College Football Blitz: USC and Penn State wow us all, Tracy Claeys out at Minnesota

USC and Penn State wowed us Monday night in the Rose Bowl, and Minnesota decided to move on from Tracy Claeys

After taking over for Jerry Kill at Minnesota, who was forced to step down, Tracy Claeys did not last long as the head coach of the Golden Gophers. He was shown the door on Tuesday by the school after one full season at the helm.

This is where we begin the College Football Blitz for Tuesday, Jan. 3.

Minnesota decides to jump on the carousel

Just when we thought that the FBS coaching carousel was finally stopped again after UConn brought back Randy Edsall following the dismissal of Bob Diaco, the Minnesota Golden Gophers decided to start that bad boy right back up again.

Tuesday afternoon it was revealed that after just one complete year at the helm, Tracy Claeys will no longer be the head coach of the program in Minnesota. This comes after the team finished the regular season at 8-4 and capped that off with a Holiday Bowl win over high-powered Washington State.

Despite the success on the field, though, the Gophers football program was bogged down in controversy. This controversy all stemmed from a sexual assault investigation dating back to September which resulted in the suspension of ten players for that aforementioned Holiday Bowl contest. Those suspensions prompted Minnesota players to briefly boycott the postseason game, a decision that was oddly backed by Claeys immediately. This was most certainly a factor in the decision here, as Minnesota AD Mark Coyle admitted in his release.

Final Thought: Right from the moment that Claeys came out to back the boycott, you got the feeling that the school might want to make a change. The only thing that was holding you back from fully believing they would pull the trigger was the fact that they did finish the year at 8-4, and when it comes to college football, sadly success trumps all at times. Ultimately, the school made the right move by letting Claeys walk and starting fresh.

Now, Gophers, let P.J. Fleck row your boat!

Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin aren’t done just yet

Monday the bomb was dropped that Nick Saban and Alabama had decided that, you know what, we need to just let Lane Kiffin head off to FAU right now, regardless of us playing in the national championship game in a week. Steve Sarkisian will call the plays against Clemson, and the drama between Kiffin and Saban had finally come to a close for good.

Yeah, we were wrong.

During an interview on Mike & Mike Tuesday morning, the now-former Alabama offensive coordinator revealed that he was actually checking in on coaching Monday night in Tampa, just basically switching roles with Sarkisian and moving to the press box.

“We do not know legally whether we can do that,” Kiffin said via 247Sports. “Sidelines for sure would not, but the press box would be ideal because that would exchange Sark and I what his role was and then what my role was. Then he can come down to the field and coach the players.”

Ahead of the rematch with the Tigers on Monday, Saban held a press conference not long after, and of course he was asked about Kiffin’s claim.

So, yeah, that settles all of that.

Final Thought: Look, there will come a day when the Kiffin-Saban drama will be completely gone and we’re going to miss this incredibly entertaining nonsense. Mark my words.

Uncle Brent angers the masses during the Sugar Bowl

Here in the tail-end of his career, some are of the belief that longtime broadcaster Brent Musburger should hang up the headset and call it a career sooner rather than later. Well, Musburger certainly added fuel to their fire on Monday night during the Sugar Bowl game between Oklahoma and Auburn.

You see, during the broadcast, Musburger had made some positive comments about Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon, who as we all know is one of the more controversial figures of the 2016 college football season. While we’ve known for over two years that he was involved in an incident that ended with him striking a woman, video was recently released showing it all take place, putting Mixon in an even more negative light.

So, the well wishes for Mixon and his future sent the internet into an absolute frenzy, to say the least.

However, Musburger caught wind that people were not happy with him. So instead of apologizing like you’d maybe expect, he doubled down on everything by lashing out at the haters and once again letting it be known that he’s rooting for the Sooners back in a rant for the ages.

Next: Best college quarterback born in every state

Bowl game stat of the day
Just pick one from that epic Rose Bowl Game

Monday night the USC Trojans and the Penn State Nittany Lions clashed in the 2017 edition of the Rose Bowl Game, and boy are we all better off as college football fans that they did. In the epic 52-49 Trojans win, a bevy of records were broken, some were tied and others are now sitting near the top of the list.

So, for the bowl game stat of the day in this edition of the College Football Blitz, just pick your favorite one from one of the all-time great college football games that we have ever seen.

For those wondering, I’m going with Sam Darnold breaking Vince Young’s total yards record, because I’m a simple man, really.