10 signs football is upon us

10. every morning at 6:30 your house's windows shudder and shake unevenly from the percussion section of local high school marching band practice - six miles away.

9. coverage of the US presidential election and European bailouts drop to pages four and five respectively when the USA Today NFL preview edition hits newsstands.

8. ESPN begins advertising the two-hour pre preseason special guide to new fall beer commercials.

7. a stack of decade-old-plus t-shirts your spouse, girlfriend or mom has been asking you to get rid of is carefully boxed and carried to the crawl space - and replaced by a box of decade-old-plus sweatshirts your spouse, girlfriend or mom had been asking you to get rid of that was carefully stored in the crawl space.

6. you are momentarily overcome by a light-headed giddy sense of euphoria that you won't have to watch any more baseball games to get a sports fix until the World Series is played sometime during football season in what appears to be blizzard conditions.

5. colleges and universities allow young people that are are into extracurricular activities like "pursuing a degree"and "hitting the library"back on campus in time for the first football game of the year.

4. you realize you know the first and middle names of every member of the offensive line of your alma mater even if you can't get first names of your own kids right every time.

3. ignoring pain from bunions and planter fasciitis you have your youngest child hold a football vertically on the ground so you can see if you can still kick a game-winning field goal as measured by the back of your garage roof.

2. you call your niece - at her father's and fiance's request - to see if you can talk her out of that Saturday afternoon wedding in the fall she is considering.

1. as you stretch out the inflamed rotator cuff and extend the half-locked knee joint, you think back fondly on all your old football injuries - even if you never played the sport.

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Mark Gilroy is author of the critically acclaimed novel Cuts Like a Knife. His second novel, Every Breath You Take, releases on October 23, 2012. A 30-year veteran of the publishing industry, he has served as publisher and executive vice president at several companies and currently runs a company that services retailers, publishers, ministries, and other organizations in the industry.

top 10 ways to know that football is here

Are you ready for some football? Here are the top 10 ways to know it has officially arrived!

1. the bass drum corps from the high school - located more than a couple miles from your house - rattles your windows every morning during marching band practice - and then breaks crystal and knocks picture frames off the wall every other Friday night at home games;

2. you find out where your neighbors moved from or went to college as flags are attached to car windows or hung from front porches (or both) every Saturday morning - of note: you will know when their favorite team has lost a big game when the flag comes down immediately after the game;

3. no more curling tournaments; no more bocci specials; no more cricket highlights from the New Zealand versus Barbados match are shown on ESPN 2 through 25;

4. coaches at every level of football stand before a row of microphones and talk about how tough their opening game against a team that hasn't won a game in three years is going to be...with a straight face;

5. grown men who shouldn't take off their shirts in public take of their shirts in public with a big block letter painted on their chest;

6. television ratings for major league baseball plummet - and no one outside New York City and Boston and whoever lives in one of the cities that has a shot of playing them cares;

7. even the most long suffering of fans - i.e. Cincinnati Bengals fans (the team I grew up watching) - believe this year is going to finally be different for their team (until after the first game is a blowout loss);

8. the skinny kid who majors (or plans to major) in atomic and molecular astrophysics puts on a Tiger outfit and becomes a rock star to the home fans;

9. fantasy draft parties are held in corporate meeting rooms after work hours with a group of eleven people who bring enough pages of notes to fill War and Peace - and a twelfth person who plans to draft the kicker from his alma mater in the first round;

10. fans who have never played a down of football get into heated - and well reasoned - arguments over the merits of cover two versus bump and run; three-four versus four-three; i-formation versus the spread; punting or going for it; 60's Packers versus 80's 49ers versus the 21st Century Patriots; and the current head coach versus the coach who got fired from someone else's team last year.

Are you ready for some football?

college football still packs a punch

Baseball may be America's pastime but football is America's passion when it comes to sports. (I have a friend who has dubbed the summer sport as basebore. Wake me up when the world series starts.)

The NFL finished its preseason - and no one knows why they even held a preseason in the first place (unless it had something to do with money) - and keeps score and counts the games this coming weekend.

College football came out of the corner swinging last Thursday - literally if you check the video below - with Oregon visiting Boise State and losing on BSU's smurf-blue football field that makes TV screens beg for mercy. By now everyone in the world that watches ESPN highlights has seen the sucker punch thrown by a frustrated Oregon player at the end of the game as players were exiting the field. Not quite the punch CFB wanted thrown on a weekend dedicated, ironically, to sportsmanship. (Note: Now this is real irony, not just the bad luck and tragedy masqueraded as irony by Alanis Morissette in her song Isn't It Ironic?). But I digress. And despite a black eye administered to sportsmanship, there was plenty of on field highlights for football junkies who have been suffering withdrawal pains for the past eight months.



