The Mt. Rushmore Of Current College Football Coaches

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

I looked at Awful Announcing the other day and its Mt. Rushmore banner art had me asking myself who would comprise a Mt. Rushmore of current college football coaches.

Obviously Joe Paterno is the first name to come to mind, though his remaining years at Penn State are certainly numbered. At least they should be. Homeboy needs to step aside.

Before this season's debacle at Texas, Mack Brown had guided the Longhorns to nine consecutive seasons of at least 10 wins. Twice Texas won 13 games, including in its national championship season of 2005. The Longhorns won 101 games in those nine seasons, and overall he's 133-34 in 13 seasons at Texas. Brown gets one of the best recruiting classes in the country every year. I think he's a no-brainer.

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College Football Notebook: Martinez v Robinson, OSU Is Still Good & Players Pinched For Pot

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

ESPN College GameDay's Desmond Howard made a good point Friday about the difference between star quarterbacks Taylor Martinez and Denard Robinson.

Martinez, who led Nebraska's rout of Kansas State with 369 total yards and accounted for five touchdowns Thursday night, might have a clearer path to the Heisman Trophy than Robinson. Howard opined that Nebraska's redshirt freshman sensation doesn't need to press too hard to lead his team to victories because the Huskers defense is lights out.

Robinson, on the other hand, will continue to find

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College Football Notebook: OSU, Miami Shine In Tune-Ups

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The first night of college football games is in the books, and here are my thoughts:

+ Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor helped his Heisman bid with a splendid performance in a blowout win over Marshall. But his passing mechanics still looked a tad gimpy on a couple of plays, and I'll be surprised if he enjoys similar success next week against Miami if he doesn't adjust. He threw one of his three touchdown passes from his back foot and heaved up some unusual third-and-long prayer that was nearly picked. Overall, though, he was close to excellent and it was nice to see Jim Tressel open things up slightly and call 25 passing plays for Pryor in barely more than three quarters' work. If it's true that players and teams make their largest improvements between Week 1 and Week 2, then Pryor and the Buckeyes should look pretty solid against Miami on Sept. 11.

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No. 2: Ohio State Buckeyes

The One Great Season College Football Countdown continues Thursday. We'll be counting down the preseason Top 25 teams in 2010. Today's No. 2 is Ohio State.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Every preseason publication that talks about the huge step Terrelle Pryor took in Ohio State's Rose Bowl win over Oregon overlooks one thing: the kid actually established himself nearly two months earlier when he led the Buckeyes to a thorough dismantling of Penn State in Happy Valley.

His stat line was a far cry from the one he posted against the Ducks, but if you watched that game from start to finish, then you saw a young athlete become an elite college football player in 60 minutes.

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Prickly Paterno Pulling No Punches This Week

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Joe Paterno has been around long enough to have earned a few liberties, and it appeared he exercised some of those liberties at his weekly press conference Tuesday.

He didn't necessarily dress down a couple of reporters, but neither did he try to dance around a pair of questions he didn't feel like answering.

In the video below, Paterno tells a reporter it's silly to ask him a question by starting, "It seems to me," and in the second video below that, he said he'd rather compare two sportswriters' styles than compare his coaching style against that of Jim Tressel, who brings his No. 15 Buckeyes to Happy Valley for a huge Big 10 game Saturday afternoon.

Friday Notebook: Wet Footballs, Dez Bryant & Top Coaches

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

EUGENE, Oregon -- After deleting some vulgar comments left below the video I posted of Oregon coach Chip Kelly welcoming USC quarterback Matt Barkley to Autzen Stadium, I noticed a couple of funny comments that did not need to be deleted:

+ 666TheScarecro666 said, "Barkley's gonna piss his pants on Saturday."

+ MJaxsun25 said, "Barkley has been running his mouth and showing his ignorance. Everyone in College Football knows that Autzen Stadium is the loudest stadium in the Country. It set the record. 127.2 decibels. Bring it Barkley."

