By Bob Markus
Whenever I make a new acquaintance I wait until asked what I did in my previous life. I used to respond: "I was a journalist," but that sounds a little pretentious and there are those who wonder whether a sports writer is a real journalist. Many who think that way are "real" journalists who disparage sports writers as members of the toy department. In truth, however, the best writers on most newspapers can be found right there amid the Tinker Toys and electric trains. Was there a better writer on the Los Angeles Times than the late Jim Murray? Red Smith could outwrite any "real" journalist at the New York Times with one hand tied behind his typewriter. As for the Chicago Tribune, where I worked for more than 36 years, I leave that judgment to others. But in my heart I knew I could write with anyone else on the paper.
So, in later years when asked the inevitable question I would answer, "I was a sports writer," an answer which, in addition to being less pretentious, was a good deal more specific. The usual followup question was, "what sport did you cover?" The answer I usually gave was: "All of them." While that was, strictly speaking, not true--I never covered badminton or shuffleboard, although I did once write a column about a shuffleboard game--I doubt if any other writer ever covered more fulltime beats than I did for The Tribune. Oddly enough, my first fulltime assignment was as a columnist. That was almost unheard of at the time, the usual progression being from beat writer, most often the baseball beat writer, to columnist. I didn't expect it at the time, but I was destined to reverse the process. When you start out on top the only direction to go is down. I didn't start out as a sports columnist, of course. I had been on The Tribune for seven years before that happened. Like everyone else, at that time, I started out in Neighborhood News, which produced weekly zoned sections and served as the paper's training ground. I was there, reading copy, for about six months when an opening came up on the sports desk. Although I was last in seniority on the copy desk, the other copy readers were all "real" journalists and wanted no part of the toy department. For me it was the dream job. When I took it, I was told by sports editor Wilfrid Smith that I would be, as Alabama Governor George Wallace might have put it, "a copy reader today, a copy reader tomorrow, a copy reader forever." That turned out to be about as prophetic as Wallace's "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, etc."
Although the paper had a large stable of sports writers, at least enough to cover every major beat and some not so major, from time to time there would come an event that needed coverage and no staff writer was available. Then one of the rim men on the copy desk would be given the assignment. For instance, there was at the time no pro basketball team in Chicago, the Stags having folded and the American Gears, led by George Mikan, moved to Minnesota as the Lakers. Then, all of a sudden, there were two pro teams in Chicago and nobody to cover them. George Strickler, the assistant sports editor at the time and eventual successor to Smith, solved the problem by doling out home games to the copy desk slaves. Strickler, a pro football man (and the Notre Dame publicist who came up with the idea of taking a picture of the Four Horsemen mounted on horseback), hated basketball with a passion. His usual method of assigning someone to a pro basketball game would be to say: "Markus, go out to The Amphitheater and cover the short-pantsed bastards." You'd be given six or at the most seven paragraphs to tell the story.
There was a good deal of competition and even animosity among the desk men, most of whom wanted to be writers. I was gradually given more assignments, occasionally filling in for the baseball beat men and, since The Tribune covered every Big Ten team in football, I worked my way into the rotation to the point where, by my fifth year at the paper, I covered a game every Saturday. My biggest break came in the week before the 1966 Notre Dame-Michigan State "Game of the Century," the one that ended in a 10-10 tie. I was not expecting to be a part of the coverage and was sitting on the rim of the copy desk on Monday or Tuesday when Strickler came out of his office and told me: "Dave Condon's supposed to be at Michigan State, but we can't find him. Go home and pack a bag and get to East Lansing." Condon, the sports department's lone columnist, had attended a Muhammad Ali fight in Houston and hadn't been heard from since.