My Buckeyes played a less than impressive game against the Naval Academy - putting in the second string quarterback in the second quarter is not a recipe for maintaining momentum in what looked like an emerging blowout - but before the game, in the spirit of sportsmanship, the two teams ran onto the field together. This was a first ever happening in storied Ohio Stadium. All week leading up to the game head coach Senator Tressel had let it be known that he did not want servicemen being booed - a friendly tradition in Ohio and a couple hundred other venues each Saturday afternoon of CFB season - and, in fact, wanted Navy's players to be given a standing ovation. Apparently he didn't have total faith in his fan base so he set things up to insure the standing O. I don't know. We've booed the home team before, too.

Based on one week of results, the sports guru pundits are pretty sure who is really good and who is really bad already. They'll be wrong a fair amount of the time and by season's end express indignation that the season didn't unfold as they pronounced it would. (Note: Only a few of the pundits predict any more. Most now pronounce. Better ratings.)

Not surprising, Lou Holtz has already declared Notre Dame as national champions. The term "SEC speed" was used no less than 300 times on ESPN. And then a thousand more times once the games started. Oklahoma got upset by BYU and lost their Heisman winner QB, Sam Bradford, for an indefinite stretch of games. Michigan looked like the Wolverines again - maybe they've been practicing extra - and speaking of which, I am all for eschewing the tie and deciding games in overtime, but it doesn't mean I can't still hope and pray that when Michigan and Notre Dame play next week, "they" - maybe we do need the pundits on occasion - deem both teams losers after a 0-0 final score highlighted by 20 fumbles.

So who is going to win the national championship? And who do I think is going to be really good and bad this year? Rather than separate the sheep and the goats and impute or impinge character on the basis of winning, as a spectator, I'll hide behind the words of Teddy Roosevelt:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never tasted victory or defeat.

On that note, all I can say is "Go Bucks. Beat USC!"

time for a college football playoff? only if ...

Utah knocked off Alabama in the Sugar Bowl a couple days ago, lifting their record to 13-0. Shouldn't that give them a claim as college football's national champions? Or how about Texas who beat Oklahoma who is playing for the title against Florida?

I'm somewhat of a traditionalist - okay, a little mix of iconoclast and traditionalist - so I've never had a dog in the we-must-have-a-playoff-for-Division-I-college-football fight. I can see both sides of the debate.

The arguments against a D-I college football (CFB) playoff include -

* the bowl system generates more income for schools and communities than a playoff would
* a little controversy keeps interest level high
* the bowl system is a reward to the kids - and allows many schools to claim some form of a championship
* college football is healthy so why mess with something that's already working
* college football is about tradition and the bowls with their parades and pageantry are definitely traditional
* extra games associated with a playoff would cut into student-athletes' academic studies

There is an answer for and to every point above. I'm oversimplifying but here's the quick responses in corresponding order: playoffs would generate NFL type of dollars; controversy is not good when the 'best team' gets ripped off due to system rules; you can still keep some form of the bowl system but some of the bowls would go away (and need to go away); sure CFB is healthy but so is basketball and people absolutely love March Madness and filling in their brackets; again, you can keep some of the bowls as part of the playoff system; hey, if athletes from the lower divisions of CFB can do a playoffs and handle the academic work load at some rigorous universities, why can't the D-I kids?

Like I said, I have no dog in this fight - something Michael Vick wishes he could have said - so you pick the answers you like best and you won't get me worked up. As you can tell with the associated arguments above, most solutions try to incorporate traditional bowls into the playoff equation. And this is where I have a problem. In fact, I would go so far as to say, dump the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) completely and return to stand-alone bowls with a vote at the end of the year or go strictly with a playoff for the top eight teams. But don't mix the two.

Why?

Bowls were never set up to determine a national champion. Bowls were about rewarding kids with travel, gifts, and a televized game and giving alums and fans a warm weather place to go for a vacation. As a result the bowls have always favored warm weather schools and penalized cold weather schools.

Warm weather schools can recruit and play a style of football that doesn't have to change as the leaves fall off of trees. (Texas Tech needs to bring their passing attack to Madison, Wisconsin, in late November to test my theory.) Warm weather schools often travel less distance (and many times stay in-state) for a near home field advantage in bowl season. (USC's last home game every year is the Rose Bowl! Of course, if the mighty Trojans would stop getting upset by 30-point underdogs they would have to play for a championship instead of relying on ESPN to crown them as best-ever each year.) The pundits discuss and explore home field issues, including weather conditions, in depth and ad nauseum in the NFL - no one wants to go to Green Bay in December I've heard - but college analysts conveniently ignore that reality.

Oh, you're a Buckeye fan and are just making excuses. Let's face it, the best football is played in the SEC and Big 12 South! Weather is a non-issue.

