Penn State's quarterback situation remains unsettled this spring. Photo: Kevin McGuire

Fans will finally get a glimpse in to what the new era of Penn State football will look like this weekend, when Penn State concludes their spring practice schedule with their annual Blue White Game. With new head coach Bill O'Brien generating a positive vibe out of State College the future of the program may be in better hands than expected, although that will remain to be seen for the fall when we can see O'Brien coach a game.

While the theme has been change and a breath of fresh air for the football program, many side themes remained the same. A quarterback competition for a third straight season has been the major story in State College, while players returning from injuries has been another.

Penn State's Blue White Game will start at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, and will be available to watch on Big Ten Network. Here are five things to watch for the game.

1. Will Paul Jones emerge as the leading quarterback?

Penn State's quarterback competition is heating up this spring, which has been the case each of the past two seasons. This spring the battle between Rob Bolden and Matt McGloin has continued, but with a twist. Paul Jones, finally eligible for playing time after a red-shirt freshman season and being academically ineligible his sophomore season, may be the best quarterback on the roster. With a strong showing in the Blue White Game there is an opinion that Jones could make a solid case to be considered to be named the starting quarterback for the Nittany Lions in the fall.

Of course, Bolden has started each of the past two seasons as the starting quaterback, and McGloin has ended them with bowl losses. Bill O'Brien is giving everyone a clean slate this spring, and he is not looking at game film from last fall. Will Jones take advantage of the opportunity?

Our buddy Beyond the Bets has the lowdown on a very early release of college football win totals for the 2012 season. The odds come courtesy of online book 5Dimes.com.

The juice is damn near extortionary, and the selection is limited. However, if you want a line on what the true college football experts think about the upcoming season, it makes for a nice start.

Check them out after the jump.

Although last Saturday was maybe the busiest weekend of the year in terms of spring football, there are still a handful of teams who continue practicing, and have yet to host their spring games.

One of those teams is Arkansas, which have made a lot of headlines this spring… but unfortunately, not many of them were football related. Bobby Petrino is the coach of the past, Taver Johnson is the interim for the present, and no one is quite sure exactly what to expect for the future.

But in the intermediary football has gone on, and on Saturday Arkansas will wrap up spring ball with their annual Red-White game Saturday at 2 p.m.

Here are five things Crystal Ball Run will be looking out for when the Hogs take the field:

As the old saying goes, there are only three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and Steve Spurrier keeping himself surprisingly interesting, even as he nears his 70th birthday. Whether he’s walking around practice without a shirt on, drinking a couples beers with his bros, or cracking jokes at the expense of Georgia’s police blotter, whenever there’s a camera, reporter or notepad in front of Spurrier, he’s guaranteed to deliver entertaining material.

And on Wednesday, he once again delivered.

Granted, Spurrier didn’t quite go all nuclear on another football coach or program, but again threw out a “suggestion” to folks in charge of the SEC, a suggestion that most certainly seemed to have garnet-tinged undertones. Apparently Spurrier isn’t happy with how the SEC Championship Game participants are decided. And he let Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples know it on Wednesday.

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College football is never one to be outdone by its little brother college basketball, which is why it only makes sense that in a week when Larry Brown was hired as SMU’s hoops coach, a college football coaching rumor came out late Tuesday that seemed to be just as out of left field as Brown-to-SMU.

That rumor? Well Arkansas fans, I hope you’re sitting down. Because reports indicate that your school…has contacted Phil Fulmer to coach their football team.

Yikes.

Only it does appear as though the two sides have at least talked, with Fulmer’s former defensive coordinator Doug Matthews telling Nashville radio show 3HL:

“I know Phillip has had conversations with them,” Matthews told the radio show. “And when I say with them, all that is going to take place behind the scenes.

“But everything I’m hearing from Arkansas is the spring game, I think, is this Saturday. ‘Let’s get through spring. Let’s see where we are.’ But I think they’ll either go with a guy that they’ve got on the staff or they’ll bring in someone to be — caretaker’s the wrong word — but bring someone in who has been through it all before.”

Oh my.

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When you think of Joe Paterno you probably visualize three things right off the bat.

His Coke-bottle glasses.

His rolled up khakis.

His black sneakers.

