Revolving Door Has Left Heads Spinning This Year

America, it might be time for a telethon.

Our college coaches are being run out, burned out, tossed out, retired, re-assigned, roasted, toasted and skewered.

Purdue Coach Jim Colletto plum “ran out of gas.”

For Boston College Coach Dan Henning, it may have been a numbers game.

Minnesota whacked Wacker, Maryland dumped Duffner, Kentucky told Curry to scurry.

Hess got the hook at New Mexico State.

Lou Holtz resigned the best football post in America at Notre Dame and, a week later, Gene Stallings walked out on the second-best, Alabama.

One more loss this week and USC Coach John Robinson might disappear into a loophole.

So, you think you’d like to coach? Ride around in a fancy golf cart?

If so, hold on to your headsets.

“We all know when we get into it that those things are down the road somewhere,” Colletto said after he resigned a few weeks ago, citing health concerns.

Figures on departing college coaches are rolling in like election-night returns.

At last count--call your local precinct for post-deadline updates--20 of the 111 Division I coaches have been fired, resigned or retired.

With 26 shopping days left before Christmas for athletic director scrooges to lop off more heads, the modern record for most coaching changes--27 in 1980--is in jeopardy.

Some attribute this high turnover rate to the increasing pressures in college football, mainly the lust for television revenue.

“I imagine it goes right back to that dollar bill,” Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said this week. “And not filling the stands. I hate to see it, it saddens me to see it happen, yet I know it’s going to happen to me one of these days.”

But John Ralston, who coached his last game for San Jose State on Saturday--a 31-28 victory against the University of Nevada Las Vegas--says it’s business as usual.

Ralston, who announced his retirement earlier this month, thinks this season’s high turnover rate is an anomaly, not a trend. He notes several older coaches such as himself--Ralston is 69--calling it quits: Fresno State Coach Jim Sweeney, Pittsburgh’s Johnny Majors, Stallings and Holtz.

“I think this just may be a unique year,” Ralston said from his office Tuesday.

Ralston, 11-34 in four years at San Jose State, says coaching is the same as it ever was.

Tough.

“I don’t think it’s pressure from the outside,” said Ralston, who led Stanford to Rose Bowl victories in 1969 and 1970. “I think it’s the pressure one puts on himself. You’ve got to look in the mirror every day, and when you’re not winning, that’s a devastating thing.”

Ralston spent 45 years in coaching, 17 at the collegiate level. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1992. After a nine-year run at Stanford, Ralston took over the Denver Broncos in 1972 and led them to their first three winning seasons. He later worked in the NFL, USFL and World League before coming full circle at San Jose State, where he hoped to revive a struggling program.

It didn’t happen. The Spartans finished 3-9 this season.

“The losses just get to you,” Ralston said. “You can’t even remember the wins. People ask about the Rose Bowl wins and all that, gosh, that’s a deep breath as you walk out. It’s those losses. I can pick out 10 games that we lost over a period of year, and they darn near. . . .”

Ralston paused to consider the impact of his next statement.

“I used to always say, I’d hold my fingers apart and say, ‘You’re that far from suicide.’ You just wonder how you get out of the stadium sometimes after one of these really devastating losses. And you think maybe I ought to run up to the top of the stadium and jump off. It’s a terrible thing. But you put that much into the responsibility you have to your players and program.”

Ralston says he is still haunted by a 1968 Stanford loss to UCLA, and another the next season to USC.

He can recount each defeat in vivid detail, the 14-0 lead Stanford blew to UCLA; an interference call on his team--”offensive pass interference!”--that tipped the game’s balance. And then, a year later, Ron Ayala of USC and his field goal on the final play of the game.

“That’s 30 years ago,” Ralston said.

Ralston can’t speak for why Holtz and Stallings walked. But he’s guessing it’s for the same reasons he did.

The losses. For Holtz, it might have been this year’s overtime loss to Air Force. For Stallings, a shocking defeat to Mississippi State.

“If it’s a really good job, it’s a lot of pressure, and maybe you can just take it so long,” Ralston pondered.

Would he do it all again?

In a San Jose minute.

“The highs are higher and the lows are lower than anything you can possibly imagine,” he said. “And it gets to you. But I’ll tell you there’s nothing like American football. There’s nothing like the participation, the relationship with players, so it does keep you going for a long time.

“We’ve got the greatest job in the world, no question. We’ve never been so fortunate. The reason I say that it’s something I wanted to do since I was 11.”

Ralston had to go. He had a stack of phone messages to return.

