Bob Knight is no longer at IU. Those that have known me a long time realize that I think that Bob Knight is at his core what is really good about college athletics. He graduates players at a high rate (I've seen figures as high as 92% but I have not done the research and the calculations myself and don't plan to so I'll just say that he graduates players at a high rate.) and he wins and his program does not cheat. Does that make him a wonderful human being? No. Does his temper make him the worst human on Earth since Jeffrey Dahmer went to the Celestial Cafeteria? No. Look at the nonsense surrounding the Minnesota basketball program now with FBI agents interviewing former student-athletes and a grand jury convened to consider indictments. Nothing close to that ever happened at IU for the last 30 years or so.

Of course a curmudgeon like me has to like Bob Knight. Here is a man who told his critics that when he died he wanted to be buried face down so they could kiss his ass. That is a whole lot better than Rock Hudson who wanted to be buried face down so his best friends could recognize him.

Will Bob Knight coach again? I have a hunch that he will and it would not surprise me to see him coach at a second tier school - maybe even a third tier school - where winning is good but breaking even is acceptable. Maybe at one of the Ivy League Schools? And before you take as gospel the allegations against Knight that are in the news now, look on the front page of today's paper to see that Wen Ho Lee is about to get a release on the basis of a plea agreement and the agreement has nothing to do with what was asserted to be incontrovertible fact just a few months ago - i.e. he passed nuclear secrets to the PRC.

National Drug Czar, General McCaffrey says that testing of athletes has made things turn the corner. The advantage now is with clean athletes and not cheaters. A report from Columbia University says that in sports like track and field and weightlifting and swimming the number of "drug cheaters" is in the 80-90% range. If that is the case and since drug testing is always one step behind the newest performance enhancement material, I have a question:

Just what is General McCaffrey smoking?

And in the NFL, it was a weekend of big leads. In more cases than usual, these leads found ways to disappear late in the game. Jax led by 17 in the first quarter and by 17 at the half. The Ravens caught them and Jax took the lead by 4 one more time. So Tony Banks hit Shannon Sharpe for the winning TD in a game that was wild. Two good defenses and the score was 39-36. Baltimore will be very tough if they find ways to score 27 points a game which is what they have done in the first two.

The Indy Colts led 21-0 at home against the Raiders and led 24-7 at the half. But the Raiders scored 31 points in the first 22 minutes of the second half and intercepted Peyton Manning in the end zone to preserve a 38-31 win. The Colts' defense just disappeared after the halftime. QB Rich Gannon ran for three TDs and Tyrone Wheatley ran for another. Three turnovers by the Colts did not help them either.

San Diego led New Orleans 24-13 at the half and that is usually sufficient to coast to a win over the Saints. Not yesterday. The Chargers' offense found the board only with a field goal and the Saints managed two TDs (no PATs were successful) and a field goal and won the game 28-27. The Saints rushing is still pretty miserable; as a team they ran the ball 31 times for 64 yards; one of those was a 13 yard scramble by the QB so on "intentional running plays" they ran 30 times for 51 yards. The Chargers' passing attack was anemic; they were 13-26 (acceptable but not great) with two INTs (Not good) for 116 yards (pathetic). That is under 5 yards per pass attempt and that is not where a passing attack ought to be.

The final score of the Carolina/SF game was 38-22 but it was not nearly that close. Carolina led 28-0 at the half and 38-7 after three quarters. Two meaningless scores by SF made this look respectable - until you notice that the TDs were passes thrown by Rick Mirer which means that even the Niners had tossed in the jockstrap at that point.

In two other games, teams ran up big leads and held on. Tampa crushed Chicago 41-0 and held Cade McNown to a net of 49 yards passing on 29 attempts. Chicago was penalized for 64 yards and if you are penalized for more yards than you gain passing in a game, you are almost certain to lose by a lot. Denver showed me that the Falcons defense is a sieve. Denver amassed over 400 yards of offense and cruised to a 42-14 win.

The Eagles' offense must have been in some lost baggage on the flight back from Dallas last weekend because they did not block anyone and they could not complete passes and they - how to say this? - stunk out the joint. Bill Maas doing color for the game has begun the drumroll to make Giants offensive coordinator Sean Peyton the next media coronated genius - thereby making him a safe choice as a guy to hire if you are looking for a head coach. I'll wait and see, thank you.

Last week, Duante Culpepper ran for enormous gobs of yards; this week he threw for 343 yards against the Dolphins and iced the game with a TD pass with just under two minutes to play.

Cincy opened their new stadium and their season with Cleveland. The NFL tried to give them a way to get off on the right foot. Instead, the Cincinnati Bengals showed that they just have too much Mike Brown and too much Bruce Coslett to carry on their backs. Akili Smith was sacked 7 times; this is the Browns' defense that could not get out of its own way against Jax last week. Three Bengal turnovers did not help either. Norman Chad writes a syndicated column picking NFL games and adding a light touch to the game prognostications. Last Friday, he pointed out that 2 new NFL coaches this year came from Central Connecticut State (Dave Campo and Mike Sherman) and he suggested that the school motto could be "We Build Tomorrow's Rich Kotites." The time is getting very close where we can replace Rich Kotite references with Bruce Coslett references.

Jake Plummer supposedly saved Vince Tobin's job last nite. ESPN said that Vince would be fired if the Cards got beat; they won 32-31 over the Cowboys. If Dave Campo goes 0-8, might we see Jerry Jones take over as coach to bring back memories of George Halas? We can only hope that Jones decides to take the reins of the team that consists of the players that he has assembled. Dallas' defense is giving up 36.5 points per game. Just for comparison, ten of the teams in the league (all of whom have played two games so far) have given up less than 36.5 points TOTAL in both games.

The Redskins did just about everything they wanted to do except win their game at Detroit. Four interceptions - the last one with less than a minute to play at the Detroit 20 - gave the Lions a 15-10 win. Note that the Lions did not get in the end zone all day and still won the game. In the first half, DT Kelvin Pritchett intercepted a deflected pass at the Detroit 22 and "ran" toward the end zone. He ran out of gas at about the Skins 25 but had such a convoy of blockers that it looked like he would get to the end zone despite being timed by a sundial. But he was pulled down at the one yard line where the Lions went on a 3 play scoring drive that netted a field goal and minus two yards. Detroit has now gone eight quarters with no offensive or defensive TDs this year - in Game 1 they got a TD on a punt return.

Finally, it is the Jets and Pats on MNF tonite and that should be a decent game. Maybe the Pats will run out to a 3 TD lead and then the Jets can come back and...

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...