College Football / Richard Hoffer : Akers Is History in Texas, but in USC’s Future?

Fred Akers, despite his 83-27 record at Texas, is about to go the way of the Alamo: down in history. He’s gone. Outta here. A memory. See, 75% doesn’t get it in Texas. You can’t just win. You have to win.

Actually, Akers has neither won nor won lately. Losses to Stanford in September and to rival Oklahoma last week have had fans and boosters dialing up his already-hot hot seat. The press is writing him off. The boosters are calling for a good old-fashioned lynching. And rumors are flying.

How about this one (really, we heard it): Iowa’s Hayden Fry takes over at Texas, Akers lands at USC. No word on Ted Tollner’s plans. Ted to Iowa? Too neat.

Now, you might ask how a coach who wins 75% of his games can be in trouble. Well, this is Texas, and football is a bit bigger than life its own self. A team goes 2-2, and a prominent booster says that if the athletic director doesn’t fire Akers, why, the boosters will get rid of the athletic director. Nobody blinks.

But it’s not Akers’ 2-2 record so much as an accumulated failure to win the big ones, as in national championships and bowl games and big rivalry games.

Twice, Akers’ teams have gone 11-0 and then let a championship dribble away in a bowl game. Overall, his bowl record is a Bo Schembechler-like 2-7. He hasn’t won a bowl game since after the 1981 season. And he has lost the last two games against Texas A&M;, lost them big. Never mind Oklahoma.

Some suggest that Akers’ problems started with his hiring. He was not the legendary Darrell Royal’s choice for the job, for one thing. Royal wasn’t even consulted in his succession. That started him off on the wrong foot.

But certainly some of Akers’ problems were of his own making. Although a sensational recruiter himself, his staff has been less than dynamic in phenoms’ living rooms in recent years. Not only was Oklahoma scoring on Texas, but so was Oklahoma State.

The people at Texas say it’s because of Texas’ high academic requirements. Of course, if that were the only reason, Akers wouldn’t have fired four coaches and allowed three others to leave last year.

So we have “Fire Fred” T-shirts these days. And boosters who are more than willing to buy out Akers’ five-year rollover contract. And the oil bidness hasn’t even been that strong.

On the other hand, Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds is said not to want to appear to buckle under to boosters, a football factory and all that. And he knows what happens when institutions get unloaded. Dodds was the one who fired basketball Coach Abe Lemons, who next to Royal and Jim Bowie was the most popular man in Texas. That didn’t go over so well.

Akers’ only hope is that he gets another year, until his new recruiting team is able to kick in with the phenoms. Or that he finishes spotless and wins the Cotton Bowl.

That way, Ted Tollner’s job is safe.

Paranoia strikes back: Washington State Coach Jim Walden was somewhat taken aback when he learned that USC had practiced for his team’s reverse handoff last week. It was the first time the Cougars used it. Made him think.

On the other hand, the play, an option right fake, reverse handoff left, to be unnecessarily accurate, worked. Michael James gained 13 yards in the Cougars’ 34-14 upset of the Trojans.

Remember when college football was fun? Like in 1896, the first year of the Auburn-Georgia Tech rivalry. That year, Auburn students paraded in their pajamas before the game and greased the railroad tracks. The Georgia Tech train pulled into Auburn from Atlanta and slid halfway back to Loachapoka, 10 miles yonder. The Tech players walked back but won.

This year’s game is probably the next-to-last in the rivalry. Auburn has been dropped from the Yellow Jackets’ schedule after next year’s game.

Hurt me, make me win bowl games: For a while there, NCAA sanctions and penalties didn’t seem to mean much. It sat down hard on both Florida and SMU, and darned if the teams didn’t keep winning. It was kind of a joke.

Both schools got their scholarships trimmed, and Florida, for one, sported the best record in its conference two years running. SMU finished 6-5.

Their pasts may finally be catching up with them, though. Florida, newly eligible for a bowl game, is just now feeling the pinch after getting cut down to 75 scholarships. The team is 2-4. SMU, stripped to 70 scholarship players, is 4-1, but its coach says it’s hurting.

That was kind of the idea.

College Football Notes Nebraska, not that anybody’s noticing, is rolling right along. The Cornhuskers, angling to meet top-ranked Miami in the Orange Bowl, are 5-0, and, going back to last season, 8-0 at home. “We run this place,” defensive end Broderick Thomas said. “You come in, take your loss and go.” Come again, real soon. . . . Not everybody likes that, not even in Lincoln, Neb. A couple of students are selling “No Big Red” stickers. They sell better on the road, it is reported. . . . BYU, which has won or shared the last 10 Western Athletic Conference titles, has lost two games in a row, including the last one against Colorado State. Sure they’re yelling BYU? . . . Bowl news: The Cherry Bowl is officially the pits, and the Sugar Bowl has been sweetened. The Cherry Bowl has been canceled because of lack of interest, but the Sugar Bowl has acquired about $2.5 million from an insurance company to make sure somebody spends New Year’s day on Bourbon Street. Sponsorship, everybody agrees, is the way to go. As in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl. . . . Clemson punter Bill Spiers got his job in the classifieds. True story. Spiers ran across a “Can you punt?” ad in the Clemson student newspaper and decided, why not. It looked easier than drawing that lumberjack on the matchbook cover. So he tried out, got the position and has averaged 40.3 yards a punt.