This week's award for feigned enthusiasm goes to our old friend Terrell Owens.

The Obnoxious One, snubbed by all 32 NFL teams, has signed a contract to play for the Allen Wranglers of the IFL (no, I hadn't heard of them -- or it -- either).

And he is very excited.

"It's official, it just went down, I'm headed back to Dallas," Owens tweeted last week. "That's right, IFL, here I come. Allen, Texas, here I come. I'm going to be me."

In gaining this week's top prize for counterfeit ardor, Owens just edged out his new boss, Jon Frankel, who said of T.O.: "He's a great player, a winner, and I'm a big fan."

Though perhaps I'm being unfair to Frankel. He actually might mean what he said, considering the quality of his stated ambition: "I want to make the Allen Wranglers the No. 1 attraction in Collin Country."

Dream big, Jon; dream big.

Speaking of dreaming big -- actually, just speaking of big -- Jets coach Rex Ryan is trying to process how his team's season went down in flames after his annual pre-season Super Bowl prediction.

In this, departing running back LaDainian Tomlinson is offering a veteran's perspective. Calling the breach between quarterback Mark Sanchez and strident wide receiver Santonio Holmes "as bad as I've been around," the future Hall of Famer lays the blame at the feet of the selfish Holmes -- but also at those of the team's general manager and coach.

"They created this," Tomlinson said of the Jets' poisonous locker room atmosphere. "This is the type of football team that they wanted. Mike Tannenbaum, Rex Ryan are both brash, in-your-face type of style, say whatever you want, just get it done on the field. And then it leads to other things, as guys are calling each other out ... "

Season over, Jets career over, the 32-year-old Tomlinson is now calling Ryan out, and while some comments from the coach indicate that a degree of soul-searching is going on, others show he has a way to go.

"I think [the conflict] was an isolated incident," Ryan insisted. "I don't think it was pervasive throughout the locker room."

Ryan may be still in denial, but he's a sage compared with the suits at Penn State, who once again have given us enough bull ordure to fertilize all of Happy Valley.

Last week, school President Rodney Erickson insisted at no less than three town hall meetings that former FBI Director Louis Freeh's inquiry into the child sexual-abuse scandal would be independent and that the final report would not be tampered with before it was released to the public.

Then came word that this "independent" report on Penn State's actions -- including those of the school's Board of Trustees -- would be vetted and possibly modified by none other than the same Board of Trustees before Freeh's account ever saw the light of day.

In other words, rather than seeking the truth and following where that leads them, the Penn State bigwigs are still thinking in terms of public relations, of "protecting the program" from embarrassment.

Isn't that the same approach that got them into this mess in the first place?

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.