Pac-10 teams begin their second week of play on Saturday, highlighted by No. 3 USC's trip to Columbus to play Ohio State. It means nothing but consensus leans heavily towards the Trojans despite it being a cover of darkness road game before what Eleven Warriors calls 105,000 of college football's best hooligans, despite starting a true freshman quarterback in Matt Barkley and despite Ohio State having the tiebreaker of all tiebreakers in Terrelle Pryor.
Yeah, USC's loaded. The rest of the conference lineup Saturday is a mixed bag filled with one big road trip to SEC country, a couple middling names and a handful of regional cupcakes. Mmm, cupcakes. Wait, no, bad Pac-10. Time to bag some fresh game out of say, Knoxville? Hmmm, maybe not.
I'm going to let the Tennessean describe this, because it is so weird:
For whatever reason, Young appeared unwilling to take the field midway through the fourth quarter on Sunday afternoon following his second interception and a resulting cascade of boos from the fans at LP Field.
Eventually, he re-entered the game, only to suffer a knee injury four plays later.
It's worth reading the article in its entirety. Young left after refusing to speak to reporters, and Titans coach Jeff Fisher and the rest of the team went into "damage control" mode and were guarded talking about it.
The above picture is one that I took last year during the Texans-Titans game when Young was injured, and I discussed how strange his sideline demeanor looked, and how separate he was from the rest of the team. It was reported at the end of last year that Norm Chow said Young had a tendency to pout.
If Mediocrity had a football team, its mascot would most likely wear a giant foam Mike Stoops head
Ahhh, mediocre college football. Three words that go together like turkey, gravy, and stuffing.
While the majority of space here at FanHouse and on every other college football publication will be focused on the Top 25, season after season a huge slice of the college football fan pie (mmmm...fan pie) find themselves supporting a team who would most aptly be described as thoroughly mediocre, at best. I'd venture to guess that for every legit contender, there are probably three teams with a couple of flaws so glaring that only those blinded by the partisanship of homerdom can pretend their team's downsides won't inevitably sabotage any hopes of playing in a bowl of even moderate respectability.
And therein lies one of the most cruel realities of the college football landscape: winning 6 or 7 games is no small feat, and yet every year coaches and players around the country will be abused for achieving that very milestone. Of course, when you play in a conference like the Pac 10 -- who rewards its third place finisher with a December 31 game in El Paso's Sun Bowl -- can you really be that surprised when fans and pundits are critical of barely topping out above .500?
Who from the Pac 10 will slide to the middle of the pack in 2008? Here's a quick rundown of the leading candidates for Pacific time zone mediocrity this season.
Following last year's exodus of NFL-caliber talent (Sedrick Ellis, Keith Rivers, Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart, and DeSean Jackson -- just to name a few) and a handful of preseasoninjuries, the start of 2008 in the Pac 10 brings a number of new faces whose ability (or inability) to step up and replace their predecessors will hugely impact the outcome of conference standings. From blue chip recruits to high-profile transfers and new coaches, here are five(ish) new faces in the Pac 10 that you'll want to keep an eye on.
1.) Rick Neuheisel, Norm Chow, and whoever survives being named starting QB - UCLA: Neither of the most-discussed new faces in the Pac 10 are actually new faces at all. The return of Neuheisel and Chow gives UCLA fans hopes of returning to regular college football relevance after the roller-coaster that was the Karl Dorrell era. But after an offseason that saw the Bruin quarterback spot turn into the most dangerous place this side of a Madden cover or Spinal Tap drum kit -- hobbling the two UCLA QBs with any game experience, Ben Olson and Patrick Cowan -- Neuheisel and Chow's baby blue debuts hinge largely on the ability of either Kevin Craft, a junior college transfer and/or redshirt freshman Chris Forcier to step in and lead the offense.
"I apologize to some of the kids if they did see it because I am trying to be a role model for them. But at the same time, I was just trying to have fun with (friends). That is the life of a quarterback, somebody of my status. I guess somebody was trying to make some money and sold the picture to the web site. But at the same time that is the life I chose to live. But it is not going to stop me from having fun. I just have to watch myself. They always want to try and get some negative pub on me. It wasn't really nothing bad. ... Everybody deserves to have a good time every once in a while during the offseason."
And when he says "every once in a while," I'm guessing his definition is different than most people's. Below the gallery is a selection of six Vince Young birthday party links (and pictures) from just last weekend hosted by a promotion group called "inDmix":
Last year, the University of California at Los Angeles went through four starting quarterbacks in a season which failed to meet expectations. New head coach Rick Neuheisel and offensive coordinator Norm Chow had hoped to turn the tide and avoid any quarterback controversy, naming Pat Cowan the starter in Spring Practice.
