College Football Quiz: 1) Who is North Carolina State’s all-time rushing leader? [Played in the NFL] 2) Who are the top two receivers in career yardage at N.C. State, both of whom are currently in the NFL? 3) Who are the only two Notre Dame running backs to rush for 4,000 yards? Answers below.
Boise State-Idaho
So last summer Boise State President Bob Kustra got it all started when he told the Idaho Statesman editorial board that he supported Boise State coach Chris Petersen’s comment that Boise should no longer travel to Moscow, Idaho for games once the Broncos joined the Mountain West Conference next year.
“Why would we (go to Moscow)? I don’t think our fans even like to go up there,” said Petersen. “Most of Idaho’s fans are in Boise anyway.”
Kustra said, “I frankly don’t care whether we ever play ‘em (Idaho) again….I don’t see any reason to do it in Boise, but if somebody sees a reason to do it in Boise, fine.”
Then Kustra discussed the culture at Idaho that made him stop going to BSU/Idaho games at Idaho’s Kibbie Dome.
“It’s a culture that is nasty, inebriated and civility doesn’t give our fans the respect that any fan should expect when visiting an away team,” he said.
Upon seeing this last comment, your editor’s antennae went up. ‘I have to be there,’ he mused.
And so it came to pass that on Friday night, I attended Boise State-Idaho at Idaho’s Kibbie Dome in Moscow…a game that as this football season has developed I knew would be a rout. 48-10, I predicted. 52-14 was the final score and I was out of there when it became 31-0 early in the second quarter. After 40 years the in-state rivalry is over, though I suspect it will be renewed at least every few years. Boise State has obviously left Idaho in the dust, football program wise, though you could make the same statement about a lot of Boise’s opponents the last few years. Boise is as good as anyone in the country and has the record to prove it.
But since I came all the way out here, just a few footnotes.
Moscow, Idaho has about 21,000 residents and is roughly 85 miles from Spokane, Washington, which was the nearest place I could get a hotel room once I procured a ticket to the sold out game last summer.
So on Thursday I flew to Spokane, via Minneapolis, and at least everything was on time and it was actually quite delightful. The visibility was perfect almost the entire way and from my window seat I love seeing the country that way.
I checked into this cool place, The Montvale Hotel, in Spokane (at least I thought it was at the start), the Internet worked great, and I had a good meal at this great place in the hotel called the Catacombs because it’s in the basement; stone walls, lots of atmosphere, good food, good drink, cute/friendly waitresses…you get the idea.
But when I got back to my room Thursday after dinner, however, I realized this old hotel has walls consisting of paper so you can hear every step next door and above, which kind of sucks, but when Clint Eastwood was staying in his hotels in his spaghetti Western flicks, they weren’t much better, plus he had the occasional shootout.
Actually, when I picked up the local paper on Saturday (it snowed here Saturday, too), I saw on the front page that police had killed a local on Friday who was firing away with a shotgun just a few blocks from where I’m staying. But not to give Spokane a bad name because that can happen anywhere (not really) and my placid home town had a murder not so long ago as well (really), so ya never know.
What I do know is that the people here are super friendly. As in this example. Saturday afternoon I wanted to find a sports bar to watch some of the college football games and there’s a bar next to my hotel and two guys were smoking outside it. “Do you have games on in there?” I asked. “There’s a pool tournament going on,” said one. “Oh, I’ll come back later,” said I as I started to walk away. A block later I’m at the corner waiting for the light to turn when one of the smokers taps me on the shoulder (he having run up to get to me) and says there’s a sports bar a few blocks away if I just make a left. Now that’s Spokane, and sure enough I found a terrific place.