The only thing I can remember about that week was that Spartan Coach Duffy Daugherty, at one of his daily press conferences, sang a ditty called:"My Sister's a Mule in the Mines." My game day assignment was the Michigan State locker room, but the story was in the Notre Dame locker room where Ara Parseghian attempted to explain why he'd run out the final minute and accepted the 10-10 tie. I did not write a memorable story out of the Spartans' locker room and, in fact, I was disappointed in myself. But on Monday afternoon Strickler called me into his office and informed me that The Tribune was breaking its long standing trdition of having a lone sports columnist and that I was going to write the second column. So now you know how I got the column and maybe in a future blog I'll tell you how I lost it. Meanwhile, getting back to the main topic, my subsequent assignments included: Beat writer for the Cubs and White Sox. Backup writer for the Bears. Beat writer for DePaul basketball in Ray Meyer's last year and Joey Meyer's first. Beat writer for Notre Dame basketball. Ditto for Northwestern. Beat writer for Illinois football and basketball. National college sports--football and basketball--writer. And, finally, Black Hawks beat writer. During the entirety of my stay, except when another beat precluded it, I was the auto racing writer and also covered my share of big fights, including Ali-Frazier I and Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran in Montreal. About eight months after being told I was no longer a columnist, I was assigned to the Ali-Leon Spinks rematch in New Orleans. David Israel, the guy who took my place as columnist, also was assigned to the fight and on our first night in New Orleans we had dinner together and ended up at one of the Bourbon Street joints, drinking Sazeracs. It was somewhere between drinks No. 3 and 4, that Israel, who was, I believe, 26 years old at the time, confided that he didn't intend to stay long at The Tribune. "I may go to law school," he said. I could have used a good lawyer about then because I could barely restrain the urge to strangle him.
-30-
Note to readers: No blog next week in honor of daughter Trish's visit. See you in two weeks.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
By Bob Markus
Picking a Heisman trophy winner has always been a little bit like going truffle hunting with a pig or panning for gold. The pig may turn up a few of the expensive delicacies and the gold panner may flush out a few nuggets of precious ore, but don't count on it. There is no defined criterion for choosing a Heisman trophy winner, so each elector must use his own set of standards. some look at gaudy numbers and exclaim: That's my boy. Others look to the top ranked team, single out its best player, and pronounce: You da man. Others still look at the award as a sort of national MVP. Which player meant the most to his team?
I had a Heisman vote for a few years when college sports was my fulltime beat at the Chicago Tribune. I took the job seriously and was seriously upset on the few occasions when I felt a gross injustice had been committed. One of those came in 1987 when Notre Dame's Tim Brown was the winner. Brown was the last of the seven Fighting Irish Heisman winners and a case could be made that only one or two of them deserved it. Brown averaged nearly 22 yards a catch for the 8-4 Irish that year, so I'd have to say he was Heisman worthy. But not in that year. That was the year that Don McPherson led Syracuse to a perfect 11-0 regular season, only the second undefeated season in the Orangemen's history. To me, McPherson was the embodiment of what the Heisman is all about. I voted for him, gave my third place vote to Gordie Lockbaum, the two-way star from Holy Cross, and, though I can't really remember, probably gave my runner-up vote to Brown. Lockbaum was a great story, a Galahad of the gridiron whose main virtue was his virtue.
A few years later I got another chance to sulk when the man I voted for not only didn't win, but finished seventh in the voting. That was Jeff Blake, the quarterback from East Carolina, which lost its opening game to Illinois, then ran the table, winning 11 in a row, including its 37-34 win over North Carolina State in the Peach bowl. Blake was a one-man highlight reel that autumn, turning up almost every Saturday night on the postgame score shows, performing yet another miracle. Mine was one of only seven first place votes he received. Michigan's Desmond Howard was the winner.
It's difficult of course for a player to emerge from almost total obscurity to the Heisman in a single season. Unless, of course, you play for Notre Dame (see John Huarte, 1964, a year that included the likes of Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers, who didn't even crack the top 10). The history of the prized statuette is replete with players who sort of sneaked up on the honor, gaining a spot on the ballot for a year or two before winning. Even Army's great Glenn Davis finished second twice before finally winning it in his final year. Doak Walker was third the year before he won as was Johnny Lujack, the one Irish player who undoubtedly deserved the honor in 1947, although Walker, Charlie Conerly, Bobby Layne and Chuck Bednarik were among the future pro stars who also played that year. Of the five, Lujack probably had the least productive pro career, but then, the Heisman is not meant to be a predictor of NFL potential. In fact, going back to Ricky Williams in 1998, only Carson Palmer, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, has had a solid pro career after winning the Heisman. The jury is still out on Reggie Bush.
