College Football
What on earth happened to Iowa this year?
By CHIP SCOGGINS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Viewed as a legitimate Big Ten contender in the preseason, the Iowa Hawkeyes football team entered the final week of September 4-0 and knocking on the door of a Top 10 national ranking.
Today? The Hawkeyes are 6-5, tied for seventh place in the Big Ten and appear to be coming apart at the seams as they prepare for Saturday's regular-season finale against the Minnesota Gophers.
The collapse has made the Hawkeyes, who lived a charmed life in recent years, one of the biggest disappointments in college football this season and begs the obvious question: What in the world has happened?
"We're obviously disappointed," coach Kirk Ferentz said.
Bears can step up against USC or fall hard
By MARCOS BRETON
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
How does a college football program become elite? By winning games like the one this Saturday, when Cal travels to Los Angeles for a breathlessly anticipated showdown against USC.
For a Cal program on the cusp of elite status, they just don't get any bigger than this.
Awaiting them in a cauldron of 90,000 screaming fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be the lights and cameras of a national television broadcast in prime time across much of America.
Facing them will be a Trojans team on the rise, playing their best football of the season, and still very much in the running for a shot at a national championship.
Looming over them will be a blessed Rose Bowl berth, the first for Cal in nearly 50 years and attainable only if Cal defeats the Trojans in a stadium where USC has not lost in five years.
This level of grandeur is all new for the Bears, the next massive step in the ascension of a program that coach Jeff Tedford revived beginning in 2002.
College Football Capsules
By JOHN LINDSAY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Capsule previews for this week's top college football games. All times Eastern and all rankings Coaches poll.
THURSDAY:
No. 7 WEST VIRGINIA (8-1) at PITTSBURGH (6-4), 7:30 p.m., ESPN.
FAVORITE: Power ratings say West Virginia by 8.
COACHES: Rich Rodriguez (47-23 in 6th year at West Va.) and Dave Wannstedt (11-10 in second year at Pitt).
LAST WEEK: West Virginia beat Cincinnati, 42-24.
Blue-collar Pitcock dresses up Buckeyes' defense
By MATT MARKEY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Decked out in his football armor, Quinn Pitcock looks like the perfect gladiator. He is a mass of strength, a veritable immovable object forged of granite and steel.
The senior defensive tackle for Ohio State would be just as comfortable dressed in denim and chaps and riding bulls at a rodeo, or wrapped in Carharts and work boots and throwing freight around on a waterfront loading dock.
Now finding a tuxedo to fit this guy, that might be another story.
But the Buckeyes could very well be faced with that quandary, when they try to dress up their 6-3, 300 pound All-American candidate for the postseason awards shows.
Trojans appear to have learned their lesson
By RAY RATTO
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Coach Pete Carroll has had it so good at Southern Cal for so long that an apology from him grates on the ears a bit. So when he apologized for stripping a gear after the interminable replay delay late in the Oregon-USC game Saturday, he sounded almost disingenuous.
White out to prove he can do it by land or air
By CHUCK FINDER
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Day after day. Snap after snap. The starting quarterback barked, and his offensive teammates sprang into action. Monday through Saturday. May through July.
No end to greed of college presidents
By BOB SMIZIK
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Imagine this: After the Steelers and Seahawks won conference championship games Jan. 22 of this year, the NFL announced the Super Bowl would be played not in two weeks but March 13.
Crazy, right?
What about this? After the National League Championship Series ended Oct.
Senior Day fumble a new UW low
By DAVE BOLING
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sometimes in this business it's necessary to make retractions or corrections.
For instance, when the University of Washington football team was 4-1 this fall, I looked ahead to a late-season game against Stanford and counted it as a certain win for the Huskies "unless the Cardinal decides to drop the sport before then," in which case it would go down as a forfeit.
Michigan-Ohio State dwarfs college football world
By JOHN LINDSAY
Monday, November 20, 2006
To really understand how big Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State showdown is, all one has to do is focus on what really aren't the storylines this week after an amazing weekend of games.
Consider:
_ Undefeated Rutgers (9-0) is sixth in this week's BCS standings with an outside shot at the BCS national title game.