Other notes for a Friday:

+ I can't remember a weather forecast having the kind of an impact on a game that Saturday's probably will here in Eugene. Most reports I've heard indicate rain during the morning and early afternoon, but the wet weather should move on by kickoff at 5 p.m. PT. And while one would think a wet game would slow down USC's athletes, I think it would actually do more harm to Oregon, whose smaller quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, could have trouble gripping and throwing a damp football. So if the rain passes, the Ducks' chances are improved.

+ I hope Virginia Tech's coaching staff can restore running back Ryan Williams' confidence. The talented freshman has surpassed all expectations filling in as the No. 1 back for the Hokies this year, but his late fumble last night led to North Carolina's game-winning field goal as time expired. Williams has a bright future ahead, and I hope he runs for 200 yards on Nov. 5 at East Carolina.

+ Dez Bryant did not violate any rules with his association with Deion Sanders, but because the NCAA has so many rules, Bryant thought he broke one of them, so he lied to cover a up a dinner he had at the former football star's home. Can you blame him?

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IMAGES: Dez Bryant Gallery

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By all means, punish him, but the NCAA got this wrong like it so often does. If part of its mission is to help its student-athletes, suspend him for two or three games, but not for one full year. It continues to amaze me how out of touch the rich, old, white men in suits are when it comes to doling out discipline. Bryant will get the last laugh, however, when he gets drafted among the top 12 picks in next spring's draft. All the NCAA ensured was that it lost some star power for about eight games this season, including Saturday's huge, nationally televised game against Texas in Stillwater.

+ I've reached out to some friends, fellow writers and athletic department people, asking them to rank their top 10 coaches. I'll have a full story on this next week, but you might be surprised to learn that Les Miles and Jim Tressel aren't getting a whole lot of love.

+ Another story I'll push out next week is a Q&A I had on the phone yesterday with Florida strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti. He said it's not Brandon Spikes who rules the weight room in Gainesville. I'll tell you who does in a few days.

What's Wrong With Lane Kiffin Being Confident?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- I don't understand why there's such a fuss about Lane Kiffin's most memorable quote from his introductory press conference when he became Tennessee's head football coach.

YOUR THOUGHTS: Were Kiffin's comments disrespectful?

Said Kiffin: "I'm really looking forward to embracing some of the great traditions at the University of Tennessee, for instance the Vol Walk, running through the T, singing Rocky Top all night long after we beat Florida next year. It's going to be a blast, OK? So get ready."

I don't think it was much different from when Jim Tressel took over as Ohio State coach, ending more than a decade of Michigan dominance in the best rivalry in all of sports. Tressel was introduced to Buckeye Nation during a break in the Ohio State-Michigan basketball game in Columbus in January 2001.

Tressel took the mike and proclaimed: "I can assure you that you will be proud of your young people in the classroom, in the community, and most especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan."

I think Tressel's comment was fairly ballsy, again because the Wolverines owned OSU for a decade, and because it is, again, the biggest rivalry in all of sports. And yet the statement didn't get hardly the amount of criticism that Kiffin and his proclamation have been getting this year.

Comments or gestures like that are intended to pump up your fan base and really nothing more. If the other side wants to turn it into bulletin-board material, then sobeit. Tressel has succeeded in walking the walk. We'll find out Saturday of Kiffin and his Volunteers can back it up at the Swamp when Tennessee takes on No. 1 Florida.

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Tressel Downplays Pryor's Eye-Black Tribute To Vick

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In a packed media room at the Jack Nicklaus Museum Tuesday, Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel answered questions from reporters about an at-times subpar performance against Navy, the upcoming heavyweight tilt against USC and of course Terrelle Pryor's eye-black tribute to Michael Vick.

Tressel opens the soundbite in the video below after being asked if the team has any kind of policy about messages players like to write on their eye-black, wristbands or shoes. And he concludes it with some heavy praise about Pryor's character.

"If there's anyone who feels bad about something or downtrodden about something, he's the first one there with his arms around him," Tressel said. Watch the video below for more of Tressel's reaction: