College Football Tour Guy Turns Pro

Travel to a different game each week, meet strangers, eat their food, generally act foolish along the way and chronicle it all on video. That's no way to get a jump on life now, is it?

Dream big, because Dan, the College Football Tour Guy, has pulled it off. In 2006 he traveled to seven Pacific 10 venues from his home base in Los Angeles. He started a website and posted videos of each trip on YouTube. Now he's doing the same thing and getting paid by Sports Illustrated. His videos appear each week on SI On Campus and a new video is posted each Tuesday. This past week he was in Jacksonville for the World's Biggest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

The video we feature here is from Dan's trip to Seattle on Oct. 20 for the Oregon-Washington game. Here are links to videos from some of his other trips: USC-Notre Dame in South Bend; Oklahoma-Texas in Dallas; Oklahoma-Colorado in Boulder; South Carolina-Louisiana State in Baton Rouge; USC-Nebraska in Lincoln and Notre Dame-Penn State in State College.

The Mississippi Miracle: Best View Yet

Check out this footage from the end zone of Trinity's 15-lateral play to defeat Millsaps last Saturday in Jackson, Miss. This by far is the best footage we have seen of the Mississippi Miracle.

Riley Curry, who completed perhaps the craziest play in college football history by racing into the end zone, has become an instant celebrity. And coaches continued to rave about the play this week, including Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, who said: "That was absolutely awesome."

The outstanding call of the play is by Jonathan Wiener, a sophomore English major at Trinity. Something tells us he might soon be switching majors. A full transcript of the broadcast call. ... The seven Trinity players who touched the ball during the Mississippi Miracle were named South Collegiate Athletic Conference offensive players of the week.

Remember to check and bookmark the full site, accessed by clicking here.

Reporters' Notebooks

Bucky Gleason, Buffalo News: Should Buffalo be worried about losing Turner Gill to Nebraska? Consider this: Tom Osborne was the best man at Gill's wedding.

Jeff McLane, Philadelphia Inquirer: Time is running out on Joe Paterno, whose contract is set to expire at the end of next season.

Jeff Rice, Centre Daily Times: Penn State players are no longer cleaning out Beaver Stadium after games.

Jim Benton, Rocky Mountain News: Is Air Force considering leaving the Mountain West Conference and become an independent? Falcon coach Troy Calhoun has floated the idea.

Dave Curtis, Orlando Sentinel: A way to make the Bowl Championship Series more equitable.

Paul Finebaum, Mobile Press-Register: Win or lose Saturday at Alabama, Louisiana State fans are still stuck with Les Miles. At least for now.

Scott Cacciola, Commercial Appeal: Mississippi athletic director Pete Boone has given Madman Ed Orgeron a vote of confidence. "I think next year is going to be a banner year," Boone said.

Kevin Tatum, Philadelphia Inquirer: The rarest of headlines: Bowl bid on Temple's far horizon.

Pat Harty, Iowa City Press-Citizen: Iowa receiver Dominique Douglas, charged in August with unlawful use of a credit card and then pictured in series of embarrassing Facebook photos, has been charged with a theft-related offense.

Brent Zwerneman, San Antonio Express-News: Texas A&M tight end Martellus Bennett acknowledged that he was busy shopping during the Aggies' game at Nebraska, a trip he missed because of injury.

Marisa Schultz, Detroit News: Millions of dollars in federal financial aid to needy students at Michigan may be in jeopardy because the university continues to discriminate against wheelchair users at its football stadium, according to the federal government.

Patrick Finley, Arizona Daily Star: Arizona continues to have the worst graduation rate for athletes in the Pacific 10.

Howie Stalwick, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: UCLA players and Los Angeles-based media made the Bruins' trip to Pullman to play Washington State sound only slightly less challenging than the Bataan Death March.

Associated Press: Attention Big Ten Network and Comcast: A bill in the Wisconsin Legislature would establish an arbitration system to settle disputes between the sports networks and cable companies.

To bypass registration, go to Bug Me Not.

