This fall has markeda watershed event in the life of this sportsfan. An epiphany has occurred (owed to the University of Oklahoma) late into middle life. I’ve rediscovered something many take for granted: College football is really cool. I’ll ignore the seedy, money-grubbing side of the game and see the positive: Players and fans both are still open to expressions of wonder. With this in mind, what follows is a first: an all-college-football column.
Looking back to the morning of a cold, rainy day in Dallas just last month, not a sane person in America could have known the heretofore unknown Oklahoma Sooners were at the start of a blistering, unlikely, three-game assault — a blitz that would end with OU as the best team in the land. Isn’t America fine? Longhorn fans can now take some solace that the ugly beating administered by Josh Heupel, an underrated defense, and four receivers (clearly on Saturday on loan to the Sooners by their neighbors in Missouri, the St. Louis Rams) wasn’t the defensive meltdown it seemed at the time or a one-day fluke by a team stoked to the gills. Instead, it was a glimpse of what lay ahead for the No. 1 and 2 football teams in the nation: not just victories, but blowouts. Not a fluke point to be found in the 114 put up against three teams known for defense. I like Heupel, but you know what, I think his press is getting a little overblown. Against UT, K-State, and Nebraska, OU’s five wideouts — none older than 19, and often zipped up tight in good coverage — just went up and outfought people for balls. These are some good pass receivers. The leading receiver, Antwone Savage, has 30 catches. The fifth guy, Curtis Fagan, has 19! For all practical purposes, they never drop a pass. Heupel can float the ball in the general area and know someone in red will come down with it…
As a sidebar, no whining allowed if greed costs the Big 12 a National Championship for the third time in four years — UT’s miracle against Nebraska in St. Louis and the Aggies’ victory over K-State being exhibits one and two. Number three may come if Nebraska and OU have a rematch in Kansas City. It serves the money-grubbing schools and their CEO athletic directors right…
Hail to Lou Holtz. The media, it seems, sees Holtz as this clever little guy who can fill up their notepads with funny one-liners. He’s not taken seriously enough as a football coach, despite miracles at every stop in his career. He went to North Carolina State — well-known for nothing — as a young coach. The Wolfpack had the best four-year record (33-12-3) in the history of the school. He spent seven seasons at Arkansas, averaging nine wins a season. Have you heard much about Arkansas lately? He took over a woofer program at Minnesota, losers of 17 straight Big Ten games, and had the Gophers in the Top 20 by the time he left for Notre Dame. You think it’s easy to coach at Notre Dame? Ask Bob Davie. Holtz took over a struggling program and went 100-30-2. Still, Holtz was flying under my radar screen. When he left Notre Dame, in ill health, I thought he’d retired. When he accepted a head coaching job at the University of South Carolina, a true Southern football backwater — the Gamecocks hadn’t won 10 games in a decade — I thought it was sad: a past-his-time football coach who couldn’t let go, a viewpoint confirmed when his first team last fall went 0-11, not a strong season, even at SC. This year they’re atop the SEC East Division, with a 7-1 record. This, sportsfans, is the athletic equivalent to Joshua stopping the sun and Moses parting the Red Sea. This man’s a genius. If he’s not Coach of the Year the Easter Bunny will be exposed as a cat. There would be no justice…
Virginia Tech isn’t the second-best team in this country; I don’t care how many polls say so. The strength-of-schedule part of the BCS isn’t weighted nearly heavily enough, and records count too much. By competing in a decent basketball conference consisting of Pitt, BC, Syracuse (always overrated), West Virginia, Temple, and Rutgers, and a non-conference schedule apparently set up by Nero (E. Carolina, Central Florida, and Virginia), Va. Tech is virtually assured of losing, at the extreme outside, two games. The Hokies, by virtue of playing nine of 11 games they can’t lose every year, have a monstrously unfair chance every year of competing in the championship game. (Yeah, yeah, I remember what they did to Texas in the Sugar Bowl and blah, blah, Michael Vick, Michael Vick. They have a good team, no question. But so does Texas, who by the way actually has a worse strength-of-schedule ranking than Va. Tech.) Anyway, playing table-scrap athletes from Temple and Rutgers greatly lessens the chances of injuries, not to mention losses. Then, with a month to prepare for a major bowl game, sure they look good. Meanwhile Texas, Purdue, Washington, and little South Carolina pound themselves into the turf week-in, week-out. I guess this is, unintentionally, a pretty good argument for a playoff, a gimmick I’ve always been against.
This article appears in November 3 • 2000.