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HOT AND HOTTER - Two of the hottest teams in the National Football League collide in the opener of our Sports USA Radio Network doubleheader when the Tennessee Titans collide with the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are 11-0 after last Sunday's 35-27 comeback victory in Houston. It was the fifth straight game Indianapolis has won after trailing entering the fourth quarter, a new NFL record. Indianapolis seeks its 20th straight regular season victory, which would tie the all-time NFL mark set by the 2006-08 New England Patriots. With their seventh straight season of 11 victories, the Colts have set another NFL record. Other, lesser hallmarks have been established along the way, such as a third straight start with two interceptions by quarterback Peyton Manning. The Colts are so hot, it hasn't mattered. The Men of the Horseshoe trailed the Houston Texans 13-0 and 20-7, and never so much as raised an eyebrow. That Indianapolis is doing this all with a new head coach in Jim Caldwell, a new defensive coordinator in Larry Coyer and without the services of record-setting wide receiver Marvin Harrison only makes the achievement more mind-boggling. The Colts all insist it's been a smooth transition, since Caldwell was basically the alter-ego of former head coach Tony Dungy the last six years. It's not that easy. Rookie NFL head coaches in Tampa Bay (Raheem Morris) and St. Louis (Steve Spagnuolo) are a combined 2-20. The Colts-Titans rivalry got a three-year head start before the teams became AFC South neighbors in the realignment of 2002. In the 1999 AFC Divisional playoffs, the Colts were upset 19-16 in Indianapolis by a Tennessee team that won the Music Vity Miracle vs. Buffalo and would go on to upset the Jaguars in Jacksonville for the AFC championship. Tennessee punched out the Colts twice in 2002. Former Sports USA Radio Network analyst Charles Arbuckle, a onetime Colts tight end, said Dungy toughed up his team to get past the stumbling block of Tennessee in 2003 and move on to its new arch-nemesis, New England. Six years later, it's the Titans who're looking to measure themselves against the Colts. When we last saw the Titans, it was snowing Tom Brady touchdown passes in a 59-0 whiteout at Foxborough Oct. 18. Coach Jeff Fisher's team was 0-6 and seemingly already bye-bye entering its bye week. It was a stunning reversal of fortune for a team that enjoyed the NFL's best record at 13-3 in 2008. During the bye week Tennessee owner Bud Adams told Fisher, the dean of NFL head coaches in his 15th season, that he wanted Vince Young to replace Kerry Collins at quarterback. Young is 5-0 as the starter since. Running back Chris Johnson, who's on a pace to break Eric Dickerson's NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards, is on record publicly taking all bets that the Titans will run the table to finish as a 10-6 playoff team. Young, who lost the team when he refused to re-enter the 2008 season opener against Jacksonville after injuring his knee and then went AWOL from the club, obviously watched and learned during Collins' 20 games in charge. The Titans' top draft pick in 2006 has been a revelation in his second tour of starting duty. He has gotten his wanderlust under control. He thinks pocket passer now, and his first step under pressure is now always up in the pocket rather than to the outside to bail out and run. Young threw for a career-high 387 yards in Sunday's electrifying 20-17 victory over the Arizona Cardinals. He completed 27-of-43 passes, including 9-of-16 for 94 yards when he drove Tennessee 99 yards in 18 plays over the last 2:37 of the game. Young converted three fourth downs on the drive, including the game-winning bullet to Kenny Britt as time expired. On the previous play, Young's run-for-it instincts took over as he he pulled the ball down to take off before being dropped for a loss. On the final play he again stepped up in the pocket before buying just enough time to find Britt under the goal post. Young has the same offensive coordinator, Mike Heimderdinger, who groomed Steve McNair to win an NFL most valuable player award in 2003. And that's where this story gets really interesting. Young attended McNair's quarterback camp as as impressive prep prospect at Houston's Madison High School. The NFL star took a particular interest in Young, becoming the father figure he'd never had in his life. Young's back-to-back Rose Bowl MVPs and 2005 national championship with Texas made McNair almost as proud as Young. McNair advised Young on the pre-NFL Draft process in 2006. McNair was the first African-American quarterback to win the NFL's MVP. He did it for the franchise that gave Hall of Famer Warren Moon the first serious shot as a starting quarterback in the NFL, the Houston Oilers. That sort of social and NFL history has always fascinated Young. Then came the phone call last July 4. McNair was killed in an apparent murder-suicide with a woman he'd conducted an affair with for several months. Young was asked to speak at McNair's funeral. He has tried to be the father figure to McNair's children that the Titans quarterback had been to him. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to him that the greatest way he could honor his fallen hero was to finally become the quarterback McNair always thought he could be. That's why no one should take Chris Johnson's bet.
