And emotional Stacy Coley has announced he’ll play college football at Miami.  The four-star receiver from Oakland Park, Florida also considered Ole Miss, Florida State and South Florida.  So there’s at least one guy Hugh Freeze couldn’t reel in.

You might remember Auburn running back Mike Blakely.  Not because he mustered 153 yards on 33 carries last season as a redshirt freshman.  But probably because in 2011 he signed with first-year Florida coach Will Muschamp and then immediately asked for a release to transfer.  Blakely landed on the Plains soon after.

Now he’s leaving Auburn.

AU officials confirmed last night that Blakely is no longer enrolled at the school and internet speculation is tying him to South Florida’s program.  Blakely didn’t manage a carry during the Tigers’ final five games last season and he must not believe things will get much better with Gus Malzahn now running the show.

Good luck to the kid.  Next stop: Winnemucca, Mack.

Last month, what looked to be a quiet holiday season went boom when the Big Ten surprisingly swiped Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the Big East.  The Big East responded by inviting Tulane into the family.  At that point most of the Big East’s biggest basketball schools said, “That’s enough,” and announced just days ago that they would be breaking away from their football-playin’ brothers to create a new hoops-first conference of their own.

Instead of a season of peace, presidents, commissioners, coaches and fans are back to nervously holding their breath as they wait for the next big move.  Silent nights will be replaced with anxious nights for many.

With expansion and realignment in the air once more, we’re taking a numbers-based look at how things might shake out.  Yesterday, we showed you the total revenue numbers — gross not net — for each school currently scheduled to be playing FBS football by 2015.  Follow the money and it becomes clear that about 76 FBS schools — those not in the Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-12 and SEC — might be willing to flip-flop conferences if it meant more cash in their coffers.

Meanwhile, the biggest conferences are keeping their eyes on the ACC, the Big East, Notre Dame, and a select number of schools that might actually be worth nabbing.  That’s what we’ll examine today:

1.  Which schools would be appealing to the biggest leagues thanks to the number of cable households they can influence/provide?  With several leagues launching their own networks, the more cable households gained, the higher the subscriber fees those conferences can try to charge.

2.  Which schools have “big brand” appeal?  Location isn’t everything.  East Carolina — for example — might be located in the Tarheel State, but ECU doesn’t draw North Carolina-type ratings on television.  Just grabbing San Diego State in California wouldn’t allow a league to claim it has drawing power across the entire Golden State.  Stealing a Southern Cal or a California, on the other hand…

3.  Which schools have the best academic reputations?  As we noted yesterday, academics are playing a smaller and smaller role in expansion and realignment (see: Louisville to the ACC) as dollars and survival instinct become the real drivers behind many leagues’ decisions.  The Big Ten and SEC, however, are in the most powerful positions moving forward.  Their schools currently bring in the most revenue.  If push came to shove, there would be few schools willing to turn down an invite from either conference.  The Big Ten has always been very picky about trying to add AAU member institutions with big research budgets.  The SEC can be choosy, too, at this point.  The league’s presidents are tired of having the pointy-heads from Up North making inferences about the “dumb jocks” in the league Down South.  In addition to growing it’s geographic and media footprint, the SEC’s last round of expansion allowed it to add two AAU schools to its roster.  If forced to expand further, expect Mike Slive to try and land more big name brands with reputations for being solid research-based universities.

So let’s start by looking at the 25 schools we identified yesterday as having at least some hope of landing in a bigger conference:  Boise State, Boston College, BYU, Cincinnati, Clemson, Connecticut, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, Miami (FL), North Carolina, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, San Diego State, SMU, South Florida, Syracuse, UCF, UNLV, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

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Commence with the eye-rolling.  Feel free to point out that Nick Saban once said he would not be the next head coach at Alabama only to become the next head coach at Alabama.

But the Crimson Tide’s leader has finally thrown a bit of water on the rumors that he’s unhappy and might be ready to leave the SEC and leap back into the NFL (with the Cleveland Browns).  Yesterday on WAXY-FM in South Florida, Saban opened up about why it would be difficult for him to leave college football again:

“This has been a good thing for my family to be here.  College football has been very good for us.  The positive impact that you can have on these young me as players and as people, that’s just something that we really enjoy and something that I learned about myself.

I really enjoy what I’m doing here right now.  I’m getting old now.  I don’t think we’ve got too many moves left in us.  You develop a lot of relationships and loyalties to the players you recruit and the players you have on the team and the people you have in the organization.  I don’t think it’s really fair to leave.  I regretted when I left LSU because I left a lot of relationships there.  Hopefully I’ll be able to stay here for a long, long time…

Maybe I don’t always show it (happiness) and maybe I’m always worried about the next game.  I’m happy.  I’m very, very happy.  I’m very pleased and happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish here.”

Saban also admitted that he didn’t necessarily handle “the way I left (Miami) very well,” saying: “That’s always been a thing with me that I’ve never felt good about.”

Plenty of folks will point out that Saban didn’t completely slam the door on a departure from Alabama, but we tend to believe he’ll remain in Tuscaloosa so long as the school and his bosses continue to give him the support and leeway that he currently enjoys.

