College Football Week 7 Awards October 15, 2012
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.Tags: Alabama, Arizona State, Arkansas, Army, Auburn, Baylor, BCS, Big 10, Big 12, Big Ten, Big XII, Bil Snyder, Bob Stoops, Bobby Bowden, Bobby Petrino, Boston College, Brian Kelly, Buffalo, Cardinal, Cardinals, Charlie Strong, Cincinnati, Clemson, college football, Colorado, Dana Holgorsen, Danny Hope, David Ash, Death Valley, Eastern Michigan, FIghting Irish, Florida, Florida State, Gene Chizik, Geno Smith, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, John Cooper, Kansas, Kentucky, Kevin Sumlin, Les Miles, Lone State State, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisville, LSU, Mack Brown, Middle Tennessee State, Mike Leach, Mike Riley, Mississippi State, Missouri, Mountaineers, National Championship Game, NCAA, Nebraska, Nick Saban, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Oregon State, Pac-12, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Red Raiders, SEC, South Carolina, Stanford, Steve Spurrier, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, The Swamp, Tommy Tuberville, USC, Virginia Tech, Washington, West Virginia, Western Kentucky
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(Note: All rankings are current AP [post-week 7, pre-week 8] unless otherwise noted.)
COACHES
Wish I were him: Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
Glad I’m not him: Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia
Lucky guy: Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
Poor guy: Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
Desperately seeking a clue: Danny Hope, Purdue
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Mike Riley, Oregon State
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Mack Brown, Texas
Desperately seeking … anything: Gene Chizik, Auburn
TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: Florida State (beat Boston College 51-7)
Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: Ohio State (beat Indiana 52-49)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Missouri (lost to No.1 Alabama 42-10)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t: Kansas (lost to Oklahoma State 20-14)
Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did: Arizona State (beat Colorado 51-17)
Dang, they’re good: Oklahoma
Dang, they’re bad: Illinois
Did the season start? Auburn
Can the season end? Colorado
Can the season never end? Oregon State
GAMES
Play this again: No. 20 Texas A&M 59, Louisiana Tech 57
Never play this again: No. 10 Oklahoma 63, Texas 21
What? Arizona State 51, Colorado 17
Huh? No. 7 Ohio State 52, Indiana 49
Are you kidding me? No. 10 Oklahoma 63, Texas 21
Oh – my – God: Texas Tech 49, No. 17 West Virginia 14
Told you so: No. 4 Kansas State 27, Iowa State 21
NEXT WEEK
Ticket to die for: No. 9 South Carolina @ No. 3 Florida
Best non-Big Six vs. Big Six matchup: Middle Tennessee State @ No. 15 Mississippi State
Best non-Big Six matchup: Louisiana Monroe @ Western Kentucky
Upset alert: No. 2 Oregon @ Arizona State
Must win: Baylor @ Texas
Offensive explosion: No. 4 Kansas State @ No. 17 West Virginia
Defensive struggle: Penn State @ Iowa
Great game no one is talking about: Nebraska @ Northwestern
Intriguing coaching matchup: Les Miles of LSU vs. Kevin Sumlin of Texas A&M
Who’s bringing the body bags? No. 14 Georgia @ Kentucky
Why are they playing? Pittsburgh @ Buffalo
Plenty of good seats remaining: Army @ Eastern Michigan
They shoot horses, don’t they? Colorado @ No. 11 USC
Week 7: Thoughts on the week:
Passing the test: Every good team eventually has to pass a test. The team can be undefeated, well-ranked, but doubts will still remain, doubts that can be summed up with the partly-rhetorical question, “whom have they played?” Several teams passed the test today. No. 16 Louisville passed the test by winning on the road against the toughest team they have played yet in Pittsburgh. The Notre Dame apologists feel that the Irish have passed a test in squeaking by No. 22 Stanford at home in overtime. Mike Riley has been quietly winning games at Oregon State this year, and the tests he has already passed were mostly tests in hindsight. I say “mostly” because the opening game/win was over a Wisconsin team that had understandably high expectations. Two more victories have come over resurgent programs in UCLA and Arizona, albeit at different stages in that key regard.
But though these teams have passed these tests, more remain. A much greater trial awaits the Louisville Cardinals when they take on Cincinnati. The huge tests that await Notre Dame are listed later in this article entry. Meanwhile, Oregon State’s upcoming tests are exceedingly daunting, what with Washington, Arizona State, Stanford, and finally, Oregon, still remaining on the schedule.
Then there are the teams that failed to pass the test, most notably South Carolina, who lost in a close one to LSU in Death Valley. A win could have strengthened their bid to lead the SEC East, but the loss means they must now hand Florida its first loss of the season in The Swamp. Sometimes make-up tests are more difficult – with more on the line – than the original thing.