Of all the Heisman trophies that have been presented since Chicago's Jay Berwanger won the first one in 1935, the one that has me most puzzled was the one given to Paul Hornung in 1956. Hornung became a Hall of Fame running back with the Green Bay Packers and also a friend, so I hope he'll forgive me for saying this. But Hornung was the quarterback of a Notre Dame team that finished 2 and 8. Runner-up Johnny Majors starred for a 10-1 Tennessee team and a guy named Jim Brown was finishing his college career at Syracuse.
I no longer, of course, have anything to do with voting for the Heisman, although I probably have about as good a handle on it as the current writers, since they see only one game a week and I can see a dozen of them, or parts thereof, on any given Saturday. When this season began, it appeared pretty certain that the trophy would go to one of the three players who finished one-two-three last year--Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, Texas' Colt McCoy, and Florida's Tim Tebow. Bradford didn't even make it out of the starting gate before his season imploded with an opening game injury. McCoy and Tebow are still alive since their teams are unbeaten and figure to meet for the national championship. But neither has had the kind of season they anticipated. Tebow admits his performance is down from the last two years and nine interceptions thrown by McCoy speak for themselves.
According to an ESPN poll of 15 experts, the current leader is Alabama running back Mark Ingram, who drew 10 of the 15 first place votes. Kellen Moore, the quarterback of unbeaten and unappreciated Boise State got two votes, while Tebow, McCoy, and Houston's Case Keenum got the other three votes. Keenum, the Houston quarterback, has piled up some unreal numbers for the 8-1 Cougars. In his last two games alone he's thrown for close to 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns. He has 28 touchdown passes for the season. Almost matching that is Boise State's Moore with 27 touchdown passes and only three interceptions.
I admit I haven't seen too much of Alabama's Ingram and I suspect he is a candidate because someone on the Crimson Tide offense has to be partly responsible for the defense-oriented team's unbeaten record. Talent-wise, receiver Julio Jones should be the man, but he has underachieved for the most part this year. As for my own choice, I think I'm going to surprise you. After all my Notre Dame bashing, if I had a Heisman vote I think I'd spend it on Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen. The Irish may be struggling a bit, but without Clausen (and his marvelous receiver Golden Tate) the Irish could be 1-8 and there would be no speculation about Coach Charlie Weis' fate. Clausen has repeatedly brought the Irish from behind and four of their victories and all three defeats have been by seven points or less. I'd probably vote Keenum second and Moore third. But that's just me. What do you think?
Picking a Heisman trophy winner has always been a little bit like going truffle hunting with a pig or panning for gold. The pig may turn up a few of the expensive delicacies and the gold panner may flush out a few nuggets of precious ore, but don't count on it. There is no defined criterion for choosing a Heisman trophy winner, so each elector must use his own set of standards. some look at gaudy numbers and exclaim: That's my boy. Others look to the top ranked team, single out its best player, and pronounce: You da man. Others still look at the award as a sort of national MVP. Which player meant the most to his team?
I had a Heisman vote for a few years when college sports was my fulltime beat at the Chicago Tribune. I took the job seriously and was seriously upset on the few occasions when I felt a gross injustice had been committed. One of those came in 1987 when Notre Dame's Tim Brown was the winner. Brown was the last of the seven Fighting Irish Heisman winners and a case could be made that only one or two of them deserved it. Brown averaged nearly 22 yards a catch for the 8-4 Irish that year, so I'd have to say he was Heisman worthy. But not in that year. That was the year that Don McPherson led Syracuse to a perfect 11-0 regular season, only the second undefeated season in the Orangemen's history. To me, McPherson was the embodiment of what the Heisman is all about. I voted for him, gave my third place vote to Gordie Lockbaum, the two-way star from Holy Cross, and, though I can't really remember, probably gave my runner-up vote to Brown. Lockbaum was a great story, a Galahad of the gridiron whose main virtue was his virtue.
A few years later I got another chance to sulk when the man I voted for not only didn't win, but finished seventh in the voting. That was Jeff Blake, the quarterback from East Carolina, which lost its opening game to Illinois, then ran the table, winning 11 in a row, including its 37-34 win over North Carolina State in the Peach bowl. Blake was a one-man highlight reel that autumn, turning up almost every Saturday night on the postgame score shows, performing yet another miracle. Mine was one of only seven first place votes he received. Michigan's Desmond Howard was the winner.