That said, we’ll keep some crow in the freezer just in case.

Rutgers is the main competition for Vanderbilt in the battle for linebacker Skai Moore from Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) University School.

“At this point, it is Rutgers right now just because I have had the opportunity to spend more time there,” Moore told 247Sports. “I just haven’t been able to give a fair chance to Vanderbilt by spending enough time there. I will get back up there and make my decision after that trip.”

That trip to Vanderbilt will be sometime during the fall.

“I want to try to make it to Vanderbilt for an official visit because I spent a good bit of time at Rutgers and was able to see everything, but I want to go to Vanderbilt to spend more time with the players and see how everything is there,” Moore said. “I want to spend more time at Vanderbilt so I can have an equal experience and make a decision based off of that.”

Moore is the nation’s 37th-best outside linebacker, according to 247Sports’ Composite Rankings. His offer list includes Kentucky, Ole Miss and South Florida.

The SEC has announced the matchups for this year’s SEC/Big East Challenge and there will only be 12 games played.  Some had wondered if Missouri and Texas A&M would get to take part this season — the Big East still has about 40 basketball schools — but the answer is no.  Sorry Tigers and Aggies.

This year’s games are as follows:

Thursday, November 29, 2012  
South Carolina at St. John’s
Seton Hall at LSU
Kentucky at Notre Dame
Marquette at Florida

Friday, November 30, 2012   
Georgia at South Florida
DePaul at Auburn
Tennessee at Georgetown
Syracuse at Arkansas

Saturday, December 1, 2012 
Mississippi State at Providence
Rutgers at Ole Miss
Alabama at Cincinnati
Villanova at Vanderbilt

UPDATE — Hold off on buying those Syracuse/Arkansas tickets.  As part of their ongoing battle to escape the Big East, Syracuse officials have told the league they are “overcommitted” and can’t take part in the game.  Meanwhile, Pittsburgh officials — also trying to escape — say they were expecting to get a home game this year.  Instead, they were left out.

Vanderbilt had some obvious advantages to Malik Greaves before he committed to the Commodores.

“First, I wanted to play in the SEC, and second, I wanted to get a good degree,” the safety from Jacksonville, Fla., told The Florida Times-Union.

That’s why Greaves chose Vanderbilt over offers from such schools as North Carolina, South Florida, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Greaves, who’s the second commitment for Vanderbilt’s class of 2013, should be able to help the Commodores’ secondary, according to Sandalwood High School coach Adam Geis.

“He’s a heck of a player,” Geis said. “He’s a phenomenal player for us.”

Missouri’s Gary Pinkel has taken a moribund football program and make it competitive on the national scene.  Competitive in the rankings (the Tigers reached #1 in the nation in 2007) and on the recruiting trail (Mizzou has inroads into Texas and outdueled Arkansas for star receiver prospect Dorial Green-Beckham).

He’s accomplished much, but now Pinkel is determined to break new barriers:

“We’re getting our brand name down in Atlanta.  We’re in South Florida, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando.  But we’re back to like we were when we first went into Texas.  You have to sell yourself.  They have a great pride in the SEC down there and you’re welcome down there.  But it’s just like when we first went into Texas, and the coaches would tell us, ‘Okay, these (five-star) guys are going to Texas, Oklahoma and A&M.  You can’t talk to them.  But you can look at these guys.’  Well, they don’t do that in Texas anymore.  They say, ‘These are our best guys, go recruit them.’  Well, now when we go into SEC territory to recruit, we hear, ‘Well, these guys are going to Alabama or Auburn.  But you can talk to these guys.’”

The coach told The St. Louis Dispatch that his program is ready for the challenge of its new home.  “That’s all we’ve been talking about to our football team,” Pinkel said.  “That’s what it’s all about.  Proving ourselves.  No one knows us in the SEC.  We have to earn their respect, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

If the word leaking out of College Station is to be believed, there’s one less open coordinator spot in the SEC.  Multiple sources are claiming that South Florida defensive coordinator Mark Snyder is set to take over the same job on Kevin Sumlin’s new staff at Texas A&M.

For those unfamiliar with Snyder, he served as the head coach at Marshall from 2005 through 2009.  Before that he’d had a four-year tour of duty as defensive coordinator at Ohio State.

If the Snyder hire is made official it will leave Florida (offensive), Alabama (offensive), Tennessee (defensive) and Auburn (offensive and defensive) as SEC schools still searching for new coordinators.

Ole Miss head coach Hugh Freeze has said he will handle play-calling duties in 2012 and may or may not hire an offensive coordinator.  He served as his own O-coordinator at Arkansas State last season.

Boise State offensive coordinator Brent Pease has been connected to the openings at Alabama and Florida.  Former head coaches Randy Shannon and Ron Zook have had their names tied to the open D-coordinator slots at both Auburn and Tennessee.

UPDATE — The Auburn defensive coordinator job has now been filled by Brian VanGorder, the former defensive coordinator with the Atlanta Falcons.