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Alabama Weekly
August 31, 1999 -- Issue 19 -- Volume 2 HELLO BAMANATION CITIZENS!! Welcome again to Alabama Weekly! The purpose of this FREE newsletter is to recap the week's events and highlight some people and features of University of Alabama athletics. This issue of Alabama Weekly is being sent to over 1650 Tide fans in 42 states and 10 countries worldwide, with dozens of new subscribers added weekly! Help us grow to all 50 states and more countries by forwarding this issue to your Crimson Tide friends and family around the globe and have them sign up at http://TideFans.com! This week we bring you the Vanderbilt Team Preview, Elephant's Memory by new staff writer William Webster, a preview for the Vandy game, a look at the opening weekend in college football, and a report on the Bama Basketball Legends Game from this past weekend in Tuscaloosa. Look for our next issue on Thursday, September 2nd, with more previews and predictions for this weekend and our game with Vandy. Also, beginning this week, if you like what you read here in the Alabama Weekly, be sure to look for articles online at TideFans.com that are not found in the Weekly!
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*** VANDERBILT COMMODORES:Team Overview Returning Offensive Starters: 8 (SE, FL, RT, C, LT, TE, QB, RB) Projected Overall Record: 3-8 (UA, OM, MSU, UGA, USC, UF, UK, UT) Ratings (Ex, Vg, Av, Fr, Pr) Vanderbilt returns 19 starters to this year’s team and will return a similar amount in 2000. Coach Woody Widenhofer has broken his back trying to build a winner in Nashville, and this year’s team will be better than in 1998. There is talent at Vandy, but the team will be handicapped by a poor offensive and defensive line and hardly any depth. OFFENSE Widenhofer is committed to the multiple offense and for the first time, he may have the horses to run it. Vanderbilt will score some points, but they must avoid making the same mistakes they seem to make year in and year out. The Commodores will be able to bring in fresh receivers and backs, but the offensive line is not up to the standards of the rest of the SEC. QUARTERBACKS Greg Zolman finally took the job last year after Hi Lewis and David Wallace auditioned. Zolman is a steady passer with a good head on his shoulders, and could be one of the best quarterbacks Vandy has had in recent years. That being said, he is slow-footed, his release is not as quick as the conference’s elite, and his best attribute is that he won’t do anything to get his team beat. Still, he’s a major improvement over Lewis. Wallace, along with redshirt freshmen Justin Purkey and Sean O’Connor, will continue to push Zolman for time and give Vanderbilt possibly the deepest collection of QB’s in the SEC. Vandy also has signee Benji Walker, a PrepStar All-American, and transfer Tim Olmstead, who must sit out this year. RUNNING BACKS Rodney Williams and Jared McGrath give Vanderbilt a nice one-two punch. Both are elusive and quick, but lack true breakaway speed. Lew Thomas, who has potential, will be the fullback. The big, big problem here is depth. There is no backup for Thomas, and if he goes down, the only two options are McGrath and reserve WR/TE Todd Yoder. Signees Jake Mason, Chris Mitacek, and Jonathan Shaub all have shots at early playing time along with senior Andrew Kerr. WIDE RECEIVERS Tavarus Hogans is one of the best receivers in the conference. He is small, but very quick and extremely productive. Fellow little guy Adam Ditto joins big men Yoder and Nezih Hasanoglu to give Vanderbilt a deep, talented receiving corps. Anthony Jones is also talented, and joins Bo Lancaster, Dan Stricker, Everett Robinson, and Billy Miller as others who will participate. Signees Markessus House and M.J. Garrett could also contribute. At tight end, Elliot Carson returns. Yoder and Tom Simone will be the reserves. OFFENSIVE LINE Offensive. They have the potential to improve, but for now, this could be a trouble spot. Michael Saltsman, who missed 1998 with a broken leg, is probably the best of the bunch. If he has recovered from his injury, he will be one to watch. Brian Gruber and Raminte’ Byndom return at the tackles, but they had a tough time last year on more than one occasion. Jeff Barnett is back at center, but redshirt freshman Jamie Byrum could take the position. Darren Rothenberg, Matt Hill, and Jim May will compete for the other guard spot opposite Saltsman. Pat Green and J.P. Fougerousse are the likely reserve tackles. Signee Jordan Pettit was a NARCAS Lucky 13 selection last year in Mississippi and could see some time.
