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Not apropos to this crossword - but reminds me of a question set by us in our task as setters for an annual quz - 'which car did '*' drive in the '**' novels'. I said nobody would get it, but 4 out of ten tables did (the other 6 had the same wrong answer). - Must expand my reading ....

was it a red jag?

Nope.

As spoffy said 'nope' - but I would have been with you and the wrong 6 tables - red jag seems so iconic ...

Found this on the web.
“In Colin Dexter's original novels, Inspector Morse drove a Lancia. However, John Thaw, who had played Jack Regan on The Sweeney (1974), which featured a lot of Jaguars as villains' getaway cars, insisted that Inspector Morse would have driven an iconic British car, and never an Italian sports car. Dexter was so impressed with this reasoning that he asked his publishers to change "Lancia" to "Jaguar" in all subsequent reprints of his novels.”
Going back to the puzzle. What is the significance of the title? I get the reference to Oxford University but I don’t see how it links to the theme.

Try googling the title of the puzzle together with the title of the final novel.

It's becoming a weekly tradition at this point, but I've one answer left to be put out of my misery on and it's 1a...

I think the fifth letter is s, but can only somewhat find the resulting word being used.

Rest of the fill and endgame is done, decent enough this week I suppose.

Wigwam, you need a four letter word for trumps, tops, with the usual (for crosswords) 'acceptable' inside. This'll give you Scottish drinking vessels.

Yeah, that's what I figured and supports the four letters I already have for 1-4d but couldn't seem to confirm the word in my usual places.

Is there a good resource for slang from our friends in the north?

Wigwam, the answer's in Chambers - and it's not slang, it's from either Old English or Scandinavian. I looked it up with its own spelling initially, but had to go via the non-U version!