To Beat Osborne, Do It Sooner Instead of Later

While at a college coaches convention in Dallas, now retired former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne was asked if he had been contacted by Cowboy owner Jerry Jones to replace the embattled Barry Switzer.

“No,” Osborne said. “They have a guy I couldn’t whip. I tried 12 or 13 times and could only beat him three or four times.”

Actually, Osborne had a 5-12 record against Switzer when he was at Oklahoma. So Switzer accounted for 12 of Osborne’s 49 career losses in 25 seasons.

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Trivia time: What was Switzer’s record in his 16 years at Oklahoma?

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Gum attack: New Jersey’s Doug Gilmour apparently bit Chicago Blackhawk defenseman Eric Weinrich on the right hand during a recent game.

It could have been a lot worse. Said Weinrich: “He didn’t have his teeth in.”

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Outraged: Joe Falls in the Detroit News: “Shame on the nation’s coaches who voted for Nebraska. Shame on them even more if they voted for the Cornhuskers because the Orange Bowl was Tom Osborne’s final game as coach.

“The voters in the Associated Press poll have no vested interest in who won the national championship. They come from all parts of the country and must be considered neutral in their opinion.”

Neutral writers? Give it a rest, Joe.

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Remember when? Head-to-head meetings don’t always determine a national champion. In 1978, USC beat Alabama, 24-14, at Birmingham in an early-season game. The Trojans lost to Arizona State two weeks later, their only loss of the season.

Final polls? Once-beaten Alabama was ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press, USC No. 2. The order was reversed in the United Press International coaches poll.

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Not impressed: Dennis Rodman on Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves: “He’s just another average ballplayer in the league making $20 million a year. He will be just another player in the league to never get a ring.”

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Hell still hot: Washington State senior tackle Leon Bender, after losing the Rose Bowl game: “We wanted to come out here and shock the world. We haven’t been here in 67 years and I think people would have thought that hell had froze over if we had won.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1989, the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Chicago Bears, 28-3, in the NFC championship game in Chicago. The 49ers went on to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 20-16, in Super Bowl XXIII.

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Trivia answer: 157 wins, 29 losses and four ties for a percentage of .837, fourth on the all-time NCAA Division I-A coaching list.

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And finally: Madison Square Garden network analyst John Davidson on Tony Twist, the enforcer for the St. Louis Blues:

“He’s a gunslinger whose gun is going to get rusty, because nobody wants to fight him. The problem with him is he goes without his shirt on down the hallway, and people see he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”