Musings From Week Two Of College Football

Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 9/9/2007 11:02 AM

   Still trying to recover from Saturday’s Nebraska-Wake game.  Now I know what restaurant food feels like under the heat lamp.  Have heard and read scores of horror stories about people standing in line to buy water or lemonade or ice.  Actually stood in two lines and missed most of the second quarter.  20 minutes for bottled water:  ran out.  Another 20 waiting for lemonade:  ran out of ice.  My two sons were not dealing well with the heat, so we left at halftime, doing the claustrophobia slalom on our way out.  Hope and pray for cooler weather for the Army game.

   My AP Top-25 vote for this week:

1.  Southern Cal

2.  LSU

3.  Oklahoma

4.  Wisconsin

5. West Virginia

6. Florida

7. Louisville

8. Texas

9. Georgia Tech

10. UCLA

11. Rutgers

12. Ohio State

13. Appalachian State

14. California

15. Nebraska

16. Virginia Tech

17. Arkansas

18. Boston College

19. Tennessee

20. Penn State

21. South Carolina

22. Georgia

23. Oregon

24. Washington

25. Missouri

   We now know that Michigane is simply not that good.  However, we didn’t know that last week and since Appalachian didn’t have the benefit of AP Poll eligibility last week. the Mountaineers get an ‘extra benefit’ this week.

The First Weekend of College Football

The First Weekend of College Football Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 9/3/2007 11:17 PM

   Since I’m an AP voter this year, I figured I should watch a little more college football.  That was, until I spent nearly all day Saturday glued to the tube.

   At noon, I tuned into the Virginia Tech-ECU game, while also flipping over the Colorado-Colorado State game.  At halftime, I left to go to the gym and thanks to the bank of six tv monitors, I spent 35 minutes of cardio watching both games.

   I went back home, showered, then tuned in the Wake-BC game.  During breaks, it was remote roulette over to the Georgia Tech-Notre Dame game.

   My family and I then went to a “family” sports bar for dinner.  Among their several tvs was Louisiana Lafayette-South Carolina on Comcast.  Don’t know about you, but I had that one circled on my personal “wanna watch” list as soon as the schedule came out.

  After dinner, it was back home to Tennessee-Cal and Kansas State-Auburn, followed by a nightcap of Idaho-Southern Cal.

   Add to that, all those pregame, halftime and postgame shows, plus local sportscasts… and I think I saw at least one highlights from every single game played on Saturday.

   And that doesn’t even count Louisville-Murray State, LSU-Mississippi State and Cincinnati-whoever they played on Thursday… and Washington-Syracuse while writing High School Playbook highlights Friday night.  And yes, I think my alma mater’s uniforms are hid-e-ous!

   In any event, here are my observations from the weekend: 

- Appalachian State’s win at Michigan was AWESOME!  However, I don’t think it was a huge upset, because I think Appalachian is THAT GOOD!  Despite two  (whatever division you want to call it) national titles, the Mountaineers are still the country’s best-kept secret (although I guess not anymore);

- Wake Forest needs to beat Nebraska Saturday… just because;

- maybe I was a little premature in picking NC State 25th in the AP preseason poll;

- Georgia Tech has the 2nd-best defense in the ACC, the leading returning rusher in the league, and a quarterback who won’t make Reggie all mistakes.  That overcomes the loss of Calvin Johnson;

- Southern Cal has more tailbacks than K&W has pies;

- did I mention that Syracuse’s unis are hid-e-ous?!?!?!

And now, my poll submitted to Associated Press at 12:01am Tuesday:

1. Southern Cal
2. LSU
3. Wisconsin
4. Louisville
5. Virginia Tech
6. Florida
7. West Virginia
8. Oklahoma
9. Texas
10. UCLA
11. Rutgers
12. California
13. Ohio State
14. Georgia Tech
15. Nebraska
16. Georgia
17. Auburn
18. TCU
19. Tennessee
20. Arkansas
21. Boise State
22. Missouri
23. Oregon State
24. Boston College
25. Hawaii

If only I could have:  Appalachian State (#4)

Close, but not yet:  Penn State, Texas A&M, Michigan, Clemson

Ready for football!

Ready for football! Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/29/2007 4:02 PM

By WXII 12 sports director Dave Goren. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the summer as much as anyone.  But for some reason, this summer just dragged on… and on… and on.