But back to the game. On Friday I had to work on that other column I do and I left my hotel at 1:30 for the 6:00 PM game in Moscow. Moscow is straight down Rt. 195 to Pullman, 75 miles and home of Washington State. Well I had never been in this area but picture 195 runs down the Washington-Idaho border and is two lanes most of the way but the traffic was fine and I soon learned it was a good thing I had a full gas tank because in 70 miles, I didn’t see one place to get gas. Talk about desolate. Moscow is then 10 miles from Pullman, on the border, and I got there about 3:15, upon which I thought, where the hell am I going to park? I knew where the Kibbie Dome was but I drove around and around and around, asking people, “Where does an out-of-stater park here?” and finally I had remembered there was a shopping mall that I thought was a 20-minute walk from the Dome, go back there and see a Best Western. I pull into the Best Western where an attendant is watching for idiots like me and I say, “I’m not from here and I’ll pay anything to park.”
Upon taking it I hand him $20 and he’s a happy camper. Of course like so many times in life that is exactly where I should have parked all along.
Of course it was party central for the Idaho folks, I soon learned, if you weren’t tailgating in the lots I had no chance of getting into without a permit.
So I hit the lounge before 4:00, had a few beers, had something to eat and chatted up some delightful Idaho alum, including ex-football players. Most of them were wearing t-shirts with “Nasty and Inebriated” on the front, thanks to the Boise State president. I also learned that most of those affiliated with Idaho like to drink…a lot. In fact one kid who was just a few years out of school told me an incredible story about a fraternity that holds the record for most kegs at a party. 110!
110! Kegs! Goodness gracious. We had some good parties at Wake Forest, maybe 125 in attendance, and like six kegs was a lot, if I remember right. Most of our parties were maybe four. 110! And this was confirmed by an older alum in the lounge.
Well, at 5:00, a shuttle bus took us all up the hill to the Kibbie Dome and I was set. By 5:30 I’m in my seat and let me tell ya, the Kibbie Dome, which seats just 16,000, is like a classic, old school field house, only it’s just big enough for football. What a great atmosphere. Different, at least. And good thing I went to the bathroom beforehand because they have like two sets of restrooms for the entire place, two concession stands, one place to get Idaho Vandalswear (I call it Vandalwear, dropping the ‘s’, you see), and in the corridors it’s a mess.
Alas, as you saw the game totally sucked. Idaho has been playing like crap and looked it right from the start as the receivers dropped two passes in the first drive, whereupon Boise took the punt and returned it 74 or 76 yards. Idaho was 8-5 last year, beat Hawaii, and won its bowl game, but this year’s squad is horrid and has now lost to Hawaii, Nevada and Boise on consecutive weeks by a total score of 160-41. Heck, in Week Two they only lost to Nebraska 38-17.
So, your editor left when it was 31-0 because he needed to get back to Spokane to finish his other column and I negotiated the 20-minute walk back to the Best Western successfully and the 85-mile drive on desolate 195 was uneventful. In fact it was quite beautiful because you never saw more stars out. [Boy, I was lucky. Saturday morning it was snowing and that is one road I wouldn’t have wanted to be on if it was icy and at night.]
That’s your Idaho/Washington adventure. Spokane is the home of Gonzaga, but didn’t make it to campus there, and as I said I drove by Washington State in Pullman so I was in three college towns I’m pretty sure I’ll never go back to again. But glad I came out here.
College Football Review
Another interesting week. No. 1 Oregon didn’t impress in beating a mediocre California team, 15-13, and Auburn had its hands full with a mediocre Georgia squad, 49-31 (closer than the score indicates). I saw the latter in the sports bar, along with Penn State/Ohio State (the No. 9 Buckeyes pulled away for a 38-14 triumph after being down 14-3), No. 20 Virginia Tech’s 26-10 win over North Carolina, and Washington State’s upset over the Beavers of Oregon State, 31-14, as the value of Beaverwear continues to plummet.
In other games of import, No. 3 TCU, after blowing away Utah 47-7, just got by San Diego State 40-35. No. 5 LSU played cupcake La.-Monroe and won 51-0, No. 6 Stanford defeated a lousy Arizona State team, 17-13, and No. 7 Wisconsin destroyed Indiana 83-20! [And without their star running back John Clay.]