DEFENSE Following the pattern of recent years, Vanderbilt has some solid stars mixed in with some questionable performers. Vandy is moving to a three-man front from a four-man front simply because they could not find four defensive linemen that were SEC-quality. The Commodores do, however, boast a good overall linebacking corps and secondary. Depth, again, is a major issue. DEFENSIVE LINE Physical teams will dominate this unit. The best player on this line, noseguard Ryan Aulds, has been suspended following charges of DUI. That leaves returning starter Doyle Crosby to anchor a group that offers little in terms of pass rush or run containment. Chuck Losey will start at right end, with Wally Conyers, Russ Nicoll and Tyler Unzicker the top reserves. Unzicker will likely replace Aulds in the middle. Steve Trese, Nick Sterling, and Joe Doyle are others who could see playing time. Signing day did little to improve the situation here. LINEBACKERS Depending on the play of Nate Morrow, Vanderbilt could have the best group in the SEC East, if not the conference. Jamie Winborn is probably the finest inside linebacker in the conference right now, and fellow inside man Lamont Turner is a force. Matt Stewart returns as the other outside ‘backer, and Vandy has a little depth to work with in Brandon Walthour and Antuian Bradford. Diek Van Nort, Anthony Ford, and Reggie Washington are others who could all see playing time. As bad as the defensive line is, the linebackers will get a multitude of chances to show their stuff. Winborn and Turner are future pros. DEFENSIVE BACKS Cornerback Jimmy Williams will do a little bit of everything for this team. In addition to being another in a long line of NFL defensive backs from Vandy, Williams could also see a little time as a wide receiver, quarterback, running back, and return man. Strong safety Ainsley Battles is another good one, possibly one of the best strong safeties in the conference. The problems start at left cornerback, where Brian Taylor is not fast enough to keep up with the best receivers. Aaron McWhorter has a great upside, as does Rushen Jones. Both will push Taylor, but both are only freshmen. Harold Lercius will be the free safety, with Brooks Collins and Jerrol Jackson the reserves. SPECIAL TEAMS Placekicker John Markham is one of the best in the SEC. He has a strong leg and a flair for the dramatic. Joe Webb, however, has been inadequate at punter and may lose the job to Shane Daly, who could also find himself playing wide receiver. Webb is also the backup placekicker. As for return men, Jimmy Williams and Harold Lercius are available, as is Adam Ditto and Jared McGrath. OVERALL If Vanderbilt plays their "A" game all year, they have a legitimate shot at going to a bowl game. They will almost certainly win their three out-of-conference games (Duke, The Citadel, Northern Illinois), and conference opponents Kentucky and South Carolina can be beaten. The problem is finding a sixth win among the rest of their SEC opponents. Vanderbilt fans should take heart, however. Coach Widenhofer has done a good job building a team, and next year could be the year that Vandy really takes off. This year, though, will likely be another exercise in patience and teaching.
*** ELEPHANTS’ MEMORY Editor's Note: We welcome William Webster to the staff of Alabama Weekly & TideFans.com. Will is an attorney in Montgomery and graduated from the now-top-50 ranked UA Law School (as well as receiving his undergrad degree from Bama). Will plans on bringing us a unique perspective on games of the past. Welcome aboard, Will!