Living on Tulsa Time

A shout-out to college football fanatic Chris Plank of Fox Sports Radio, who gave the Wiz a plug on his show last weekend. Much of Plank's show, from 2 a.m.-6 a.m. (Eastern) every Friday and Saturday, centers on college football and we've been listening since he moved into the weekend slot to replace another Wiz favorite, Ben Maller.

Plank's home base is Tulsa, where he can be heard during the week at 1430 The Buzz. He also has a blog at 1430. Plank teams with Jeremie Poplin, another friend of the site who has sent us several tips in the past. Thanks to both!

Strangest Brew Is Back for More

Before the start of the season, we told you about Strangest Brew, a marvelous football schedule link created by reader Tom. The brewmaster has been busy perfecting his concoction and has added several sexy additions:

—Mountain time zone option.
—Option to display current and game-by-game records (overall, conference, home and away).
—Option to show current Vegas line for this week's games.
—Option to show TV channels for future games.
—Ability to show the schedule for the Associated Press top 25.
—Scores of completed games with a link to box scores.
—A link to the team page on Yahoo for each team.
—AP rankings (current and game-by-game).
—A link that will create an event in your Google Calender for games with known start times.

Tom says that game schedules will be updated weekly and Vegas line and TV channels will be updated every couple of days or so. The site is also listed on the Wiz Resources page, under Toolbox, titled Strangest Brew Schedule.

Reporters' Notebooks

Brian Davis, Dallas Morning News: Texas A&M's Dennis Franchione is once again defending himself over an off-the-cuff August joke about Oklahoma's NCAA problems. The teams play Saturday in Norman and Sooner coach Bob Stoops (wink, wink) says he won't remind his players about the wisecrack.

Dan Hinxman, Reno Gazette-Journal: Nevada's Chris Ault said some of his players were at a weekend Halloween party when a fight broke out that eventually led to the shooting deaths of three people. Ault said he believed none of his players was involved in the fight or the shooting.

Brett Vito, Denton Record-Chronicle: North Texas defensive back Dominique Green filed a complaint with the Texas chapter of the NAACP accusing the North Texas coaching staff of racial bias.

Kevin Donahue, Fanblogs: Notre Dame won't be playing in a bowl, but it will still rake in approximately $1.3 million as part of its agreement with the Bowl Championship Series.

Glenn Guilbeau, Shreveport Times: Louisiana State quarterback Ryan Perrilloux has not been arrested for anything, but he was not allowed to practice with the team after his name surfaced in connection with a barroom brawl. A look at the police report. Defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey did practice and is expected to play against Alabama.

Jeff Metcalfe, Arizona Republic: Arizona State quarterback Rudy Carpenter is wearing a brace to protect his sprained right thumb (throwing hand), but says he will play against Oregon.

Rich Kaipust, Omaha World-Herald: Quarterback Sam Keller's Nebraska career is over after he suffered a broken left collarbone in the loss at Texas. Joe Ganz gets the start against Kansas.

Steve Ellis, Tallahassee Democrat: Florida State backup quarterback Xavier Lee has been suspended for two games for what Bobby Bowden called a "violation of academic policy."

Scott Cacciola, Commercial Appeal: Defensive end Greg Hardy, the Southeastern Conference leader in sacks, has been suspended by Mississippi Madman Ed Orgeron.

Kate Hairopoulos, Dallas Morning News: Southern Methodist's Phil Bennett says he is not bitter, only disappointed over being fired. Plus reaction from elite alumni, including Craig James.

Gary Klein, Los Angeles Times: USC quarterback John David Booty, who sat out the last three games because of a broken finger, is on track to start against Oregon State.

Chris Foster, Los Angeles Times: UCLA has lost tailback Kahlil Bell for the season because of a torn ligament in his right knee. Athletic director Dan Guerrero also turned up the pressure on Karl Dorrell. "I will be very interested to see how we finish the season. And you can use that," he said.