So the top 3 didn’t impress anyone, or shouldn’t have, and everyone will pooh-pooh No. 4 Boise’s win over Idaho (but won’t do the same with LSU’s win, I assume, when it comes to the polls).
Oregon now just has an Arizona team that is spiraling downwards and Oregon State, which is struggling big time, to wrap up their perfect schedule so they are a lock for one of the BCS title spots, even if they aren’t No. 1 or No. 2, and No. 2 Auburn still has Alabama and the SEC championship game before they can get the slot opposite Oregon.
But whither TCU and Boise? TCU is hurt big time by Utah’s 28-3 loss to Notre Dame (saw that one too and was pissed), while Oregon State’s loss to a horrid Washington State hurts both TCU and Boise as they had defeated the Beavers earlier in what at the time was looked on as a tough opponent. Was Michael Wilbon right? Will LSU hurdle TCU and Boise, even though LSU can’t play in the SEC championship? Stanford’s win was hardly impressive, but Wisconsin’s sure was. I’ve been hoping for a Boise-Wisconsin matchup in the Rose Bowl. Could that still come to pass? [No. 13 Iowa lost to Northwestern, thus eliminating the Hawkeyes from Rose Bowl consideration.]
Meanwhile, the freakin’ Big East still gets an automatic BCS bid even though the leader in the standings, Pitt, is now 5-4 overall. This is outrageous.
And then there is Wake Forest. I’m ready to trash all my Demon Deaconwear, that’s for sure. We are 2-8 following North Carolina State’s 38-3 dismantling of us and it’s obviously time to shake up the coaching staff, though I can’t imagine anything will happen to head coach Jim Grobe, he having a long-term contract, for starters. The program was on a roll for a while, until second half of last year and we’ve been in a free fall ever since.
[Plus…the basketball team lost to Stetson in its opener! Stetson! Stetson blows! Yeah, we’ve got five freshmen on our roster, one of whom broke his foot in the game, but us fans are tired of this young team excuse. Think about this. Wake has four guys in the NBA right now who played together…Jeff Teague, James Johnson, Ish Smith and Al-Farouq Aminu…and we did nothing with them as well. Starting with last year’s baseball team and continuing through this current basketball season, I’m guessing that among Division I-A schools, we’ll have the worst winning percentage in football, baseball and basketball as any other school in the country. So no wonder why I’ve adopted the San Diego State Aztecs…who won their opener on Saturday, 81-65 over Long Beach State.]
Now where was I? Oh, one last item and back to Auburn. Here’s the bottom line on the Cam Newton deal. It would be a travesty for this jerk to win the Heisman Trophy. Yes, it appears his dad, Cecil Newton, is the real dirtball in the story, and perhaps Cam didn’t know his father was trying to shake down schools for $100,000 and more. And perhaps Auburn did nothing wrong in recruiting Cam, but Cam still has those cheating allegations from his brief stint at Florida, and Cam had a brush with the law, so this kid is no angel. That’s why we really have to hope ‘Bama crushes Auburn the day after Thanksgiving. Cam Newton can make his riches in the NFL, as he seems destined to do, but he should not be rewarded with a Heisman for his college career. And that’s a memo…Bernie Goldberg is here for comment…so, Bernie, where am I wrong?
New AP Poll…as always, the above was written before the polls came out…
1. Oregon…1469 points
2. Auburn…1427
3. Boise State…1377
4. TCU…1361… San Diego State getting zero credit even though they are now 7-3
5. LSU…1220
6. Wisconsin…1176
7. Stanford…1129
8. Ohio State
9. Nebraska
10. Alabama
14. Virginia Tech
New BCS Poll
1. Oregon .9753
2. Auburn .9687
3. TCU .8966
4. Boise State .8634
5. LSU .8243
6. Stanford .7553
7. Wisconsin .7258…should be ahead of Stanford
8. Nebraska .7203
16. Virginia Tech
–NFL Bits
I had a long day going home on Sunday and missed most of the NFL action. I did hear the full radio wrap-up of the Jets’ win over the Browns in overtime and the Jets, 7-2, are the only team in the NFL that is undefeated on the road, 5-0.