Red River Rout: For the third consecutive year, Texas has lost ignominiously to arch-rival Oklahoma in the annual Red River Rivalry game. Coaches have been known to summarily get the ax on account of not being able to beat their rivals (see: Cooper, John, or Bowden, Bobby [later years]). Could it be that Mack Brown, as genial a man as there is in the upper echelons of this business, finally be wearing out his welcome in Austin? Goodness knows he is running out of excuses for his chronic under-performance over the past three years. In the time since they lost valiantly to Alabama in the 2010 BCS National Championship game, the Horns have failed to be bowl eligible in one of those seasons, and have failed to beat the Sooners in all three. This is an unacceptable situation given that he coaches the team that is the flagship school in the biggest, best football state in the entire country; a team whose cache helped launch the school’s own ESPN-powered sports network, and a program that has the pick of the litter for top talent in the Lone Star State. Yet with all of these advantages, combined with much-improved QB play from David Ash, Brown is bereft of playmakers, something for which there is simply no excuse, given the ideal location of the program. The inescapable conclusion becomes that Brown’s tenure has reached the end of its effectiveness, hence that he must go. Nothing personal, Mack; it’s just business.
Paging Bobby Petrino: Okay, so if Texas fires Mack Brown, with whom shall they replace him? Bobby Petrino seems to be an obvious choice. Yes, Petrino gives mercenaries a bad name; yes, his system is so seemingly unstable that nobody else can operate it in his absence (see: Arkansas; see: Louisville, pre-Charlie Strong). But he wins. The athletics department at the University of Texas not only has the resources to pay him a handsomely competitive salary, but can supply him with his own young mistresses if he wishes to add that to his contract as a benefit – no need to add them to the team staff payroll on the sly! More to the point though, a team with the resources and tradition of Texas under the leadership of Bobby Petrino could make Nick Saban’s Alabama team seem almost anemic by comparison, and would give the arrogant Bob Stoops of Oklahoma more than cause for notice.
Who needs Mike Leach? The Dread Pirate Leach might have put Texas Tech on the map with his spread offense on steroids, but he is hardly missed this weekend in Lubbock. How could one, what with Tommy Tuberville regenerating excitement for the program with a huge upset win over West Virginia? Geno Smith and Co. seemed almost invincible going into Week 7’s game, but then they ran into a team with a secondary built to stop the big pass plays that had until yesterday fueled the Mountaineer’s undefeated run. Funny how things work out like that. A win of this magnitude (49-15) over a top-ten opponent (WVU was No. 5 going into the game) ought to merit a ranking of some sort for Texas Tech.
Settle down, Notre Dame fan: Does any reasonably objective individual believe that if Stanford and Notre Dame met on a neutral site, and/or if the game were not soaked by a torrential rain, that the Cardinal would not have triumphed? As it is, the Fighting Irish had to squeak by in overtime, and only then because Stanford made two consecutive bone-headed calls during their post-regulation possession. The point in all this is, if Notre Dame has a decent undefeated run, scores of apologists fall all over themselves to overvalue the team with an unduly high ranking. The team is in for a rude awakening in two weeks when it ventures in to Norman to take on Oklahoma. An almost-as-rigorous test will come at season’s end in Los Angeles Coliseum against USC. You ND apologists maybe laughing now, but just you wait.
Ditch those gray camo unis, South Carolina: I very much appreciate you guys trying to raise awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project or whatever it is you’re into these days. It is most commendable. But the effort ought not to obscure your glorious Garnet and Black, one of the best color combos in Big Boy Football these days. Wear ‘em with pride, boys. Gray jerseys? Yuck! Garnet jerseys? Sweet.
About the Big XII title: Since the nominal Big XII has an insufficient amount of members to justify a championship game, Kansas State is currently in the driver’s seat for the championship distinction. This has become clear after Oklahoma’s loss recent loss to the Wildcats, followed by West Virginia’s defeat at the hands of Texas Tech yesterday. Plenty of games remain, but Bill Snyder has the program humming well thus far.
WWWD (What would Woody do)? November 14, 2011
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.Tags: Barry Switzer, Bear Bryant, Bobby Bowden, college football, Frank Kush, Howard Schnellenberger, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, JoePa, Lou Holtz, management, molestation, Ohio State, old school, pedophilia, Penn State, scandal, scenario, Woody Hayes
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How would Woody have done it? That is a popular question to ask in Columbus, Ohio, and throughout the Buckeye State. It can be a very effective conversation-starter in that part of the country, though beware of the side-effect of it possibly sparking some not-so-civil debates, too. But it may seem like an odd question to ask in the wake of the earth-shaking scandal at conference neighbor Penn State, a controversy so huge it has already resulted not only in the immediate termination of 46-year head coach Joe Paterno, but also in that athletics director Tim Curley has been placed on administrative leave, as he is charged with perjury and failure to report a crime, not to mention the resignation of the university president himself. In case you have been under a rock for the past eight days or so, long-time Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who mysteriously retired from coaching at age 55 in 1999, has been charged with molesting a total of eight young boys (that we know of) over the past 15 years.