It's difficult of course for a player to emerge from almost total obscurity to the Heisman in a single season. Unless, of course, you play for Notre Dame (see John Huarte, 1964, a year that included the likes of Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers, who didn't even crack the top 10). The history of the prized statuette is replete with players who sort of sneaked up on the honor, gaining a spot on the ballot for a year or two before winning. Even Army's great Glenn Davis finished second twice before finally winning it in his final year. Doak Walker was third the year before he won as was Johnny Lujack, the one Irish player who undoubtedly deserved the honor in 1947, although Walker, Charlie Conerly, Bobby Layne and Chuck Bednarik were among the future pro stars who also played that year. Of the five, Lujack probably had the least productive pro career, but then, the Heisman is not meant to be a predictor of NFL potential. In fact, going back to Ricky Williams in 1998, only Carson Palmer, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, has had a solid pro career after winning the Heisman. The jury is still out on Reggie Bush.
Of all the Heisman trophies that have been presented since Chicago's Jay Berwanger won the first one in 1935, the one that has me most puzzled was the one given to Paul Hornung in 1956. Hornung became a Hall of Fame running back with the Green Bay Packers and also a friend, so I hope he'll forgive me for saying this. But Hornung was the quarterback of a Notre Dame team that finished 2 and 8. Runner-up Johnny Majors starred for a 10-1 Tennessee team and a guy named Jim Brown was finishing his college career at Syracuse.
I no longer, of course, have anything to do with voting for the Heisman, although I probably have about as good a handle on it as the current writers, since they see only one game a week and I can see a dozen of them, or parts thereof, on any given Saturday. When this season began, it appeared pretty certain that the trophy would go to one of the three players who finished one-two-three last year--Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, Texas' Colt McCoy, and Florida's Tim Tebow. Bradford didn't even make it out of the starting gate before his season imploded with an opening game injury. McCoy and Tebow are still alive since their teams are unbeaten and figure to meet for the national championship. But neither has had the kind of season they anticipated. Tebow admits his performance is down from the last two years and nine interceptions thrown by McCoy speak for themselves.
According to an ESPN poll of 15 experts, the current leader is Alabama running back Mark Ingram, who drew 10 of the 15 first place votes. Kellen Moore, the quarterback of unbeaten and unappreciated Boise State got two votes, while Tebow, McCoy, and Houston's Case Keenum got the other three votes. Keenum, the Houston quarterback, has piled up some unreal numbers for the 8-1 Cougars. In his last two games alone he's thrown for close to 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns. He has 28 touchdown passes for the season. Almost matching that is Boise State's Moore with 27 touchdown passes and only three interceptions.
I admit I haven't seen too much of Alabama's Ingram and I suspect he is a candidate because someone on the Crimson Tide offense has to be partly responsible for the defense-oriented team's unbeaten record. Talent-wise, receiver Julio Jones should be the man, but he has underachieved for the most part this year. As for my own choice, I think I'm going to surprise you. After all my Notre Dame bashing, if I had a Heisman vote I think I'd spend it on Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen. The Irish may be struggling a bit, but without Clausen (and his marvelous receiver Golden Tate) the Irish could be 1-8 and there would be no speculation about Coach Charlie Weis' fate. Clausen has repeatedly brought the Irish from behind and four of their victories and all three defeats have been by seven points or less. I'd probably vote Keenum second and Moore third. But that's just me. What do you think?
Monday, November 2, 2009
By Bob Markus
As any college football fan could tell you, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has one too many letters in its acronym. It should drop the middle letter and what's left (BS for those of you who are acronymically challenged) would just about describe it. The presumed purpose of the BCS is to ensure that the best two college football teams in the land meet at the close of the bowl season to determine which is truly the No. 1 team in the country. Trouble is, they haven't yet figured out a sure fired way of determining who the top two are. Every year, it seems, somebody is flashing Winston Churchill's famous V sign and insisting: We're No. 2. There are certain instances, you see, when it's good to be Avis. Last year it was Texas, which was left out of the national championship game in favor of Oklahoma, which it had beaten. Another year it was Southern Cal, which had been named No.1 in both wire service polls, but deemed no better than No. 3 by the complex melange of computers and human pollsters the BCS entrusted with the task.