Chicago beat Minnesota as Brett Favre threw three interceptions.
Wake Forest alum Aaron Curry finally had a big game in getting two sacks for Seattle.
And…the freakin’ Cowboys, in their first game with Jason Garrett as head coach, beat the Giants, 33-20.
–Former Chicago Bears Super Bowl hero Jim McMahon announced his “memory’s pretty much gone. There are a lot of times when I walk into a room and forget why I walked in there.” McMahon, just 51, added, “I’ve been hit in the head so many times, it’s hard to remember that far back. I don’t remember specific games.” Earlier, McMahon spoke of the aftereffects of his 15-year NFL playing career and said he was in pain every day, hasn’t worked out in 15 years and can’t run. Very sad.
–The other day, the Star-Ledger’s Mark Di Ionno did a story on a New Jersey high school legend, John Giannantonio, now 76. It was 60 years ago that Giannantonio did something no other high school football player in America has done since.
“Wearing the black-and-red of Netcong High, a leather helmet with no face mask, and a pair of thin leather cleats he still has, he ran for 754 yards in a game against Mountain Lakes.
“ ‘I had no idea what I did,’ Giannantonio said. ‘I just knew I was tired. After the game, my coach put his arm around me and said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘Tired.’ He said, ‘Go take a shower, you’ll feel better.’ That was it.’”
As Di Ionno notes, no one in the entire country has even come close. “Paul McCoy of Matewan, W. Va., got 658 in 2006, in a game where his coach was accused of running up the score so McCoy could break the record.”
Of course 60 years ago, players played both ways. Giannantonio said they only had 11 guys. “God forbid one of us got hurt.”
He had nine touchdowns in the 61-0 win. He actually had nine scores in a game two other times. And the season he had the 754, he averaged 595.4 yards a game, also a still-standing national record. He scored 41 touchdowns in 8 games.
Giannantonio was offered just a two-year scholarship at Notre Dame, so he went to Villanova who offered him four years. He didn’t star at ‘Nova but he played three years of varsity ball against the likes of Vanderbilt, Boston College, Mississippi and Texas A&M.
–I’ve been meaning to relay the following for a while now. The November 2010 issue of Golf Digest had an excerpt from a book by Tom Callahan titled His Father’s Son – Earl and Tiger Woods, that is really outstanding. I read it on my long trip to the Pacific and following is a passage that I found fascinating. [The whole excerpt is great and worth finding and printing out.]
“Basketball star Kobe Bryant came back from an uglier scrape [than Tiger has had] to hear cheers again. In 2010, football quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was hoping to do the same. But neither Bryant nor Roethlisberger had been thought of as extraordinary people, just extraordinary athletes. In that sense, they were never in Tiger’s class.
“Editorialists tried to rope Woods in with baseball’s Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, too, though the difference was obvious. There’s a test for the presence of drugs. There’s none for an absence of character.
“Some said Tiger was just a casualty of the modern media age, no different from Babe Ruth or Muhammad Ali, if truth were told then as it was now.
“I don’t go back to Ruth, but Red Smith did, and I go back to Red. Sitting at his kitchen table, the great old sportswriter spoke of the Babe with more than just affection. Of course Ruth was a man of Herculean appetites, sexual and otherwise. He got on so well with children because he was a child himself. But his teammates loved him.
“His clothes were streaked with ink from all the autographs he signed. ‘I like to make everyone happy,’ he said. The Babe was melting from cancer (‘The termites got me’) when the pitcher Waite Hoyt and his wife were leaving Ruth’s apartment for the final time. He called after them, ‘Wait a minute.’ Painstakingly lifting himself out of his chair, Ruth went into the kitchen, to the refrigerator. He came back carrying a small vase that had an orchid in it. ‘Here,’ he said to Mrs. Hoyt. ‘I never gave you anything.’
