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Top 25 questions, tidbits for 1998
By Don Borst
CBS SportsLine/College Sports Xchange
Aug. 3, 1998
Here we go...
College football
training camps open as early as Monday, Aug. 9, so this is
a fine time to get caught up on the Top 25.
Not the Top 25 teams ... there's plenty of those lists. These are the Top 25
pressing questions, answers and general tidbits that await college football in
1998.
Some answers
First, the answers to a handful of the most obvious questions:
| 1. | | The answer: Ohio State and Florida.
The question: Who'll wind up in the Fiesta Bowl?
The background: The way we see it, while 112 teams are still mathematically
in the race, only seven teams have the combination of players, coaching and
schedule to reach Tempe, Ariz., on the night of Monday, Jan. 4 -- Ohio State,
Michigan, Florida, Florida State, Nebraska, Kansas State and West Virginia.
Considering that six of those teams square off with one another in November (Ohio
State-Michigan, Florida-Florida State, Nebraska-Kansas State), and West
Virginia and Ohio State open the season against each other, this thing could
get pretty simple. |
| 2. | | The answer: Just fine ... as long as the No. 3 team doesn't have a
strong argument.
The question: How well will the Bowl Championship Series work this season?
The background: With the Fiesta Bowl guaranteed to match the top two teams,
we have a sneaking suspicion that No. 3 could wind up hopping mad. Consider
that OSU-Michigan, UF-FSU and Nebraska-KSU could leave us with three clearly
deserving, even undefeated teams ... which would lead us to an outcry for a
playoff loud enough that would actually be heard and be discussed for the
(distant) future. |
| 3. | | The answer: Ricky Williams.
The question: Who will win the Heisman Trophy?
The background: The Texas tailback has changed his number back to 34, which
he wore on his high school jersey. Oh, yeah... it's also the one former Longhorn Earl
Campbell made famous in the NFL. And after leading the nation in rushing,
he's got a chance to run away with the Heisman the way that Peyton Manning was
supposed to last season. |
| 4. | | The answer: No, no, 30 times no.
The question: Will well-stocked Kansas State unseat Nebraska atop the Big 12?
The background: If it's ever going to happen, it ought to happen in 1998 since the Wildcats are the most experienced quality team in the country, and they face the Cornhuskers in Manhattan, Kan. Also, Nebraska (despite 29 wins in a row over
KSU) no longer has the invincible aura it displayed under the retired Tom
Osborne. At least that's the theory, but the Huskers are still the
Huskers ... and the Wildcats aren't. |
| 5. | | The answer: Kentucky.
The question: Who will be this year's Cinderella?
The background: In the 1990s, Georgia Tech, Northwestern, Oregon,
Washington State and Purdue have taken their turns as the rags-to-riches
superheroes. There's bound to be somebody this season, and with the
improvement the Wildcats showed last year under Hal Mumme, and Tim Couch
emerging into the all-everything quarterback to lead the way, Kentucky should be that team in 1998. |
Name association
Now for a few name associations, and what they have in common:
| 6. | | Names: Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, LaVell Edwards and Keith Jackson.
Association: Four guys who will leave Osborne-sized shoes when they follow Dr. Tom into
retirement soon. |
| 7. | | Names: North Carolina's Dre Bly, Ohio State's Andy Katzenmoyer, Wisconsin's
Ron Dayne, Florida State's Peter Warrick.
Association: Four Top 10 draft picks in April who are juniors this season. |
| 8. | | Names: Tulane's Tommy Bowden, Louisiana Tech's Gary Crowton, Kentucky's Hal
Mumme and Florida's Bobby Stoops.
Association: Four hottest names on the rumor mill for top jobs come December. |
| 9. | | Names: Nebraska's Mike Rucker, UCLA's Kenyon Coleman, North Carolina's
Ebenezer Ekuban and Florida State's Jerry Johnson.
Association: Four defensive linemen who will be superstars in 1998 after not even
starting in 1997. |
| 10. | | Names: Kentucky's Tim Couch, Central Florida's Daunte Culpepper, UCLA's Cade
McNown and Washington's Brock Huard.
Association: Four quarterbacks who are on their way to becoming NFL stars. |
| 11. | | Names: LSU's Cecil Collins, Oklahoma State's Jamal Williams and UNLV's Jon
Denton.
Association: Three potential superstars who blew their chance for a huge 1998 season. (Each was dumped from his team for various off-field problems.) |
| 12. | | Names: Jarious Jackson, Autry Denson, Kory Minor and Johnnie Cochran.