Jim Polzin, Capital Times: Cool story about Wisconsin's Ben Strickland, who walked on, earned a scholarship, then gave it to fellow walk-on Steve Johnson. Thanks to Jason!

Bob Condotta, Seattle Times: Washington running back J.R. Hasty, who left the team last week, is returning to the Huskies.

Bleacher Report: A Kansas-Arizona State matchup in the Bowl Championship Series title game? It could happen.

Charlie Weis and the Chocolate Factory: Yes, what a wonderful name for a site. A look at the SEC names of the week. Thanks to Grant!

John Canzano, Oregonian Stadium : A first-hand account of a wild scene Saturday in Oregon's Autzen Stadium pressbox, where an angry Colleen Bellotti, the wife — or former wife, we are not clear on this — of Mike Bellotti goes after the columnist.

One More Dying Quail: Erin Andrews speaks! An interview with the Wiz's favorite sideline reporter. Note to Erin: The Wiz, speaking on behalf of his readers, invite you to a Q&A.

Feldman, Mandel Offerings

Much to our surprise, two books recently arrived on the doorstep. Unfortunately, we haven't had a moment of free time to even think about cracking open a book. But we want to make mention of each.

The first is titled "Meat Market" and is authored by Bruce Feldman of ESPN. He chronicled the recruiting efforts this past spring of Mississippi Madman Ed Orgeron and his staff.

The second is titled "Bowls, Polls & Tattered Souls" and is authored by Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated. Mandel's book examines hot-button issues, among them the BCS, polls, recruiting, the Heisman hype-fest and a favorite topic of ours, cheating.

Meet Matt Ryan, Heisman Frontrunner

Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan, likely at the top of the list of many Heisman voters, can throw more than a football. He was caught throwing up during the closing moments of Boston College's victory over Virginia Tech.

Classless Act Candidate

What is a classless act? Here's a prime example, as Georgia players storm the field after the Bulldogs scored their first touchdown last Saturday against Florida. On Monday, Georgia's Mark Richt issued a letter of apology for the excessive celebration. Let's hope this act doesn't open a can of worms and we begin a round of copycat crimes in the coming weeks as coaches try any tactic to get their players energized. Thanks to Deep South Sports.

We're on the hunt for other classless acts for our season-ending poll. To give you an idea what we are looking for, here is the link to last season's most degrading behavior. (Last year's runaway winner was the Florida International-Miami brawl, moderated by Lamar Thomas.)

Most important, this is an opportunity to get a dig on your rivals and possibly destabilize them, which, frankly, is never a bad idea. Our address: dawizofodds (at) aol.com.

High on the Blogs

We've gone RSS crazy. The latest edition to the Wiz brand is Blog Heaven. It's still in beta so pardon the dust, but this a collection of some of the finest college football blogs — along with a few of our other favorite sites — rolled into one page. Enjoy!

Reporters' Notebooks

Wendell Barnhouse, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Entering the season's final month, it's time to start speculating on BCS title-game matchups. How about Boston College and Kansas?

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times: The Big Ten may be down, but Ohio State's stock is way up. The team is 9-0, No. 1 in the BCS and only three more wins from a berth in title game.

Drew Sharp and Shannon Shelton, Detroit Free Press: Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany recently told conference athletic directors that he set a negotiation cut-off date of Nov. 15 in the ongoing battle with cable giants Comcast and Time Warner regarding Big Ten Network distribution.

Glenn Guilbeau, Shreveport Times: An attorney says Louisiana State quarterback Ryan Perrilloux was a victim during a fight involving approximately 20 people early Friday morning. Plus, not everyone at LSU hates Nick Satan, er Saban.

John Henderson, Denver Post: It's time to give the Sun Devil his due. Dennis Erickson has done it again, this time at Arizona State.

Rick Scoppe, Greenville News: South Carolina's Steve Spurrier is making another change at quarterback. Blake Mitchell will start against Arkansas.

Chip Scoggins, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Minnesota's Tim Brewster said he was "disappointed" in Michigan's decision to throw a pass rather than take a knee or call a run on the final play of a 34-10 Wolverine victory.