“I also go back to Ali, the cruelest of boxers, good at sticking his thumb in Ernie Terrell’s eye and his knife into Joe Frazier’s back. Muhammad called Joe an ‘Uncle Tom’ for visiting the White House, Ali’s first stop after knocking out George Foreman in Zaire.
“Ali had a mob of wives and demi-wives, and children by nearly all of them, every one of whom he adored. He admitted in Zaire that he had socked Belinda and shipped her home. As contemptible as that is, fighters think with their hands. And Veronica Porsche was on deck.
“And yet, despite all this, it was impossible to be around Ali and not like him. On a starry night, with shadows of hyacinths floating down the Congo River, he tried to tell me the whole fight in a sentence. ‘Black men scare white men,’ he said, ‘more than black men scare black men.’ That’s right. We were afraid of Foreman more than he was.
“Though Ali was a touchstone for both racism and the Vietnam War, as shootable as anybody in the assassination ‘60s, he walked unguarded through Times Square and life. Leaving the velvet-roped dining rooms, the private blackjack palaces and the V.I.P. ‘hostesses’ to the coming generations of celebrity athletes (Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Tiger Woods), he went out into the light.
“Late after the beating at the fists of Larry Holmes, Ali got a phone call from Joe Bugner, who twice went the distance with Ali.
“ ‘Joe, Joe,’ Ali came on the line to say, ‘why are you calling me, Joe?’
“ ‘Because I wanted to make sure you were OK,’ Bugner said. ‘Because I’m worried about you. Because I love you.’
“Will any of Tiger Woods’ opponents call him after he’s knocked out? When Tiger Woods loses, will anyone cry?
“Tiger doesn’t compare to Muhammad Ali or Babe Ruth as an athlete or a man. Hell of a golfer, though.”
–For the archives, the National League Gold Glove winners were: P-Bronson Arroyo, C-Yadier Molina, 1B-Albert Pujols, 2B-Brandon Phillips, 3B-Scott Rolen (8th), SS-Troy Tulowitzki, OF-Shane Victorino, OF-Michael Bourn, OF-Carlos Gonzalez.
–The Mets fired clubhouse manager Charlie Samuels, he of the ongoing gambling investigation.
–We note the passing of Coleman Jacoby, 95, who along with partner Arnie Rosen introduced Jackie Gleason to Art Carney and came up with Gleason characters Reginald Van Gleason III, the Poor Soul, Joe the Bartender, and Rudy the Repairman.
–Yeah, they won $129 million in a Powerball lottery, but it’s still a tad embarrassing that a group of family and friends that own the ticket bought it at a Detroit-area porn shop. Said the lone representative of the group to come forward and claim the ticket, “The only thing I can assume is that the Lord trusted us to do certain things with the money that He bestowed upon us. That’s the only thing that I can gather.”
And the Lord said: “Make haste…seek ye porn shop where you will find riches that you will then spread around to those less fortunate.”
–From the AP’s Jill Lawless comes the tale of an 18th-century vase that sold at a London-area auction house for a record $83 million, 40 times the pre-sale estimate and a record for a Chinese work of art. It seems the sellers (who wish to remain anonymous) “are the sister and nephew of a deceased elderly woman in the West London suburb of Pinner. The vase had been in the family at least since the 1930s, though they don’t know how it was acquired.
“Many Chinese artifacts surfaced in Britain in the 19th century, having been looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace when it was sacked by British and French troops at the end of the Second Opium War in 1860.”
[“Dude, getta load of that vase.” “Far out, man. Let’s take it. Hey, this opium is good stuff, man.”]
The auction house is a small one and gets a $13.9 million buyer’s premium. [Brad K, this was front page of the Spokane paper.]
