FanHouse Heisman

Cal might've been looking ahead to next week's showdown with suddenly vulnerable USC, but they certainly sucked all the excitement out of it after getting whipped by the throwback jersey-wearing Oregon Ducks, 42-3.

They probably did just as much harm to Jahvid Best's Heisman campagin. The Ducks shut down the star running back, holding him to 55 yards and also battered Bears' quarterback Kevin Riley into a feeble 123-yard outing.

Saturday's victory is part of a stunning turnaround for Oregon, following its opening night embarrassment against Boise, a game marred by offensive ineptitude and LeGarrette Blount's sucker punch heard 'round the world. Since then, Oregon has beaten Purdue, Utah and now California. Amusingly, the Ducks dominated Cal in a manner similar to how Boise State handled them.

South Carolina had the honors of getting college football's fourth week off in high fashion, toppling preseason darling Mississippi 16-10 Thursday. Coming on the heels of Miami topping Georgia Tech last week, Thursday is fast becoming college football's version of Halloween, where underdogs dress up like contenders and make weird and wild things happen.

The win didn't come easy for South Carolina, however. Gamecock coach Steve Spurrier was the picture of agonized helplessness in the game's final period, alternating between shrugs, uncomfortable grins and palms-to-the-face while nursing a 16-3 lead. Relief finally came after his defense repelled Ole Miss' final charge at the Gamecocks' 41 yard line.

(Not to brag, but we told you so. Sort of. Ole Miss was ripe for an upset, with our only error being the assumption that they'd get through a few more weeks of play before reality set in. Apologies for that.)

Raise your hand if you saw a Gary Danielson hissy fit coming after the Tebow Child was inexplicably passed over for the Heisman by a guy with 18 more touchdown passes than he has. Okay, that's everyone.

Cue fit. Danielson is talking about Tebow losing the award despite being first on the most ballots:

Well, because it's a strategy ...That's exactly why it's done. That's why I gave up my Heisman vote about four or five years ago. I just thought this thing is a joke and I don't want to be a part of it. And by the way, I resigned from the Davey O'Brien award this year for the same reason.

The Davey O'Brien wanted me to vote for the outstanding quarterback in college football and here were my choices: Colt McCoy, great player, Sam Bradford, great player, and Graham Harrell, great player. But how can all three of the great players be from the same league? I mean come on, if you're going to have an award, you got to have Tim Tebow on that award this year don't you?

Danielson used to have a semblance of balance in his reporting until such point as he was hired by CBS, at which point he turned into a shill. I have heard the man credit a fumbled exchange to the sheer intimidation power of the defense. I have heard the man praise horrible pass interference penalties, horrible interceptions, and horrible blocks in the back. Nothing ever goes wrong in the SEC anymore, other stuff just goes more wonderfully right.

Also, please note that all four quarterbacks mentioned here run the spread, which Danielson declared dead all year to anyone who would listen. Danielson: always incorrect, always pro-SEC, no more worth listening to than your average houseplant.

I tire of this man. Someone put him in a box and ship him to Mongolia. I offer a shiny quarter for this service.

One sure sign the season is just around the corner is the launching of websites to promote players for the Heisman. While Pat White Plays Here doesn't say Heisman anywhere I've looked, White will be on everyone's list of potential candidates for the Heisman. There's an extensive collection of videos covering his career from high school to West Virginia. I wish the video screen was a little bigger, but outside that it's a sharp site full of information on White.

In 62 days or so we'll all be at a game or watching on TV. Between now and then, plenty of Heisman hype machines will get rolling. I'm skeptical as to how much these promotions really help an athlete when it comes to Heisman voting. For a player like White that has put together three solid years at West Virginia, I doubt any voters need to be reminded of him. He doesn't play for a big market team, but he does play in a big market conference. His performances in bowl games has been spectacular. But for White to have a shot at the Heisman, he's going to have to stay healthy and West Virginia can't have more than one loss. Something that hasn't happened either of the last two years.

Few players had a better season in 2007 than did Missouri's Jeremy Maclin. After all, Maclin gained 2,776 all-purpose yards, which was an NCAA Division I-A single-season freshman record, and was also the fifth-most ever by any player in a season in Division I-A history. He made just about every All-American team possible and gave Big 12 defensive coordinators and special teams coaches constant headaches. Now comes word that Maclin is only getting better as spring practices resume in Columbia.

"Jeremy Maclin is a lot better player right now than he was a year ago," [Missouri coach Gary] Pinkel said yesterday after the Tigers scrimmaged for nearly three hours on Faurot Field. "People go, 'Wow, how can that happen?' Well, Brett Favre was a heck of a lot better player his eighth year as a starter than he was his first year."

I'm not sure Pinkel's analogy makes a whole lot of sense, but certainly players do generally get better over time. In the case of Maclin, however, you have to wonder if he might be nearing some sort of ceiling effect? There just doesn't seem to be that much room for improvement when you look at his statistics. So, what is Coach Pinkel seeing on the practice field?

His 1-on-1 routes, he's improved dramatically," Pinkel said. "I also think that's where he's got to be demanding on himself for perfection because that's how good he can be. No single guy should ever be able to cover him. ...

"Last year was his first year, and we forget that sometimes. His work habits were good, but they weren't like Will Franklin's. They weren't like" Martin "Rucker's. Now, they're like they're supposed to be."

Now that's scary. With a Heisman finalist quarterback in Chase Daniel returning, along with a wealth of talent on the offensive side of the ball, Maclin just might continue to break records. As he progresses look for the Tigers to really separate themselves from the rest of the Big 12 North.

