Updated: August 30, 2005, 3:40 PM ET
Adriana and The Dash return to preview the season
From top openers to toughest schedules to Baghdad Bob invading football to, of course, Adriana, The Dash is back.
By Pat FordeForty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football:
Here At Last
Adriana Lima is all smiles now that college football and The Dash are back.
"Are we there yet?" she asked impatiently. "Are the point spreads in the paper? Are Corso and Herbstreit finally going to be on the air again? Pardon the cliché, Dash, but are you ready for some football?"
Yes, Adriana (1). Time to swap the underwear for Under Armour. Drop the eyeliner, pick up the eye black. And the only pose worth striking this week comes with a stiff arm, not a sultry pout.
Yes, The Dash is ready for some football.
Theme Music
The late Jim Murray (2) (for the youngsters in the crowd, Murray was pretty much the Bear Bryant of sportswriters, sans the houndstooth hat) once wrote of Bill Walsh: "You half expect his headset is playing Mozart."
Which got The Dash to thinking: What would be appropriate sideline headset music for college coaches as we kick off the 2005 season?
South Carolina's Steve Spurrier (3): "Now this looks like a job for me/So everybody just follow me/'Cause we need a little controversy/'Cause it feels so empty without me." -- Eminem.
USC's Pete Carroll (4): "I am, I am, I am Superman/And I can do anything." -- R.E.M.
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Mississippi's Ed Orgeron (6): "'Cause I'm louder than a bomb." -- Public Enemy.
Central Florida's George O'Leary (7): "And you may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?' ... And you may say to yourself, 'My God, what have I done?'" -- Talking Heads.
Louisville's Bobby Petrino (8), when his team has the ball: "No matter how hard you try/You can't stop us now." -- Rage Against the Machine.
Kentucky's Rich Brooks (9): "Well I been workin' in a coal mine/Goin' down down ... Lord, I am so tired/How long can this go on?" -- Lee Dorsey.
Washington's Ty Willingham (10): "Turn the clock to zero, boss/The river's wide, we'll swim across/Started up a brand new day." -- Sting.
Penn State's Joe Paterno (11): "You've got to know when to hold 'em/Know when to fold 'em/Know when to walk away, and know when to run." -- Kenny Rogers.
Openers Of Intrigue
Everyone knows Miami-Florida State will be worth watching Monday, right down to the inevitable errant field goal at the end. The Dash has performed the public service of locating 10 other games with opening weekend story lines worth following:
Dan Hawkins and Boise State are ready for a fight against Georgia.
Virginia Tech at NC State (13): Wolfpack has the front four to put tremendous pressure on Marcus Vick -- but the big question is what happens when Vick The Younger escapes the pocket? He'll be heading into a secondary with four new starters, where a missed tackle could be a game-breaking play in what should be a low-scoring game. On the other side of the ball, NC State has to prove it can keep high-motor DE Darryl Tapp off its quarterback. The Wolfpack allowed 22 sacks in their last five games of 2004.
Mississippi at Memphis (14): Ten teams in the lordly (and revenue-hungry) SEC open at home. Only Vanderbilt (at Wake Forest) and the Rebels go on the road, but Ole Miss is traveling just about an hour north and the fan split in the Liberty Bowl could be roughly 50-50. Manic (or maniac) new Rebs coach Orgeron upped the ante on this rivalry game during the offseason, declaring to a Memphis chapter of Ole Miss boosters that he was "going to build a fence" around Memphis and keep all other recruiters outside. That got the attention of Tigers coach Tommy West, who told The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, "One man building a fence around Memphis? That's going to take a long time." "Coach O," as they're calling Orgeron in Oxford, had better bring a hammer to the stadium Monday, and he'd better bring a defense capable of curtailing Memphis RB DeAngelo Williams.
Miami (Ohio) at Ohio State (15): It's too much to ask for a rookie head coach to march into the Horseshoe in his first game and beat a top-10 Buckeyes team -- but that doesn't mean it won't be competitive. Ohio State won't have quarterback Troy Smith, thanks to an NCAA suspension, and Justin Zwick was slowed earlier in August by an ankle sprain. Not only that, but this might be the only time all year that Ted Ginn Jr. is not the clear choice as Best Athlete on the Field: Miami linebacker Terna Nande (6-foot-1, 228 pounds) runs a 4.45 and benches 520 pounds. Can you say "Freak"?