I can’t wait for football season to start… and thank goodness it starts this week.  What a great weekend of games to start with:  Wake at Boston College, Appalachian at Michigan, A&T at Winston-Salem State.  And that doesn’t even count the debuts of Tom O’Brien at NC State and Butch Davis at UNC.

By the way, when the AP Preseason Top 25 was released, I found out that I was the only person to give NC State a vote.  I picked the Pack 25th in my preseason poll, mainly because I’m a big believer in the coaching ability of Tom O’Brien.

Can Appalachian pull off an upset at the Big House?  I think they can hang with the Wolverines for a half, but I think there is a big difference between top-level I-A (errr, Bowl Subdivision) talent and top-level I-AA (err, Championship Subdivision) talent.  By the way, I’m not sure who at the NCAA came up with the Subdivision names, but that person needs to be reassigned to a job where he or she doesn’t deal with people.

Wake at BC.  The point margins the last four years between them:  3, 4, 5 and 7.  Would I go out on a limb and say this game won’t be close?  No, I won’t.

I did neglect to mention Duke.  The Blue Devils host UConn.  And I will go out on a limb here:  Duke ends its 20-game losing streak on Saturday. And that’s despite the fact that I used to regularly eat meals in college with Huskies head coach Randy Edsall, another good guy.

As for the Aggies and Rams… A&T owes Winston-Salem for last season’s beat down.  But I don’t think the Aggies have enough firepower to overcome Monte Purvis, Jed Bines and company.

Let’s get ready for kickoff!

Tyler’s Preseason Top 25

Tyler’s Preseason Top 25 Posted by wxii12.com news at 8/10/2007 2:27 PM

Alright………I love the old American past time, but football is America’s passion and it is right around the corner. So since Mr. Goren put his two cents in on his pre-season top 25 (which by the way……..I’m stunned by some of his rankings.) I decided to my own…………….this is my pre-season top 25…..

1. USC *Trojans have too much talent and great coaching so they are the team to beat*

2. FLA  *The Gators are the champs and they got Urban’s Robot under center*

3. LSU  * Way too much talent…..would have put them 2 but the champs get the edge*

4. WVA *BIG EAST CHAMPS THIS YEAR…….scary good* Defense is still questionable*

5. WISC *this whole team is back from last year…..Badgers win BIG 10*

6. MICH *LLOYD CARR can’t get the Wolverines to the next level*

7. TEXAS * Colt McCoy is not VINCE SO I am not sold on the Longhorns being a BCS team*

8. VIRGINIA TECH *with emotions running high for the Hokies and the fact that they are talented——–watch out!!

9. LOUISVILLE  * BROHM is the best QB in the nation but his coach is coaching the Falcons*

10. CAL *Coach Tedford gets the Bears rolling but too bad Southern Cal is in the PAC-10 too*

11. OHIO STATE

12. AUBURN

13. OKLAHOMA

14. UCLA

15. UGA

16. RUTGERS

17. TENNESSEE

18. PENN STATE

19. ARKANSAS

20. WAKE FOREST* Every poll has the Deacs not listed…..WHATEVER!!!!! they got good talent returning and I believe in Riley Skinner*

21. NEBRASKA

22. BOSTON COLLEGE

23. FLORIDA STATE

24. TEXAS A&M

25. TCU

What Did We Learn?

What Did We Learn? Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/10/2007 12:07 PM

   Of the hundreds of Skip Prosser tributes I read and heard, one of the common themes was what a great teacher he was.  It should be obvious that his players and staff learned a lot from him.  But what about the rest of us?  What lessons did we learn?

   After reading and hearing so many stories about short chance encounters so many people had with Prosser,  I was struck by the number of people who said how nice he was to them.  That stuck with me so much that I have made it a point not just to be nice to people I meet, but to go out of my way to be nice to people.  Engage them before they engage you.  It’s amazing how that awful feeling in the wake of Prosser’s death changed to an uplifting feeling just by taking that one simple step.

   And wouldn’t that be a great piece of Skip’s lasting legacy?

Wake To Name Basketball Coach Wednesday

Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/7/2007 8:33 PM

   Wake Forest has called an 11am Wednesday news conference at Bridger Field House  to announce a successor to the late Skip Prosser as head basketball coach.