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel was scheduled to throw out the first pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals' Opening Day game on Monday. A delay in his return flight from Florida, however, forced the Tigers to go to their bullpen. As a result, it was quarterback and Heisman Trophy finalist Chase Daniel who got the call along with his battery mate wide receiver Jeremy Maclin.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned for Daniel.

The crowd gave a standing ovation to Daniel and one of his favorite wide receiver targets, Jeremy Maclin and in a nice touch, Daniel brought out a ball he was more accustomed to throwing...a football.

It certainly couldn't have been the pressure of throwing in front of a bunch of people, or the fact that the weather conditions weren't ideal, both of which Daniel is used to, so I'm going to blame the fact that Daniel BOUNCED the pitch/pass into Maclin from 60 feet 6 inches on standing on the mound.

So Daniel's pitch/pass missed Maclin and apparently rolled to the backstop eliciting boos from the Cardinal faithful. I don't expect many incompletions like that between the two this fall.

Interestingly one local writer went as far as to have a major league scout give his appraisal of Daniel's pitching prowess.

His analysis after the jump.

And it only took 20 years to admit the problem! With an assist from a soapless Heisman Trophy finalist and the best coach in school history leaving them for SMU.

Check out this video documenting the school's decrepit athletic facilities ("In the locker room there are missing ceiling tiles, broken soap dispensers and inoperable fire alarms. In the weight room you'll find damaged Olympic weights, cracked upholstery on machines and broken equipment.")

The funny part is that even though the Warriors won the WAC this year, they've still got Boise State on the brain. Whatever, at least they're finally allocating some money to address the situation. I'm guessing that's the only reason cameras were allowed to show the mess in the first place, now that Hawaii can stand up and say "change is coming".

(H/T: The Wizard of Odds)

The Arizona State Sun Devils are not--repeat ARE NOT--talking to anyone wearing green these days.

ASU denies reports by Hawaii's athletic director that it had offered the Sun Devils to test out the new Dennis Erickson regime in an October 20th matchup in Honolulu. When Michigan State opted out of its game against Hawaii-paying the Rainbow Warriors a quarter-million dollar cancellation fee, Hawaii went looking for an opponent that Heisman Candidate Colt Brennan show off against. Hawaii had reportedly offered seven-figures to entice the Sun Devils but to no avail. I think this may be the first time anyone has turned down a million-dollar payday to make a trip to the Islands.

What's more, Arizona State was not made an offer by Notre Dame to be part of its "America is Our Home Stadium" series for 2017. The Irish have been adding "home games" all across the country at neutral sites. That game will be played in South Bend, home of the actual University of Notre Dame.

With all these non-denial denials, I wonder...am I the only one who thinks that Baghdad Bob has become athletic director in Tempe?

Back in the day when the NCAA wasn't so rule happy and quasi-repressive, competing teams were allowed to wear similar uniforms. Certain teams could wear their Saturday finest home uniforms, and their opponent could do the same. This was aesthetically pleasing and created something of a tradition between cross-town rivals USC and UCLA.

Those days are gone however, and we're left with NCAA Rule I, Article 3 (a):

Players of opposint teams shall wear jerseys of contrasting colors, and the visiting team shall wear white jerseys.

White jerseys per Rule I, Article 3 (b) are defined as follows:

A white jersey is one with only contrasting playing numbers, player's name, school name, NCAA Football logo, school insignia, conference insignia, mascot insignia, game insignia, memorial insignia or the American flag attached.

In other words if I'm home you're wearing the road uniforms or one of us is getting docked a timeout. To put it kindly, this is lame.

I guess the reasoning was that back in the day with people still owning black and white televisions it was difficult to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Times have changed and the dinosaurs who before owned black and white TV's are now the ones who have yet to hop on HD train. With technology and the great American wealth machine doing the sport a favor, it's time to put the kibosh on this rule and restore a particular tradition within one of the game's great rivalries.

There's a famous painting of the 1967 USC/UCLA game well known to fans of both schools. In it, Trojan tailback O.J. Simpson is seen near the goal line amid a pile of football bodies. His home cardinal and gold complements the powder keg blue and gold of UCLA's players attempting to prevent a touchdown run. It's a beautiful scene and for a while was representative of the rivalry until the rule came into use some years later.

There's been talk in recent years of reviving this tradition, but neither Trojan coach Pete Carroll nor UCLA coach Karl Dorrell has been willing to part with timeouts to make it happen. This is tragic - but hopefully the NCAA can get around to either giving these teams an exemption or modifying the rule somehow to add just a little more tradition and prestige to this great game.

I've added the YouTube video of Simpson's famous 64-yard touchdown run below. The 1967 game was actually one of the better college football games ever played, matching number one UCLA against number two USC. The stars were UCLA's eventual Heisman trophy winner quarterback Gary Beban and USC's Heisman runner-up and 1968 winner tailback O.J. Simpson. USC would win 21-20 thanks to Simpson's run, catapulting them to the national championship.
Sorry, No Photos

The Sooner Nation was dealt a major blow Saturday in a 34-9 win over Iowa State. As superstar running back, Adrian Peterson suffered a season ending collarbone injury. Peterson on a very special day, with his father in attendance for his first game since being incarcerated since Adrian's 12th birthday, rushed for 183 yards, two touchdowns.

The father that called his son All-Day, the son rose to the occasion on that day making the father proud, scoring Oklahoma's first and final touchdowns in dominating fashion. In his probable last game in a Sooner uniform, the Junior finished in spectacular fashion just short of breaking coveted Oklahoma rushing records.

For Sooner fans, the matter is Adrian Peterson, the heart and soul of Sooner nation. For some Oklahoma fans, "Adrian is dead," said one Sooner fan. Only does Sooner fans hope to see him in Crimson and Cream, again.