College Football

R.I.P., SWC

Stop us if you've heard this before, but the Southwest Conference is again sooooo bad that one can already dismiss the Cotton Bowl, in which the league champion plays, as irrelevant and unnecessary. Consider last Saturday's, uh, action. Other than Rice's 34-0 win over a horrible Tulane team and TCU's 35-34 squeaker over New Mexico, this is how the SWC fared: Nebraska 50, Texas Tech 27; Colorado 45, Baylor 21; Tulsa 38, Houston 24; Wisconsin 24, SMU 16. But the one that really made SWC fans gag was Oklahoma 44, Texas A&M 14.

The Sooners hadn't beaten a Top 5 team since 1987, while the Aggies had won 22 consecutive regular-season games, though mostly against soft conference competition. True, Texas A&M played without star tailback Greg Hill and four other players who were suspended by the NCAA last week because they had accepted pay for work they didn't do. Still, the Aggies were supposed to be a national power again. But Oklahoma ripped the fifth-ranked Aggies every which way, getting two touchdown passes from quarterback Cale Gundy, three field goals from Scott Blanton, 98 yards from freshman tailback James Allen and five interceptions from its defense.

Although this was the first time the teams had met on the field since 1951, the Aggies and the Sooners have clashed frequently in the recruiting wars. In 1992 Oklahoma coach Gary Gibbs said, "I think Texas A&M is the only school over the last couple of years that we've encountered much negative recruiting from." When the Aggies huffily accused the Sooners of using similar tactics this year, Gibbs said, "It's comical that A&M would get all bent out of shape. They were faxing old 1989 articles about us to recruits in 1991. That's history."

The SWC is history too, at least in terms of national prominence. Clearly, new league commissioner Steve Hatchell needs to put together a deal—either a merger with another conference or an expansion—to save the ranch. One scenario has the SWC joining the Big Eight and perennial WAC power BYU to create a three-division "super" conference with a postseason playoff. Said Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum after Saturday's loss. "There probably will be people making criticisms of the conference, and it's probably justified. In this business, either you do it or you don't."

REPLAY

Should old acquaintance be forgot? Not in the coaching profession. Last Saturday, for example, John Robinson, beginning his second stint at Southern Cal after a nine-year sabbatical in the pros, renewed his acquaintance with Penn State's Joe Paterno, the dean of Division I-A coaches, in Happy Valley. The last time—the only time—the two coached against each other was in the 1982 Fiesta Bowl, where the Nittany Lions beat the Trojans 26-10.

This time Penn State did it again. The Lions, who led 21-7 heading into the final quarter, held on for a 21-20 victory that gave Robinson his first loss to a Big Ten school after 10 victories, including three in the Rose Bowl. Robinson didn't seem especially pleased with his team's comeback. "Comebacks don't count unless you win," Robinson said. "What it should do is make us sick and tired of losing."

The feelings were warmer in Palo Alto, where Bill Walsh, who's in the second year of his second stint at Stanford, led the Cardinal to a 31-28 victory over a San Jose State team coached by his old friend John Ralston, the former Stanford coach who has reentered the college ranks this season after 20 years in various pro leagues, including the NFL. Walsh and Ralston first coached against each other in 1956, when Walsh was in charge of the San Jose State junior varsity and Ralston coached the scout team at Cal.

After Ralston got the Stanford job in 1963, his first hire was Walsh, who stayed three years before becoming an assistant with the Oakland Raiders. Years later, when Walsh was both general manager and coach of the San Francisco 49ers, he hired Ralston as the team's vice-president for administration. Before Saturday's game Walsh paid homage to Ralston for elevating Stanford football to the point where the team won the 1971 and '72 Rose Bowls. "He brought competitive football back to life here," Walsh said. "Nobody in the United States could have done what John did here."

UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Five years from now, a football game between Temple and Eastern Michigan may be significant for its role in determining a Big East title or a MAC championship, or even a bowl bid. But unfortunately, last week's meeting between these two terrible teams was notable for only one reason: the color of the coaches' skin.

Temple, which won 31-28, is coached by Ron Dickerson, and Eastern is led by Ron Cooper—two of the three black head coaches in Division I-A. (The third is Wake Forest's Jim Caldwell.) Three black head coaches, out of 106 Division I-A head-coaching positions, is three more than there were last season, but the number is still embarrassingly low.

Like the previous six black coaches in Division I-A history, Dickerson, Cooper and Caldwell have all inherited programs with slim chances for success anytime soon. Going into this season, Temple was 3-19 over the last two years; Eastern was 6-26-1 since 1990; and though Wake Forest won the Independence Bowl last year, only 10 starters returned this year. It seems that the only schools willing to hire blacks as head coaches are those that have nowhere to go but up.

That was once the rule in college basketball, too. When John Thompson took over at Georgetown, the Hoyas were dismal. So was Washington State when George Raveling was hired. Tulsa when Nolan Richardson came on, Tulane when Perry Clark took over, and so on. But they turned those programs around, and their success paved the way for more schools to hire black coaches. Now a game between Georgetown and Tulane is notable only for its outcome.

Maybe that will be the case someday in college football.

SQUIBS

Iowa State's 31-28 loss to Iowa made Cyclone coach Jim Walden 0-15 against the Big Ten....

On the way to last season's NAIA Division I championship, Central State clobbered Kentucky State 83-0. Late in that game Kentucky State coach Mo Hunt became angry when Central State coach Billy Joe called a fake punt. When the teams met again last Saturday, Joe called off the dogs early in his team's 68-0 win, but Mo got mad again, this time because Central's fourth-string quarterback was trying long passes late in the game. Said Hunt, "I said it last year, and I'll say it again: Billy Joe is a quality coach, but he's not a quality man."

PHOTO

PHOTO

WILLIAM SNYDER

Allen and his footwork added to the Aggies' humiliation—and to the woes of the SWC.

PHOTO

RICK STEWART

Just as in the last Paterno-Robinson meeting, the Lions' D was too strong for the Trojans.

PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

OFFENSE
Tulsa wide receiver Chris Penn, a senior from Lenapah, Okla., caught 11 passes for 211 yards and three TDs in the Golden Hurricane's 38-24 victory over Houston.

DEFENSE
Marcus Jenkins, a senior strong safety for Kentucky, had three of the Wildcats' seven interceptions in their 24-20 loss to seventh-ranked Florida in Lexington.

SMALL COLLEGES
Dave Ludy, a junior at Winona (Minn.) State, a Division II school, tied an NCAA record with his sixth career kickoff return for a TD, in a 26-21 loss to Wisconsin-La Crosse.