Good Thing He Wasn’t Here Last Season

The crowd at the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday had an effect on Dallas defensive end Chad Hennings. He told the San Francisco Chronicle after the Cowboys defeated the Raiders, 34-21:

“These people are fanatics and it’s a different kind of fanatic than you get in Dallas. It’s more of a violent kind of fanatic. I guess it’s the difference between the West Coast attitude and the Bible Belt.

“This is just a crazy place.”

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Trivia time: Which NCAA Division I school has won the most titles in a single sport?

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Raid won’t work: Bryan Burwell in USA Today on enigmatic Detroit Lion Coach Wayne Fontes, whose team has improved to a 5-6 record:

“We know Fontes is sort of like a New York City cockroach. Impossible to catch and incapable of dying.”

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Real incentive: Mark Soltau in the San Francisco Examiner on the Skins Game this weekend at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert:

“While the concept is great, it’s become a tired act, sort of a ‘Circus of the Stars’ in double-knits. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the players put up their own dough?”

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Kicking the bucket: Indiana and Purdue will battle for the Old Oaken Bucket for the 67th time on Friday.

The bucket, taken from a farm in southern Indiana in 1925, has a bronze chain made up of a “P” and an “I” representing each school’s victory. Three combination links are included in the chain for ties during the series.

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Egg-stravaganza: Saturday, Mississippi State and Mississippi will square off for the Golden Egg Trophy. The trophy was developed in 1926 by school officials after the postgame tradition of tearing down the goal posts and carting them home caused increasingly violent melees.

The trophy consists of a pedestal with a gold-plated, regulation-size football of the day. However, it looks more like an egg than a football, hence name, the Golden Egg.

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FYI: USC played its first Thanksgiving Day football game in 1897, defeating Pomona College, 6-0.

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Looking back: On this day in 1984, Doug Flutie led Boston College to a 47-45 upset of Miami with a last-second touchdown pass to Gerard Phelan.

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Trivia answer: Oklahoma State in wrestling, with 30.

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Quotebook: Sacramento’s Sarunas Marciulionis, on his $31,768 fine for his part in a bench-clearing brawl with the Indiana Pacers: “I got fined for hugging Eddie Johnson. That’s all I did. That’s the most expensive hug of my life.”