When Larry Smith arrived in Columbia, Mo., last winter, he immediately identified a shortage of discipline in Missouri’s football program.
Bad team, with a bad ‘tude.
Smith, the Big Eight’s first new coach since 1989, noticed it in little things-like players wearing caps or hats in the football building and a mishmash of weight room attire. In addition to establishing a dress code for the weight room, he announced that headwear indoors was taboo.
But the Tigers had heard all that before.
Smith’s predecessor, Bob Stull, made the same announcement. The difference is Smith enforces his rule by yanking caps from players’ heads, then giving the caps to charity.
The philosophical about-face was only beginning. Mizzou opened fall practice with a week at Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Mo., where a crowd of 1,300 welcomed the Tigers.
Shortly thereafter, Smith and his staff went semi-wacko, adding to the ambience of a place where the dorms were not air-conditioned and the cockroaches could carry your shoes away.
Daily wakeup was at 6 a.m. Lights were turned off at 10 p.m. In between, there was enough in-your-face “coaching” to make some players believe their buses had taken a wrong turn and deposited them at a Marine base.
Smith emphasized special teams work in every practice and frequently interrupted scrimmages to give hands-on technique demonstrations.
Final results of Smith’s approach won’t be in before Thanksgiving, but players already say the hard edge they’re developing can’t hurt, and that Stull’s roughest practices were holidays compared to Smith’s easiest.
It’s about time Mizzou made noise (other than moans). The Tigers were 3-7-1 (2-5 in the league) last season and haven’t won a conference title since 1969.
Smith, who last coached at USC, hasn’t been on the sidelines since the 1992 season. Eager “to get a game under my belt,” Smith awaited his Mizzou debut Saturday night against Tulsa.
The last laugh: Those muffled guffaws rumbling in the Deep South might be coming from Mississippi State’s Jackie Sherrill.
When Sherrill was hired four years ago, in-state detractors (they were nesting in Oxford, of course) said the NCAA posse wouldn’t be far behind.
Sure enough, the NCAA rode into Mississippi-but the first stop wasn’t Starkville.
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This summer, Ole Miss admitted to a handful of rules violations, resulting in the resignation of Athletic Director Warner Alford and the firing of head coach Billy “Dawg” Brewer, who took his share of shots at Sherrill.
Now, however, Mississippi State acknowledges it is being investigated for three possible NCAA violations.
A matter of taste: An ice cream flavor of choice in Happy Valley, Pa., is Peachy Paterno, allegedly a delightful dessert named in honor of notable peach lover/football coach Joe Paterno of Penn State. There are no known ice cream flavors named for Colorado coach Bill McCartney, but one Boulder eatery serves an entree it calls “The Alfred Williams Special.” Pasta Jay’s offers a chicken breast with alfredo sauce served on fettucini that was/is the favorite of Williams, Colorado’s 1990 Butkus Award winner who now chases quarterbacks for the Cincinnati Bengals.
One knee, nine lives: Syracuse fans are holding their collective breath awaiting the return of linebacker Dan Conley, who began a rare sixth year of eligibility Saturday night when the Orangemen opened against Oklahoma.
It was his first game in 20 months. Conley, who last played in the 1992 Fiesta Bowl against Colorado, has had nine knee surgeries-including two anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions. All of the work has been on his right knee.
Facing his 24th birthday next month, Conley jokes about being his team’s resident relic. “When I was a freshman (at Syracuse),” he says, “this freshman class was in the 7th grade. I go the laundromat and people call me `Mr. Conley.’ “
Conley grew up idolizing Sooners linebacker Brian Bosworth, even to the point of shaving the sides of his head and having “The Boz’s” number (44) shaved into the back of his bleached hair.
“He was the man,” said Conley, who is balding. “He ripped people apart.”
Unfortunately, Conley has made a career of ripping himself apart.
No brawl fall: Remember last fall’s Colorado-Miami brawl? The NCAA Rules Committee can’t forget-and doesn’t want coaches and players to forget either. Fights also erupted that weekend in four other games, prompting these NCAA standards for 1994:
“Players involved in a fight after halftime are disqualified for the first half of the next game; substitutes and coaches who participate in a fight in their team area or leave the team area to fight are disqualified for the entire next game; squad members and coaches involved in a fight during halftime are disqualified for the first half of the next game.”
Around the nation: Fresno State never has lost a Western Athletic Conference game at home. OK, so the Bulldogs have only flown the WAC flag for two seasons. Irascible Jim Sweeney, who abhorred traveling to Brigham Young in Fresno State’s first two WAC campaigns, gets the Cougars this fall in Bulldog Stadium. The Oct. 8 date has Sweeney salivating. . . . The last Big Eight team to have a natural grass surface in its home stadium was Missouri in 1984. The real stuff is returning. Oklahoma goes natural this season, followed by Mizzou next fall.
Southern Cal quarterback Rob Johnson, an early Heisman Trophy candidate, was a receiver during his junior year at El Toro (Calif.). High School. Johnson, coached by his father (Bob), caught passes thrown by Steve Stenstrom, an early Heisman rival who now quarterbacks Stanford. . . . ESPN’s first college football telecast was a Sept. 9, 1979, tape-delayed game involving Colorado and Oregon. The Ducks won 33-19. . . . Norman conquest: New Oklahoma quarterback Garrick McGee earned his teammates’ respect in very short order. A transfer from Northeastern Oklahoma A & M, McGee participated in the Sooners’ spring drills. Three weeks after fall practice began, he was elected captain.
So you watched West Virginia flounder (31-0) in the Kickoff Classic against Nebraska and wondered how long it might take for the Mountaineers to become successful again? Maybe by 1998. West Virginia finished 11-1 in 1988, but lost 27 seniors. The Mountaineers went 11-1 last season and again lost 27 seniors. . . . All of the Pac-10’s and the Big Eight’s members rank among the top 61 teams with the most difficult 1994 schedules. They’re the only two conference able to make that claim.
Is it any wonder the Southwest Conference is breathing its next-to-last breath? Only Texas and Texas A & M topped 59,000 in attendance last season. The Longhorns averaged 64,631 (a drop of 5.4 percent from 1992), while the Aggies averaged 59,608 (an increase of 1.4 percent). . . . The Big East is big on 1,000-yard rushers. Four tailbacks who topped 1,000 yards in 1993 return this season: Rutgers’ Terrell Willis, Pittsburgh’s Curtis Martin, West Virginia’s Robert Walker and Virginia Tech’s Duane Thomas.