   Prosser died July 26th after suffering a massive heart attack. 

   Stay tuned to WXII 12 and wxii12.com for further details.

Rembering Skip Prosser

Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/6/2007 1:40 PM

Holding my Skip Prosser bobblehead on the night of his passing, I broke down in tears as if I had lost a family member. I never got the honor to meet Coach Prosser but yet once the news of his passing hit I became an emotional mess.

My father is a proud alum of Wake Forest and needless to say the minute I was born I was wearing the gold and black. I watched with agony as the 2000-2001 season came to an end. (I won’t remind everyone of the Butler loss in the NCAA tournament.)

Coach Dave Odom, who I respect greatly, was at the end of his Wake Forest road and the future of the program looked grim. A guy named Skip was given the job and quickly had the Deacon faithful believing that “good days” were sure to follow. Prosser had a vision and had an attitude that said tiny Wake Forest is an elite program in the country. He wanted teams to fear the Deacs and dread coming to Winston-Salem.

I watched as Coach Prosser created his vision…students camping out for tickets, tye-dye shirts drowning the seats at LJVM, the thunderous sound of the Harley Davidson motorcycle as it makes its way to center court, the eruption of cheers as ‘Welcome to the Jungle” blares, the excitement that seeped out of everyone’s pores as the starting lineups were called, the attitude that Skip instilled in our brains that yelled “THIS IS OUR HOUSE and YOU WON’T BEAT US IN OUR HOUSE!!”

Yes! A once high school basketball coach orchestrated all of that. Skip made it to the coaching ranks the old-fashioned way, from middle school to high school to college. Prosser had no connections to get to where he was…..no….he made himself the connection. You could see it in his eyes every time he coached, he loved the game of basketball and he had an excitement and passion for it and he wanted the University and the city of Winston-Salem to feel it too. I hope we all continue to live his dream and keep the tradition that he created alive.

I know why I shed so many tears that night, because I did lose a family member as did the rest of the Wake Nation. Thank you Skippy for making me proud to be a Deacon fan and passing along the passion that you have for the great sport of basketball.

My Pre-Season Top 25

My Pre-Season Top 25 Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/4/2007 11:29 AM

   Last week, I was asked by one of our state’s Associated Press sportswriters to vote in this season’s AP Top 25 college football poll.  I said I would and ever since, I have been left wondering why I did.

   You would have thought I had learned my lesson the first time I voted in the poll back in ‘94.  That was the year Florida State finished first, despite losing to #2 Notre Dame.  I’ll never forget then-Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz holding a news conference at the Greensboro Airport Marriott before he spoke to the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. 

   Holtz started the media briefing by saying he didn’t want to “belabor the point” why he thought Notre Dame should have been voted number one.  He then went on to belabor the pont for a good 45 minutes.  I voted FSU #1 that year because their only loss was to ND at South Bend.  ND lost at home to an inferior Boston College team.  To put it plainly, even though ND beat FSU, I thought the Noles were the better team.  And that’s generally how I vote.

   That same year, West Virginia had its breakout season with Major Harris (remember him?) at quarterback.  Somehow, someone released the names and phone and FAX numbers of the voters (it always happens, one way or another) and I was inundated with mail, phone calls and FAXes from Mountaineer fans upset with me for not picking WVU into the “national championship” game.  That was before mass e-mail was big.  By the way, AP will release the names and affiliations of those voting at certain times of the year.  Can’t wait for the added correspondence this year from new friends all over the country!

   With all that as a preamble, let me say that this poll is the least fair of them all, since no one has seen anyone play a game yet.  Expect the biggest adjustment after the first week.

Without further adieu, here’s the pre-season Top 25 I just e-mailed to New York:

1.  Southern Cal

2.  LSU

3. Wisconsin

4. Michigan

5. Virginia Tech

6. Florida

7. West Virginia

8. Texas

9. Louisville

10. Oklahoma

11. UCLA

12. Rutgers

13. Ohio State

14. Tennessee

15. Auburn

16. California

17. Nebraska

18. Georgia Tech

19. Arkansas

20. Wake Forest

21. Georgia

22. Missouri

23. TCU

24. Oregon State

25. NC State

A Coach I’ll Never Forget

A Coach I’ll Never Forget Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 8/2/2007 12:07 AM

   If you count my years as a newspaper reporter, I’ve been covering sports since my junior year in high school, or if you want to get technical since I was the editor of my middle-school paper in eighth grade.  That means I’ve talked to and dealt with hundreds of coaches, most pleasant, some not.  I’ve always thought we that cover Wake Forest have been and are spoiled.  We get great access and the head football and basketball coaches let us shoot practice!  Let me assure you that this is not common policy among major Division One (er, Bowl Division) programs.