–A case was entered at Marin Superior Court, small claims division, that of Chadwick St.-OHarra (sic) and Steve Righetti, “who are suing the Seafood Peddler restaurant in San Rafael over an alleged incident of what their lawsuit called ‘exploding’ escargot that marred Righetti’s birthday dinner in June.
“Plaintiffs allege the gastropods burst from their plate when cocktail forks were applied, resulting in a spray of hot garlic butter on their faces and polo shirts.
“St.-Oharra, a 59-year-old resident of Danville, claims the butter got into one of his tear ducts, causing temporary vision impairment.”
Righetti claims he was “humiliated.” OHarra “says the incident caused ‘a sense of genuine outrage.’”
OHarra and Righetti continue that the lawsuit wouldn’t have been necessary had the restaurant employees shown some remorse. Following is an exact quote from St.-OHarra, I kid you not.
Meanwhile, the escargot escaped and should be considered armed and dangerous. [Gary Klien (sic) / Marin Independent Journal]
–As I scramble to catch up, I did see that the Minnesota T’Wolves’ Kevin Love, who was supposed to be a stiff coming out of college, became the first player in the NBA to record 30 points and 30 rebounds in the same game (31-31 against the Knicks) since 1982! [Moses Malone.] The New York Post reported:
“After the game, Love celebrated at a Minneapolis landmark, the Loon Café, where he posed for pictures with most of the women in the saloon, and signed ticket stubs and box score sheets from the press room.”
“In Edmonton, Alberta, a 1,300-pound bull jumped a 6-foot fence and plunged into the stands at the Canadian Finals Rodeo, injuring four spectators and forcing others to scatter.”
–Auctioned…The ball Babe Ruth hit for his 702nd career home run, $264,500 during an auction at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Ky., three times the estimated sale price. A Cy Young autographed bat from the 1903 World Series sold for $138,000, while a Marilyn Monroe autographed photo signed to former husband Joe DiMaggio sold for $63,250. Of the three, I think I’d like the Cy Young autograph.
–So I watched the second installment of Nat Geo’s “Great Migrations” series when I got home Sunday (after watching an awesome “60 Minutes” piece on living Medal of Honor winner Sal Giunta) and I have to tell ya…when I do the next All-Species List in January, elephants could be threatening to unseat dogs in the top slot. One thing is for sure. Elephants are top 3. For starters, as the program notes, they are better weather forecasters than Man.
–Garth Brooks is starting his second run at Wynn Las Vegas, though with ticket prices $100 higher than last year…try $225 ($253 with tax and service charge). The thing is this is one show I wouldn’t want to see because it’s just him…no band backing him. I mean I like the guy, but I wouldn’t pay that much for him doing solo.
Top 3 songs for the week 11/17/73: #1 “Keep On Truckin’” (Eddie Kendricks) #2 “Midnight Train To Georgia” (Gladys Knight & The Pips…not a fan, Pips couldn’t hold a candle to Temps or Four Tops…) #3 “Heartbeat – It’s A Lovebeat” (The DeFranco Family…good gawd, this sucked! What were we thinking, America!)…and…#4 “Photograph” (Ringo Starr) #5 “Space Race” (Billy Preston) #6 “Paper Roses” (Marie Osmond…lookin’ pretty sharp these days, I must say) #7 “Top Of The World” (Carpenters…Karen still hasn’t eaten…) #8 “Angie” (The Rolling Stones) #9 “Just You ‘N’ Me” (Chicago) #10 “I Got A Name” (Jim Croce…Jim, right?)
College Football Quiz Answers: 1) Ted Brown is N.C. State’s all-time rushing leader with 4,602 yards (1975-78). 2) N.C. State’s two receiving yards leaders are Torry Holt with 3,379 (1995-98) and Jericho Cotchery with 3,119 (2000-2003). 3) The two to rush for 4,000 yards at Notre Dame are Autry Denson…4,318 (1995-98) and Allen Pinkett…4,131 (1982-85). No way I’d ever get Denson…don’t remember the guy at all.
