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Football 101 Is Par for the Course in Texas

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Today, Texas plays Oregon in the Holiday Bowl game at San Diego.

That’s the same Texas, Tom Cushman of the San Diego Union-Tribune points out, that has a $50-million athletic budget and that this season printed 20,000 copies of a 536-page football media guide.

And those aren’t the only big numbers.

“The squad traveling to San Diego numbers 101,” Cushman wrote. “But there would undoubtedly be more if the NCAA weren’t cranky about scholarship limitations.”

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More Longhorns: “One portion of the guide lists great Texas games--37 of them,” Cushman said. “And from scanning that section, I can assure you that the Longhorns, in great games, are 37-0.

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“Great game No. 4 was with the Ducks on Dec. 6, 1941, and what was great about it for Texas fans was the final score of 71-7--the historical context being that Oregon was defeated only hours before Pearl Harbor.”

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Trivia time: How many University of Florida players are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

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Bad idea: The suggestion by two Washington Wizards that Michael Jordan, president of basketball operations, should share the blame for the team’s woeful season, has not set well with Dave Kindred of the Sporting News.

“The gall,” Kindred wrote. “When famous do-nothings named Rod Strickland and Juwan Howard point fingers of blame at Jordan, they raise yet another question--where will these bums be working next month? Any team that’s 5-24 with them can’t be much worse without them. Better to play out the season with 10-day contract fill-ins.”

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Holiday on ice: A sign spotted Wednesday night at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh: “A Mario Christmas and a Happy Lemieux Year.”

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Presumptive strike: Not that the town is excited or anything, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a reader poll in Thursday’s edition. The question: “Mario’s completed his first game. Is he back in top form?”

After one game? They have to be kidding.

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Last add Lemieux: It was easier for Lemieux to get past the Maple Leafs than the press, according to the Post-Gazette’s Chuck Finder.

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“Hockey history came to be recorded by about 175 members of the Mario-manic fourth estate, though 40 more got turned away,” he wrote.

“Note pads and microphones arrived from such frontiers across the puck planet as Tokyo and the Czech Republic, from such esteemed hockey publications as the Christian Science Monitor and the National Post (Canada’s Wall Street Journal), from such distant reaches as the Winnipeg Free Press and the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and from almost every office of ESPN.”

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Counting the cost: In Baltimore, says the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell, money has bought nothing but baseball mediocrity.

“The Orioles illustrated how, year after year, you can find ways to spend more money but win fewer games. . . . For the last three seasons, the Orioles were so internally conflicted, in their muted passive-aggressive way, that their dugout seemed as quiet as a study hall. ‘Do Not Disturb: Rich Guys Getting Beaten.’ ”

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Incomparable: Statistics aside, don’t even begin to compare the Baltimore Raven defense with that of the 1986 Chicago Bears, says Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News.

“If [Ray] Lewis is Mike Singletary or Tony Siraguso is Dan Hampton, I am Emily Dickinson.”

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Trivia answer: No Gator has yet made it.

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And finally: “Remember when Bill Walsh said Jake Plummer would be the next Joe Montana?” asks the Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser. “Well, at this rate Plummer won’t even be the next Butte, Montana.”

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