Let’s put a few things into perspective. Yes, it’s the first game of the season. It’s one of eleven, twelve, or maybe thirteen games that either team will play this year. It’s an SEC game, and that ups the ante a bit. But the truth is, no matter what kind of hype you hear, no matter what the players or coaches say, the first Saturday in September will see Vanderbilt hosting Alabama in a game that (no offense, Vanderbilt fans) will not achieve cataclysmic proportions. It will not go down in the annals of football history. There will be no highlight reels of this one in the College Football Hall of Fame. It won’t. It can’t. It hasn’t at any time in the modern era (circa 1958, for those whose blood is crimson), and it won’t at any time in the foreseeable future. That includes this year. And I do not say this simply because Alabama will be favored, perhaps heavily favored. I do not say this because Vanderbilt has had 17 consecutive losing seasons and hasn’t been to a bowl game since 1982, or because Alabama has won 14 straight, or because Vanderbilt is picked once again to rattle around in the SEC cellar. Granted, there have been some close ones and even a couple of (that is, two) upsets. There have also been some huge blowouts and a number of forgettable three-hour affairs that no one, save the good folks at the Bryant Museum and rabid type-A personalities like myself ever would or should remember. But tradition, strong tradition, overwhelmingly strong tradition, teaches that this game, no matter the score, will neither be particularly memorable nor will it foreshadow either greatness or disaster for either team. Need some convincing? Walk with me…. 1937: Yes, sports fans, we are going back 62 years. That’s about how long it has been since this game meant something. And even then, it didn’t mean much. Alabama edged a tough Vanderbilt team in the final (ironic, no?) game of the regular season, by a score of 9-7. Vanderbilt finished the year ranked #12 in the AP poll, which had only begun the previous year. Alabama’s hard-won road victory sealed an undefeated regular season, earned it an SEC championship and its penultimate trip to the Rose Bowl, to face the champion of the West, California. But Alabama’s sweet time in Pasadena ended on the sour end of a13-0 score, and the Tide finished a disappointing #4. To make matters worse, Cal didn’t win the national championship either, securing only second place. 1941: Just four years later, the Tide reversed the fortunes of 1937 in two ways. First, it lost a late season tilt with Vanderbilt, blanked by the Commodores, 7-0. Vanderbilt didn’t finish the year ranked in the top twenty. Alabama, on the other hand, was forgiven for the loss and, with a 21-7 victory at Miami, snatched a Cotton Bowl berth. There, a 29-21 win over once-beaten Texas A&M and a 9-2 record must have been impressive enough to turn heads at the now defunct Football Thesaurus, which crowned the obviously beatable Bama as its national champion. Go figure. 1969: Thirty years ago this year, Alabama began the season ranked #13 and the campus abuzz with rumors not unlike the ones you hear about for 1999 – that a return to greatness was afoot. Or rather, an arm. Coming off less-than-adequate 8-2-1 and 8-3 campaigns, Scott Hunter’s dazzling passing game gave the faithful reason for hope. On a fateful night in early October, Hunter tossed the pigskin a record 29 times, with a record 22 completions, for a record 300 yards. In doing so, the Tide edged Heisman trophy winner Archie Manning and the highly regarded Ole Miss Rebels in a 33-32 affair that has been remembered by some as the most exciting college football game of all time. But exactly 7 nights later, a heady but perhaps overconfident 3-0 Alabama squad hit the road to Nashville and barely broke double digits, losing to a very average Commodore team, 14-10. The upset of the century, right? Wrong again. As a mediocre 17-13 victory over lowly Virginia Tech (ironic, no?) in the first game of the season foreshadowed, the Tide ran hot and cold all year, ending with an embarrassing 6-5 record that showed that the real upset was Bama’s victory over Ole Miss, not the loss to Vandy. The 1970’s: This entire decade is a case study of the meaninglessness of the Vanderbilt game. Alabama played the Commodores 10 times and won 10 times. There were the romps, such as the 44-0 blasting delivered in 1973, or the 66-3 massacre of 1979 – both national championship seasons. Only slightly less impressive, however, were the 35-11 and 42-14 victories of 1970 and 1976, the Tide’s worst and next-to-worst seasons of the decade. And in some years, such as 1974 and 1977, Bama proved it could have a great year with a completely unimpressive win over its hapless neighbor to the north, winning only 23-10 and 24-12. Throughout the ‘70’s, the Vandy game proved that it proved nothing. 