• We want young blood. As a fifth-year senior with no recruiting hype and just average athleticism, Georgia quarterback Joe Cox was probably destined to find himself the target of controversy at the first hints of disarray. So it's no surprise that three losses in the last four games and an ugly three-interception effort in Saturday's Cocktail Party loss to Florida -- giving him 12 picks in eight games, and at least one INT in all eight -- has Cox at the center of a brewing storm about who deserves to captain UGA's sinking season to the finish, even if Mark Richt doesn't want to talk about it right now:

"I know what everybody is going at, but you're not going to get anything," [Richt] said on a teleconference with reporters. "We're not going to talk about making any changes right now. If there are going to be changes anywhere, it'd be Tuesday before we'd have an idea where we would line them up."

Not everybody is foaming at the mouth to replace Cox -- according to an online Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, it's only somewhere between 83 and 84 percent, the vast majority of whom favor taking the redshirt off hyped freshman Aaron Murray for the last month of the season. Among that chorus is AJC columnist Mark Bradley, who on Sunday called Cox "less than OK" and asked Richt to abandon the the rhetoric about giving the team "the best chance to win" the last four games and sacrifice the rest of the year in the name of the future. Which, just as it belonged to Matt Stafford when he assumed the reins of a struggling team in 2006, clearly belongs to Murray. It worked for Stafford then (UGA rebounded from a 1-4 stretch at midseason to win its last three) and we should find out this week whether Richt is willing to give in and start gearing up for 2010.

• Blount back in the saddle? Oregon's season has obviously taken a completely different complexion since the opening-night catastrophe in Boise, hitting another level with Saturday night's demolition of USC. It could take on another one today, when we should get word about the full reinstatement of suspended running back LeGarrette Blount, the living symbol of the Ducks' low point at the start of the season:

Pacific-10 Conference commissioner Larry Scott met Sunday with running back LeGarrette Blount, university president Richard Lariviere, university counsel, coach Chip Kelly and athletic director Mike Bellotti to discuss the possible return of Blount.
[...]
Bellotti said he expects an announcement Monday on Blount's status. Kelly, who reminded reporters Sunday of the chain of Blount command - Kelly to Bellotti to Lariviere to Scott - said he met with Scott on Sunday but that he doesn't have a timetable on the reinstatement.

Kelly emphasized that Blount's return is "not a football decision," which, like, duh. The Ducks have ripped off seven wins in a row and re-established themselves as one of the most lethally versatile rushing attacks in the country by springing Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James for more than 300 yards against the Trojans, and have risen to the top of the Pac-10 with Blount toiling on the scout team. If anything, Blount threatens to become a distraction, or extraneous part shoved into a machine already running at full speed.

But Kelly has also said Blount has met all of the conditions laid out for his reinstatement last month and is on track to return; if an announcement does come down, there's no indication whatsoever that it won't be to officially welcome Blount back into the fold for the last four games. Stay tuned.

• Coming after the Leader. Armed with a little help from friendly columnists, the new political action committee devoted to lobbying Congress for a playoff is off to an energetic start, at least, including a formal letter of complaint to ESPN objecting to its "one-sided" coverage, handily compiled here and prominently featuring Rece Davis, Lou Holtz and Mark May insulting the intelligence of politicians. Not surprisingly, the group has taken to playing the self-interest card, with ESPN set to take over the BCS next year and four years of steady press-release battering still to come.

• Geniuses among us. My favorite costume of the weekend? Easily, it belonged to the Iowa fan who decided to take his seat among a crowd of stoic, freezing and -- with an early deficit at the hands of lowly Indiana -- very unhappy Midwesterners dressed as a neon green gorilla:

That is all.

Quickly ... Auburn safety Zac Etheridge, who left the field on a backboard with a scary-looking injury in the Tigers' win over Ole Miss, has regained movements in all his limbs but will miss the rest of the season. ... Promising UConn quarterback Cody Endres is out for the season with a shoulder injury. ... Clemson defensive end Da'Quan Bowers could miss at least two weeks with a knee innjury. ... Tennessee's Eric Berry is not a candidate to fill a void at linebacker, despite a rash of injuries. ... As for the alleged "skirmish" between Spikes and Tim Tebow after the lackluster win at Mississippi State, Urban Meyer said there was no such thing. ... And not surprisingly, Mike Leach gets lawyerly in defense of last week's "fat little girlfriends" remark.