Kevin Sherrington, Dallas Morning News: Could Major Applewhite be on the short list of candidates to take over at Southern Methodist?

Chip Brown, Dallas Morning News: With Texas and Kansas the next two Saturdays, Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy has a chance to make noise someplace other than YouTube.

John Maher, Austin American Statesman: Schools are sinking more and more money into academic centers, many of which have become flashy enough to be used as recruiting tools.

Tim Griffin, San Antonio Express-News: The rise of Kansas and Missouri has put the Big 12 North on par with the Big 12 south.

Andrew Carter, Orlando Sentinel: Laid out before Florida State is perhaps the most brutal November schedule in the nation.

Terry Frei, Denver Post: Colorado State, not even a hot ticket during the absolute zenith of Sonny Lubick's tenure, has lost every bit of momentum.

Dave Curtis, Orlando Sentinel: It's time to make coaches stop their angry whining.

Michael Tsai, Honolulu Advertiser: Colt Brennan of Hawaii needs only three more touchdown passes to topple all-time leader Ty Detmer of Brigham Young.

Deseret Morning News: In case you missed it, Portland State scored 68 points and lost to Weber State, which scored 73.

Something Tells Us He Has Been Drinking

The World's Greatest Outdoor Cocktail Party was Saturday in Jacksonville, but the World's Greatest Indoor Cocktail Party was in Bogota, Columbia (so we're told), where a Georgia fan named Travis was enjoying himself during the Bulldogs' 42-30 victory against Florida.

Snapshots From Week 9

A look back at the week that was from TV Tan Line:

Week 10

Virginia Tech makes its second consecutive Thursday night appearance, this time on the road against Georgia Tech. The Hokies are three-point underdogs.

Three games on Friday: Temple (+8) visits Ohio; Akron (+7) travels to Bowling Green and Nevada (-4.5) plays at New Mexico State.

Now that the appetizers are out of the way, let's get to Saturday's main course, headlined by Arizona State (+7) at Oregon. So much for the Bowl Championship Series standings. Arizona State is No. 4 and Oregon is No. 5, but that doesn't mean squat to Las Vegas oddsmakers.

Other Saturday games of note: Rutgers (+2.5) at Connecticut; Nebraska (+17) at Kansas; Navy (+3.5) at Notre Dame; Louisiana State (-8) at Alabama; Wisconsin (+15.5) at Ohio State; Texas (-3.5) at Oklahoma State and Florida State (+6.5) at Boston College.

On Sunday, Southern Methodist (+18.5) travels to Houston.

For the latest numbers, visit Doc's Sports.

SMU's Bennett Is the First to Go

Southern Methodist coach Phil Bennett has been fired, a day after a 29-23 loss at Tulsa eliminated the Mustangs from bowl contention.

SMU was clinging to a 23-21 lead late in Saturday's game and Bennett's team drove to the Golden Hurricane five. Two runs got the Mustangs to the one. Bennett then decided to run two more plays and each fell short of the end zone.

Tulsa took over on downs and Paul Smith drove the Golden Hurricane 99 yards for the winning touchdown and two-point conversion.

"That's why we went for it. We knew they were capable of making some plays," Bennett said. "We didn't get it done.

"The game should have been over."

Instead, Bennett, whose team is 1-7, is out of work after the Nov. 24 season finale against Memphis. Bennett, 18-48 in almost six seasons, had two years remaining on his contract and is paid almost $500,000 a year.

In the News

Our look at how Sunday newspapers displayed the news. These are all front pages with the exception of the sports front of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Again, if anybody in our audience knows were we can fetch sports fronts, please let us know. Click an image for a closer look.

The Mississippi Miracle

Check out this video of Trinity executing 15 laterals to score on the final play Saturday to stun Millsaps, 28-24, in a Division III game at Jackson, Miss. It's being called the "Mississippi Miracle." This ranks up there with "The Play" from California-Stanford 1982, which you can view below.

Update: An even better angle of the Mississippi Miracle from the end zone. And check out the rest of our site by clicking here. You won't be disappointed!