1982: The last time the ‘Dores saw the inside of a stadium for the holidays, it played Bear’s final team to a near-standstill. In what is still the closest game between the two teams in the modern era, Bama pulled out a squeaker, staving off a last-minute Vandy drive that threatened to derail what was promised to be a phenomenal season for the Tide (it wasn’t). But even this exciting contest between two bowl-bound teams has generated very little interest over the years. And unless you have an elephant’s memory, you probably can’t name the score (24-21). The 1990’s: And the last nine years have only confirmed the original premise. Like the stellar 1970’s the Tide has, thus far, managed to win every match with Vanderbilt. But the result each season has frustrated all attempts to accurately predict the future. Average to below average outings for the Tide in the Vandy game have sometimes led to extraordinary years, while other poor performances have served as a prelude to predictably ho-hum seasons. Take 1992, when Philip Doyle’s six field goals provided the winning margin on an otherwise lackluster 25-8 opening day – of course, no one on the Capstone was complaining in January. Even worse was 1994, when the Tide needed a ten-point outburst in the waning moments of the second half to break open a 7-7 deadlock – a forgivable foible in that storybook, Jay Barker-led 12-1 season. Of course, there was also 1995, the other season opener with Vandy, when the Tide needed a Brad Ford interception, Shannon Brown’s blocked PAT, and 23 points in the fourth quarter to overcome the inspired Commodores. But it was as if the Tide had used all of its heroics in a single game, as the team limped to an 8-3 record. Meanwhile, Vandy’s early season bravado against the Tide dissolved into a 2-9 disaster. The 1990’s have also seen some decent showings on the scoreboard against Vandy, some of which fairly indicated the season to come, while others did not. In 1991, the men in Crimson traveled to Nashville and felled the boys in Black and Gold, winning by an impressive 48-17 margin. A 59-28 victory in 1990 correctly indicated a Bama team ready to turn the corner on what had been a dismal beginning of the season. But just as some triumphs have accurately portrayed the state of the Tide, other victories have given rise to false hopes, such as the Tide’s 20-0 blanking of the ‘Dores in 1997, the first shutout in the series since the glory days of 1980. The next day, newspaper headlines trumpeted, "Bama’s Back!" But then came losses to Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana Tech, etc., and suddenly the season wasn’t so glistening. Even last year’s 32-7 victory perhaps led some to entertain expectations that were not to be fulfilled. So when Saturday rolls around, the Tide may roll, or it may just roll around. The Tide is expected to win, and probably will. But win or lose, the game is highly unlikely to go down as one of Bama’s Greatest Games. No one has scheduled Bama for anything much greater than the Conference championship, while Vanderbilt is again predicted to scrape bottom. Opening games are not usually very pretty, as the 1992 and 1995 contests between the two teams have aptly shown. Don’t expect too much. Pulling out all the stops in this one would not be a positive sign for the Tide. While it is certainly conceivable that the Tide could lose, history, circumstances, and plain common sense would tell anyone from Letohatchee to Las Vegas that the Tide will find a way to win, regardless of the recent rash of distractions. Therefore, how Bama "looks" in this game is the larger question, and upwards of one million fans, not to mention a significant number of national prognosticators will be looking for indications – what will this game say about the rest of the season? Maybe it will be a yawner, maybe a disappointment, maybe a nail-biter, maybe a solid showing. No matter what kind of game the Tide has this Saturday, the Elephants’ Memory says that, when it comes to Bama vs. Vanderbilt, it just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter….
*** Tide looks to take it out the ‘Dores Game Week, especially the first of the season, is full of anticipation for most Tide fans. In other parts of the country, this is simply the week where everything kicks off. For Tide fans, however, this is the start of another run at a national title. Alabama opens with Vanderbilt, a team strugging for respect in a league that has of late been over their heads. The Commodores do, however, return 19 starters and have some good offensive and defensive weapons. Alabama is just now starting to rebuild a talent base leveled by NCAA sanctions and are chomping at the bit to do something to quell the fracas surrounding recent scandals. The following is the first in a series of previews that we at TideFans and Alabama Weekly will bring you throughout the season. QUARTERBACKS Vanderbilt brings Greg Zolman, a steady but unspectacular sophomore to the table. Alabama counters with Andrew Zow, an athletic playmaker with a dramatic streak. Both have shown ample leadership skills, but Zow has more experience and is both a better passer and scrambler than is Zolman. Alabama also has Tyler Watts, who may be as good as Zow. Vanderbilt has a large collection of backups, but only David Wallace saw time last year and the results were mixed. Advantage: Alabama RUNNING BACKS Alabama has Shaun Alexander and fullback combo Marvin Brown and Dustin McClintock. Those three basically render whatever the opposition puts up null and void. Still, Vandy has talent, with Jared McGrath and Rodney Williams as the two featured baacks. As good as they may be, though, Alabama is far better. Alexander can beat you with any of his numerous skills. He is probably just as adept as a receiver as he is a runner, and the fullback duo of McClintock and Brown can be devastating to an opponent’s linebacking corps. In addition, FB Lew Thomas is likely out with an injury, and the Commodores have no real backup at the position. Advantage: Alabama WIDE RECEIVERS This is actually a very close call. Alabama has Freddie Milons, but Vanderbilt has Tavarus Hogans. Anthony Jones, Adam Ditto, Todd Yoder, and Nezih Hasanoglu match up very well with Alabama’s Shamari Buchanan, Antonio Carter, Jason McAddley, and Tim Bowens. The deciding factor, believe it or not, may be the tight end, where Alabama has Terry Jones, Jr., and Vanderbilt has Elliot Carson. This one is a squeaker, but Vanderbilt has gotten measurable production out of their tight end and their receivers may be as good as the Tide’s. Advantage: Vanderbilt OFFENSIVE LINE Alabama essentially returns all five starters, even though Jason McDonald has lost his job. Paul Hogan will not be full speed for this game, though, so Griff Redmill should see some center duty with McDonald or Kenric Lott getting time at left guard. Whatever happens, Alabama should get much better production out of their line than the Commodores get from theirs. Raminte Byndom and Michael Saltsman are quality players, but Vandy’s linemen lack the technique and strength to hold back Alabama’s defensive line. Advantage: Alabama DEFENSIVE LINE No contest. Alabama has three future pros starting for them this week (Kenny Smith, Cornelius Griffin, Kindal Moorehead), and several others have the potential to do so. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, finds their best lineman (Ryan Aulds) suspended due to a DUI charge and there is no one to replace him. Alabama’s offensive line should have their way with the Commodores, while Vandy’s offensive line will struggle mightily with the Tide. Advantage: Alabama LINEBACKERS Vanderbilt probably held an advantage even before Miguel Merritt and Chris Horne were suspended by Tide coaches, but now it’s a fairly sizeable gap between the Commodores and the Tide. Jamie Winborn is the best at his position in the SEC, and Lamont Turner is probably headed to the NFL following this year. Alabama, meanwhile, will have three new starters at linebacker and a top reserve, Adam Cox, is injured. Alabama has moved safety Gary Barnes to linebacker to help out, but the best cure for what ails Alabama is for the offense to score again and again. Vanderbilt’s linebackers will cause problems for Alabama, particularly if Tide quarterbacks are having an off day. Advantage: Vanderbilt DEFENSIVE BACKS The two best defensive backs overall, Ainsley Battles and Jimmy Williams, play for Vanderbilt. However, the Tide has better quality across the board and far better depth. Milo Lewis and Reggie Myles should be a force at cornerback, and Marcus Spencer, while not the fastest person in the world, always seems to be around the ball in big situations. Free safety Tony Dixon has improved from last year, and signees Gerald Dixon and Hirchel Bolden have been impressive. Meanwhile, Vanderbilt must find another cornerback to aid Williams, and the situation at free safety is fluid to say the least. Advantage: Alabama SPECIAL TEAMS Vanderbilt has one of if not the best kicker in the conference, John Markham. Alabama counters with Ryan Pflugner, who has had a good fall camp. The return game is fairly even, as Alabama finally has the speed merchants to be dangerous on both returns and coverage. Punting will be an adventure for both, as both teams have multiple players locked in a battle for the job. That means the decisive position is placekicker, where Vanderbilt has the better player. Advantage: Vanderbilt OVERALL Alabama leads in five categories; Vanderbilt three. At first blush, this equals a close game, but numbers alone can be deceiving. The advantages Vanderbilt holds in special teams and receivers are very, very slight. Only in the linebacker category is Vanderbilt noticeably better. In the categories in which Alabama leads, though, they lead convincingly. No player on Vanderbilt’s defensive line could even crack the Tide’s two-deep list. Only two players on Vandy’s offensive line would even see snaps for Alabama in 1999. The differences in running backs, quarterbacks, and the secondary are also sizeable. Alabama should win this one going away. Even though the game is in Nashville, Alabama usually has the majority of the fans that show up. Vanderbilt, as always, will try to give Alabama all they want, but Alabama’s dominance of both lines of scrimmage will be the difference in this game. Alabama 47
*** LEGENDS WEEKEND More than 80 former Alabama basketball players, coaches, and managers returned to Tuscaloosa for the week-end of August 27-29 in an event that Tide head coach Mark Gottfried said had been at the top of his agenda even before he was picked to return Bama basketball to the levels it once enjoyed. The festivities got started on Friday night with a banquet, continued with various activities throughout the day on Saturday, and culminated in a Saturday night autograph session featuring all the former players and current Bama players (with Gerald Wallace, who has announced his intention to sign a Bama basketball scholarship in the November early signing