This year there seems to be little doubt about who will play in the national championship game. It will be Texas, the undefeated Big 12 champion which already has defeated its most significant adversaries, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and the winner of the SEC championship game--either Florida or Alabama. The only other team with even a whisper of a chance is Louisiana State, which, if it can upset Alabama this week-end and win the rest of its games would win the SEC West and play the Gators, to whom they have already lost once. There is a chance that the BCS will actually get it right with this pairing, but there is also a chance you'll run into a flying pig some day. These same three teams have been at the top of the leaderboard since even before the season opened and that is one of the problems.
For a number of years in the mid-1980s I was a voter in the Associated Press poll. While not a total maverick, I did tend to have some ideas that were thought to be, well, a little odd. For instance, I thought a team's performance on the field should outweigh my preconceived notion of who's No. 1. That's why I thought they should do away with preseason polls and wait until the games are played before trying to sort it out. Under the system that prevailed then--and the one that prevails now--many of the voters seemed to think their ballots were cast in stone and could not be dislodged without, as the sportscasters of today love to say, "indisputable evidence." That evidence would not include, say, a team like Alabama beating unranked Arkansas 12-10 by blocking a potential season-destroying field goal. Nor would it include a team like Florida losing at home to Mississippi, which hasn't been a national powerhouse since Peyton and Eli Manning's father was playing there, as happened last year. These voters, and I believe they are in the majority, decide who is No. 1 in August and will not change their minds until that team is beaten and sometimes not even then. I always voted by the theory that my preseason vote was merely my best guess and that changing one's mind is allowed and even ought to be encouraged.
It well could be that Texas, Alabama, and Florida, in whichever order you chose to rank them, are indeed the three best teams in the country. But if I were voting today I'd probably rank two teams ahead of them. Now, don't laugh. Snickering is okay, but please no raucus outbursts of laughter. I think the best team in the country at the moment is Oregon, which dismantled a good, but admittedly not great, USC team Saturday night, 47-20. I mean this was an old-fashioned A No. 1 butt stomping of a team that has ruled its conference for nearly a decade under Pete Carroll and rarely finishes out of the top five. And it was no fluke. Previously, Oregon had walloped California, which at the time was in the top 10 or so in the rankings, 42 -3. The week after that the Ducks quacked all over Washington State, 52-6 and only the week before their demolition of the Trojans had laid the wood to Washington, 43-19
I watched most of the Oregon-USC game and here's what I saw. I saw quarterback Jeremiah Masoli rush for 164 yards and pass for 222 more. I saw halfback LaMichael James run for 183 yards. In all, Oregon rolled up 613 yards against a team reputed to have one of the best defenses in the country. It was simply an awesome display. So I'd vote Oregon No. 1? No, I wouldn't. It's not because the Ducks lost their season opener. I've seen Notre Dame do that and still win a national title. No, it's not the fact that they lost, but who they lost to--Boise State.
That's not a rap at Boise State. Au contraire, the reason I wouldn't make Oregon No.1 is because that's where I'd have Boise State. I know, I know, Boise State has played a one-game season. But what a game! The Broncos literally strangled Oregon in a 19-8 season opening victory. The team that got 613 yards against Southern Cal? It had 14 yards in the first half--and no first downs--against Boise State . Its star runner, La Garrette Blount, carried eight times for minus five yards and those numbers have yet to change, since Blount was suspended for the rest of the season after slugging a Boise State player in the jaw after the game. Blount, with the help of mentors like Tony Dungy and his coach, Chip Kelly, reportedly has tried hard to make amends and there is a good chance he will be reinstated for this week-end's game at Stanford. With or without Blount, Oregon should beat Stanford and everyone else on its schedule. Boise, too, will likely run the table. But finish one-two in the BCS standings? Not a chance. Football writers, no matter what their personal politics, are as conservative as Rush Limbaugh when it comes to voting in the polls. It'll be Florida and Texas in the Rose bowl Jan. 7. Book it.
As any college football fan could tell you, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has one too many letters in its acronym. It should drop the middle letter and what's left (BS for those of you who are acronymically challenged) would just about describe it. The presumed purpose of the BCS is to ensure that the best two college football teams in the land meet at the close of the bowl season to determine which is truly the No. 1 team in the country. Trouble is, they haven't yet figured out a sure fired way of determining who the top two are. Every year, it seems, somebody is flashing Winston Churchill's famous V sign and insisting: We're No. 2. There are certain instances, you see, when it's good to be Avis. Last year it was Texas, which was left out of the national championship game in favor of Oklahoma, which it had beaten. Another year it was Southern Cal, which had been named No.1 in both wire service polls, but deemed no better than No. 3 by the complex melange of computers and human pollsters the BCS entrusted with the task.