Husky Fans Are Howling

In a day of wild games, one of the wildest took place in Seattle, where Arizona stormed back from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter and defeated defenseless Washington, 48-41. If Seattle natives weren't restless before, they are really riled up now.

Imagine being in the Emerald City, waking up to your double latte with extra whip and seeing Steve Kelley's column in the Sunday Seattle Times titled: "Changes are needed at UW."

Writes Kelley: "Last week, Washington coach Tyrone Willingham speculated that none of his players could start for USC. And then those players went out and proved him right.

"Turns out the Huskies don't even have the talent to beat Arizona."

Kelley adds: "Willingham won't be fired, but at the end of this season, he should be forced to make changes in his staff."

Or how about this column from Dave Boling of the Tacoma News-Tribune titled: "Is Willingham a lame duck?"

Others want to clean house, which includes ousting athletic director Todd Turner, on the far right in the photo. The site Fire Todd Turner recently when online and has quickly gained momentum. One of the proprietors of the site recently wrote us about his reasoning behind taking his case online:

"Husky Stadium is decaying and one Turner's jobs was to spearhead fundraising for a new stadium. In his forecast he felt that it would cost $400 million dollars, he recently came out and said UW has only raised $150 million, just a bit short.

"All in all, most fans are furious with the progress Ty has made. After becoming media darlings the Dawgs have lost five straight [now six]. Has the schedule been brutal? Absolutely, but their second half showings have been terrible, a good team plays four quarters."

Washington was outscored, 22-6, in the fourth quarter by Arizona.

Arizona State-Oregon Showdown Is Set

They played late into the night in Tempe, but with Arizona State's 31-20 victory over California, the BCS Guru projects that the top five spots will remain the same when the official BCS standings are released Sunday.

Ohio State, an impressive winner at Penn State, is a solid No. 1, followed by Boston College, which should solidify its hold on the No. 2 spot ahead of Louisiana State.

At No. 4 will be Arizona State, which will play at No. 5 Oregon next Saturday in what shapes up as a regular-season playoff game. The loser will stand little if any chance of a berth to the BCS title game.

All the Stories on One Handy Page

A reminder to check our companion site, Wiz News Wired, for the latest updates, including game stories on 120 college teams. News Wired runs off RSS feeds and will update as stories are posted elsewhere on the Internet. All you need to do is refresh the page to get the latest stories.

And unlike other sites where you have to jump from team page to team page, News Wired has all the teams listed on one page. This allows you to open stories in a new browser window or to utilize tabbed browsing, keeping all the documents on one page.

Wiz News Wired is also listed here on the Wiz main page, at the top of the second column under Links and just below Wiz Resources, our invaluable list of linkage for college football fanatics.

Crewcut Charlie: Worst Coach in Universe

Jonathan Chait of Slate has the most biting piece to date on the failing regime of Crewcut Charlie Weis.

Writes Chait: "In the entire history of American sports hype, has there ever been any fraud more grossly fraudulent than Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis?"

Chait details his argument with a plethora of statistics, including this beaut: Notre Dame is averaging 1.09 yards per rush. The NCAA statistical archive goes back only to 1999. The worst yards per carry recorded belongs to Arizona in 2001, which gained a wretched 1.46 yards per attempt.

"So, the worst rushing team recorded by the NCAA in the last nine years was still about one-third better than Notre Dame."

The Fighting Irish have a bye Saturday before a stretch run of Navy, Air Force, Duke and Stanford. Not exactly murderer's row, and Notre Dame, despite its 1-7 record, will clearly will have an edge athletically in each of these games. Note that Weis has already made it clear that he's a superior coach, telling players after he was hired in December 2004, "Every game you will have a decided schematic advantage."

It's all on Weis in the final four games. If the Irish can do no better than 3-1, one has to wonder if he will be back as coach in 2008.

Thanks to the Midwest Correspondent.

