College Football Quiz: 1) In 1999, TCU’s LaDainian Tomlinson did what in a 52-24 win over UTEP? 2) Who am I? I starred at UCLA, initials K.E., before starring in the NFL. 3) Who is Virginia’s all-time leading rusher? Answers below.
Even if No. 1 LSU were to lose to Georgia in the SEC title game on Saturday, with No. 2 Alabama idle and comfortably ahead of No. 3 Oklahoma State in the BCS standings, it’s a virtual lock LSU has a rematch with Alabama for the BCS crown.
I guess if Georgia won, say, 30-10, and then Oklahoma State destroyed Oklahoma, 56-7, then maybe enough voters could become convinced to jump the Cowboys into one of the top two slots, but these outcomes are hardly likely.
–As expected, Ohio State hired Urban Meyer to coach the Buckeyes at a reported $4 million in base salary, bonuses up to $700,000 annually, and lump payments in 2014, 2016 and 2018; at least $26.65 million over six years, maybe as much as $40 million, according to reports. Oh yeah, the system is broken, big time.
“That didn’t take long, did it? Maybe it wasn’t just health and family issues that put him on the exit ramp out of Gainesville 11 months ago. Maybe he just needed a vacation from you.
“Sorry, you don’t need to hear that only days after scoring seven points against Florida State.
“The party is over from last weekend. Not to be an alarmist, but you might want to check Meyer’s record against Florida State, Georgia and Tennessee when he was with the Gators. Try 16-2. He knows rivalries….
“OK, that might be harsh. All those denials last week about Ohio State – ‘Who, me?’ – were business as usual in coaching romances.
“But, really, you’ve got to understand why some people might be a little bit cynical after what happened last season at Florida. A man says he is in urgent need of more balance and less stress in his life, and 11 months later shows up in Columbus to coach Ohio State? That’s like a man saying he has become tormented by the fear of heights, and shows up the next day with sponges to wash outside windows in a skyscraper.
“You are going to a place where one bad afternoon in November can stain 364 good days. Where there is no other power program in the state to drain off some of the crazies. Where nobody’s coaching stint has come to a happy ending for decades.
“Nor Earle Bruce, who could beat Michigan, but was fired anyway.
“Nor Woody Hayes, who authored his own downfall with one punch.
“Nor Wes Fesler, who decided to punt to Michigan in the blizzard of 1950, had it blocked for a winning touchdown, and never coached another game at Ohio State.
“That takes us back six decades, and maybe you’ve noticed a trend. Nobody left smiling.
“But you’ve signed up for the duty, with your two national titles, and they wouldn’t be any happier in Columbus if someone had put a foreclosure notice on the Big House.”
–Aside from Ron Zook at Illinois, other head coaches who were fired in the last few days include Rick Neuheisel of UCLA (21-28 during his tenure), Dennis Erickson of Arizona State (31-30), Turner Gill of Kansas (5-19), Rob Ianello of Akron (2-22), and Larry Porter of Memphis (3-21). As the Wall Street Journal’s Rachel Bachman, though, points out, Gill, Ianello and Porter were fired after just two seasons in charge, or as many as the previous six years combined.
It used to be you got some time to turn around struggling programs. No longer.
–So who wins the Heisman? I have to admit I’ve ignored Alabama running back Trent Richardson but he’s obviously been very solid all year. Andrew Luck? USC’s surging Matt Barkley? Houston’s Case Keenum? Baylor’s Robert Griffin III? Kellen Moore? LaMichael James?
I’ll go with Luck to win, though if I had a vote I’d give it to Keenum.
–Finally, the Washington Post’s John Feinstein is not a fan of Maryland coach Randy Edsall; Edsall, as well documented in this space, having turned the 9-4 Terps into 2-10 losers in every respect his first year at the helm. So Feinstein says, enough of this giving a guy at least two years crap….
“There are all sorts of reasons why such a conclusion can be labeled rash and overboard. For one thing, Maryland is in a financial crisis right now, one that has forced it to announce plans to eliminate eight varsity sports at the end of this school year. Adding a tab of $2 million per year for the next five years to pay someone not to coach the football team sounds ludicrous….
“And yet, if (Athletic Director Kevin) Anderson finds the right replacement, spending $10 million over the next five years to get Edsall out of Gossett Team House will absolutely be a financial plus.
“Here’s why: If Edsall stays, attendance at football games next season will be even worse. Contributions to the athletic department, already down in recent years, will plummet. Any recruiting successes in February will not offset the anticipated exodus of players on the current roster.
“Beyond that, the athletic department will face more cuts if the football bleeding isn’t stopped quickly. To quote Barry Gossett, a member of the committee that recommended the cutbacks: ‘Without success in football and basketball, we’re not going to have a great deal of income to work with.’….
