Don't look now, but it appears that Elsie the Cow is making moves on that bastion of sideline showers, Gatorade.

The Washington Huskies, who began experimenting with different training regiments last fall, will require players to drink one small carton of fat-free chocolate milk following practices and work-outs this season.

UW Trent Greener said that it's hard to point to one root cause for the benefits, but concludes that chocolate milk does improve players hydration. Greener's experience with chocolate milk over the last year shows that America's favorite school cafeteria beverage helps add protein when players walk off the field ...

Inspired by several bloggers who do their "top 100 things for the season", I'm inspired to share five things I want to see this season....

1) Is someone ready to rise up and knock USC off their Pac10 perch? Despite the recent success of Oregon (and Cal, to a lesser degree) there has not been a consistent challenger to Pete Carroll's throne. I think it's just a matter of time before Dennis Ericksson and Arizona State rise to the top of the conference, but can the Sun Devils unseat the Trojans? Does UCLA finally have its man with Neuheisel at the helm? Can Cal get back to the top? Is Oregon going to be a year-in, year-out player? I'm still putting my chips on ASU as the most likely contender, but... when?

2) Tim Tebow (ie Superman Surgeon) was the best player in college football last year and RIGHTFULLY won the Heisman. Can Tebow be the first guy to repeat since the ...

Faithful readers of fanblogs will notice that a lot of what this article contains has been stated by me in the past. That's because I thought it as being so well-written that I could regurgitate it once again in order to preempt any more uniform threads from popping up like weeds in the parched earth here at fanblogs during the dry season.

The bee in my bonnet about national championships came last spring when Washington tried to slip one through the back door 47 years after the fact. Since then, I've quit wearing bonnets and have educated myself on the history of the national championship. I now feel qualified to be the final arbiter of which teams' national championship claims are legit, and which are as bogus as a Jeff Spicoli quip.

Here are the qualifications that I will use:

1) Only current Divison 1-A (FBS) teams with three or more MNCs ...

New Washington State head coach Paul Wulff has made the first mega-decision of his young tenure - the Cougars will only wear two helmet designs this year.

Washington State - no stranger to helmet confusion - will bring back the silver "Cougars" helmet for all home games this year, instead of the silver WSU logo that was implemented in 2000. The Cougars will still wear the WSU logo on their crimson helmets for all road games, according to Cougfan.com.

Wulff retains the right to bring out the silver WSU helmets for special occasions, which likely means that we'll see this design for the annual Apple Cup game with Washington. If that happens, it would essentially amount to simple reversal of the home helmet design implementation of the last eight years.

HOME	AWAY	??
	NCAA unfairly targeting mid-major schools? The USA Today has an exceptionally interesting follow-up story to the May release of the 2008 Academic Progress Rates (APR) results of the Division I schools. What makes this article particularly interesting is that it more fully vets the notion that the BCS conference receive favorable consideration from the NCAA. Citing analysis from the Knight Commission, the USA Today article states that BCS conference teams only half as likely to be punished as non-BCS teams for failing to meet the assigned APR minimums. "The NCAA's heart is in the right place. They want to improve the academic performance ... New Cal football uniforms to feature bear claws The Cal Bears football team will be sporting new uniforms for the 2009-2009 college football season. The new Nike designs feature bear claw - eque slashes around the neckline along with the Cal Bear Claw logo on the neck. The claw slash look also appears on the side of the pants. The Bears retain three base colors - blue, white and gold - for jerseys and pants, giving Cal nine different uniform options. But that's not all... Cal will also be sporting new helmets this season. The ...