Life Is Not Always Frantastic

A loss to Texas Tech can really impact the life of a Texas A&M Aggie, in this case the life of Psycho Ag, who previously gave us "Leave Fran Alone." Thanks to Tom Kirkendall of Houston's Clear Thinkers.

Boston College's Great Escape

The highlight, as TV Tan Line put it, was that "we did get to see Erin Andrews wet."

Boston College's 14-10 victory at Virginia Tech was a horrible game with a great finish, but will this cost the Eagles valuable style points? To win, they needed two touchdowns in two minutes with a successful onside kick in between.

And what about Matt Ryan's Heisman hopes? The Boston College quarterback looked confused at best, inept at worst, as the Hokies rattled him with pressure and myriad coverages.

Ryan had a chance to win over voters, but his pedestrian play for much of the game could prove more damaging than his heroics at the finish. According to the Heisman Pundit's straw poll, Ryan was third in the Heisman race entering Thursday night's game, behind Tim Tebow and Andre Woodson.

Through three quarters, Ryan was 14 of 33 for 101 yards and an interception. He finished 25 of 52 for 285 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Here is video of Boston College's final drive:

Game of the Week

Let's hope Penn State's Joe Paterno has it under control this time. Last September, during a 28-6 beating at the hands of Ohio State in Columbus, Paterno left the field not once, but twice during the game, reappearing the second time in an ill-fitting pair of dark pants (inset). As the story goes, Paterno had a touch of the flu. The likely story is that he took a crap in his pants, announced to the nation by ABC's Bonnie Bernstein.

The rematch is Saturday, this time in Happy Valley, and Paterno isn't the only Nittany Lion with toilet trouble. Port-a-potties around Beaver Stadium have been woefully inadequate and officials are scrambling to find more. While the university says it had 378 portables in place for the last home game, officials say 957 are needed for the 100,000 fans that attend games.

But enough about that crap. What about the game? We welcome Jason of the Ohio State blog Eleven Warriors and Kevin of We Are Penn State to break this one down. First, let's hear from Jason:
"The game will be a big challenge for the Buckeyes. The team is green with only five seniors on the two-deep and the younger guys have never experienced anything like what they'll witness in Happy Valley. Penn State is doing a lot of the small things right this season. The Nittany Lions don't commit penalties, they execute extremely well on special teams and they have a coach that started coaching when Winston Churchill was still running England. He has seen a few things.

"Still, I think when you look at the two units side by side, Ohio State has the edge on both offense and defense. I don't expect the Buckeye offense to move the ball up and down the field, but they'll get what it takes and the defense will do the rest.

"Simply put, Penn State has never seen a defense like they'll see on Saturday night. Once the running game has been taken away early, Anthony Morelli will be forced to try to win it with his arm. That isn't going to happen."

Now let's hear from Kevin:

"The numbers are frightening: an average final score of 34-8 ... an absurd 3.3 yards allowed per play ... only 23 points allowed by the first-team defense...

"But with all due respect to The Ohio State, who has it played?

"Youngstown State: I-AA

"Akron: 3-4

"Washington: 2-5

"Northwestern: 5-3, win against I-AA team, home loss to Dook

"Minnesota: 1-7, home loss to I-AA team

"Purdon't: 6-2, but badly exposed as a pretender after a 5-0 start

"Kent State: 3-5, win against I-AA team

"Michigan State: 1-3 in the Big Ten

"The Ohio State may deserve its No. 1 ranking, but has it really been tested? The Buckeyes have certainly faced nothing like the Penn State defense, they haven't played in a White Out with the dulcet tones of Zombie Nation rocking the stadium, and — shockingly — Morelli may be the best quarterback they've faced so far this year.

"Penn State has a chance if they can protect the football [turnovers led directly to the losses at Michigan and Illinois] and Maurice Evans has his typical game. [Big Mo is second in the country in sacks.] If not, it will be a long evening for Nittany Nation.

"Call it 17-6 in favor of the Buckeyes."

Crystal Ball

Double D, Boston Herald: It seems just a matter of time before Arizona State gets knocked off, and that time would appear to be Saturday night against California. Take the Golden Bears and the points.

