Scott Wolf of the Los Angeles Daily News reports there are five Pac-10 players on the Playboy All-America team, three from USC --- safety Taylor Mays and linebackers Brian Cushing and Rey Maualuga.

The others are Arizona State kicker Thomas Weber and Cal center Alex Mack.

Mays, as I'm sure anyone reading this is aware, is an O'Dea High grad who was a top target of the Huskies for the Class of 2006 --- the same class that yielded Jake Locker. But Mays picked USC despite being the son of former Husky Stafford Mays. Mays explained his reasons for picking USC in this story here last fall.

Mays is the first in-state player to make the team since Nebraska defensive end Adam Carriker in 2006. Carriker is a graduate of Kennewick High.

A few links to pass along on a Wednesday afternoon:

--- CBSSportsline's Dennis Dodd lists Tyrone Willingham as the coach on the hottest seat in college football in his post-spring roundup. And Dodd doesn't seem to hold out much hope Willingham will survive, writing that he's on "one of those dead-man-walking forced marches'' and that "it seems inevitable that this season will be his last.'' He also writes that other than Jake Locker, UW's prospects "are dimmer than a 40-watt bulb.'' Hey, just passing it along.

--- Speaking of Locker, Jon Wilner writes in his College Hotline Blog that his presence gives the Huskies an A grade in their comfort level at quarterback. Maybe. I still think the lack of experienced depth might drop that grade just a little bit.

--- More,uh, love for the Huskies from Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who pegs Oklahoma as No.6 in his post-spring pre-season Top 30 and writes that the Sooners have "no scary games on the non-conference schedule.'' In case you've forgotten, one of those non-scary games is at UW on Sept. 13.

--- Stewart Mandel of SI.com, meanwhile, says that BYU could be the non-BCS team to make a run at a BCS bowl this year and that the Cougars will be favored to win their two marquee non-conference games against UCLA and UW. BYU hosts UCLA the week after it plays at UW on Sept. 6.

--- The Behind the Beavers Beat blog lists the bottom 10 football schools in the APR and four are from the Pac-10 --- WSU, Arizona, Oregon and Oregon State.

--- Scout.com has a good wrapup of all the spring games in the Pac-10. There's no report from Cal because the Bears didn't have one.

--- Finally, FoxSports has this look at the top 15 prospects for the 2009 NFL Draft, three of whom play for USC's defense as well as one from Oregon --- OL Max Unger.

I'm just about APRed out after yesterday. In fact, dealing with the APR all day makes me feel like I'm ready to join the AARP.

Good thing, then, that this is a once-a-year deal. Next time we hear about the APR will be when the next report comes out next spring.

Our coverage from today included this story on the Huskies receiving a passing grade; this story on the Cougars' situation; and this national overview with NCAA president Myles Brand saying underachievers are on notice that "academic reform is here to stay.''

To answer a couple more questions:

--- One person wanted to know the rankings for all the teams UW will play next season. So here they are in order, with UW's included.

Stanford 986
Notre Dame 969
Cal 967
Washington 948
USC 948
BYU 946
Oklahoma 942
UCLA 941
Arizona State 933
Oregon State 926
Oregon 921
Washington State 916
Arizona 902

Remember that these are four-year ratings using the classes from 2003-04 to 2006-07, so Notre Dame is largely due to recruits Tyrone Willingham brought to South Bend.

--- Another wanted to know if "all the recent transfers'' will impact the scores of the men's and women's basketball teams down the road. As my story today pointed out, it definitely will for the women, who had four players leave this year. Good news is that the women are starting from such a high base --- they had one of the highest scores possible at 998 --- that it would be enough to drop them low enough to result in any penalties down the road.

As for the men, remember that these numbers go through the 2006-07 academic year. UW has had only one transfer since then --- Adrian Oliver. The others who have left of late --- Phil Nelson, Harvey Perry, etc. --- have already been accounted for in the score. It helped that the UW men's basketball team had a score of 1,000 two years ago (after Brandon Roy's final season) giving it some wiggle room to account for those transfers.

AS AN ASIDE --- Commenter "leveltheplayingfield'' makes a good point on the last thread about the lack of access media has to records from private schools such as USC and Stanford --- the only two private schools in the Pac-10. I won't go as far as he does, however, to say that USC is "running a circus down there.'' And I would point out that there is said to be some significant movement of late on the Reggie Bush investigation --- here's a recent update from the LA Times with some details. I've written here before that I look at the fact that this is taking a while as a sign that the NCAA isn't pursuing this (might be hard to do, but I think they deserve some benefit of the doubt on that until proven otherwise) just that this is a tough case to crack. But the fact that private schools like USC don't have to provide certain information to the public (meaning media) does make it a lot harder for the media to get that information. That's one reason you never see exact salary details on the coaches at USC and Stanford.