Things have gotten so bad that UCLA's coaches are now asking recruit Kevin Prince to leave school early in order to provide depth at the position. But Prince is still recovering from reconstructive knee surgery himself, so don't expect this high schooler to be a lucky charm to avoid injuries at the position!
Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young is back on the campus of Texas this spring, working toward earning a degree at the school where he already earned a national championship.
But it's spring break at Texas, meaning Young is back in Nashville, where he met his new offensive coordinator, Mike Heimerdinger, for the first time Friday. Young says he likes where Heimerdinger, who replaces the fired Norm Chow, is taking the offense:
"It was a great meeting. We kidded around. He's cool,'' Young said of Heimerdinger. "I like the direction things are going with the offense, some of the things we're going to do.
"With everything I learned from Norm, that should help me get things even quicker. It's going to be good.''
Some will no doubt say that Young should treat the NFL as a year-round job and spend the off-season in Nashville, not Austin. There may be some validity to that. But it's important to Young and his family that he earn a degree, and the Titans have raised no objections publicly to Young's off-season pursuits. We'll see when the season starts whether he's done enough to get himself caught up on Heimerdinger's offense.
Merril Hoge hasn't exactly been reserved in his criticism of Titans quarterback Vince Young. Basically, he thinks Tennessee drafted the wrong guy in 2006, and now the organization is having to deal with the repercussions.
Young had a solid rookie campaign, assuming the starting job midway through the season, and guiding the Titans to an 8-8 record. In 2007, though, Young tossed 17 picks and only nine touchdowns, and struggled with consistency when he wasn't battling injuries. And now that offensive coordinator Norm Chow has been canned, Hoge takes again takes aim at Young:
Fisher's phone call caught Chow off-guard. He left Nashville last week to visit his wife in California and was planning to come back and accompany the rest of the coaching staff to Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala.
"It's just 'Why?' " Chow said. "No one ever came to me and said, 'I want it done this way' or 'why are we doing this?' I always felt like I coached the right way and if I wasn't, then someone would tell me. Then all of a sudden this comes out of the blue. Three years of giving everything I had and it took him three minutes. It was a shock to me, but you move on. He must have somebody in mind, a friend maybe?''
Heimerdinger was Tennessee's offensive coordinator from 2000-2004, and save his last season with the team (a rebuilding effort), the Titans' offense never ranked lower than 12th in the league, according to Football Outsiders.
Of course, it's much easier to game plan when your quarterback is an in-his-prime Steve McNair than when you're having to work around Vince Young's growing pains.
As Michael David Smith mentioned yesterday, Chow's got plenty of options, so he won't be unemployed for long. Still, you have to wonder what precipitated the change. And, more importantly, what installing a new offense will mean for Young's progress.
Norm Chow's firing leaves a big opening for an offensive coach. Vince Young is, after two years, still a largely unharnessed talent. Turn him into an All-Pro and there could be a head coaching job in the offing. Since Jeff Fisher's job may ride on Young's development, he's looking to bring in someone he trusts to continue the maturation process. According to the Rocky Mountain News, Fisher has told people he plans to reach out to former Titan coordinator and current Bronco assistant head coach Mike Heimerdinger.
Heimerdinger led the Titans offense from 2000 - 2004 when he jumped to the Jets for a disastrous season. He's spent the last two years with the Broncos with his college roommate Mike Shanahan. Shanny is expected to grant the Titans permission to speak to his pal, even though NFL rules don't require him to do so.
Heimerdinger had a good run in Tennessee the first time around. The Titans went to the playoffs three times, finished in the top 10 of yardage twice and Steve McNair won a share of the 2003 MVP award. He'll have his work cut out with Young. He's had teammates say he didn't have a grasp of Chow's offense after two years and Heimerdinger will be installing a new system. He's coming off two years working with a young quarterback who's progressed nicely in Jay Cutler, however, and has earned Fisher's trust, something I'm not sure Chow ever did.
Pac-10 teams begin their second week of play on Saturday, highlighted by No. 3 USC's trip to Columbus to play Ohio State. It means nothing but consensus leans heavily towards the Trojans despite it being a cover of darkness road game before what Eleven Warriors calls 105,000 of college football's best hooligans, despite starting a true freshman quarterback in Matt Barkley and despite Ohio State having the tiebreaker of all tiebreakers in Terrelle Pryor.
1.) 
Last year, the University of California at Los Angeles went through four starting quarterbacks in a season which failed to meet expectations. New head coach 
Tennessee Titans quarterback 
Here's what we know: 
Norm Chow
