From all of us at Sports USA, our warmest wishes for a happy, healthy, joyous and prosperous new year for you and yours. We deeply appreciate your being part of our football family. We look forward to bringing you more of the best of college football and the National Football League in 2010!

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE - We kick off four football broadcasts in two days with the Brut Sun Bowl from El Paso on New Year's Eve at 2 p.m. EST, 11 a.m. PST, when Oklahoma (8-4) of the Big 12 meets No. 19 Stanford (8-4) of the Pac-10. It isn't often that a Pac-10 team lines up and plays smash-mouth. But this will be one of those times. The Cardinal average 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds across an impressive offensive line that ushered Toby Gerhart to the Doak Walker Award and runner-up status for both the Heisman Trophy and the Associated Press College Football Player of the Year Award. Gerhart came to Stanford as the valedictorian of his graduating class in Corona, Calif., better known as a baseball power hitter who lived in the left-center and right-center field gaps. Now he he hits the A and B gaps with the same kind of power he did the alleys on Stanford's fabled sunken diamond. It is the ultimate irony, and symbolism, that Gerhart led the nation in rushing with 1,739 yards while wearing College Football Hall of Famer John Elway's familiar No. 7. The way Gerhart trampled Oregon and USC makes this one of the intriguing matchups of the bowl season. The Stanford tailback averaged 144 yards per game. Oklahoma's defense allowed only 88 yards on the ground each time out. Defensive tackle Gerald McCoy was an All-American, and Sooner defensive end Jeremy Beal ranked in the top five in the nation in sacks. Oklahoma linebacker Travis Wilson was one of the Big 12 Conference's tackling machines this season. In this game, Oklahoma is more the passing team. Freshman Landry Jones stepped in when Heisman Trophy incumbent quarterback Sam Bradford was hurt, and delivered more than 2,700 passing yards and 23 touchdowns. Like USC's Pete Carroll, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops is in a non-BCS bowl game for the first time in eight years. The Sooners are looking to snap a six-game bowl losing streak at El Paso Thursday. Already this week, both teams have raved about the best bowl hospitality anywhere in college football. This will be the 76th Sun Bowl. The Sun Bowl is college football's second-oldest bowl game, only to the Rose Bowl. This 2009 edition figures to be one of the more memorable ones.

JOE AND THE HAT - We wrap up our coverage of the college football season with the 2010 Capital One Bowl from Orlando on New Year's Day. Eleventh-ranked Penn State of the Big Ten takes on No. 13 LSU of the Southeastern Conference at 1 O'Clock EST, 10 AM PST. Penn State coach Joe Paterno seeks his 394th career victory. The 83-year-old coaching legend has already extended his NCAA record with his 20th 10-win season; a victory over the Bayou Bengals would give him his 15th 1-win season, and his third in the last five years. Now that Bobby Bowden is retiring at Florida State, Paterno's NCAA victory record will never be approached. There've been more than 900 coaching changes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division-IA) since Paterno succeeded his former college coach at Brown, Rip Engle, at Penn State in 1966. This season, Paterno had to replace a graduating class of senior wide receivers who really turned the program back in the right direction amid calls for Paterno to retire after 2004. Derrick Williams, Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood helped Penn State win 40 games in four years, two Big Ten titles, and berths in two BCS bowl games. It took a while, but Graham Zug, Derek Moye and Chaz Powell got up to speed as their wideout successors this season. Penn State's leader is senior quarterback Daryll Clark, a two-time All-Big Ten talent. With a win today he would finish 22-4 as the Nittany Lions' starting quarterback, a win total matched by only a handful of PSU signal-callers. On defense, the Nittany Lions led the Big Ten once again in 2009. Over the last six seasons, Coach Tom Bradley's defense has been the best in the nation. Bradley, 52, who's in his 31st year on the coaching staff at Penn State, figures to succeed Paterno as Penn State's 15th head football coach. If the head coach ever retires, that is. Paterno will also be seeking to extend another NCAA record with his 24th bowl game victory. He's 23-11-1 in bowl games, but three of the losses have come in the Capital One Bowl. Penn State lost to Clemson in 1988, Florida in 1997 and Auburn in 2003. Its only win in the former Florida Citrus (nee Tangerine) Bowl was over Tennessee in 1994. This game has enormous significance in Happy Valley. As far as most Penn State fans are concerned, the Nittany Lions lost the only two games that mattered this year, against No. 10 Iowa (21-10) and eighth-ranked Ohio State (24-7) _ and both of them at home, at that. Add in USC's 38-24 domination in the Rose Bowl a year ago Friday, and Penn State is on an unmistakable big game losing streak. LSU is looking to wash away the taste of its last Capital One Bowl appearance. Iowa's Drew Tate hit Warren Holloway with a Hail Mary touchdown pass with time expired to upset the defending national champions in 2005. It also turned out to be Nick Saban's final game in Baton Rouge. He moved on to the National Football League's Miami Dolphins a week later. The Hat, as we affectionately refer to LSU coach Les Miles, has already matched Saban's total of national championships with the Bayou Bengals. Miles is 4-0 in bowl games, and none of them have been close. LSU has blown out Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Georgia Tech. In LSU special teamer Trindon Holliday, Penn State will face possibly the fastest opponent it's ever encountered in a bowl game. Brandon LaFell and Terrance Toliver are big, and big-play, receivers. LSU really only lost to Florida and Alabama this season. The loss at Ole Miss was more a case of dreadful clock mismanagement in the final minute, as Miles has public acknowledged. At 10-2, the Bayou Bengals could have been headed to a rematch with Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl. Instead, they give us easily the best of the non-BCS bowls.