There are a lot of job openings out there.

You never know.

WAC ATTACK

Brigham Young is being set up for a fall.

If the Cougars finish 13-1 by defeating Wyoming on Dec. 7, they can expect to improve on their current No. 7 ranking in the AP poll.

Yet BYU’s chances of getting one of two at-large Alliance picks are not good.

The Alliance has formally included BYU as one of four teams eligible for the two spots; the others are Notre Dame, Penn State and Tennessee.

But if Notre Dame beats USC on Saturday, the Irish are a cinch to get one of the at-large slots, with Penn State claiming the other.

Both schools have two losses and would be ranked lower than a 13-1 BYU, a member of the non-alliance Western Athletic Conference.

Notre Dame is ranked 10th, Penn State is No. 8.

“I’m still confident that the Fiesta Bowl will do what’s right and fair, and that BYU is still a team that will receive strong consideration,” WAC Commissioner Karl Benson said.

If not, expect Benson to cry foul.

“Someone would have to answer the question, ‘Are the two at-large spots truly open to non-alliance members?”’ Benson said.

The WAC has been on a crusade this season to place a team in the top 10 and force the issue.

With one more victory, BYU will achieve that aim.

“Our push here has been to receive some type of automatic berth if we reach a minimum ranking,” Benson said. “If BYU is passed over, it would certainly give that great strength.”

If BYU does get snubbed?

“It would cause us to seek all possible alternatives, which may include litigation for the future,” Benson said.

THREE’S A CROWD

It’s hardly a groundswell, but fast-charging Arizona State received three first-place votes in this week’s Associated Press poll.

For seven weeks after the Sun Devils upset then No. 1 Nebraska on Sept. 21, only one maverick AP writer dared to vote Arizona State No. 1.

The prime suspect was Corky Simpson, the Tucson Citizen columnist who drew acclaim/scorn in 1992 when he voted longshot Alabama No. 1 each week.

When The Crimson Tide won the national title, Simpson was honored as grand marshal in the team’s victory parade.

But Simpson confessed he no longer has a vote in the AP poll.

The secret Arizona State admirer turned out to be Jack Ebling, who covers the Big Ten for the Lansing (Mich.) State Journal.

Arizona State was ranked 17th when it upset No. 1 Nebraska, but Ebling thought the 19-0 victory warranted such a bump.

When Ebling’s vote went public, he said he received several anonymous phone calls from irate Florida fans.

Well, well. Arizona State will move to No. 2 in the polls next week behind the winner of Saturday’s game between No.1 Florida and No. 2 Florida State in Tallahassee.

And Ebling looks like a prophet.

Sun Devil Coach Bruce Snyder, in fact, has extended Ebling a Rose Bowl invitation.

“I wouldn’t know Bruce Snyder if he walked in the door,” Ebling said. “The reason I picked Arizona State has nothing to do with weather, or friendships there. I saw them play what I think was the best game of the 1990s.”

AND A CHERRY ON TOP

Michigan players got a kick out of former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce’s fiery pep talk on the eve of last Saturday’s showdown in Columbus.

Bruce addressed the team during “Senior Tackle,” an annual rite of passage in which Buckeye seniors make one last hit against a tackling dummy at Ohio Stadium.

The event was televised locally, and a few visiting Wolverines tuned in.

Giving it his Rockne-esque best, Bruce implored the troops that no season was successful without beating Michigan, and that earning a Rose Bowl berth before beating the Wolverines was like “eating dessert before the main course.”

After No. 16 Michigan upset No. 2 Ohio State, 13-9, cornerback Charles Woodson said Bruce was right. “You can’t eat dessert first,” Woodson said. “It messes up your stomach.”

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

John Cooper in big games, the whole story: Counting his 0-2-1 record against Arizona while at Arizona State, Cooper is now 1-9-2 against arch rivals. Cooper’s record against Ohio State fell to 1-7-1 last weekend. He’s 1-6 in bowl games.

Forget about Ohio State tackle Orlando Pace winning the Heisman Trophy after Michigan held the Buckeyes to five net rushing yards in the second half last weekend.

Syracuse will clinch the Big East and an Alliance bowl bid if it beats Miami on Saturday. If Miami wins, it creates a three-way tie among Miami, Syracuse and Virginia Tech. In that case, the Alliance pick will go to the team with the highest ranking in the College Football Alliance rankings (the combined totals of the AP and coaches’ poll). In this week’s CFA poll, Virginia is No. 12, Syracuse is No. 17 and Miami is No. 23.