Association: Four guys Notre Dame needs to produce to have a successful year. |
Numerology
What do the following numbers mean in college football this season?
| 13. | | 3/4 (Hint: As in, 75 percent) |
| 14. | | Two (Hint: Wins... and 300 wins, too) |
| 16. | | Five (Hint: As in five-year intervals) |
Answers:
| 13. | | That's how often Nebraska has won the national championship over the
past four seasons, which is 25 percent more than any team in college football
history in any previous four-year period. Ahem... a fourth title in five years
(80 percent) would be equally unprecedented. |
| 14. | | With two more victories, Penn State's Joe Paterno will join Bear
Bryant, Pop Warner and Amos Alonzo Stagg as the only college football coaches
to reach the 300-victory milestone. Although the season opener against Southern Miss will
be tougher than anticipated, the party is still tentatively scheduled for the
Sept. 12 date with Bowling Green. And what's to say Paterno will not hang
around long enough to pass Bryant's 323 career victories atop the list? |
| 15. | | The number of preseason games has multiplied to four, essentially
undermining their own future. Yes, they open the season on Aug. 29, which is
actually a week before the season actually opens (or something like that), but
in taking advantage of NCAA guidelines and ruining the order of the beginning
of the season, the preseason games have been given notice that they will be
kicked out of college football after the 2002 season. |
| 16. | | Every five years, West Virginia wins all of its regular-season games.
Like clockwork. It happened in 1988, in 1993, and it's that time again for Don
Nehlen and the Mountaineers ... who happen to have players with starting
experience returning at 19 positions. |
| 17. | | With two new bowl games, and all of the old ones hanging around, there
are now 22 bowl games filling up the holiday season, which means an astounding
44 teams will be playing in bowl games at the end of the season. Really,
that's 39.2 percent of all the Div. I-A teams. |
| 18. | | Ricky Williams needs that many yards to become the No.1 ground-gainer
in NCAA history, breaking Tony Dorsett's seemingly unbreakable career record
of 6,082 (set in 1973-76 at Pitt). If Williams can duplicate his nation-
leading 1,893-yard season of last year, new coach Mack Brown will show his
gratitude for Williams' return to the Longhorns by making darn sure the
personable tailback gets the requisite carries down the stretch to have the
opportunity for the record. |
Streaks
And, finally, a few streaks (with much-needed hints):
| 19. | | 14 (Hint: Good news.) |
| 21. | | 11 (Hint: Give 'em five.) |
| 22. | | 58 (Hint: Scorched Sunflowers.) |
| 24. | | 34 (Hint: Anchored away.) |
| 25. | | 5 (Hint: Varied floral arrangement.) |
Answers:
| 19. | | Following its bowl victory two seasons ago and sweeping its 13 games last season, Nebraska holds a two-game edge
on Michigan for the longest winning streak in the nation entering the 1998
season. UCLA and Colorado State are next, with winning streaks
of 10 and 9 games. |
| 20. | | That would be the nation's longest losing streak, which belongs to
Northern Illinois. The Huskies and their 18-game streak -- tied for 11th-longest in NCAA history -- have a slim one-game "edge" on the University
of Illinois. The state has a stranglehold on the record: Back in 1982, NIU was
the team that lost to Northwestern, snapping NU's all-time-record streak at
34. |
| 21. | | It has become a given in the polls: Find four teams to add to Florida
State. The Seminoles have finished each of the past 11 seasons ranked in the
top five, which is something nobody else in college football history has come
close to matching. Actually, it's 11 years in a row in the top four, but top five
has a better ring to it. |
| 22. | | In each of the past 29 seasons, Nebraska has beaten both Kansas and
Kansas State ... making it 58 consecutive victories over teams from the
Sunflower State for the Cornhuskers. |
| 23. | | In 1970, the Oregon State Beavers won their last three games to finish
with a 6-5 record. But then the dam broke, and OSU has been washed away to a
growing NCAA-record of 27 consecutive losing seasons. |
| 24. | | Ever wonder why Notre Dame keeps Navy, of all teams, on the schedule?
Well, the Irish have sunk the Middies an NCAA-record 34 straight times, dating
back to 1963. Yes, that was the year when Navy had a quarterback named Roger
Staubach, who won the Heisman Trophy, and it might take another Heisman winner
for Navy to beat the Irish again. |
| 25. | | Believe it or not, for five years in a row, the Rose Bowl has seen no
duplication of champions from the Pac-10 or Big Ten. Think about that and how
unlikely it would have seemed before the streak started in 1993.
In the Pac-10, it's actually a six-year streak that started in 1992, with
Washington, UCLA, Oregon, USC, ASU and WSU in succession. In the Big Ten,
since 1993, it has been Wisconsin, Penn State, Northwestern, Ohio State and
Michigan.
That must mean we'll see in Pasadena some combination of Stanford,
California, Arizona or Oregon State against Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota,
Purdue, Michigan State or Iowa. |
Don Borst is a writer for College Sports Xchange.
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