.8 (53.4)

4. Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions, 48.9 (48.9)

5. Joe Flacco, Baltimore Ravens, 46.9 (51.6)

6. Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos, 37.5 (44.4)

7. Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers, 35.4 (41)

8. T.J. Yates, Houston Texans, 28.7 (30.3)

9. Alex Smith, San Francisco 49ers, 24.8 (43)

10. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints, 19 (40.3)

11. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers, 18 (31.5)

12. Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals, 15.6 (19.2)

Obviously, the playoffs aren't long enough to get the most accurate representation of how these quarterbacks did during the season. For example, Eli Manning's postseason was far above his regular season PIF of 25.4 (37.2). To see the NFL regular season standings, click here.

Aaron Rodgers had the highest Positive Impact Factor (what's this?) rating in the NFL for the 2011 regular season. In fact, Rodgers' 65.6 PIF was the highest regular season NFL PIF I've calculated going back to the 2000 NFL season. Cam Newton had the highest rookie PIF since Matt Ryan in 2008, who edged Newton out by 0.1 with a 47.6. Newton's 47.5 PIF is still the highest for any rookie from 2000-present.

Here's the Top 10 of the NFL PIF Standings for the regular season (PIF with sacks counted as rushes like the NCAA in brackets):

1. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers, 65.6 (67.2)

2. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints, 51 (57)

3. Tom Brady, New England Patriots, 47.8 (53.2)

4. Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, 47.5 (49.9)

5. Alex Smith, San Francisco 49ers, 45.4 (52.3)

6. Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys, 42.8 (50.5)

7. Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions, 42.5 (49.8)

8. Colt McCoy, Cleveland Browns, 39.1 (43.8)

9. Matt Schaub, Houston Texans, 38.4 (47.1)

10. Matt Hasselbeck, Tennessee Titans, 38 (44.2)

Super Bowl XLVI winning quarterback Eli Manning finished in the middle of the pack during the regular season with a PIF of 25.4, stay tuned to see how his postseason PIF turned out.

To see how your team's quarterback (min. 14 touches per game to make the standings) did during the 2011 season, click here to see the full standings.

Click the links to see the winners in each division:

AFC North

AFC East

AFC South

AFC West

NFC North

NFC East

NFC South

NFC West

The day has arrived that none of us knew we were waiting for: the 2012 SEC Coaches Picture Day at SEC headquarters.

All 14 coaches are there now? Did you forget the SEC added Texas A&M and Missouri. I didn't because I despise those additions. If I were good at Photoshop (I'm not at all), I believe it would be possible to cut Kevin Sumlin (A&M) and Gary Pinkel (Missouri) out of the picture.

I'm not sure what the symbolism is of Slive with his hands on Steve Spurrier's shoulders is, but the image is haunting.

Alex Smith won the 2011 NFC West Positive Impact Factor (what's this?). As you'll see below, it was a landslide victory.

Here's the 2011 NFC West Positive Impact Factor Standings (PIF with sacks counted as rushes like the NCAA in brackets):

1. Alex Smith, San Francisco 49ers, 45.4 (52.3)

2. John Skelton, Arizona Cardinals, 24.1 (30.6)

3. Tarvaris Jackson, Seattle Seahawks, 16.6 (32.9)

4. Kevin Kolb, Arizona Cardinals, -0.6 (26.9)

5. Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams, -39.9 (16.7)

Alex Smith had his best PIF season as a pro in 2011. Smith bounced back from a 20.8 in 2010 to lead the 49ers to the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Smith had a 36.5 in 2009 as his previous best PIF.

John Skelton did not have enough touches to make the standings in 2010, but in his time on the field as a rookie, he produced a 18.1 PIF. His touchdown rate came up but his interception rate stayed pretty much the same.

Tarvaris Jackson's best PIF season was a 30.6 in 2007, which was also the only other season where he had enough touches to make the standings. His interception rate and touchdown production came down from that season but he lost fumbles at a higher rate in 2011.

Kevin Kolb didn't have enough touches to make the standings before 2011. This past season he was plagued by a high rate of fumbles lost. His interception rate was a touch high but not one that would kill his team.

After Sam Bradford put up a rookie PIF of 30.7 (higher than Peyton Manning's 22.1), I was very interested to see if Bradford would have a sophomore slump. Boy, did he ever. While improving on his interception rate, his fumbles lost rate went off the charts and his touchdown production fell by half.