It is a good thing NBC doesn’t run college football.
If it did, the network that brought us the tape-delayed Olympics just might be getting around to airing the Kickoff Classic. And it might hold the Orange Bowl until Easter.
If you’re still waiting to see coverage of the medal round of synchronized kangaroo riding, we can’t help. But a lot has happened in the first half of a wild college football season. With no offense to the Olympians, here’s the straight dope:
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Best team
Nebraska, No. 1 in both polls. “No doubt about it,” I-back Correll Buckhalter said. Well, there is some doubt; the Cornhuskers had to survive overtime at Notre Dame and rally from a halftime deficit against Iowa State. But we’ll go along with Buckhalter for now.
Worst team
Wake Forest. The 0-5 Demon Deacons have been outscored 117-31 in three Atlantic Coast Conference games and have yet to play Florida State. Runner-up: Vanderbilt, which beat Wake Forest by a touchdown last weekend.
Best coaching performance
Randy Walker. Call us homers, but if NU keeps rolling, Walker had better clear a shelf for the national coach-of-the-year trophies he’ll collect in December. Runner-up: South Carolina’s Lou Holtz, though he’s terrified to face Vanderbilt in Nashville on Oct. 21.
Best motivational gimmick
Gary Barnett, the nation’s finest sub-.500 coach, threatened to pull the charging Buffalo logo off his players’ helmets and Colorado responded with a 26-19 victory over Texas A&M in College Station for its first triumph. Barnett must have been desperate. If he wanted to coach a so-so team with unadorned gold helmets, he would have accepted the Notre Dame job four years ago.
Most overrated
Three dogs will have to fight for this bone–Alabama, Texas and Wisconsin.
The Crimson Tide talked national title before losing three of its first four. Note to coach Mike DuBose: Next time, don’t threaten to resign. Just do it.
Texas lost to Stanford (which lost to San Jose State) and then absorbed a 63-14 drubbing by old foe Oklahoma, a score that indicated the Longhorns haven’t come all that far since Mack Brown replaced John Mackovic, who lost to UCLA 66-3 in his final season.
“We didn’t do a thing right all day,” Brown said after the debacle in Dallas. “Not to take anything away from Oklahoma, but they were playing against air today.”
At this rate, the Air-horns are headed for the Galleryfurniture.com Bowl in lovely Houston.
Ranked fourth in the preseason AP poll, Wisconsin dreamed of making it to Miami’s Pro Player Stadium, where the Orange Bowl will determine the national title. After losing three straight games, Wisconsin might yet make it to Pro Player Stadium–as a participant in the Micronpc.com Bowl.
Doing the best with the least
West Virginia, which is 4-1 despite scoring only 13 more points than it has allowed.
Strangest sight
ESPN analyst Lee Corso, a former Indiana and Northern Illinois head coach, had a police escort at a recent game. It was unclear whether the officers were assigned to keep fans from pestering Corso or Corso from pestering fans.
U-turn of the half-year
Rutgers opened the year with a 34-21 victory over Villanova and then walloped Buffalo 59-0. Since then the Scarlet Knights have lost to Virginia Tech 49-0, Pitt 29-17 and Miami 64-6.
Best game
Take your pick. The first half of the season gave us Miami 27, Florida State 24; Northwestern 47, Wisconsin 44 in double overtime; Nebraska 27, Notre Dame 21 in overtime; Purdue 32, Michigan 31. We could go on. That’s the beauty of college football: The regular season matters.
Least faithful
Notre Dame season ticket-holders who auctioned their tickets off to the visiting hordes from Nebraska. Fighting Irish officials were appalled to see as many as 30,000 red-clad fans in 80,000-seat Notre Dame Stadium. It gave new meaning to the term “sellout crowd.” Imagine that happening in Gainesville, State College, Knoxville, Tuscaloosa or anywhere else they take their college football seriously.
Player of the half-year
Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick. By leading the Hokies into national title contention, he has done little to dissuade Heisman Trophy voters. But Vick is feeling some heat from another multi-tasking quarterback, Clemson’s Woodrow Dantzler. D-Day for both players is Nov. 4. That afternoon, Vick leads Virginia Tech into the Orange Bowl to face Miami and that evening Dantzler and the Tigers face Florida State in Tallahassee.
