COLLEGE FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE NATION : Brown Inducted With Hero Robeson

Being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame with Paul Robeson meant almost as much to Jim Brown as the honor itself.

“The man was multi-talented, had tremendous courage,” said Brown, who rushed for 2,091 yards and 25 touchdowns at Syracuse. “It’s very significant to me because he was the person I most admired.”

Brown, Robeson, who played at Rutgers early in the century, and 11 others were enshrined in the new Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind. The other inductees were: Chris Burford, Stanford; Tommy Casanova, Louisiana State; Jake Gibbs; Mississippi; Rich Glover, Nebraska; Jim Grabowski, Illinois; Jim Martin, Notre Dame; Dennis Onkotz, Penn State; Rick Redman, Washington; Billy Sims, Oklahoma; Mike Singletary, Baylor; and former Arizona State coach Frank Kush.

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After last year’s season-opening 41-17 rout by Florida State, Virginia Coach George Welsh has given up trying to get an early handle on his team as it opens today against No. 14 Michigan at Ann Arbor, Mich., in the Pigskin Classic.

“I’ve given up trying to rate my team,” Welsh said of his 17th-ranked Cavaliers. “We have not had a good opener since 1990. We fumble, we drop passes. Like last year against Florida State, we dropped seven passes that were catchable.”

Virginia, however, could be headed for big things after finishing 9-3 last season. The Cavaliers return most of the regulars from that team, including quarterback Mike Groh, the leading passer in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1994.