Playing Kenny Chesney every quarter has got to stop

I mentioned in the last post that ESPN apparently feels the law of averages indicate that if they keep putting South Carolina in the season opener eventually one will be enjoyable to watch. Last night Miami and FSU rewarded their patience with that game, with the Canes taking an entertaining victory. I was impressed with the progress Jacory Harris has made under new OC Mark Whipple. Randy Shannon as a head coach does absolutely nothing for me, but that was a good hire. As for FSU, the clock management at the end was as inept as I have seen in a long time. The failure to take a timeout with 45 seconds left while wasting half of the remaining time shuffling in new personnel is baffling, and the poor decisions on playcalls afterwards appears to be a direct indictment of Jimbo Fisher. Seminole fans have to be sick about where their program stands right now, because the secondary looks dreadful and there's little pass rush.

Thanks to the Sam Bradford injury, all the incessant blather about the three man Heisman race and UF versus the winner of OU/Texas is officially moot. I hated to see what happened to Bradford for two reasons:

1. you hate to see it happen to anyone, especially what by all accounts seems to be a really good kid
2. agents will be using the 2009 Oklahoma team as the boogeyman to scare kids who aren't ready into going pro for the next few years

Jermaine Gresham, the stud tight end for the Sooners, already has a knee injury and missed the BYU game with rumors indicating he may need surgery and miss quite a few more. Now Bradford could potentially miss all but half of a game of his season. Both would have been first round picks last season, with Bradford possibly first overall. That's why no one should ever begrudge guys who are ready from going ahead and getting themselves taken care of financially. Unfortunately, there will be plenty of guys who aren't first rounders that get persuaded they need to go early as well to protect themselves from injury. Hopefully they turn out better than, for example, South Carolina's Emmanuel Cook. The safety was convinced he was a hot enough draft commodity that he stopped going to class and went pro. He wound up not being drafted and was just cut by the New York Jets after trying out as a free agent. There will be many more stories like that next year thanks to what's just happened in Norman.

Other rapid fire college football thoughts...

Isn't it remarkable how Notre Dame football is perceived as being back because they were able to put together dominating performances against Hawaii in their bowl game and now Nevada at home? All kidding aside though, keeping Nevada from scoring was a legit accomplishment. I'm a huge fan of Jon Tenuta as a defensive coordinator, and he's fully in charge there now. The Irish will be better for it.

Ron Zook has officially entered his warm seat phase at Illinois. It's one thing to lose to Missouri, it's another to get embarassed by them when you're favored by a touchdown. The Big Ten is mediocre enough Zook's guys will probably make a bowl, but doubt about whether he can take them any farther than 7 wins has begun to be a majority view.

My team of choice, Colorado, looked awful in losing to Colorado State Sunday night. I've been optimistic about Dan Hawkins as he's done the right things trying to clean up Gary Barnett's mess the past three years, but time is running out. People around college football have been saying for a couple of years Chris Petersen was the power behind the throne at Boise State under Hawkins. Looks like they may have been right.

Ohio State QB Terrelle Pryor has a right to be a fan of Michael Vick, but his decision to put the disgraced QB's name on his eyeblack was supremely stupid. His quote explaining it is even more so - see for yourself. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that Vick's name won't be there when the Buckeyes go against USC this week.

There are tons of gorgeous women available for pro athletes to date. With all the possibilities who aren't known attention whores, I have no idea what would posess an NFL guy to involve himself with a person like "Tila Tequila". Shawne Merriman did, and found himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons as a result of her "citizen's arrest" for him allegedly choking her. Funniest line in the story? "Caldwell said deputies determined Tequila had been drinking." - really? Get out of here!