The cult of football

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- I learned years ago that college football is a religion in this part of the country, but what I saw on my walk to the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium press box certainly reinforced it.
It was very possible that I was just invited to join a cult. I couldn't be sure. In any event, a 12-person troupe of Hare Krishnas encouraged me and several other nearby pedestrians to join their chanting, dancing drum circle.
If I didn't have a football game to cover, I might have put on one of their pale orange robes, shaved my head bald except for a small ponytail on top and strapped on some comfy sandals.
One of them toted a sign: ‘‘Say Hare Krishna -- It's good for you.’’
Some other activities might feel even better.
A group standing on the lawn of a fraternity house brandished a sign for passing cars.
‘‘Honk and we'll drink.''
Just a guess here, but I think they'll drink anyway.

Take a T.O. to remember Nelson

I don't want to blog about Terrell Owens today or any other day for that matter.
Must ... resist ... temptation.
I don't want to waste cyberspace on Owens when I could be writing about the anti-T.O.
Golf legend Byron Nelson died Tuesday at 94.
I want to give him props for being a gentleman as well as a champion.
Think of all the sports records that people say will never be broken.
There's Wilt Chamberlin's 100-point game and Joe DiMaggio’s 51-game hitting streak.
Now put Nelson’s 11 straight tournament victories in 1945 at the top of the list.
He won 18 that year and won 31 of the 54 tournaments he played in from 1944-45. And, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn't as if he was winning these things by putting through a clown's mouth or beneath a windmill.
Rarely is there such a thing as an unbreakable record. Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth's home run record and padded the total, but he's in danger of getting passed by Barry Bonds. And, eventually, Bonds will likely get passed by another product of the Better Baseball Through Chemistry generation.
There have been a few runs made at DiMaggio's record. And Kobe Bryant could threaten Wilt's single-game scoring mark given his shot-making ability and reluctance to pass.
But Nelson’s 11 straight victories may remain untouchable.
Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer couldn't get there. Tiger Woods won't either.
And that's why Nelson will forever be known as Lord Byron.

College football musings ...

In honor of instant replay’s second season of widespread use in college football, we would like to take another look at some of last weekend’s developments and gauge their potential impact on this week’s games.
Upon further review ...
* Georgia coach Mark Richt should stick with freshman quarterback Matthew Stafford as his starter even though backup Joe Cox came off the bench to rescue a faltering offense in the Bulldogs’ 14-13 win over Colorado.
Stafford will be a dominant SEC player before long, but coaches and fans have to be willing to take the good with the bad when it comes to his development. First-year college players are going to be inconsistent. When a player happens to be a quarterback, his imperfections are going to be magnified.
As bad as Georgia's offense looked in falling behind 13-0, it wasn't all Stafford's fault. His receivers dropped at least four passes and an increasingly suspect offensive line didn't make it easy for the running backs to make plays.
Part of the growing process for any quarterback is learning from adversity. Stafford’s developmental clock might have been accelerated if Richt had left him in with the directive to lead the team or take his lumps.
* Alabama coach Mike Shula still thinks like an NFL offensive coordinator. In overtime of a 24-23 loss to Arkansas, Shula went conservative despite the fact that quarterback John Parker Wilson was having a career day. He called three straight running plays in an effort to center the ball up for kicker Leigh Tiffin. That's the smart decision in the NFL, where kickers make 40-yarders with the ease of extra points.
In college, however, that potential game-winning 40-yarder isn't as much of a gimme. Especially after your kicker has displayed a profound enough slice to merit consideration for the next Ryder Cup roster.
In hindsight, Shula should have given Wilson a chance to take a shot downfield for a closer field goal try or offered Jamie Christiansen a chance to kick the game-winner. Christiansen was healthy enough to do kickoffs and has been in pressure situations far more often than Tiffin.
* Auburn was smart to rest running back Kenny Irons last week against Buffalo. There wasn't anything to gain by playing him in a glorified scrimmage. He's not going to win the Heisman, so it was best to rest him for Thursday's game against South Carolina.
Incidentally, the Gamecocks are giving up 176.2 rushing yards per game, which ranks 101st nationally. That should motivate Irons to be at full-speed.
* With apologies to Auburn (ranked second in the AP top 25), Florida appears to be the SEC’s best team at this moment. The Gators are averaging 465.5 total yards per game while limiting opponents to 42 rushing yards per game.
Quarterback Chris Leak has finally started to produce in keeping with his potential, while Percy Harvin has augmented an already dangerous and deep group of skill players.
* Here's something I never expected to type: Georgia Tech just might win the Atlantic Coast Conference.
After seeing them blow past woeful Virginia last Thursday, a couple things stood out.
The defense, led by linebacker Philip Wheeler, has an abundance of speed.
The offense looks light years ahead of where it was last season, thanks to coordinator Patrick Nix. While quarterback Reggie Ball isn't an especially accurate passer, the Yellow Jackets have taken advantage of his mobility with designed quarterback draws, sprints and bootlegs. Ball has gained 197 yards and is averaging 5.1 yards per carry.
His mobility -- and Georgia Tech's willingness to use it -- could make the difference against Virginia Tech this Saturday. The Hokies administered a 51-7 swatting last season, but the Yellow Jackets didn’t have Ball in the lineup and frankly didn't have much of an offensive imagination when he was available.
If the Yellow Jackets aspire to achieve more than 7-5, this is the time to prove it. Virginia Tech was less than stellar in a win over Cincinnati last weekend, plus the ACC Coastal Division title is a more realistic goal now that Miami has fallen off the map.

