It’s Time for Miller to Light a Fire in the Booth

Dan LeBatard of the Miami Herald is disappointed with Dennis Miller on “Monday Night Football”: “Problem is, Miller hasn’t come as advertised. He has been sanitized, softened, neutered. There’s suddenly a fan in the broadcast booth instead of a comedian.

“Instead of changing safe ABC, safe ABC has changed him, and his presence in the booth feels as out of place as a clown nose on Bill Cowher....

“There is, of course, one way for Miller to salvage his standing as a bitter rebel. He can start saying stuff so outrageous that it gets him fired. It would make the broadcasts far better, before and after the firing, and it would be in keeping with the personality that got him in the booth in the first place.”

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Trivia time: Other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was the only consensus three-time All-American men’s basketball player from a Pacific 10 school?

Pass the pepper: Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer, on the Eagles’ bland win over the Chargers on Sunday: “The Eagles were a baked potato without the butter and sour cream. Popcorn minus the salt. Broccoli without the comforting camouflage of melted cheddar cheese ... filling, in other words, but not totally fulfilling.”

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The sooner the better: Steve Hummer in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “If no one wants to play Miami, let’s just shut down the whole thing now. The way teams have been avoiding the Hurricanes, you’d think they were process servers instead of simple college kids.

“It’s still unclear how it was determined Nebraska would be the one to oppose them in the Rose Bowl. The only thing I can figure is that the Florida board of elections must also be running the bowl championship series now.”

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Just get rid of them: With British soccer officials cracking down on the wild and occasionally violent antics of team mascots, the costumed characters have threatened to retaliate with a strike.

“If they’re going to give us some guidelines on our behavior, we have some demands of our own,” said Yorkie the Lion, mascot for York City. “Some clubs you go to treat us like [dirt]. At Darlington, we even had to pay to get in.”

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Oh, no: Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank is buying the Atlanta Falcons. “What makes the deal especially exciting,” says comedy writer Jerry Perisho, “is that he’s going to hand the current owner a Blank check.”

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Just wondering: Jerry Greene in the Orlando Sentinel: “Each time Michael Jordan has his knees drained, does the fluid end up on EBay?”

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Modest request: From Jay Leno: “I saw something really touching at the mall today. You know you see those things that really give you the feeling of Christmas. I saw a member of the Detroit Lions asking Santa for a first down.”

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Trivia answer: Hank Luisetti of Stanford, 1936-38.

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And finally: Muffet McGraw, who coached her Notre Dame basketball team to the women’s national championship last season, is seeing the other side of the coin this time around.

The season has been so difficult that she thought Sunday’s 62-49 victory over USC at South Bend, Ind., was pivotal.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be 3-4,” she said. “We just had to get that one.”