In hindsight, it has been alleged that Sandusky’s retirement at that relatively early age came about because this perverted proclivity of his was an obvious liability to the program, and was quietly nudged out. Still, for the past 12 years, not only has Sandusky been allowed back on campus, but was granted practically unlimited access to the football facilities (locker room, weight
room, you name it) and was on campus frequently as part of his non-profit organization that he established to help at-risk youth – commendable thing by itself, to be sure.
If I do a little rudimentary arithmetic, 2011 minus 15 equals 1996. Yet Sandusky was not gently nudged out until 1999, three years later. That alone does not seem right. So I come back to my original inquiry: how would Woody have handled it? Given his hard-nosed, no-nonsense demeanor, one can surmise two possible scenarios.
Scenario A: Upon learning the news that Woody has a sick pervert on his staff, Woody, barges into that coach’s office, confronts him point-blank, with the upshot that said coach has 15 minutes to clear out his office before he calls campus security, and follows up with the ultimatum that said coach better not do so much as come within a hundred yards of the campus ever again, or there shall be hell to pay.
Scenario B: Instead of the pedophile coach being charged with child molestation, Woody would be charged with manslaughter, for many a red-blooded American male would find it to be his manly duty to dispatch with the pervert himself with one’s own bare hands.
The reason I mention Woody at all in the wake of these now-discovered, hideous, though alleged, evils on the part of Jerry Sandusky is there is some commonality with the late Wayne Woodrow Hayes and Joe[Grand]Pa. Both are/were larger-than-life figures for their respective programs. Both have/had won national championships. Moreover, both have been known, either publicly or privately, as uncompromising, my-way-or-the-highway leaders, and both careers ended in scandal, albeit to varying degrees.
But an even bigger reason for mentioning Hayes at a time like this is that both he and Paterno are considered “old school.” The aforementioned “scenarios” are surely commensurate with an “old school” solution to having such a pervert in one’s midst. Unfortunately in this case, those are not the only two old school scenarios out there. Even more unfortunately, Paterno chose old
school Scenario C: keep it quiet, and sweep it under the rug. Not really a good idea back then, and a horrible one in these modern times.
The rationalizations for Paterno not dealing with this problem in a more direct manner are fairly diverse, among those being “maybe he did not know.” Puh-leeze. As a former staff member on a Big Ten football team, I have witnessed first-hand the long hours the head coach and his assistants alike work for months on end. A coaching staff in D-1 college football becomes a very closely-knit bunch. There is no physical way on this Earth that the other coaches did not know about Sandusky’s alleged perversion. Anyone to suggest otherwise knows nothing about the social nature and the demands of the profession.
Given this reality, how come nothing was done to address this glaring liability? The aforementioned “Scenario C” only partially provides the answer. A more thorough explanation would be the overall organizational culture, something one can only lay at the feet of the head coach himself. As I have explained to many of my students when teaching business courses at National College in
Louisville, Ky., the head coach of a football program is in every way the CEO of that program. The main job of the CEO of any organization is not only to set the company’s strategy (to both devise and implement), but to set the organization’s tone – indeed, it’s very culture. As we the public have now discovered in the most unwitting way possible – within reason – the culture Paterno established was one of enabling, as in, looking the other way.
Seeing things another way, can one see other “old school” coaches establishing an enabling culture like at Penn State? Could one envision, say, Barry Switzer, Howard Schnellenberger, Bear Bryant, or even Lou Holtz countenancing such alleged evils on their watch?
There are many lessons to be learned from this stranger-than-fiction, sordid tale. I could have thought of a few possible ways that would lead to JoePa’s long-overdue departure, but if somebody earlier this year told me that a scandal of this magnitude would A) actually occur, and B) lead to Paterno’s immediate ouster, I would have said they were crazy. But aside from that, the lessons:
Lesson 1: It never ends well for these geriatric head coaches that have been a legendary, overpowering fixture at a program for multiple decades when they do not know when it is time to exit the stage. Just ask Florida State’s dad-gum coach Bobby Bowden. To the credit of Bear Bryant, arguably the greatest coach of all time in any sport, not just football, he finally figured out when it was time to say “when.” It ended well for him (he even went out winning a bowl game). Not so much Sweet Ol’ Bobby, nor for Joe[Grand]Pa.
Lesson 2: An enabling culture will eventually come back to haunt you, whether you are a living legend, or a young, seemingly innocent up-and-comer (e.g., Mike McQueary). If you are the latter, it can ruin your career before it fully develops. If you are the former, it can permanently tarnish if not outright ruin the legacy you have labored decades to build.
Lesson 3: Speaking of not ending well, that is particularly the case for these dictatorial, inflexible, my-way-or-the-highway head coaches, as Joe Paterno is now learning the hard way (at age 84). He could have learned this lesson from Frank Kush at Arizona State. Heck, he could have asked Woody.
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