19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

COUNTDOWN
Sirs:
I take issue with the fact that you would select Ohio State as your preseason No. 1 pick (College Football 1970, Sept. 14). Of your predicted Top 20, 10 teams play the new 11-game schedule, nine play 10 games and only Ohio State plays nine games. Let's pick our champion from the teams that prove their ability by taking the extra chances. After all, isn't this the era of upsets?
ED BAIN
Atlanta

Sirs:
Texas, with an outstanding team, a prestigious record and a No. 1 coach, was picked fourth in your Top 20. Ohio State plays a marshmallow schedule, Ole Miss seems to have a one-man team and Arkansas just has lots of revenge on its mind. Who else could be No. 1 but Texas?
STEVE HAMBY
Carter Lake, Iowa

Sirs:
I was gratified to be set straight on Stanford's position in the national rankings, since most of the other polls failed to point out that there are actually 16 teams better than the Indians. Be assured, however, that Mr. Plunkett & Co. are resolved to improve. Perhaps their 34-28 victory over third-ranked Arkansas will help (Eating High on the Hogs, Sept. 21).
JAMES G. DONART
Stanford, Calif.

Sirs:
What have you got against the University of Southern California? First, you rate the Trojans only sixth. And then it's all well and good to mention those four farmers who haven't missed a Nebraska home game since 1962, but you should have mentioned Giles L. Pellerin of San Marino, Calif., too. Mr. Pellerin hasn't missed a USC game since 1926, at home or on the road.
LARRY SARGEN
Inglewood, Calif.

Sirs:
Congratulations on picking Nebraska fifth. But we don't want to hear a history of the city of Lincoln, we want to hear the whole success story of Nebraska's football team!
RICH TREINEN
Omaha

Sirs:
I do not see how you can buck the President, who honored Wittenberg University, with its outstanding 78-9-1 record, as the top small-college football team of the '60s. We'll repeat as No. 1 in the '70s.
MAURICE E. CORBIN III
Fairview Park, Ohio

Sirs:
Your statement: "In 1968 they [ Grambling College] drew a crowd of 64,000 to Yankee Stadium" is too much! Don't you think that Grambling's worthy opponent, Morgan State College, had something to do with attracting that crowd? Morgan State won that game 9-7.
ERNEST F. SILVERSMITH
Baltimore

WHO'S WHO
Sirs:
Your timely article on Archie Manning was great (...And the Best of Them All Is Archie, Sept. 14). If ever there was a quarterback who could do it all, Archie is the one.
STEPHEN NAPIER
Ozark, Ala.

Sirs:
With Rex Kern of OSU and Jimmy Jones of USC still around, there is no way in creation that some freckle-faced kid from Mississippi can be the best.
WILLIAM DENSON
Philadelphia

Sirs:
If Dennis Dummit is not a better quarterback than Jack Mildren, Joe Theismann or Jimmy Jones, then the sun doesn't rise in the East.
JIM ESTERBROOKS
Los Angeles