College Football Coach of the Year Nominees, Miami needs Change, a Political Thought, and Thank God College Hoops is Here

When you think about the college football season and who should be coach of the year, there are three reasonable choices. The one that everyone is talking about, and who will probably sweep these end of season awards, especially if his squad wins on Thursday, is Greg Schiano of Rutgers. The guys that nobody is talking about except probably Kevin J. Marvel and Arnold Palmer are Ralph Friedgen of Maryland and Jim Grobe of Wake Forest. The Terps began the season with unimpressive wins against William & Mary, Middle Tennesse St, and Florida International (maybe they should be credited for the brawling with the latter), before opening the ACC season with a loss to Georgia Tech. They then fell way behind to Virgina before rallying to beat the Cavs, and parlayed that momentum into wins over NC St, Florida St, and Clemson. This team has gone from where Friedgen’s job was in possible jeopardy to a legitimate BCS contender. Equally as impressive (or more so) has been the job Grobe has done at Wake Forest. Grobe’s squad, who has beaten two Big East teams and an SEC school as part of its non-conference schedule, is a blown lead against Clemson in the 4th quarter away from being undefeated at this time. Imagine if the Wake Maryland game in a couple of weeks determined who would play in the ACC title game. This is what college athletics are all about.

Speaking of Rutgers, everything lines up nicely for them this week for an upset of Louisville. The Cards are coming of a huge emotional win last week against the Mountaineers while the Scarlet Knights have been able to prepare for this game for 11 days (they played last Sunday). In addition, they have the added motivation of not getting much respect from around the country. And finally, they have a star in Ray Rice who can literally help carry them to a huge win. Except, as Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend. No matter how well the stars align in this one, I just do not see the upset. Louisville is too balanced offensively against a defense that has looked soft in the middle the last couple weeks. In addition, while Rice is a great player, Rutgers offense is less dimensional than even West Virginia’s. Finally, I bought into the Louisville players and coaches after the game, who credibly talked about how they were immediately putting the Mountaineer game behind them and that Rutgers is now the biggest game of the year. Louisville has struggled on the road at times, but I think the Cards get it done on Thursday night against the Scarlet Knights, who have been just a great story this season.

As long as we are on college football, I have to redundantly call for Donna Shalala and Larry Coker to be pushed aside at Miami. This program is a disaster, and now tragedy has struck as one of their defensive linemen was shot and killed last night. They have lost institutional control over this program, and people are now dying because of it. Please, Board of Regents or whoever makes these decisions, make some changes.

Speaking of changes, I watched as America gave control of the House (and probably the Senate) to the Democrats (how about that for a ridiculous segue). As a moderate, I view this is a pretty good thing. Not that I think in general the Democrats are any better equipped to make decisions of National importance than the GOP, but rather that in an environment like this, I believe a balance of power between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch (not to be confused with the Deion Branch) is a positive. This will force both sides of the aisle, if they want to get anything accomplished, to put aside their partisan politics and work for compromise. Now, do I think any of that will happen? No, not really. But in my mind I would prefer a certain degree of gridlock than the far right of far left pushing through their own narrow-minded agendas. I was disappointed to see that Marole Leteber did not make more of a splash as a write in candidate, but maybe this means we will see him for poker sometime soon.

Back to sports….

I took my kids to an NBA game on Sunday. As you know if you are a regular reader of this space, I am not an NBA fan. I think the game is boring to watch, it lacks emotion, and the players do not have the fundamental skills that they did when I was growing up (a result of too many kids opting to go to the league before they are ready instead of staying in college; this hurts both the college and pro games). And, from a live spectator standpoint, the ticket prices are outrageous, especially for a team that has basically sucked for several years and does not promise to be much better this year. Anyway, I must admit, I was impressed. Not so much by the quality of play on the floor (although Allan Iverson is simply an immense talent), as by the overall experience. The crowd was into the game (albeit a far cry from Cameron Indoor), and there was lots of stuff for the kids to do to keep them entertained. Also, they had stuff going on during every timeout (a la minor league baseball). I still think the product is not very good, but it was a good family activity…

That being said, give me college basketball over the NBA 100 times out of 100. And the very exciting news is that college hoops starts TODAY, with Maryland in action in the Coaches versus Cancer challenge. Duke opens their schedule Sunday against the always tough Columbia Lions (are they the Lions?). It looks as though Paulus will not be out too long, which is important since Duke has no other point guards and a tough early schedule. It was interesting to see that Foxsports.com has Josh McRoberts on his First Team All America list and Tyler Hansbrough, who proved much more than McRoberts during his Freshman year, on his second team. It will be interesting to see how both Duke and Carolina blossom with incredibly young teams, especially Duke.