This year there seems to be little doubt about who will play in the national championship game. It will be Texas, the undefeated Big 12 champion which already has defeated its most significant adversaries, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and the winner of the SEC championship game--either Florida or Alabama. The only other team with even a whisper of a chance is Louisiana State, which, if it can upset Alabama this week-end and win the rest of its games would win the SEC West and play the Gators, to whom they have already lost once. There is a chance that the BCS will actually get it right with this pairing, but there is also a chance you'll run into a flying pig some day. These same three teams have been at the top of the leaderboard since even before the season opened and that is one of the problems.
For a number of years in the mid-1980s I was a voter in the Associated Press poll. While not a total maverick, I did tend to have some ideas that were thought to be, well, a little odd. For instance, I thought a team's performance on the field should outweigh my preconceived notion of who's No. 1. That's why I thought they should do away with preseason polls and wait until the games are played before trying to sort it out. Under the system that prevailed then--and the one that prevails now--many of the voters seemed to think their ballots were cast in stone and could not be dislodged without, as the sportscasters of today love to say, "indisputable evidence." That evidence would not include, say, a team like Alabama beating unranked Arkansas 12-10 by blocking a potential season-destroying field goal. Nor would it include a team like Florida losing at home to Mississippi, which hasn't been a national powerhouse since Peyton and Eli Manning's father was playing there, as happened last year. These voters, and I believe they are in the majority, decide who is No. 1 in August and will not change their minds until that team is beaten and sometimes not even then. I always voted by the theory that my preseason vote was merely my best guess and that changing one's mind is allowed and even ought to be encouraged.
It well could be that Texas, Alabama, and Florida, in whichever order you chose to rank them, are indeed the three best teams in the country. But if I were voting today I'd probably rank two teams ahead of them. Now, don't laugh. Snickering is okay, but please no raucus outbursts of laughter. I think the best team in the country at the moment is Oregon, which dismantled a good, but admittedly not great, USC team Saturday night, 47-20. I mean this was an old-fashioned A No. 1 butt stomping of a team that has ruled its conference for nearly a decade under Pete Carroll and rarely finishes out of the top five. And it was no fluke. Previously, Oregon had walloped California, which at the time was in the top 10 or so in the rankings, 42 -3. The week after that the Ducks quacked all over Washington State, 52-6 and only the week before their demolition of the Trojans had laid the wood to Washington, 43-19
I watched most of the Oregon-USC game and here's what I saw. I saw quarterback Jeremiah Masoli rush for 164 yards and pass for 222 more. I saw halfback LaMichael James run for 183 yards. In all, Oregon rolled up 613 yards against a team reputed to have one of the best defenses in the country. It was simply an awesome display. So I'd vote Oregon No. 1? No, I wouldn't. It's not because the Ducks lost their season opener. I've seen Notre Dame do that and still win a national title. No, it's not the fact that they lost, but who they lost to--Boise State.
That's not a rap at Boise State. Au contraire, the reason I wouldn't make Oregon No.1 is because that's where I'd have Boise State. I know, I know, Boise State has played a one-game season. But what a game! The Broncos literally strangled Oregon in a 19-8 season opening victory. The team that got 613 yards against Southern Cal? It had 14 yards in the first half--and no first downs--against Boise State . Its star runner, La Garrette Blount, carried eight times for minus five yards and those numbers have yet to change, since Blount was suspended for the rest of the season after slugging a Boise State player in the jaw after the game. Blount, with the help of mentors like Tony Dungy and his coach, Chip Kelly, reportedly has tried hard to make amends and there is a good chance he will be reinstated for this week-end's game at Stanford. With or without Blount, Oregon should beat Stanford and everyone else on its schedule. Boise, too, will likely run the table. But finish one-two in the BCS standings? Not a chance. Football writers, no matter what their personal politics, are as conservative as Rush Limbaugh when it comes to voting in the polls. It'll be Florida and Texas in the Rose bowl Jan. 7. Book it.
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