Cards fans are now asking …
does their school have a better chance of winning the BCS football title before another NCAA tourney? Or might it be field hockey or volleyball?
The honeymoon is over.
Louisville fans are seriously ready for The Rick to lead the Cards back to perennial Top 10 status. There was more grumbling after Saturday’s loss in Cincy than I can remember.
When I grow up …
I wanna be a bowl representative. These guys don neon blazers in their game’s colors and travel, expenses paid, to different big college games every week, where the locals suck up big-time. What a life.
John L. in L.
Word on the street is that former Cardinal mentor and recently deposed Michigan State coach John L. Smith is moving back to the ’Ville.
I don’t need no stinkin’ mid-major talk.
Butler wins the NIT, Preseason Edition. Missouri State beats Wisconsin. Dayton bops Louisville. Oral Roberts plunders Kansas in Lawrence. Wichita State bests LSU in Baton Rouge. Etc., etc. I’m really tired of the college hoops term “mid-majors.” It is no less condescending — and incorrect — than the dismissive attitude toward Big East football.
SchnellSpeak of the Week.
This is the way the season ends, not with a whimper but a bang. As Schnell prepared his Fighting Owls for their “traditional” finale against Florida International in the Shula Bowl, consideration was given to last season’s embarrassing 6-52 rout at the hands of lame duck Don Strock’s squad. “There were some thoughts about payback, and although the score didn’t represent the same score as last year, I think there was redemption.” Indeed. FAU triumphed 31-zip before 9,000-plus rabid Floridian football fanatics. A 77-point turnaround. Not bad. As always, Schnellmeister straight-armed the obvious when he proclaimed, “This win fortified the notion we have gotten a lot better than last year.”
So, absent some off-season intonations that require my passing them along, let’s bid a sad adieu to the Solomonesque musings of pigskin’s most loquacious linguist. Hail and farewell Howard Schnellenberger, forever and always, you, pigskin’s premier poet laureate, Da Man.
This article appears in November 28, 2006.