The black sneakers were such a part of Paterno that even his statue outside Beaver Stadium bears a Nike branding on the heel (pictured).

Nearly three months after his death, Joe Paterno will receive at least one more tribute from those who followed him. Fans attending this weekend's spring Blue White Game at Beaver Stadium are planning to wear black shoes to the game, a subtle tribute to the man known for his rolled up khaki pants, thick glasses and black sneakers every Saturday for the past four decades.

As I wrote this morning on Examiner.com, A small group on Facebook is organizing to attempt to have fans pay tribute to the former Penn State coach, asking fans attending the Blue White Game to wear black shoes. More specifically, the group is encouraging fans to wear the shoe Paterno was most known to wear on game day, a Nike men's air court leader low basketball shoe. As of this posting the small group had just a little over 100 followers, although their idea may not be all that unique.

When it was announced in late September that both Syracuse and Pittsburgh were packing up their bags to head to the ACC, it seemed like a strong possibility that most of the football playing members of the Big East would eventually leave with them. At the time most believed the Pac-12 would expand to 16 teams, which would lead to rest of the Big XII to crumble like coffee cake, and send both the entire Big XII and Big East into a perpetual state of cannibalism, with only the strongest conference surviving.

Only it didn’t happen. The Pac-12 stayed at 12, and the key members of the Big XII (mainly Texas and Oklahoma) stayed in place as well, meaning that college football’s musical chairs never really got started… at least not on the level that we expected.

One of the major players who did move though West Virginia, and on Tuesday, ESPN.com’s David Ubben had a very candid interview with Mountaineers Athletics Director Oliver Luck.

In it, Luck admitted something that had long been speculated, but never confirmed: When Syracuse and Pitt left the conference, West Virginia decided that they were leaving with them. It didn’t matter where the Mountaineers went or what conference they ended up in, they were leaving the Big East, and leaving immediately. It wasn’t a matter of “if” or “when,” but “where.”

Handle with care.

Just a few months after Alabama shattered LSU's BCS Championship aspirations, a player's father shattered Alabama's BCS trophy.

On Saturday, after Alabama's A-Day scrimmage in Tuscaloosa, the AFCA crystal ball trophy was knocked off a podium when a player's father (currently unknown which player), bumped in to the trophy after catching his foot on a rug underneath the trophy's display podium. The trophy toppled over, thrusting the Waterford crystal trophy to an untimely end of a short-lived life.

On Saturday, early BCS title favorite USC took the field for their spring game. But while expectations are high at Southern Cal, the on the field results left a lot to be desired. Simply put the Trojans just didn't look all that good Saturday afternoon.

Well, one reporter who covered the game was ESPNLA.com’s Pedro Moura.

Pedro was nice enough to answer some questions for Crystal Ball Run on that disappointing spring performance, Matt Barkley, and the differences between Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin.

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We’ve all seen the terrifying pictures of Terrence Cody at the NFL Combine a few years back, pictures which, even today still give many of nightmares. But as scary as that sounds, how much more intimidating might it be to see Cody barreling at you full-speed ahead on a paintball field? Well, some folks in Alabama got that experience this weekend.

That’s because, following Alabama’s A-Day spring football game, a group of former players gave back to the community, by playing paintball for charity. The event was set up by former Alabama defensive back Chris Rogers, with proceeds benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama, along with, Together Assisting People, which Rogers set up himself in 2009. Rogers mother is a cancer survivor, which inspired him to organize the event.

Rogers told AL.com:

"I just wanted to use the platform I had playing for a great institution like the University of Alabama," Rogers said. "It's awesome that my teammates came to support me."

And support him, they did. Amongst the ex-Crimson Tide players who showed up included Cody, Mark Ingram, Marcell Dareus, Marquis Maze, Glen Coffee, Roy Upchurch, Eryk Anders, Brad Smelley, Brandon Gibson and Will Lowery. For many, it was the first time they’d ever played paintball, with Cody sharing his experience with Alabama’s student newspaper the Crimson White.

“I didn’t know what the object of the game was or what we had to do, so I was just out there shooting most of the time. Then they said I got shot and I was [like], ‘Ah, ok,’” Cody told the newspaper.

Of course there were more important issues, like the charity event itself.

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