NORTH BY NORTHWEST - Our doubleheader game Sunday takes us to the Emerald City of Seattle, where the Seahawks host the San Francisco 49ers in an NFC West battle. The records (49ers: 5-6, Seahawks 4-7) don't prompt spontaneous excitement. But look closer. San Francisco is 3-0 in the division, with a win over first-place Arizona in Glendale on opening day. The 49ers host the Cardinals on a Monday night games Dec. 14 that brings the nation back to Candlestick Park for a meaningful December game for the first time in a looooong time. The Niners then visit Philadelphia before closing with Detroit at home and St. Louis on the road. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have Minnesota this Sunday night and wrap up the season in Green Bay Jan. 3. San Francisco will have Michael Crabtree up to speed as they did not in the season's first five weeks. After slow starts that cost them in road losses at Houston, Indianapolis and Green Bay, the 49ers came out and dropped the hammer on the Jacksonville Jaguars right away last week. Quarterback Alex Smith's rollout and touchdown throw to Frank Gore toe-dancing at the sideline of the end zone reminded a lot of us of Joe Montana's epic touchdown throw to Dwight Clark that gave birth to the San Francisco dynasty in the 1981 NFC Championship Game. Smith's build and gait remind some of Montana (careful, let's not blaspheme here). As 49ers left tackle Barry Sims reminded us on NFL Sunday Warmup, Smith was thrown into the fire right away as a No. 1 overall pick rookie in 2006. He didn't have a veteran quarterback to lean on, as Montana did with Steve De Berg. "It took him a while to learn how to run this offense," Sims said. "Then he's had to battle injuries. Now he's healthy, and you can see how effective he is with this offense. "Everybody is happy for him, because he's a great guy who works really hard." The Seahawks may have found an impressive rookie of their own in Justin Forsett. The former Cal Golden Bear rushed for 130 yards and two touchdowns in the win at St. Louis Sunday. In Coach Jim Mora's first year in charge, Seattle has struggled with what now seems like an annual barrage of injuries to key personnel. Future Hall of Famer Walter Jones has missed virtually the entire season at left tackle. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has been banged up, and defensive linchpin Lofa Tatupu is gone for the season. The Seahawks are setting a nice foundation for the future with Aaron Curry at linebacker and Forsett at running back. Plus, whoever suits up on any given Sunday, the Seahawks are usually nails when they play in Qwest Field. With Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner still dealing with post-concussion syndrome symptoms, the NFC West could get very interesting, very quickly.