period, also a popular target of the autograph-seekers) and a game featuring approximately 30 players. The highlights of the banquet - for which the emcee was Bama alumnus Rece Davis, of ESPN - were a five-minute standing ovation for former coach Wimp Sanderson and an emotional speech by Bama's all-time leading scorer Reginald (Mule) King. King's talk about how much it had meant to him to be a part of Alabama's tradition when he played, the disappointment and near-rejection he had felt when he was never contacted by anybody in the program since he left 20 years ago, and the thrill of finally having Coach Gottfried make it clear to the ex-players that they are still an important part of the Alabama family brought tears to himself and many of the other attendees and was a feeling voiced by many. The autograph session was scheduled to start at 5 PM and go for a little over an hour, but the nearly 10,000 spectators who came for the game all seemed to want to meet the players and long lines started forming at 4 o'clock. The lines continued until shortly before the 7 PM introduction of the guests, but still some autograph-hunters were not able to get through the line in time. The first former player introduced before an enthusiastic audience was the oldest returning player, Zeke Kimbrough, who played in the early 1930s and who in his senior year of 1934 was a member of Alabama's first SEC championship team. Six members of the famed "Rocket Eight" team of 1956 (which had an overall record of 21-3 and an SEC record of 14-0; no other team would go undefeated in SEC play until 1996, when Kentucky finally did so. Additionally, the 1956 team's 101-77 win over Kentucky marked the first time a team coached by Adolph Rupp had given up 100 points) were on hand, along with several players from each of the last six decades. The loudest ovations were probably for Coach Sanderson, Leon Douglas, and King, but all were received very warmly. Current NBA players on hand but whose teams wouldn't allow them to participate in the game were Keith Askins, Jason Caffey, Robert Horry, Antonio McDyess, Derrick McKey, and Eric Washington. They all took part in various activities at either half-time or during extended timeouts, with Horry's impressive three-point shooting being a real crowd pleaser. Participating in the game were the following (in parentheses after each is the year of his last Bama season): Glenn Garrett (73); Ray Odums (74); Leon Douglas (76); Don Bowerman (77); Reginald King (79); Greg McElveen (79); Robert Scott (80); Maurice Myers (82); Eddie Phillips (82); Mike Davis (83); Ennis Whatley (83); Eric Richardson (84); Mark Farmer (85); Bobby Lee Hurt (85); Terry Coner (87); Jim Farmer (87); Mark Gottfried (87); James Jackson (87); James Sanders (90); Melvin Cheatum (91); Bryant Lancaster (91); Gary Waites (91); Phillip Pearson (93); Andre Perry (93); James Robinson (93); Walter Pitts (94); Bryan Passink (95), and Roy Rogers (96). While nobody really cared who won, the team coached by Sanderson beat Newton's team by a score of 81-80. The winning team was led by Robinson's 16 points, Jim Farmer's 14, Perry's 13, and the eight rebounds of Rogers. For the losing team, Pitts scored 17, Sanders 15, Phillips 12, and Whatley 10. Among the older players, Odums (who still has super speed 25 years after his playing days ended) and Phillips stood out. Most of the inside players (with Perry a notable exception) played fairly relaxed, but many of the guards played all-out, particularly Coner, Lancaster, Pitts, Robinson, Waites, and Whatley. Coach Gottfried gave his players something to talk about, as he made three of four three-pointers he attempted, Whatley showed he still has some dazzling moves, Robinson and Jim Farmer proved again that they've never met a shot they didn't like, King (who has traded in his Afro for a shaved head, and who has put on more than a few pounds) hit a few turn-around jumpers, Rogers blocked several shots in the few minutes he played, Sanderson wore a truly ugly plaid sportcoat, and for a couple of hours all was right with the world. The only negative of the night occurred during the slam dunk contest held at halftime. Hurt, while going up for the second of his two attempts, slipped on a wet spot, injured his knee, and had to be taken to the hospital; he unfortunately will need surgery. Gottfried accompanied him to the hospital and missed most of the second half. He returned in time to introduce the current players during a timeout near the end of the game. The only current NBA players who missed the game were David Benoit (who had planned to come, but was unable to because of the death of a relative) and Latrell Sprewell. Sanderson had one of the better quotes of the night, when he said that one of his highlights was not getting choked by Sprewell, because he "was probably a pretty good candidate to be choked." Also not attending was former coach David Hobbs, whose son got married over the week-end. Another interesting quote was from Mike Davis, who is an assistant coach at Indiana. He said that the NBA players thought they had it rough because they had to ask their teams for permission to attend, but the Indiana coaching staff had a retreat planned and he had to ask Bobby Knight for permission to miss that, which was definitely a toughie.
