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'Tis the season for giving
Posted: Wednesday January 19, 2000 12:40 PM
Well its that time of year again. The holiday season is upon us, time to get fired up about the gifts that await under the tree. You know college football gave us plenty of gifts this season, and you guessed it, some were very special to me, but ya know, some have gotta go back under the tree. I really like Ron Dayne. Come on, admit it, you're just like me at first you thought he's just a fat kid who doesn't even run hard. You know what? Ron Dayne broke the all time rushing record with no passing game, against defenses that were keying on him and only him. A gift I have buried under the tree is 6-5 bowl teams. A 6-5 record is one loss from 5-6, which means your team was less than average, in fact bad, unacceptable, coach-fired, empty-seats bad. With 23 bowl games, nearly half of all Division I-A schools find themselves in a bowl game. Remember when making a bowl was a big deal? Let's get rid of some. There's a gift I plan on not forgetting. It's Joe Hamilton of Georgia Tech. Hamilton proved despite standing just 5-8, and despite all the people telling him what he couldn't do, Hamilton believed in himself. I'll never forget him singlehandedly making Florida State's vaunted defense look very average. Who gave me this? Big-time coaches bolting on their team. Nick Saban before the bowl game. Can you imagine Coach Saban in August? "Men we are a family now, we will fight for each other, we can be a special team." What did the Spartans do? They won 9 games, beat Michigan and are headed to their first New Year's Day bowl in a decade. Why shouldn't coaches be off-limits until after the bowl game? If you have a heart and it's ticking, you had to love the East Carolina story. It so happened that floods nearly devastated the Greenville, N.C. home of East Carolina. With every excuse possible the Pirates simply rallied not only the team but an entire community. But the most important thing about the holidays -- don't be tempted to open the gifts too soon. Peter Warrick snuck under the tree and got caught. Come on Peter, a few Tommies for a Heisman?!? Well, something tells me next Christmas, Warrick can buy us all Tommies.
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