Khalil Tate is on the cover. The eye-catching headline says: “BIG AND BAD”

The sub-head reads: “He’s the Nation’s Best QB. Hand Him the Heisman.”

On Monday, I sent my Heisman ballot to officials in New York City. You vote for three players, in order. Just to make sure, I compared Tate’s statistics to QBs in the Pac-12:

He was seventh in pass completions, 12th in completion percentage and eighth in passing yards. He rushed for fewer yards than QBs at Cal, ASU and Utah.

For decades, Sports Illustrated has gotten a lot of mileage out of its “cover jinx.” But what happened to Tate, and UA football, went beyond a jinx.

It was somewhere between voodoo and a football curse of the decade.

ITEM LAST: The Pac-12 has just one head coaching vacancy this year, and it appears Colorado will hire Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, a career assistant coach.

Shrewd move, if true.

In modern college football, the Pac-12 is Exhibit A for not making (a) a splashy hire of a coach fired by a Big Name School or (b) bringing back a retread legend like Bill Walsh or John Robinson.