Bowling Green at Wisconsin (16): Badgers are three-point favorites, but The Dash isn't sure why. Home field and stubborn refusal to respect the MAC, presumably. The Falcons have beaten a BCS-conference opponent four straight years (OK, so they get an asterisk for Temple last year, but the score was 70-16), and have arguably the best QB not named Matt Leinart in Omar Jacobs. Bowling Green brings a streak of seven straight games of scoring 40 or more points into Camp Randall.
Notre Dame at Pittsburgh (17): Which NFL expatriate coach gets his first college Gatorade bath? Huge game for both teams: Notre Dame has five ranked opponents on the schedule, and this might be the most beatable of the group; Pitt could be favored in its next seven games if it starts with a victory here. Loser finds its immense offseason optimism doused.
Georgia Tech at Auburn (18): This historical footnote about the 1896 Auburn-Georgia Tech game comes courtesy of the Tigers' sports information department: "Auburn students, it seems, greased the railroad tracks the night before the Tech team train was due in Auburn, and the next morning, when it tried to stop, the train slid all the way through Auburn and halfway to Loachapoka 10 miles away. The Tech team had to walk back to Auburn, and Auburn won the game, 45-0 ... " Something tells The Dash the Tigers will chase Tech QB Reggie Ball halfway to Loachapoka on Saturday. (For the record, Auburn's coach in 1896 was a Mr. John Heisman.)
Texas A&M at Clemson (19): Aggies win the award for top-25 BCS team most willing to stick its neck out on opening weekend. First road games haven't been pretty for Dennis Franchione at A&M: his team was steamrolled by Utah last year, 41-21, and whipped by Virginia Tech the year before, 35-19. Clemson likely hopes the presence of A&M quarterback Reggie McNeal (four interceptions in 344 attempts last year) rubs off on Charlie Whitehurst (17 picks in 349 attempts).
Wyoming at Florida (20): Cowboys coach Joe Glenn won't be caught off guard by Urban Meyer's spread offense after seeing it the past two years in the Mountain West. Wyoming was the only opponent to come within 20 points of Utah in the Utes' final eight games last year -- but that was Utah, and this is Florida. The athletes, the crowd size and the humidity should all be tougher to deal with this time around for the Pokes.
USC at Hawaii (21): You want to bet against the island mojo right now, after seeing their guys win the Little League World Series with a walk-off homer? You want to bet against a team that last year was 56 points, on average, better at home than on the road? OK, of course you do. The Warriors are playing USC, for Traveler's sake. And now that Hawaii pulled Jerry Glanville out of a retirement village and made him defensive coordinator, The Dash cannot see USC scoring more than 80. Tops.
Your Athletic Director Did What?!?
Five schedules that have coaches reaching for the antacids:
Bobby Wallace's schedule is one The Dash wouldn't wish upon anyone.
Central Florida (23): How do you help your school end the NCAA's longest losing streak at 15 games? Probably not by scheduling seven road games, including serving as Fun 'n' Gun fodder in Steve Spurrier's debut at South Carolina on Thursday night.
Tennessee (24): OK, so consecutive September road games against LSU and Florida was more the commissioner's doing than anything perpetrated by the AD. As conspiracy-minded colleague Ivan Maisel pointed out: These are the wages of blowing off media days, Phil Fulmer.
North Carolina (25): This is more bad timing than bad scheduling. But no matter how you slice it, a nonconference slate of Louisville, Utah and Wisconsin (combined 2004 record: 32-4) is murder. Toss in trips to Miami and Virginia Tech, and you have the hardest schedule in America.
Notre Dame (26): How do the Fighting Irish box themselves into a schedule that puts them on the road for four of their first five games -- with three of the road games against top-25 opponents? By the time Charlie Weis says a second hello to the home fans, it will be Oct. 15 -- and USC will be the opponent.
And five schedules that satisfy every coach's inner coward:
Raise your hands if you're sure you scheduled an embarrassingly weak group of nonconference teams.
