Big Ten Football Morning Coffee: Urban Meyer Is an 'Old BCS' Kind of Guy

Rise and shine, friends. Here's what's going down in the Big Ten today.

- Urban Meyer is on board with the playoff proposals that his conference—okay, no he's not. In fact, he's already talking about how much he prefers the "old" BCS. Meyer's point that the new playoffs would extend the season and require more from coaches and players is certainly salient. However, let's not forget he was threatening to scream for a playoff in '06 if Florida didn't jump Michigan for the BCS title bid.

- Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com profiled Bill O'Brien and the challenges he faces in getting the Penn State offense ready to rock for 2012. There is a common theme of O'Brien updating the structure of the Penn State program in this and other profiles of O'Brien and the new Penn State program. There's also a tacit admission of something rather unsettling in there, but perhaps it should remain tacit for now.

- Bad news for the Big Ten: its per-school shares of bowl money might be dropping substantially. Between the ADs calling for no more six-win bowl teams (something that directly affects the Big Ten) and a new push by the conference to reform ticket guarantees, bowl payouts may be sparser in the coming years. Here's the, er, money quote from The Gazette:

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Outside of Wisconsin and the Rose Bowl, the other seven Big Ten schools committed 96,001 tickets to bowl games. Only 41,739 tickets were sold. Of the seven bowls, only one - Michigan in the Sugar Bowl - did the Big Ten school's sold ticket total sold reach more than 10 percent of the overall game attendance.

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- Sam McKewon of the Omaha World-Herald isn't worried about Nebraska striking out on its top tier of quarterback prospects (three of whom went elsewhere in the Big Ten, including Matt Alviti selecting Northwestern over the Huskers), since he likes the Huskers' mid-range QB prospects better. Nebraska does need some more QBs, though, especially after Bubba Starling chose the diamond over the gridiron.