BIGGER EAST BATTLE - In the shadow of the New York City skyline, our regular season College Football Game of the Week series wraps up Saturday at Rutgers Stadium in New Brunswick, N.J. with the Scarlet Knights hosting the Mountaineers of West Virginia. The growth of the Big East Conference in recent years now speaks for itself on days other than Saturday. That was former Rutgers star Kenny Britt catching the winning touchdown pass for the Tennessee Titans against Arizona. Earlier in the day, former Scarlet Knight Ray Rice continued his brilliant season for the Baltimore Ravens. Fullback Brian Leonard and quarterback Mike Teel are two more Rutgers alums who easily made the transition to the National Football League. His alumni's NFL success only makes Rutgers coach Greg Schiano's building of the Scarlet Knights program easier. Elite prep prospects want to get to the NFL. Now they know they don't have to go to Penn State, or Nebraska, or anywhere else outside the Garden State to make that happen. New Jersey is one of of the most fertile football areas in the nation. Keeping homegrown talent home is only going to grow the program at Rutgers, and throughout the Big East. The addition of a new December bowl game at Yankee Stadium against the Big 12 beginning a year from now is only going to to further enhance the Big East's football profile. Both teams seek 9-3 finishes. The Mountaineers come off the 19-16 Backyard Brawl upset of formerly eighth-ranked Pittsburgh, a karmic payback for the Panthers 2007 upset that cost West Virginia a spot in the BCS national championship game. A more cosmos payback has taken place this season for former WVU coach Rich Rodriguez and his 5-7 struggles at Michigan. Rodriguez led WVU to a thrilling Sugar Bowl upset of Georgia (temporarily transplanted to Atlanta by Hurricane Katrina, no less) in 2006 just as the state was agonizing over a mining disaster that claimed 14 lives. West Virginia football meant as much as that time to West Virginians as the Saints have meant to the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana since Katrina. When Rodriguez flirted with Alabama and ultimately could not betray his Mountaineer roots in 2006, the story became even more special. The treachery of two years ago fully deserves what has happened in Ann Arbor since. This season has established Coach Bill Stewart as much more than a glorified former program caretaker in Morgantown. Dutiful soldier Jarrett Brown has earned the right to a solid senior season at quarterback, and Noel Devine is one of the nation's most breathtaking speedsters.
WWW.PLAYOFFPROBLEM.COM - Bill Hancock is the new executive director of The Bowl Championship Series. The former Big Eight and Big 12 official has hit the ground running. Hancock has established a new website, WWW.PLAYOFFPROBLEM.COM, to address the complaints of fans who demand an on-field championship playoff just like the other subdivisions of NCAA football have. The BCS, and the Bowl Alliance and the Bowl Coalition before it, were established to protect the longtime bowl structure in the NCAA's showcase college football division. The BCS is designed to match the top two teams within the bowl infrastructure. I used to be a big proponent of a college football playoff for what is known as the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Now, I'm with Bill Hancock. It's not worth the damage to the pillars of college football, tradition and the regular season, that would be done by instituting an eight-team playoff. Or should it be four teams? Did I hear someone say the AP top 16? See what I mean? My main fear is to see College Football turn into, well, College Basketball. Ask yourself: does anyone really pay attention to the College Basketball season until after the Super Bowl? Or does the fun only start with March Madness? Can you even name the top five teams in this week's AP basketball poll? Irrelevant. The passion for college basketball really doesn't start until people start filling out their office-pool tournament brackets. And the watered-down NCAA Tournament itself no longer determines the best team in the nation. It determines the best team in April. Is THAT what we want College Football to become? Of course not. As it stands now, the College Football tournament starts Labor Day weekend, and ends Jan. 7. EVERY game matters. Let me give you an example. USC played a lowly UCLA team on the final Saturday of the 2006 season right here on the Sports USA Radio Network, poised to qualify for its third straight BCS national championship game appearance. In what remains the highest-rated episode of the series "Unsolved Mysteries," USC somehow managed to lose to its archival, 13-9. The stunning outcome saved coach Karl Dorrell's job in Westwood. Not only did the Bruins end a six-year losing streak to USC, they also shafted the Trojans out of a possible national championship. It was the gift that kept on giving. Now, had USC moved on to a first-round playoff matchup with Boise State the following week and likely rolled to a BCS showdown with Ohio State, would any of that other stuff have mattered? After a likely dispatch of the Broncos by a chastened Pete Carroll team, we wouldn't have gotten the sensational Tostitos Fiesta Bowl matchup of Boise State and Oklahoma, either. So we cheapen an 80-year rivalry that is the only intra-city spectacle in the NCAA, and we squash Boise State's dreams what, for the sake of a playoff system? Not in my book. By every measure, College Football is more popular than ever. We engage in passionate arguments about the game. How many passionate arguments do you hear about College Basketball, especially when you put aside gambling interests? Exactly. The bowls raise millions for local charities. They bestow an invaluable 15 additional days of pre-spring practice practice time in a period when University presidents ere rightly scaling back football practice hours during the fall. Is it such a bad thing to have 19 teams win their final game? I look at the diminution of College Basketball, and I agree with Bill Hancock. No.
THE GOLDEN TEN
FINAL HEISMEN BALLOT |
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