Alabama (28): The Crimson Tide gets its seven home games, with a nonleague run of Middle Tennessee, Southern Mississippi and Utah State. Outside of a trip to South Carolina on Oct. 17, every game is in the state of Alabama or neighboring Mississippi.
Penn State (29): Five of the first six are at home. Opening with South Florida and Cincinnati -- predicted for the bottom two spots in the Big East -- and Central Michigan is a benevolent way to break in a scatter-armed QB and some key freshmen.
Washington State (30): Toughest September game is at Nevada, which went 5-7 last year and gave up 38 or more points seven times. But the Cougars make up for it by playing all the top contenders in the Pac-10.
Nebraska (31): Opening with five straight home games isn't nearly as annoying now that the Cornhuskers are a mortal program. When Tom Osborne's teams were awesome and the September scores were 73-3? Now that was obnoxious.
Baghdad Bob Comes To College Football
This year, the NCAA instituted a rule limiting media guides to 208 pages. This came as a mighty blow to schools such as Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Florida, which published books nearly as thick as the average dictionary.
The purpose was to rein in the schools that had turned media guides into costly, Tolstoy-length tomes. The primary reason media guides had put on more weight than Kirstie Alley was because coaches had turned them into recruiting guides, loading them with dozens of pages of de facto program advertising aimed at teenage studs.
As is so often the case with NCAA rules, the intent was outflanked by the schools' reaction. Instead of trimming the fat, many schools eradicated or drastically reduced the history of their programs and kept the recruiting propaganda.
"This is what the coach wanted," came the apologetic response from one SID trying to explain why his guide had lost so much of its useful information. "And what the coach wants, the coach gets."
There's plenty of pages on Kirk Fernetz, but not enough about Iowa in the Hawkeye media guide.
If the Hawkeyes should start the season, say, 8-0, the media will report that it's the first time since ... uh, well ... we don't know when. If quarterback Drew Tate should throw for 500 yards in a game, it could well be a school record ... but we really wouldn't be able to tell you that for sure.
But let's look at what you do get: 144 pages of recruiting top spin titled "Why Iowa" to start the guide, including 16 consecutive pages trumpeting Iowa's success putting players in the NFL (in case the point didn't sink in, the back page of the guide reiterates the current Hawkeyes in the NFL). There are a mere eight pages on Minister of Information/head coach Kirk Ferentz (33), including a section entitled "Coach Kirk on Kirk." Eight pages apparently were not enough to include Ferentz's career record. (It's 42-31, in case you're wondering.)
And on page 17, recruits are shown pictures of Bill Cosby and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The caption's unspoken message: Dear African-American player: See, black people really do come to Iowa City! By next year, we'll try to update this page with a picture of Fifty Cent!
Big 12 Quarterback Update
They like experience in the state of Oklahoma. New Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy named sophomore incumbent Donovan Woods (34) his starter over redshirt freshman Bobby Reid, and junior Paul Thompson (35) beat out Rhett Bomar for the start at Oklahoma. Gundy said he will play both QBs against Montana State on Saturday, and The Dash suspects the Sooners' derby is not over at this point, either.
They're going the opposite way at Missouri, where true freshman Chase Daniel (36) is officially the backup to Brad Smith. That relegates junior Brandon Coleman to third team and leaves redshirt freshman Chase Patton (37), considered one of the nation's top QB recruits, as a shocking fourth-teamer. (If any schools are eyeballing a transfer quarterback, keep your eyes on Columbia.)
Putting Out An APB For ...
... UCLA's all-time leading rusher, Gaston Green (38). He was a 1,000-yard rusher for the Denver Broncos in 1991 and fell off the NFL map after '92. Updates to his whereabouts are appreciated.
Extra Point
Since The Dash hasn't gotten on the road yet this season, we begin our gustatory tip sheet close to home. When hungry in Louisville, check the smoker by the curb at the Frankfort Ave. Beer Depot (39), where college grid addict Malone (40) always has some ribs, butts and brisket slow cooking. All the food and college football talk you can handle, at a decent price.
Pat Forde is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
- Rumors: MSU coach jabbing Ole Miss
- Feldman: A Week 12 wrap-up
- Heisman Predictor: McCoy is the favorite
- Tools: Game Predictor | PickCenter
- Draft: Mel's Big Board (11/18) | NFL draft blog
