They’ll Take 3-2 Any Way They Can Get It

Mississippi State is 3-2, and the NCAA isn’t booking plane tickets to Starkville, Miss., to visit old friend Jackie Sherrill. All in all, things are going very well.

Of course, it’s still early.

But people were prepared for the worst when Sherrill was hired as coach despite a record of infractions that could rival his 105-45-2 record on the field. Or had they already had it?

“My friends tell me we shouldn’t have hired Jackie Sherrill, that we won’t be going to any New Year’s bowl game because we’ll be on probation,” W.F. Wattson, who owns a cowboy boot store half a mile from Scott Field, told The Sporting News. “I tell them it doesn’t make any difference, because we haven’t been to one since 1941 anyway.”

Said longtime booster L.L. (Sonny) Mullins: “Lots of the people I know couldn’t believe Jackie Sherrill was coming to Mississippi State. Mostly because he was a proven winner.”

Trivia time: Who is the only former American Basketball Assn. player still active in the NBA?

Color-uncoordinated: University of Hawaii teams are known as the Rainbows, but that doesn’t mean they have to like every color. Not when it’s costing them football games.

Hawaii had a pink dressing room last Saturday at Ft. Collins, Colo., and lost to Colorado State, 28-16. The Rainbows had to face the same shade several weeks earlier at Iowa and lost then, 51-10. All this has Coach Bob Wagner turning red, admitting that his team was outplayed against Colorado State but not discounting the effect of psychological warfare.

“We put newspaper up over the pink and tried to get out of the locker room faster,” Wagner said, adding that scientific studies have found that pink reduces strength and makes people less aggressive and more passive.

Wagner said the practice of painting visiting locker rooms pink upsets him and he has no plans to do the same at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

Beach head: Go ahead, accuse the New York Jets of sandbagging it. They’ll tell you that’s a key reason they lead the AFC and are third in the league in time of possession, and first in the NFL in rushing. The passing game is only 17th overall, but on a high note, at least for now, after Ken O’Brien completed 18 of 24 passes for 221 yards on Sunday.

“The pass protection is better now than it’s been since I can remember,” O’Brien told Newsday. “And we have balance with our running game. Everything starts with the offensiveline.”

And on the offensive line, everything starts with 75-pound sandbags, which some say weigh closer to 90 after getting soaked in a recent downpour. It may have looked strange, but several recent warm-weather practices included the regimen of line coach Larry Beightol, who made his linemen hold the bags atop their heads and run up and down a steep incline.

Just part of Beightol’s plan to instill discipline and toughness in his linemen. Love and admiration don’t come into play.

As Irv Eatman yelled in jest one afternoon: “I hate you, Larry Beightol. I want to see you run with one of these on your head.”

Trivia answer: Moses Malone.

Quotebook: Former Utah Jazz Coach Frank Layden, complaining about a former player: “I told him, ‘Son, I can’t understand what it is with you. Is it ignorance or apathy?’ He said, ‘Coach, I don’t know and I don’t care.’ ”