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If there's a recession in college football, it has yet to reach the coaching ranks. Well, not the head-coaching ranks, anyway. In the past week, three head coaches, Bob Stoops, Pat Fitzgerald, and Brian Kelly, have signed contract extensions that will keep them at their present jobs for a while longer.

We start at Oklahoma, where Bob Stoops is now signed through the 2015 season. Despite several big-bowl bloopers, the people in and around the Oklahoma program are happy with their head coach, and who can blame them? In addition to the extension, Stoops also gets a $250,000 raise to $3.675 million a year, plus $700,000 each July if he remains at OU. If he doesn't stay, they are so defriending him.

It's barely spring here in the Midwest but spring football is well under way, and there's abundant intrigue in the Big Ten conference. Coming off what seems like the 46th consecutive disappointing bowl season, including a Rose Bowl where Penn State's Daryll Clark (right) did his best but the Nittany Lions still couldn't beat Southern Cal, nobody will be expecting much from the conference or its teams when fall rolls around. Somebody has to win it, however, and now is when the jockeying for position really begins.

Signing day has come and (nearly) gone, filled with celebration and upheaval. Sort of like life. We're here to parse what can be parsed and detail the recruiting classes that were for the major conferences.

While recruiting services Scout and Rivals differ widely in their overall assessments of this year's Big Ten recruiting classes, they're both impressed by many of the same things. Of course, they're also unimpressed by many of the same things.

But hey, you're a smart person. You can figure things out for yourself. You want to know who helped themselves. You want to know who shot themselves in the foot. You want to know if the talent-rich got richer, like Michigan did with defensive end Craig Roh (pictured). Make the jump, grasshopper; all will be revealed.

In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.

Even though it wasn't a great year overall for the conference, there were plenty of bright points and hopeful signs and "wait until next year" moments which should have Big Ten fans excited for next season. Either that, or we'll all look like Charlie Brown did five seconds after Lucy teed up the football. But I digress. Let's take a look at the teams in the second drawer of the Big Ten file cabinet, shall we?

Wrigley Field hosted hundreds of football games between 1920, when the NFL first used it, and 1970, when the Chicago Bears moved to Soldier Field. Now some folks in Chicago are proposing that football return to the Friendly Confines.

With Ohio State's loss to Texas last night, the Big Ten finished the bowl season with a 1-6 record. We could offer up a lot of reasons for the Big Ten's lousy bowl record, but Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany told the Chicago Tribune after watching USC beat Penn State in the Rose Bowl that it's really quite simple:

"You look at it and ask: Did the players play hard, and were they prepared?" Delany asked. "Yes and yes. You know what? SC's a better football team. In all of the [bowl] games I've watched, I'm seeing us get beat by better teams.

"Then you say: Why is that? I don't have a great answer other than to say that these things tend to be cyclical."

So there you have it. Delany says the Big Ten teams are just getting beaten by better teams, and that's that.

And really, does anyone disagree? Texas is better than Ohio State. USC is better than Penn State. Georgia is better than Michigan State. Kansas is better than Minnesota. Missouri is better than Northwestern. Florida State is better than Wisconsin. Iowa is the one Big Ten team that won its bowl game because it's the one Big Ten team that drew an opponent (South Carolina) it should have beaten.

I don't have any grand solution to the problem of the Big Ten's bowl record (I'd love to see one of the BCS games relocate to Soldier Field, but somehow I don't see that happening), but I give Delany credit for accepting the simple fact that Big Ten teams are losing bowl games because they're not as good as their opponents.

1-5, with one game to go. One chance left to raise the conference's winning percentage to a mighty .285. And that chance rests on the less-than-broad shoulders of the Ohio State Buckeyes. Expecting the Buckeyes to show up in a big nonconference game is like expecting a bridge made out of meringue to hold up underneath a couple SUVs. It's just not something a sensible person would ever do.

It's not like anybody expected more of the Big Ten in this year's bowl games. Most folk expected the conference would be lucky to win one game and not only were they right, they were right about which game that would be. Iowa's 31-10 slashing of South Carolina is about the only thing the conference can be proud of.

Yes, Penn State had a good second half against USC. Wahoo! They almost came back against college football's laziest elite program! There's something to hang your hat on. Look at the rest of the games, if you dare. You can be a little proud of Northwestern for giving Missouri more fight than anyone expected, but there's a big fat load of Florida State 42, Wisconsin 13 festering out back, waiting for you. Crimony.

FanHouse gathers around the TV to bring you insights from Bowl Season '08.

Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel has had a wonderful career, but tonight was not his night telling a sideline reporter "my teammates had to win this game in spite of me". Harsh but spot on, as heavily favored Missouri weathered Daniel's three interceptions in gutting out an overtime victory against Northwestern, 30 to 23.

Daniel's line was brutal, completing 27 of 44 passes for just 200 yards and a pair of touchdowns against three interceptions. His accuracy was off all evening, perhaps due to a tremendous defensive effort by Northwestern that held Missouri to just 311 yards, perhaps due to shocking last game jitters. Daniel did gather himself late, completing 5 of 8 passes for 42 yards including the game-winning overtime touchdown pass to teammate Jeremy Maclin.

Northwestern badly outplayed Missouri throughout the game, but was damned by a missed extra point and Maclin's electrifying punt return touchdown just before halftime that evened the game at 10-all.

Turkey Legs to Go is FanHouse's complete travel guide for all of the 2008-2009 college bowl games. Here, we cover the Alamo Bowl (San Antonio, Texas), which pits Northwestern against Missouri.

Overview / Matchup: The Alamo is another example (like the PJ Bowl) of a lower end second tier bowl that lucked out with a pretty beasty matchup; Northwestern and Missouri both finished in the top 25 for the season. And while Northwestern might be a touch overmatched on offense (Chase Daniel is straight sick, son), Mizzou isn't known for stopping anyone. So, at the very least, you can expect a pretty explosive shootout. Which works well given the historical nature of the San Antonio venue.

Hotels: The Marriott Rivercenter is probably the finest hotel in San Antonio and is definitely the most recognizable. The hotel's imposing step-back design and 38-story towers dominate the San Antonio skyline. The Sheraton Gunter Hotel is slightly pricier than our usual midrange suggestion; nevertheless it's the best overall balancing luxury, with cost and stadium proximity. The Red Roof Inn Downtown offers meager accommodations, but more than makes up for it with rooms less than US$100 a night and a location just blocks from the stadium and Riverwalk.

The past weekend settled almost everything in the conference. Penn State and Ohio State share the title, but Penn State gets the bid to the BCS by virtue of their victory over the Buckeyes. Michigan State, Northwestern, and Iowa comprise the conference's second tier, while Wisconsin and Minnesota round out the bowl-eligible squads.

Still, right now, we can only say for sure that Penn State will play in the Rose Bowl, unless about 35 miracles happen which would put them in the title game. After that, you'll need to call on a witch doctor with a PhD in reading chicken entrails to figure out everyone else's fate.

As I suggested last week, the Big Ten bowl picture depends heavily on a team that's not in the Big Ten. This weekend's Oregon-Oregon State Civil War is the key that unlocks the prize vault. If the Beavers win, USC gets the last BCS at-large berth; if not, it probably goes to Ohio State. Since everyone who's bet against the Beavers has looked foolish lately, let's assume Oregon State wins this weekend. Where does that leave everybody? Who gets the big check? Who gets stuck with the What's Left Of The Motor City Bowl?