Coach's Corner

Something's wrong in Chicago. Yes, it's true the Bears are winning, and -- despite a short-term dalliance with a basketball team that was granted three and only three wishes from a generous genie before the proud team turned into Central High -- the Bears are the only team Chicago really cares about. But as I sit in my plush, drastically reduced-in-price downtown hotel room, looking out on the famous lakefront, I see a gray sky with steady drizzle falling and a temperature of 62 and rising. The Chicago Tribune says it's been the warmest November in history, causing befuddlement among the mobs of bargain hunting tourists. Pedestrian traffic on Michigan Ave. moves along at the speed of an Arctic glacier. People like me are suffocating in our toasty-in-Alaska down jackets (the proper attire for Chicago in November) or freezing in wet tank tops. The pricey North Side shops and skyscraper malls are not about to turn the air conditioning back on after their boilers get interiors up to wintertime conditions. The result is hardened shoppers like my mother are departing stores sweaty, groggy, and confused from the heat.

There was also an untoward incident in the hotel, involving breakfast, cold coffee, a French waitperson, old toast, the rest of the wait staff, and finally, the general manager. My entire family was implicated -- as seems to happen with remarkable frequency on the few occasions when the family masses. The odd weather may be a factor, but probably not.

Then there's my duplex, far off in the mountain village of Vail. This was supposed to be a no-lose investment. Millions of soon to retire baby boomers, low supply, high demand, the best ski mountain in North America ... this was how my real estate agent pitched the deal. I'm the only person I know who's lost serious money -- twice -- on real estate in Austin. Buy very high, sell very low. That's what I'm talking about. As of Thanksgiving they're still playing golf (my agent cheerfully tells me) in the Central Rockies. The warmest fall in recorded history. My single Christmas booking (and solitary winter rental) has canceled. Vail real estate's dropped in value for only the second time ever. Global warming is turning the Rockies into the Appalachians.

Two national and Big 12 powerhouses likewise plummeted in value last weekend. I'm dismayed to watch both Nebraska and OU lose. They cheat me out of a chance to trash their gaudy, almost irrelevant records when they're still riding high. Undeterred (and with your trust that this isn't an obvious second guess), I'll end the college season where I started last August. I said then OU was being overrated, and Josh Heupel's brilliant, gutsy contributions to last year's team were being discounted to almost nothing. This proved correct, as injuries and a lack of skilled offensive talent caused the Sooner offense to bog down into something looking like ice cold split-pea soup; a brutally dull, one-dimensional team. Each week was a struggle, no matter who they played. A season-ending loss to a terrible Oklahoma State team, in Norman, where the Sooners' posted zero rushing yards in a gimme game, where a loss would have catastrophic consequences, was really ugly. How ugly? Last week OSU -- a 27-point underdog! -- surrendered 517 yards to Baylor. Embarrassing.

Equally overrated are the Huskers. The more I watched Nebraska, the more suspect their gaudy but patsy-infested 11-0 record became. Husker '01 is only a shadow of the great Nebraska teams of fabled yore. The vaunted Big Red power triple option offense (not helped by a mundane defense) has just one option: Eric Crouch, an amazing player who should, but won't, still receive serious Heisman consideration. After handing over 62 flag football points to a so-so Colorado team, Nebraska's final No.4 BCS ranking is nothing but a joke. Probably not that funny to the many other one-loss teams.

I'll place my anti-Longhorn credentials up against anyone, so it pains me, kills me -- are you tired of the italics yet, one more time -- it makes me sick to acknowledge that Texas is -- far and away -- the class of the Big 12, as good as Miami and Florida. UT can (as opposed to Oklahoma and Nebraska) run, pass, defend, kick, return, and create -- that is, they're a complete football team.

Most pundits mock "the computer geeks" who run the BCS, but as far as I'm concerned, as long as there's not a playoff system, the geeks should have more input, i.e., does the team have more than three offensive plays (Oklahoma and Nebraska) and/or are all of their games at home (Nebraska)?

A few weeks ago, after a lucky win against Boston College, I thought the Miami Hurricanes were similarly overrated. No more. Great teams don't struggle every week. They make points with italics and exclamation points!! Miami's relentless, Genghis Khanish annihilation of good Syracuse and Washington teams got my attention. Still, a loss this weekend against Virginia Tech (nowhere near as unlikely as OSU's win in Norman) will toss the BCS into complete chaos, leaving the computers to sort out eight teams with one loss and one team, BYU, with none ... maybe a playoff isn't such a bad idea after all.

Parting Shots: Texas better be real careful next weekend. This one's not at Memorial Stadium. Colorado will remember the pasting they absorbed in Austin this fall.