“In all likelihood, if Anderson told Edsall he was out, he would be able to negotiate a buyout that would allow him to coach somewhere else. Given his ego, Edsall will certainly want the chance to prove that his time at Maryland wasn’t really who he is as a coach.
“He didn’t get it a year ago, when he didn’t have the class to tell his Connecticut players in person that he was leaving. He didn’t get it when he started spouting off about rules as if he had invented the idea of discipline.
“Here is what one fairly successful coach said about rules: ‘I don’t have any rules. The way I figure it, if I can’t communicate to my players the difference between right and wrong without a list of rules then something’s wrong with me. I let the older guys make it clear to the younger ones what they can and can’t do and should and shouldn’t do. If someone does screw up, then I tell them they screwed up and decide how to punish them.’
“That coach was Bob Knight, who had a fairly decent reputation when it came to discipline….
“The coup de grace (for Edsall), though, came last week.
“Edsall was asked if he had regrets about the lost season. Oh sure, he said, he had regrets. Then he went on to say that he had watched Patriots owner Robert Kraft talking about ‘the Patriots way’ in a TV interview.
“ ‘So I am sitting there and saying, ‘Wow, that’s all I’m trying to do here at Maryland,’’ Edsall said to reporters. ‘And I said: ‘You know what? I must be doing something right because here is a guy, one of the most successful franchises in the NFL, basically saying the same things that I am saying and trying to instill in this program.’’
“After a season that was a failure in every possible way, Edsall still insisted his way was right. Saturday, when he talked about reevaluating, Edsall brought up things such as making offseason workouts more competitive.
“How about reevaluating yourself? Does a career record of 76-80 make you exempt from that?…Does the fact that your failure ruined the last college football memories of your senior class – something Edsall never brings up – bother you at all?
“No. Nothing bothers Edsall. He’s never wrong. He coached well; his players played bad. And wore their caps backward too often. The media was unfair. And he’s just like Bob Kraft and the Patriots.
“Kevin Anderson should hand him a plane ticket to Boston today and suggest he go and study the Patriots up closer for a while. Then Anderson needs to find a new football coach. Maryland deserves much better. It can’t possibly do worse.”
NFL Bits
–The Giants are now 48-16 in the first 8 games of a season under Coach Tom Coughlin and 24-35 in the second 8. And what the heck has happened to the vaunted Giants pass rush?!
–Dan Marino holds the single-season passing yardage mark at 5,084…or 318 per game. Drew Brees is now at 335/pg, with Tom Brady at 330. [Aaron Rodgers is down to 316.]
[New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham is still on track to exceed Kellen Winslow’s record 80.6 yards per game for a tight end set in 1980. Graham is at 87 thru 11 contests.]
—Ndamukong Suh received what he deserved, a two-game suspension from the league for his despicable behavior on Thanksgiving Day when in front of a national television audience he assaulted a Green Bay Packers player, slamming his head into the ground before stomping on him. Suh is appealing but he should not get the suspension reduced.
–Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio was fired after going 3-8 this season. At the same time Jacksonville owner Wayne Weaver announced he is selling the team to a businessman, Shahid Khan, who was born in Pakistan and moved to the U.S. in 1966. Khan evidently will keep the Jags in Jacksonville rather than move them to Islamabad, which would have caused travel issues for teams in the NFC and AFC West in particular.
“He’s going to buy a home here in Jacksonville. He’s going to spend time here in Jacksonville,” Weaver said of Khan.
Del Rio was 68-71 in his nine seasons with the Jags and led the team to only two playoff appearances. Tom Coughlin (68-60) is the only other Jacksonville coach in their history, by the way.
–The Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond notes that since 1978, only nine times has there been a 20-point betting line on an NFL game and this Sunday, the 0-11 Colts are a 21-point underdog (as of Monday) to the Patriots.
So how have the other nine fared? Straight up, 20-point favorites are 9-0. But the heavy favorites are just 2-7 against the spread.
In fact, four of the nine involved the 2007 Patriots, who failed to cover in each case.
–And this just in…Chester McGlockton, a four-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle with the Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders, has died at the age of 42. No cause given as yet. McGlockton was a defensive assistant at Stanford. He had 51 sacks in his NFL career and played his college ball at Clemson.
Ball Bits
It’s all about Bobby V. Bobby Valentine is the new manager of the Boston Red Sox.
“For more than a century, the rivalry between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox has been the stuff of legend, filled with large personalities and fiery competitors. Now add to that caldron Bobby Valentine, one of the more colorful and controversial figures in recent New York baseball history….