BRETT-TRODOME, OR BRAD-TRODOME? - Our final Sports USA doubleheader of NFL action opens Sunday in Minneapolis with the Minnesota Vikings in stunning free-fall. From a 10-1 start filling the then-unbeaten New Orleans Saints' rear-view mirror, the Purple Gang has tumbled to 11-4. Losses at Arizona, Carolina and Chicago mean they've long since lost any hope of domefield advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. Never mind that. Now they could be looking at having to play on wildcard weekend. The Vikings who were once in control of everything no longer control their NFC playoff seeding fate. If the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington Sunday, they will take the second-best divisional record and a bye week Jan. 9-10. So the Vikings have to beat the New York Giants in our doubleheader opener and hope Dallas sweeps its NFC East season series with Philadelphia. How did it get to this? There's no other conclusion than that the revelation of the rift between head coach Brad Childress and quarterback Brett Favre over play-calling has disrupted the entire football club. The dichotomy of the Vikings' 36-30 overtime loss at Chicago to a previously pulse-less Bears team may provide clues. When they played it safe with two-back sets in the first half at Soldier Field, they were shut out. When they unleashed Favre the gunslinger in the second half, they put up 30 points in often heroic fashion. The Brad-Brett snit may not account for dreadful defensive performances in all three games. Then again, it might. Childress very nearly lost his team when he openly courted Favre last spring, then called a team meeting to tell quarterbacks Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels they were his men... and then walked in one morning to tell the same pair he was headed to the airport to pick up Favre, who will become the Vikings' new No. 1 quarterback. That he couldn't stand prosperity and had to mess with things when his team was 10-1 (and after owner Zygi Wilf wrapped him in a new multi-year contract) really reflects badly on the Minnesota Vikings head coach. Especially if he can't pull his team out of this apparent death spiral. Luckily, the Vikings head back indoors this Sunday. They're 7-0 on the Metrodome broadloom, with a very good shot at matching the New England Patriots' unbeaten home season if last week's mail-it-in effort by the New York Giants is any indication. The Giants somehow managed to turn their farewell to the stadium that bears their name into a SyFy rerun of the club's miseries from 1964-78, before George Young and Bill Parcells turned the club into the perennial playoff factor it's been since Lawrence Taylor arrived in the Meadowlands in 1981. Some reports out of the Big Apple say defensive end Osi Umeniyora has already played his last game for the Giants. Adrian Peterson must be salivating at the prospect of running against a New York defense that belched 208 yards to Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart. That is, if he can hold onto the football. Minnesota needs Philadelphia to lose at Dallas in order to lock up the second NFC playoff bye. A tie with an Eagles loss would also do the trick. Should the Vikings lose, Dallas would enjoy a first-round by with a win over Philadelphia and and an Arizona loss or tie.

NFC PLAYOFFS, DRESS REHEARSAL - Our NFL doubleheader game Sunday takes us to University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., where the Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals tune up for the NFC playoffs. The Packers are 10-5 and already in the postseason tournament as NFC wildcard qualifiers. Though they lost both matchups with their former teammate Brett Favre, the Packers are the best team in the NFC North right now. Aaron Rodgers has become the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 4,000 yards in each of his first two seasons as a starter. Ryan Grant enjoyed a 100-yard in the rout of Seattle. The Packers defense has weathered the loss of Aaron Kampman admirably. Rookie Brad Jones has moved into Kampman's outside linebacker spot, flanked by another rookie who's played well this season in Clay Matthews, Jr. Charles Woodson has had arguably the best season of his outstanding NFL career. With a solid defense, a productive running game, an effective quarterback and an instinctive indifference to January weather, the overlooked Packers could primed to make some postseason noise. The Arizona Cardinals have already broken the hex of Super Bowl losers not even making the playoffs the following season. If anything, coach Ken Whisenhunt's 2009 Cardinals are better than the surprise 2008 NFC champions. Rookie Beanie Wells and Tim Hightower give Arizona its best running game in recent memory. The Cardinals defense has stepped up this season and shown it can win games on the road, at the New York Giants, and it can stuff high-powered offenses, as it did against the Minnesota Vikings. With some help, Arizona may even enjoy a first-round playoff bye, something it didn't have last year. Should the Cardinals win Sunday while Minnesota and Philadelphia lose, Arizona would join the New Orleans Saints resting at home on wildcard weekend. Otherwise, the Cardinals might welcome Green Bay right back to Glendale for a wildcard weekend matchup that really counts.