Uh oh. The topic of discussion just changed! And yes, I confess, I am defending my much-maligned Buckeyes and the Big 10 and its quality of football as evidenced by the last few bowl seasons. Realistically, I can accept that the Big 10 is down the past two or three years and the SEC is up based on year end results - but there's an even more telling statistic that argues against the kind of disparity being argued. It's number of players in the NFL. The score card reads:

SEC - 263 players / 137 starters
ACC - 238 players / 121 starters
Big Ten - 234 players / 105 starters
Pac-10 - 183 players / 70 starters
Big 12 - 176 players / 72 starters
Big East - 84 players / 33 starters

So admittedly there is a power shift toward the southeast USA, but not to the degree it's been propagated by fans who claim if you ain't cheating you ain't really trying.

But back to CFB playoffs! I'm all for the top eight teams forming a bracket to set up a Super Bowl type climax to the CFB season - because we all know how great SB games are most years! (Sarcasm font on.) But not if all games are played in warm weather sites.

After all, since weather is just an excuse, shouldn't Gator, Trojan, and Seminole fans get to experience football the way it was meant to be played ... outdoors in December in Ann Arbor, Columbus, Happy Valley or other northern climes?

That's a thought that warms my heart!

no more mr. weis guy?

No one wants to see someone lose their job. Though in the case of Charlie Weis, head football coach for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, I am almost willing to make an exception.

Now, before you think I'm an uncaring ogre, let me point out that if Charlie Weis were to be fired as Notre Dame's head football coach at the end of this season, he would get a buyout in the neighborhood of $15 to $20 million dollars. Another way of looking at that would be to say he just won the lottery. So he and his family would not go hungry.

I'm not alone in keeping an eye on this situation. There are several reasons this is a huge point of scrutiny and discussion right now - even by college football coaching standards, where serial hiring and firing comes with the territory. I'll hit the political reason last and start with how the Golden Domers are playing. On the field, over the last two seasons, after a successful 9-3 record in Weis's first season, Charlie's Notre Dame football team has -

*lost 13 of their last 21 games
*been shut out 3 times, including this past Saturday to Catholic rival, Boston College
*lost to Navy after 43 straight wins over the Naval Academy (think this Saturday's game in Baltimore is a big deal to Charlie?)
*had the first ever 9-loss season, which was the worst season in the 120-year history of the program
*scored 13 points in the first three games of last year
*accumulated a 1-15 record in their last 16 games against teams with a winning record

Even the leprechaun mascot looks shell shocked - and a little smaller. He traditionally does a push up for each point on the scoreboard every time Notre Dame scores. Not a real grueling workout for him these days and it shows. Can you blame alumni, fans, and even the priests for getting a little hot under the collar? (Yuk yuk.) After all, Notre Dame is the second winningest team in the history of college football with 829 wins and 42 ties in 1,139 games played.

The scoring woes of the Irish are amazing in light that they are coached by an "offensive genius" who boldly declared upon being hired to his first head coaching position that Notre Dame would have a strategic advantage over every team they played based on his tenure as offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. The Patriots have fared much better on offense than have the Irish since Charlie's move to South Bend.

The reason so many rival fans are rubbing their hands together in undisguised glee over Weis being on the hot seat is his record of perceived arrogance, which many feel has rivaled the arrogance of the fan base. (Yuk yuk yuk!)

Now to the politics. Off field, the reason this has become such a big deal is that an African American was elected president of the United States of America.

Huh? Obama is in charge of college football, too?

Nope but there's a connection. The man he replaced, Ty Willingham, is African American and many thought Notre Dame gave him the shaft when they suddenly dumped him with two years left on his contract, something the school had never done, not even in the tumultuous Gerry Faust era. Now the coach at University of Washington, Willingham is just one of just six African American head coaches in college football - a number that could very well be cut in half at season's end when he, Ron Prince at Kansas State, and Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State possibly get the axe and lose their jobs as expected.

What's brought on the renewed scrutiny is that Willingham was fired by the Golden Domers after three seasons with a 21-15 record. With three games to play in his third season, including an almost certain loss coming up against USC, Charlie Weis is 22-15. Since there is such little difference in their records, groups like the Black Coaches Association and fans and commentators of all colors are watching closely to see if the two men will be treated the same by Notre Dame's administration.

Even if their records are nearly identical it doesn't mean their situations are the same and I am loathe to interpret Notre Dame's action against Ty Willingham and possible inaction against Charlie Weis in racial terms, though on face value, the facts look more than a bit damning. One need not be self-consciously racist to behave in a racist manner.

But there are factors besides race, most notably simple economics, by which Weis could survive another season as head coach. Sure, Notre Dame with its own television network contract can afford to buy Weis out of his contract. But will they be willing to write that kind of check in the midst of a national financial crisis? That would generate a whole other set of questions. Stewardship by a Christian institution comes to mind.

Under coaches like Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy it became popular to talk about the Luck of the Irish. What we're about to discover in the next month in regard to the running of the Notre Dame football machine has much more to do with the Pluck of the Irish!

That leaves just one conclusion.

Go Navy!