“Valentine, who in six years managing the Mets taunted the Yankees and stoked a rivalry from across town, now will do so from Fenway Park. And he will do so with an expensive, talented team that many predicted would win the World Series last season before it collapsed in historic fashion.
“The possibility of his managing the Red Sox was hardly considered a month ago, when the Red Sox were examining candidates who did not have Valentine’s experience or charisma. But with the team in a state of upheaval, it was decided a more seasoned and engaging personality was required.”
“”Do I believe (Valentine) has learned from his mistakes, that he understands why it took him this long to get another managing job in the big leagues? I believe he has learned a lot. Buck Showalter learned from his own mistakes and understood that the Orioles were going to be his last managing job and has made the most of it. Valentines knows better than anybody that he will never be dealt another hand like this, no matter how last season ended for the Red Sox, and it ended about as badly as it could….
“You don’t have to love Bobby V. Everybody has tangled with him at one time or another. But things get less comfortable in Boston now. And for the Yankees maybe. Last big room for Bobby V. The Mets were the right place for him once, the right time.
[ESPN is reporting as I go to post that some of the Red Sox players are none too happy with the selection. Tough.]
College Basketball
AP Poll [released Mondays]
1. Kentucky
2. Ohio State
3. Duke
4. Syracuse
5. UNC
6. Louisville
7. Baylor
8. UConn
9. Wisconsin
10. Florida
23. Saint Louis
Meanwhile, you have the situation with now former Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine and head coach Jim Boeheim. As reported by Teri Thompson & Dick Weiss of the New York Daily News, “Jim Boeheim’s latest flip might be a flop. He is now ‘proud’ of his initial defense of Bernie Fine.”
Initially, Boeheim vociferously defended Fine when the allegations surfaced, basically calling the accusers ‘liars.’ Then, when Fine was fired after authorities raided his home, Boeheim issued a statement saying, in part, “I deeply regret any statements I made that might have inhibited (the investigation) or been insensitive to victims of abuse.”
But then on Tuesday, after receiving a vote of confidence from the school’s chancellor following his apology, Boeheim, in a post-game interview after his team’s win over Eastern Michigan, said he had no regrets after all.
“I’ve never worried about my job status in 36 years,” Boeheim added. “Maybe one of those years I didn’t have a job extension. If I worry about that, I’ll have to get a job with you guys….
“When the investigation is done, we will find out what happened on my watch.”
The difference between Boeheim and Joe Paterno is that there is no evidence, yet, that Boeheim was bigger than the program, nor that he was part of a cover-up. But right now, Boeheim should keep his mouth shut.
–By the end of the pending 10-year NBA labor agreement, the average player’s salary will be near $8 million. Salaries averaged $5.2 million last season, while NFL salaries are averaging about $2.2 million this season. MLB salaries were $3.3 million and the average pay in the NHL was $2.4 million.
“How are people reacting to the end of the NBA lockout?
“Tepidly, I would say, judging from a quick swath of television interviews over the weekend. Even men in the playground, shooting hoops, professed ambiguity over the return of the rich guys….
“Every franchise in the NBA will have its own reaction to the end of the lockout. In the New York region, we have two teams, but so much else is going on that it’s hard to get worked up over a revival of pro basketball.”
As for the Knicks, last season they were 28-26 before the team was blown up to acquire Carmelo Anthony, after which they went 14-14, then lost four straight to the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.
Vecsey: “The NBA players and owners may have demonstrated their irrelevancy. In the first days since the tentative labor agreement, vox populi seems to be reacting to the 66-game schedule by asking: That long, huh?”
Meanwhile, no sense talking about anyone’s roster until Dec. 9, when free agency and training camps start simultaneously. It is going to be a very confusing period. Then again, no one cares.
—Golf’s Q School started on Wednesday, six grinding rounds with 173 vying for PGA Tour playing cards (top 25 and ties). Among those in the field are major winners David Duval, Rich Beem, Lee Janzen and Shaun Micheel.
–I forgot to note the passing of the great Vasily Alekseyev, 69, who won 2 Olympic gold medals as a super heavyweight lifter, eventually setting 80 world records in his reign as the world’s strongest man in the 1970s.
Alekseyev won gold in 1972 at the Munich Games and in 1976 in Montreal. He also won eight consecutive world championships. In 1970 he became the first man to lift 500 pounds. No one who saw the guy will ever forget his massive legs and arm muscles.
I love how in the Soviet Union his renown was such that people used to send him fan mail addressed only to “Alekseyev, the Kremlin.” But then when he failed at 397 pounds at the 1980 Moscow Games, probably due to a hip injury, the locals booed him…the stupid jerks.