Best way to stay undefeated
Don’t play anybody. According to this week’s Sagarin Football Ratings, 6-0 Kansas State has played the 111th-most difficult schedule in the country. That’s slightly easier than the schedules faced by unbeatens TCU (109th toughest), Clemson (108th) and Oklahoma (104th). Sagarin’s toughest two schedules belong to Colorado and Iowa, which are a combined 2-9.
Best state
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Mississippi. All three Division I-A schools are 4-1 and ranked in this week’s ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Mississippi State is 14th, Southern Miss is 16th and Ole Miss is 25th.
Worst trend
There was a time when goal posts came down only to mark conference titles or victories over top-rated teams. Let’s just say the crossbar has been lowered on celebration. It started at South Carolina, where fans ripped down the uprights after each of the Gamecocks’ first two victories.
Purdue fans made an abortive attempt at the Ross-Ade Stadium posts after the Boilermakers nipped then-No. 6 Michigan last weekend. That night a mob stormed the field and began tugging down the goal post before Georgia’s 21-10 victory over Tennessee ended. One student was severely injured in the melee and an estimated $70,000 in damage was done to Sanford Stadium.
“You would have to use police dogs and horses to keep that many people off the field,” Georgia Athletic Director Vince Dooley said.
It shows how far the Dawgs have slipped when their fans riot after a victory over a thrice-beaten team, even if it is Tennessee, an old Georgia enemy.
At least Nebraska fans didn’t try to tear down the goal posts after the Cornhuskers pulled out an overtime victory in South Bend.
Best trend
Parity has replaced disparity for good. Seven Top 10 teams have gone down. Thirty-five teams have been ranked for at least one week in either or both of the major polls. Alabama, Penn State and Southern Cal are a combined 7-10. Perhaps nowhere is parity more evident than in the Big Ten, where Northwestern sits atop the standings and two-time defending champ Wisconsin loiters in the basement. A week after Purdue lost to Penn State, it turned around and beat Michigan. After losing two conference games a year ago, Michigan State has dropped that many in eight days.
“That’s why college football is so great,” Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez said. “Everything’s not predictable.”
Best conference
The Pac-10. Anyone who stayed up to catch Washington’s 33-30 victory over Oregon State on Saturday night in Seattle will agree. It was a typical Pac-10 shootout, with the outcome in doubt until the Beavers missed a field goal in the final seconds.
Ridiculed a year ago, the Pac-10 has regained respect by taking on the best teams from across the country. The Pac-10 is 6-4 against non-conference opponents who were ranked at kickoff. That might not sound impressive, but it is. By comparison, the Big Ten, Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Big East conferences have a combined five victories over Top 25 non-conference foes.
Worst assault on history
Last Saturday would have been the earliest possible date for Penn State coach Joe Paterno to slip by Bear Bryant and into first place on the all-time major-college victory list. But unless 2-5 Penn State sweeps its final five games, Paterno will have to wait until next year to make history. And at the Nittany Lions’ present victory-per-month pace, it might take Joe Pa until 2002 to pass the Bear.
Best upcoming matchups
No. 8 Oklahoma visits No. 2 Kansas State on Saturday, then hosts No. 1 Nebraska on Oct. 28. On Nov. 4 there will be a pair of dandy games down in Florida: No. 3 Virginia Tech at No. 4 Miami and No. 5 Clemson at No. 7 Florida State in Bowden Bowl II. And on Nov. 11 Nebraska visits Kansas State.
Those games, and plenty of others, will determine who plays for the Sears Trophy in the Orange Bowl. Last January Florida State’s Bobby Bowden hoisted the Waterford crystal football after the Sugar Bowl. Last weekend Bowden’s son, Tommy, got a glimpse of the prize when it came to Clemson on a national campus tour. With the trophy on the sideline, the Tigers held off North Carolina State to stay in contention.
“I mentioned it to the players,” Bowden said. “Look at it, just in case. Peek at it. You never know.”