   And since that is not common, please allow me to pay my tribute to a common man who was an uncommon coach and person.  All the way through Tuesday’s touching funeral, so many have said so much so well that I didn’t think I would have anything left to say.

   But I do.

   Let me share a few stories from the personal file, some of which I’ve mentioned on the air over the last week:

   During Skip’s first year, after he had thrown out several quotes, I was curious.  I hadn’t gotten to know him well yet, so one day, I’m not sure if it was actually during an interview or just after, I asked him, “Do you get those quotes from Bartlett’s (Book of Famous Quotations)?”

   He answered, “No, I actually read the books.”  That was one of my first clues that I was gonna like this man.

   Some of the articles mentioned how he and Nancy worked with Forsyth Humane Society.  I served as the emcee for the first two ‘Fur Balls’ that benefit the Humane Society.  Skip and Nancy were honorary co-chairs.  Before the first one, when I asked Skip if he was ready for it, he said, “Aww, that’s my wife’s deal.”

   But because he knew it was his name that helped attract people, attenion and money for the organization, there he was shaking hands and kissing babies with the best of them.  Of course, the first one happened to coincide with the Wake at Nebraska football game.  So it was no surprise to me, when I snuck away from the party to find a tv at the bar.  There was Skip, rooting on the Deacons.  If memory serves me right, he also told me about the time he was coaching 9th grade football and his team lost because they botched a fake punt.

   When Wake played Winston-Salem State last February, it was the first game at the Joel I had “worked” in about a month.  A couple times I had conflicts with hockey games, or I watched weekend games with my family in the upper deck.  In any case, Skip hadn’t seen me in a while.  So an hour or two before the game, there was Skip in his familliar perch, sitting on the opponents’ bench, watching pre-game shootaround.  I’m walking down the sideline from the Wake bench, walk up to Skip, who by now has his hand out and says to me, “Dave, is it?”  Just a little needle to let me know he hadn’t seen me in a while.

   But my favorite story is from last November, before Wake’s exhibition basketball game.  I was walking down the Joel Coliseum hallway that leads past the Wake lockerroom.  Skip was standing by himself outside the lockerroom door.  I walked up, shook his hand and asked, “So how does it feel to be coaching at a football school?”

   His answer:  “And it couldn’t happen to a nicer human being (Jim Grobe), could it?”

   That was the Skip Prosser I’ll never forget.

Something To Do This Week

Posted by wxii12.com blogs at 7/16/2007 11:39 AM

   You could do a lot worse than attending one or some or all of the East/West High School All Star games in Greensboro this week.

   They give us the opportunity to say goodbye to many of the athletes we watched and rooted for in high school.  It’s also the last chance many of these athletes will have to play their sport before an audience.  Many are not good enough to have earned a college scholarship.  Others will eschew college athletics to concentrate on their studies.  And then there are those who have had enough.  They’ve devoted all their spare time in the last five or ten years to practice and play.  And now, they want to get on with their lives.

   Monday night, the All-Star basketball games will be played at Greensboro Coliseum.  The girls tip off at 6:30pm, the boys aroun d 8:30.  Tuesday night, it’s soccer at UNCG.  Girls game starts at 7pm, the boys at 9.  And Wednesday, at Grimsley’s Jamieson Stadium, the football game kicks off at 8, with the always-fun halftime fireworks show.  Tickets are reasonably priced.

   Another of the fun parts of these games is seeing student-athletes whom you’ve not seen play in high school who will be playing for your favorite college team.

  However, one of the growing problems for these games is the trend toward colleges getting many of these kids into summer school before their freshman year.  That means many, if not most of the best talent is already gone to college and won’t be available to play this week.

  On the flip side of that is getting to see some of that basketball talent, from in and out of state, at Rusty LaRue’s Triad Summer Pro-Am League at Forsyth Country Day School.  The League runs each Monday and Thursday through July and then has playoffs one month later.  Admission to that is free!