I know that the college football season doesn’t start until three-and-a-half months from now, but there are some items there that deserve some attention. Once football practice begins in earnest and the adrenaline in anticipation of the season begins to flow, there will be prognostications on which coaches are on the hot seat this year. I think that Clemson coach, Tommy Bowden, needs to be on that list and it has nothing to do with the team record in the past couple of years or his relationship to Bobby Bowden or anything else. Here’s the deal. In the entirety of the “Ted Roof Era” at Duke, the Blue Devils have beaten exactly ONE Division I-A team and that was Clemson. (Yes, Roof won two games as interim coach in 2003 against ACC teams and that’s probably what got him the job in the first place.) Ted Roof has won a total of three games at Duke as the permanent head coach; his only other victories have been against The Citadel and Virginia Military. That alone should put Tommy Bowden on a perpetual hot seat.
The University of Florida won the national championship game last year as you may recall. Nonetheless, the Gators schedule for 2007 has some marshmallow-soft out of conference games including season opening games against Western Kentucky and Troy and another late season “interlude” with Florida Atlantic. I know that the SEC teams all have very difficult in conference schedules, but might not the folks in Florida seek a minor upgrade to their out of conference opponents one of these days?
Just an aside here but whilst grocery shopping last week to replenish our larder after being away for a month, I noticed that there were some Wheaties boxes with the Florida basketball team on the box. You may recall they too were national champs last year. That got me to thinking; I wonder if General Mills even bothered to send a single box of that type to the Columbus Ohio region?
Back to college football, Florida is not the only SEC team with marshmallows on the schedule. The SEC teams as a whole will play nine game next year against Division I-AA opponents. That’s more than any other conference in the country. Boy, I’ll bet those games will be nailbiters…
As a point of reference, the PAC-10 teams as a group will only play two games against Division 1-AA opponents. That’s two more than they ought to play; but that’s a whole lot better than nine…
Another DL, Tank Tyler, from NC State was a high draft pick in this year’s NFL draft. Last year, the Wolfpack sent three defensive linemen to the NFL as first round picks – albeit one of them plays as an outside linebacker. That makes four NFL caliber defensive linemen in two seasons from the same team and that team still could not finish with a winning record in conference. I think it’s becoming clear why NC State made a coaching change at the end of last season.
Similarly, the LSU Tigers provided four players to the NFL in this year’s first round of the draft. Unless there’s been some record revision in the past couple of days, LSU did not even with its division of the SEC last season. Someone somewhere ought to be asking the LSU coaching staff how that could happen.
The Big Ten is starting its own TV network this year. When it announced its lineup of games in prime time, I wondered if they had gone out of their way to put uninteresting games in prime time as a way to gain exposure for some programs. Consider these matchups; unless you are an alum of one of these schools or have a child at one of these schools, would you rearrange your schedule to see any of these? Would you choose to watch any of them in lieu of using the time to alphabetize the herbs and spices in your kitchen?
Indiana State at Indiana (Sept 1st)
Syracuse at Iowa (Sept 8th)
Duke at Northwestern (Sept 15th)
Illinois at Minnesota (Nov 3rd)
Campbell University – the Fighting Camels of course – will reinstate intercollegiate football in the 2008 season; I believe they dropped football in 1952 so this represents the end of a 56-year hiatus. They broke ground on a new stadium this spring and will open their new football era against Birmingham Southern in August 2008. Initial seating capacity for the stadium will be 1200, but there are plans for expansion…
Oregon lost its offensive coordinator to LSU and hired the offensive coordinator from the University of New Hampshire to replace him. UNH has been an offensive powerhouse at the Division 1-AA level in recent times averaging over 400 yards per game in seven of the last eight years so this could be one of those situations where a coordinator gets to take his ideas and his concepts to the next level of competition to see how they work there. It ought to be interesting to check out the Oregon offense in the next couple of years. But here is what I wondered when I read the announcement of this hiring:
Did the Oregon folks check very carefully to assure themselves that this guy was actually involved in the football program at UNH? This sort of “wakes up the echoes” of a bad situation in the past…
I have a public service announcement for you today. May 16 is “Turn Beauty Inside Out Day”. I don’t know if this is such a wonderful idea because a former secretary with whom I worked for about 15 years always used to say:
“Beauty is only skin deep – - but the ugly goes clear down to the bone.”
Finally, a note from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“Submitting to you, in the category, Some Things Are So Ridiculous On Their Own They Require No Punchline: ESPN will televise the USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…