*** OPENING WEEKEND IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL It's that time of the year again. The mornings are a little cooler than they used to be. And the weekends are filled with tailgating and the sounds of marching bands and fight songs. College football is back. Thank goodness, too. The opening weekend was filled with some pretty good and not-so-good match-ups. Here's my take: Penn State 41, Arizona 7. I guess that this game lends credence to my personal belief that the PAC 10 is top-heavy with offensive talent and generally overrated. And this may be a bit early, but LaVarr Arrington is THE MAN. Can you say "Butkus Award"? He's more of a "freak" than The Freak (LB Jevon Kearse at UF last year). He's got the wingspan of a small airliner and the speed of a hungry lion on the prowl. I was disappointed, however, that he didn't leap any tall buildings or outrun any locomotives. Maybe next week? I guess that Penn State proved that there IS more than one way to skin a Wildcat. They found 41. Miami 23, Ohio State 12. Having attended this game, I can attest to the domination of the Buckeyes by the 'Canes. The Buckeyes looked discombobulated and were unable to capitalize on the many opportunities that Miami gave them throughout the course of the game. I guess that with all of those departures, reloading isn't the easy task they'd hoped it would be in Columbus. Miami has got that old swagger back, along with team speed to burn and some pretty good defensive talent. It looks like Butch Davis has transformed Miami from the best program that money could buy into a pretty good and clean program that will not miss Edgerrin James that much. If only Butch had the same salutary effect on the Canes fans. If you weren't there, you didn't miss the obnoxious, face-paint wearing, tank-top clad group that IS the Canes following. They're as bad as 1992, only with even less cause. NC State 23, Texas 20. I would have thought that this was the score of a basketball game midway through the first half, not the result of a football game. I'm not sure whether or not to chalk this one up to the "first game without Ricky" blues or phenomenally bad preparation on Mack Brown's part. It's probably a little of both. The UT special teams performance in this game completely overshadowed the fact that UT's defense only gave up 171 yards for the entire game and that Major Applewhite had 316 passing yards and two TDs (one each passing and rushing). UT will bounce back (maybe) and I think that NC State will probably finish #2 in the ACC (along with everyone else). Notre Dame 48, Kansas 13. OK, so I didn't watch too much of this one. Did I need to? At least they weren't playing the Coast Guard Academy. Or the Little Sisters of the Blind and Mute. Bob Davie got the breathing room he needed for about oh, a week. The Irish versus the Wolverines in the Big House next week oght to give the Irish Faithful and Notre Dame haters the world over a better indication of the caliber of this year's team. If they play like they did against KU, it's going to be a long trip back to South Bend next Sunday. Florida State A LOT (41), La Tech VERY LITTLE (7). If you substituted Auburn for La Tech, I'm not sure that the score line would have been any different (maybe a little worse depending on who you ask). This was clearly a case of the Noles throwing down the gauntlet to the rest of the college football world in the second half. They might be unstoppable (and with their conference schedule being what it is -- weak -- it's hard to argue that) until the post-season. If Bobby can keep 'em focused and make it past a rebuilding Florida and resurgent Miami, they might just be 11-0 when they reach bowl season. I'm not sure if there is a weakness on what is yet one more great team in a long line of them at FSU. They need Weinke to stay healthy and for teams the likes of NC State and Georgia Tech to fold before kickoff. Even a loss to UF or Miami wouldn't necessarily put an end to their title run. However, they can't have a first half like the one they had Saturday against the Gators or Canes and hope to make it to January undefeated.
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