Eric Crawford, Louisville Courier-Journal: No. 1 no more. He's picking Penn State to beat Ohio State, 17-14.

Jerry Hill, Waco Tribune-Herald: Will this be the strangest week of them all? As fellow writer William Shakespeare once put it: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Mike Hlas, Cedar Rapids Gazette: With help from someone connected to the inner workings of college football handicapping, the Hlog presents these seven sizzling selections for your barbecued pigskin.

National Championship Issue: The Dirty Dozen. A look at 12 games that are sure to change your financial future.

Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News: He already has a winner in the books with Boston College. Now he's looking at Fresno State, Rutgers, Kansas and Michigan. Plus his Pacific 10 picks.

Phil Steele: His top 25 forecast says Ohio State 17, Penn State 16. And here is another: Texas A&M 27, Kansas 20.

New York Post: Saturday's heroes tackle the spread.

For the latest numbers, visit Doc's Sports. The Doc likes Tennessee (-3) against South Carolina. Doc's is also releasing his Big Ten Game of the Year. This is the game Doc hit 19 years in a row in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

Notre Dame Turf Claims Another Victim

The Black Daggers, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command Demonstration Parachute Team, delivered the game ball before last Saturday's USC-Notre Dame game at South Bend, but one of the group's members members, left, had an encounter with the turf at Notre Dame Stadium on impact.

He caught his left leg in the turf while landing and, according to Blue-Gray Sky, was spotted on crutches with a walking boot during the second half of the game.

When the Trojans played at South Bend in 2005 — the Bush Push game — Desmond Reed suffered torn right knee ligaments and nerve damage while turning to field a ball on a kickoff return. Although the turf was in better shape last Saturday — "They actually cut it, " defensive line coach Dave Watson said — coach Pete Carroll wasn't satisfied, saying the field didn't have a uniform feel.

"I don't understand why it's like that, I mean who plays here? They sharing it with a local JC or something?"

At Notre Dame's traditional pep rally on Friday night, Crewcut Charlie Weis told the crowd the reason the grass was shorter was, "because I don't want to hear any more excuses [Saturday] afternoon."

There were no excuses from the Trojans, who won, 38-0. We're not sure about the Black Daggers.

Separated at Birth

We're all different, right? We beg to differ. Just take one look around the college football landscape and you'll see what we mean.
Irene Ryan, aka Granny Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies, and ESPN analyst Lou Holtz, aka Granny Holtz....
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Michigan's Lloyd Carr....
Pianist and composer Bert Bacharach and USC's Pete Carroll....
Billionaire businessman Ross Perot and Auburn's Tommy Tuberville....
World Wrestling Entertainment performer Edward Fatu, aka Umaga, and Hawaii's Vili the Warrior....
Actor Wilford Brimley and Purdue's Joe Tiller....
Actor John Goodman and Notre Dame's Crewcut Charlie Weis....
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas and Mississippi State's Sylvester Croom....
World Wrestling Entertainment announcer Jim Ross and Arizona's Mike Stoops....
Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson and Tennessee's Phillip Fulmer....
Political analyst Newt Gingrich and Arizona State's Dennis Erickson....
Former major league pitcher Don Mossi and South Florida's Jim Leavitt....
Country musician Vince Gill and Texas Tech's Mike Leach....
Jabba the Hut and Kansas' Mark Mangino....
Serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka the "Night Stalker," and USC quarterback Mark Sanchez....
Comedian Wanda Sykes and UCLA's Karl Dorrell....
Jimmy Clausen and Jimmy Clausen.

Send us your candidates for separated at birth, version 2. If we get enough qualified candidates, we will do another list.

Update: Keep the suggestions coming, either in comments or to dawizofodds (at) aol.com. Next Thursday, we will post those images. Remember to check and bookmark the rest of the site.

Update II: Here is the link for Separated at Birth: The Readers' Choices.

Thanks to Don, Ken, Joe and the Midwest Correspondent.