United States of Average

Don’t be misled by the title of this particular blog, because I'm very much a ‘‘Go, USA!’’ kind of guy.
But Sunday’s Ryder Cup results, while hardly surprising, add to a litany of mediocrity served up by Americans on the international stage in recent months.
The Europeans downed the U.S. 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 to clinch their third straight Ryder Cup championship. Part of me couldn't help but root for Darren Clarke, who played on in the wake of personal tragedy after the death of his wife on Aug. 13, but why does the U.S. continually get beaten over the head with a sand wedge in this event?
Spare me the part about Tiger Woods becoming enraged and possibly unnerved by that Irish tabloid's improper insinuations about the former bikini model he's married to. That sort of thing, coupled with his 1-3 Ryder Cup record coming into this year, should stoke the Americans' competitive furnaces that much more. At least Woods finished with a winning record in his matches. You can't say much in support of the rest of his team, which mostly played like high-handicappers in the Elks Lodge Memorial Day Scramble.
Hey, it's not like the Ryder Cup guys are the only U.S. team to take the walk of shame this year.
We didn't win the World Baseball Classic, despite having some of the highest-paid major leaguers on the roster. The U.S. men lost to Greece in the semi-finals of the World Basketball Championship despite having LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. Let that marinate for a moment. We lost to Greece ... in basketball.
The women haven't done any better. Earlier this month, the U.S. women's team saw a 51-game international winning streak grind to a halt against Russia in the world championships. The Americans went home without a gold medal, but we're getting used to it.
But look on the bright side. Right now, we lead the world in hamburger production (and consumption) as well as military invasions!
Our competitive ineptitude isn't confined to golf, baseball and basketball. Even when we succeed, we find a way to louse it up. Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, but found himself accused of using banned performance-enhancers.
We can't even win beauty contests anymore. In the Miss Universe, the U.S. is 0-for since 1997, when Brook Mahealani Lee wore the sash and tiara.
The shame cycle was extended this year when Puerto Rico's Zuleyka Rivera won.
Maybe it's time to revisit the issue of granting Puerto Rico statehood.

