College Football / Richard Hoffer : The Best Thing About Predictions Is You Remember the Right Ones

After this weekend, college football will go on a short hiatus until the bowl season brings it back. The respite gives us time to reconsider the most remarkable prediction of the year. That is, Beano Cook’s call that West Virginia would win the national championship.

Of course, West Virginia hasn’t won it yet, but who besides Beano, ESPN’s everyman analyst/sportswriter’s best friend, thought the Mountaineers would even contend for it? Anyway, here they are, undefeated and third-ranked, preparing for the winner-take-all Fiesta Bowl game against Notre Dame.

How is it that Cook was able to separate West Virginia from a pack of preseason front-runners that included Florida State, Miami, UCLA and others mighty of reputation? Where does a man acquire the boldness, the prescience, the intelligence, the sheer audacity to pick West Virginia?

“You know what happens if I’m wrong,” says Cook, who has been wrong often enough. “Nothing. I picked Michigan last year, they lose their opener. I pick Arizona State 2 years ago, they lose their opener, 45-3, or something. If I knew, do you think I’d be working? I’d be on a beach with Stephanie Zimbalist.”

Still, Cook was hardly frivolous in picking West Virginia.

“Originally, I picked Notre Dame,” he said. “That was last Jan. 1. And I had picked Notre Dame to go 11-1. But you can pick Notre Dame any year. Now West Virginia . . . there was a pick that comes along as often as Halley’s comet.”

As has often been said, Beano liked West Virginia’s schedule.

“I told somebody in August, if West Virginia beats Pitt, they’ll end up playing Notre Dame for the national title,” he said. “That was their only tough opponent. I really thought West Virginia had a shot. I mean, I don’t pick Northwestern.

“Here’s a team with 25 seniors, 23 of whom were redshirts. And they had lost 5 games the year before, I think, by 15 points. They had lost to Penn State by 4. All these close games . . . and (quarterback) Major Harris. He’s a heck of a player.”

All this makes West Virginia a worthy team. But what elevates the Mountaineers into national championship class? Why did Beano anoint this team for ESPN’s preseason feature?

“By picking West Virginia, I didn’t have to fly anywhere,” explains Beano, who lives in Pittsburgh. “They’re just 90 miles away. Did you know I hate to fly? First word you see in an airport is terminal . I hate to fly.”

All that said, Beano thinks it ends right here.

“I don’t think they can stay with Notre Dame,” he says. “Notre Dame has the material, and besides, it’s on grass. Notre Dame has more football players than anyone. The surprise is not that Notre Dame has won so much. The surprise is they don’t win more.”

That reminds him: “Incidentally, can you believe that Notre Dame didn’t send the band out (to Los Angeles)? That’s a disgrace. What would you rather do? Spend Thanksgiving at home or go to the Coliseum and play in front of those USC song girls? They might meet them!

“As for USC going to Moscow, what are they going to think about those song girls! Forget the football team. Just send those song girls. They’ll go crazy in Red Square. Of course, you know, that horse (Traveler) can’t go.”

The Game of the ‘80’s: It looks as if football will be an international sport a lot sooner than soccer will be an American pastime. In addition to the annual games played in Tokyo, there has been a game in Dublin, will be one in Moscow and now, if an aerospace firm has its way, another in France. Georgia Tech has been invited by Matrea Espace to reschedule its game with Western Carolina next Nov. 4 in Toulouse, 325 miles south of Paris. And of course, the pros have played in England and Sweden.

Miami Coach Jimmy Johnson got the folks in West Virginia all excited earlier this week when he decided that Miami should be the national champion if the undefeated Mountaineers beat top-ranked Notre Dame.

Said West Virginia Coach Don Nehlen: “His team lost to Notre Dame, and he can’t erase that fact.”

Having stirred up that state, Johnson moved on to Utah, where he made an insinuation or two about BYU, his opponent Saturday.

“They are, without question, the oldest, most veteran team we’ll ever play,” he said.

This refers to BYU’s tradition of ministry, which sends Mormon students on missions during their schooling. Because of this, BYU athletes have 7 years to complete their athletic eligibility, instead of 5 at every other school. BYU thus has six starters on offense who are at least 24.

“That gives them an advantage in maturity,” Johnson said. “With a lot of teams that they play, I know this has been a complaint for years.”

In fact, said someone involved in the Western Athletic Conference, BYU is the most-hated team in the league because of this. Funny, this someone said, that it’s the linemen who have time to go on missions and get so big and strong.

Famous Moments in Discipline: Lou Holtz’s packing off of two players before the USC game, because they were 40 minutes late to dinner, may or may not get him into the Grinch’s Hall of Fame. But it did remind us of the odd suspension-fine or two.

There was Miller Huggins sitting Babe Ruth down in 1925. The Bambino had a well-deserved reputation for nightlife. When roommate Ping Bodie was once asked whom he was bunking with, Bodie said, “A suitcase.”

Anyway, Huggins fined Ruth $5,000 after he was late for batting practice 3 days in a row. Of course, the Babe had been asking for it. He had once hung Miller over the platform railing of a moving train.

But our favorite is the one in which Bob Short, owner of the Minneapolis Lakers, went after running mates Hot Rod Hundley and Slick Leonard. Too many missed curfews. He called both to his office, where the fines would be levied.

He called Hundley in first. Short said he was fining them each $1,000, easily more than 10% of their salaries. Hundley, nonchalant as ever, passed the anxious Leonard on his way out.

“How bad is it?” Leonard asked.

“He fined us the big one, baby,” Hundley said.

Leonard was disconsolate. “A hundred bucks!” he whined.