–Comedian Patrice O’Neal died of complications from a stroke. He was 41. I can’t say I saw much of him, but I did watch Charlie Sheen’s roast on Comedy Central, where O’Neal was one of the roasters, and looking back it’s haunting because the others on the dais made constant fun of O’Neal’s weight and diabetes. He responded, ‘What is it with you guys? It’s like you want me dead!’
–Update: Florida A&M band director, Dr. Julian White, said he’s being made a scapegoat in the hazing death of Robert Champion, which resulted in White’s firing. White points to the fact he had suspended 26 band members for hazing two weeks before Champion’s death, warning the school of a rampant problem. Historically, hazing plays a large role at black colleges, including in the bands like FAMU’s. In 2001, a band member suffered kidney damage because of a beating with a paddle.
“It’s a culture,” White said. “Not just a Florida A&M culture, a college phenomenon.”
–We note the passing of director Ken Russell, 84, a most provocative English filmmaker, whose work included “The Devils” (1971), which was about 17th-century religious hysteria and tied censors in knots. 1969’s “Women in Love,” with Oliver Reed and Alan Bates, featured full-frontal nudity and the flick barely made it into theaters after censors demanded some changes. Russell also did “Tommy” (1975) and “Lisztomania” (1975).
–Skier Lindsey Vonn is on the market, guys. Unfortunately, she and her husband of four years are calling it quits, Thomas having had much to do with her career, serving as coach and adviser throughout much of their decade-long relationship. He also handled media requests, her scheduling and more to keep her focused on skiing.
Vonn says she’ll continue with the World Cup season, after pulling out last week citing a sore back, but you’ve gotta believe she won’t be at the top of her game for a while.
—Sign of the Apocalypse…and another reason why we should fear Iran:
Two Iranian soccer players were suspended and fined $30,000 each for swatting the backside of a teammate while celebrating a goal in a nationally televised match. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, the players insisted the fanny pat was only for fun, but the Iranian football federation’s disciplinary committee charged it was an immoral offense and dismissed the manager for failing to report the incident.
The guy who swatted the backside of his teammate received a 10-month suspension. The guy on the receiving end is out for 20 months! You can’t make this stuff up.
Q: If the NBA season had been completely lost, would tattoo shop owners have been eligible for a federal bailout? (Jim Sleeth; New Palestine, Ind.)
You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just e-mail asktheslouch.com. You just might win $1.25 in cash!
–Emmanuel S. asked, “Hey, where is Stevie Ray Vaughan on the all-time guitarists list?” when I posted just the top five last chat. So now that I have in my hand the full Rolling Stone issue:
1. Jimi Hendrix 2. Eric Clapton 3. Jimmy Page 4. Keith Richards 5. Jeff Beck 6. B.B. King 7. Chuck Berry 8. Eddie Van Halen 9. Duane Allman 10. Pete Townshend 11. George Harrison 12. Stevie Ray Vaughan 13. Albert King 14. David Gilmour 15. Freddy King
Emmanuel noted that it was Eric Clapton who once said of Stevie Ray Vaughan, “I remember being fascinated by the fact that he never, ever seemed to be…lost in any way…It was as though he never took a breather…or took a pause to think where he was gonna go next, it just flowed out of him.”
–We should learn in the next few weeks if the Stones are really going to do a 50th anniversary world tour or not. Keith and Mick say they are, but anything can happen. I know I for one would finally attend.
Top 3 songs for the week 12/5/81: #1 “Physical” (Olivia Newton-John) #2 “Waiting For A Girl Like You” (Foreigner…already bored with this week) #3 “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (The Police…song depressed me for reasons I can’t get into…this wasn’t a great year for the kid…lived on pizza and beer…then again, not much different than today!!!)…and…#4 “Oh No” (Commodores…Oh no, Mike Pelfrey is pitching for the Mets…) #5 “Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)” (Air Supply…zzzzzzzzzz) #6 “Private Eyes” (Daryl Hall & John Oates…OK, but they did far better) #7 “Let’s Groove” (Earth, Wind & Fire…now you know I love these guys, but this was not their best either) #8 “Young Turks” (Rod Stewart…blows) #9 “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” (Diana Ross…mailed it in) #10 “Start Me Up” (The Rolling Stones…needed resuscitation after being left for dead listening to Air Supply)
College Football Quiz Answers: 1) LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for 406 yards on 43 carries against UTEP in 1999, still the all-time single-game rushing record for Division I. 2) Safety Kenny Easley starred at both UCLA and then the Seattle Seahawks, where he was a five-time Pro Bowler in his seven seasons, 1981-87. 3) Thomas Jones is UVA’s all-time leading rusher with 3,998 yards before he moved on to the NFL.