Hanging cool in a Buffalo stance

I'll go ahead and admit it. I made a mistake. I'm not at the Georgia-Colorado game. I made a late decision not to go because the matchup seemed to lack any trace of sizzle thanks to Colorado's 0-3 record and loss to Division I-AA Montana State.
Instead I'm sitting in the Jordan-Hare Stadium press box, watching Auburn against Buffalo University rather than seeing Georgia against Buffaloes. The way I figured it, I could have gone to either game and seen Buffalo chips on display.
I had no reason, however, to think that Georgia's offense would be more maladorous than Ralphie's pen before a good cleaning.
By the time Auburn kicked off, Georgia was trying to climb out of a 13-0 third-quarter trench.
Fans love intersectional games against major conference schools, but this Saturday illustrates the reason why so many Southeastern Conference schools shell out $600,000 to get Buffalo or Western Kentucky on the schedule rather than a Big 12 or Big 10 opponent.
It's difficult to be ''on'' every week, especially in a non-conference matchup where there's really nothing at stake. Good teams sleepwalk every now and then. The SEC season is enough of a grind by itself, but then there's the potential for an appearance in the league title game.
Fans say they want to see Notre Dame-Georgia or USC-Auburn, but there's a considerable risk in putting one of those teams on the schedule instead of Appalachian State or Eastern Michigan.
Which team would you rather play if you were a head coach?

I want my MTV

Once upon a time, MTV actually used to show music videos instead of pimping rides, pimping Carson Daly and filling its air time with supposed reality shows like ‘‘Real World,’’ ‘‘Road Rules’’ or ‘‘Real World Cast Members Play Wesson Oil Tug-of-War with Road Rules Cast Members on a Tropical Island and Everyone Wears Bikinis.’’
It used to be so cool.
Over the years, you could see Bobby Brown grow up from that crackly-voiced kid in New Edition and into the soulmate of America’s sweetheart, Whitney Houston.
That worked out well.
You got to watch Michael Jackson moonwalk and bash out a car window before he turned into a bleached-out creep. You could look at and listen to rock stars who looked like they just mugged a Mary Kay rep for her goodies. Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, KISS’ Gene Simmons and Motley Crue’s Vince Neil were all about the lipstick and rouge, but Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler was the only one with the lips and cheekbones to truly carry it off.
He wore it instead of letting it wear him.
Anyway, back to my rant about MTV’s programming.
I turned it on Wednesday to see the network’s newest reality show ‘‘Two-A-Days,’’ which chronicles the inner-workings of Hoover High School’s football program. The school, located in a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., has won four straight Alabama Class 6A state championships.
I watched it thinking it would mostly be about football, but it’s typical new-school MTV schlock. People compare it to ‘‘Laguna Beach’’ with shoulder pads, but I can’t say because I’ve never watched ‘‘Laguna Beach.’’
In fact, I haven’t watched any of MTV’s reality shows since the San Francisco season of ‘‘Real World,’’ in which that dirty bike messenger named Puck blew snot rockets, contributed heavy flatulence, left dirty dishes in the sink and yelled at that poor kid who was dying of AIDs.
In ‘‘Two-a-Days,’’ there’s the typical package of teen-angst drama, puppy love romance and lunchroom scenes of high school kids eating the same rectangular-shaped pizzas we used to get when we were in high school.
The pretty cheerleader gets mad at her boyfriend, the star linebacker, because there’s rumors he might have, like, OK, kissed another girl or something.
To that I would have said, ‘‘Puh-leeze. Talk to the hand! I’m not going to the homecoming dance with you! I trusted you and you broke my heart!’’
The show’s best moments come when they get back to the football field. Hoover’s coach, Rush Propst, kind of looks like a porcupine in a golf visor and he’s not shy letting players know he holds the key to their college scholarship aspirations and isn’t afraid to keep the door locked if they don’t play well.
My personal favorite, however, is the team chaplain, who delivers pre-game sermons while having a Hoover Bucs football helmet perched atop his pulpit.
I wish I’d recorded the show because his sermons are unique to say the least. I’d like to show them to the priest at my church to get his views on them. They sound something like this:
‘‘Lord, let your light shine down on these young men and give them the strength to roll over those Vestavia Hills Rebels like a runaway tank. And Lord, please give them the courage to back that heavenly tank up and run over them again because we know You won’t accept anything less than a 42-0 halftime lead.
‘‘And Lord, when you sent your only Son to die for us, we know that He didn't make that sacrifice so our quarterback would throw a stupid interception last week against Tuscaloosa County because he didn’t read that the safety was playing Cover 3 ...’’
The only thing that would make it any more entertaining is if Puck was around to blow snot rockets out of his nose.

Shula drops the ball

After narrow wins over Hawaii and Vanderbilt and a blowout of Louisiana-Monroe, Alabama football coach Mike Shula knows Saturday’s road trip to Arkansas will answer quite a few questions about the Crimson Tide.
‘‘We’ll find out a lot more about our football team this week,’’ he said during Wednesday’s SEC teleconference.
We found out a little more about Shula last weekend and it’s obvious he still has a lot of growing up to do as a coach.
Either he doesn’t understand the nuances of public relations or simply doesn’t care.
Since last season, seven Alabama players have broken the law, team rules or both. Shula’s solution was to give each of them a one-game suspension, although he didn’t clue the public in on his plan until after last weekend’s romp over Louisiana-Monroe.
He had to say something because star linebacker Juwan Simpson, who made headlines for his arrest for handgun and marijuana possession over the summer, didn’t play and people tend to notice that sort of thing.
After declining to comment on team disciplinary matters for weeks, Shula said Saturday that he spread seven one-game suspensions out over three weeks because benching all seven players at once wouldn’t be ‘‘fair’’ to his team.
Shula’s reasoning behind his system of punishment was convoluted and convenient.
Other coaches, including Georgia’s Mark Richt, have suspended more than two or three players at a time without regard for the potential damage it would do to the onfield product. South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier ran off several alleged trouble-makers after taking the Gamecocks’ job.
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville kept suspended linebackers Tray Blackmon and Kevin Sears on the shelf for an important game against LSU.
Using Shula’s method, the two could have played against LSU and then served the remainder of their punishment this Saturday against Buffalo.
Tuberville was quick to take a veiled shot at Shula after Saturday’s win over LSU.
‘‘We are going to continue to do it the right way,’’ he said. ‘‘When you do it that way, it means a heck of a lot more (to win). I think our fans know what I’m talking about.’’
Sometimes, it’s more important to take a stand without worrying about what the scoreboard will say.
Shula may coach the football team, but he must also consider the impact that his actions and those of his players have on his employer’s reputation.
It’s one thing for a coach to quietly handle the punishment of a player who misses curfew. When a player is arrested and it becomes public knowledge, the head coach’s plan for disciplinary action should also be revealed to the public before rather than after the fact.
Shula could have saved himself a lot of heat if he’d revealed his plans before the season opener. He obviously knew what he was going to do.
By not saying anything, Shula fed speculation that he had something to hide or cared more about victories than good behavior.
In mishandling the situation, Shula showed he won’t make anyone forget about Paul ‘‘Bear’’ Bryant for quite some time. Or Ray Perkins for that matter.

In a fog over a blog

If you’ve read any of my sports columns in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer over the course of the last three years, you know I rarely find myself at a loss for words. But then my boss told me the other day that he wanted me to start keeping a sports blog.
So I sat in silence for a change as he explained this whole ‘‘blog’’ concept, of which I’d hoped to remain blissfully unaware.
It seems I was hopelessly out of touch with this technological development, because all the cool kids have been doing this blogging thing for quite some time.
If it were left up to me, I would be typing this on my old Commodore 64 as a show of protest because, quite frankly, technology and all of its trappings scares me. I don’t mean to sound like the Unabomber. It’s just that it gets frustrating trying to keep pace with all the gadgetry of the digital age.
In my lifetime, I’ve been forced to abandon my Atari video game system for Sega and then PlayStation. I’ve gone from Beta to VHS to DVD and, what the heck, even HDTV. I’ve experienced the disappointment of watching 8-tracks, vinyl records, cassette tapes fall by the wayside. And now, after years of comfort with CDs, I’m hopelessly behind everyone who listens to MP3s. And they’ve been rendered out of date by iPods.
So here I am trying to keep pace for a change, trying to merge on to the jampacked Information Superhighway even though I feel like I’m driving a Yugo with a clogged carburator.
Of course, progress isn’t all bad. I’ll gladly take a game of EA Sports NCAA Football or Madden ’07 over Atari’s Pong any day.
And the good news for you in all of this is that my blog means there’s more of me for you guys to love ... or loathe.