These Answers Carry Weight

You know it’s time to start thinking pigskin when the truck pulls up to your house in August, two burly piano movers get out, open the back hatch, delicately unload an enormous box and then shimmy the package on its corners toward your front door.

“Watch your toes,” one guy always grunts.

“Apologies, sir, if we chip paint from your door jam,” the other says.

There’s nothing quite like the arrival of the Texas media guide.

A whopping 576 pages this year, up eight pages from last year’s 568-page tome, the Texas guide reminds us that while downsizing might be a popular concept in America, college football continues to test the limits of Einstein’s theory of an expanding universe.

While baseball talks contraction, college football plows gluttonously forward like an offensive tackle toward a buffet table. Everywhere you look, football hotbeds are adding seats to football monuments, from Oregon to Oklahoma, Ohio State to Penn State.

Michigan and Tennessee have gone so mad in their annual race for stadium-capacity supremacy, “vertigo” has become the most common fan complaint.

Players are bigger, coaches’ salaries are up and, if you read reports out of the Southeastern Conference, chicanery is still in a bull market.

Basically, college football has been super-sized. This year’s hot-plate special offers more than 700 games over a 135-day stretch. Thanks to a calendar quirk that features 14 Saturdays from Labor Day through November, teams can play 12-game regular seasons this year and next, then again in 2008 and 2019 (Nostradamus saw this coming centuries ago).

It follows that a really big sport has some really big questions:

Any thoughts on opening (last) weekend games?

Not pretending to be an expert, let’s go with Colorado State over Virginia, North Carolina State over New Mexico, Ohio State big over Texas Tech, Nebraska in a romp over Arizona State, Wisconsin in a nail-biter over Fresno State and Florida State escaping against Iowa State, oh, let’s say 38-31.

Are there too many bowl games?

Get real, you. Don’t you realize that with 28 bowl games now, that means 28 coaches will get carried off the field holding some piece of junk hardware to take back to their drooling boosters?

In what other sport do you get 28 champions? Last year, Clemson actually paid to go to the Humanitarian Bowl for the chance to stomp Louisiana Tech. Worth every penny, too, when you’re sitting in a recruit’s home and he’s asking what you’ve done lately.

When you sit down and ask why there is no playoff in college football, this is why.

Can Miami repeat as national champions?

The Hurricanes are ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press and coaches’ preseason poll, but we’re going to say no after taking a quick check under the hood.

Miami returns quarterback Ken Dorsey but lost 11 players to the NFL draft, including five first-round picks. The Hurricanes must replace their entire secondary and Bryant McKinnie at left tackle. Their most promising back, Frank Gore, ripped up a knee last spring.

Most years, Miami plays a two-game season against Florida State and Virginia Tech. This year Miami plays Florida State, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia Tech.

Who is going to win the Heisman Trophy?

A quarterback.

Yep, the top candidates this year all toss spirals. Rex Grossman (Florida), Dorsey (Miami), Byron Leftwich (Marshall), Eli Manning (Mississippi), Chris Simms (Texas), Dave Ragone (Louisville) and Jason Gesser (Washington State).

The only running back on most preseason lists is Oregon’s Onterrio Smith, who didn’t even start last season.

Will fans give Tyrone Willingham a chance at Notre Dame?

Absolutely. You think two games are enough? The most damning note entering Labor Day has to be Danny Sheridan listing Notre Dame as 100,000-to-1 shots to win the national title.

If you entered Notre Dame in a horse race at those odds, six guys from the glue factory would be waiting at the finish line.

Notre Dame has won 11 national titles, the last in 1988, but 7-5 in 2002 would be a good year. The problem in South Bend remains the same: The schedule is better than the talent. Gluttons for punishment, Notre Dame adds Florida State to a ledger that already includes Maryland, Michigan, Purdue, USC and Michigan State, which was 5-0 against former coach Bob Davie.

And make sure to circle Stanford’s Oct. 5 visit on the calendar. Rest assured Cardinal players have in the wake of former coach Willingham’s bailout.

How badly will NCAA probation hurt Alabama?

You hate what it’s doing to the kids. Example: Instead of going to a bowl game this year, the Crimson Tide will have to endure a recently added, season-ending trip to play Hawaii.

What’s the difference between the Black Coaches Assn. Bowl and the Black Coaches Assn. Classic?

The question should be, how come there are only two more black Division I-A coaches (four) than BCA games?

How much will college football miss Steve Spurrier?

As much as a baseball player would miss spit. Spurrier left behind a legacy and a ton of talent, but it worries us that new Coach Ron Zook has already come down with Swamp fever.

“I think sleeping and eating are wastes of time,” he told the Miami Herald. “I’ve always said that. But you have to do them.”

Whereas Spurrier’s favorite word in the off-season was “Fore!” Zook opened his regime by refusing to allow anyone to sit down at practice, reporters included.

Zook says he likes to get four quality hours of sleep a night. He may cut back to three after September games against Miami and Tennessee.

Could you please, once and for all, explain the bowl championship series?

We’d rather pull warm gum off our shoes. We will say this: The system will be in place for at least the next full rotation of BCS title games: Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose before the contract expires after the 2005 season.

The controversial rankings system was tweaked in the off-season, as margin of victory was removed from the formula, which means schools such as Oregon will no longer be penalized for winning close games in a tough conference.

Quality win points will also now be awarded only for victories against top-10 schools instead of those in the top 15.

Conference commissioners blew it, though, by not insisting a school must win its conference to be eligible for the BCS title game. Last year, this would have knocked out Nebraska, which did not even win its division in the Big 12.

Who is going to play for the national title in this year’s Fiesta Bowl?

Logic suggests the Oklahoma-Texas winner on Oct. 12 against Florida State.

Oklahoma misses Nebraska and Kansas State this year, gets Colorado at home on Nov. 2 and has had Texas’ number the last two years. No team in the country has more talent than Texas, yet the Longhorns tend to tighten up when the going gets tough.

Florida State certainly looked vulnerable against Iowa State last weekend; however, the schedule sets up for another national title run.

The Seminoles have to win two key games, at Miami on Oct. 12 and against Spurrier-less Florida in Tallahassee on Nov. 30.

Florida State, though, might want to discover a pass rush before then.

Is it true Georgia hasn’t won a Southeastern Conference title in 20 years?

Yes it is, and thanks for writing in, Herschel Walker.

Georgia’s drought could end this season, especially now that longtime Georgia nemesis Spurrier has vacated the SEC East Division.

Will Duke ever win another game?

In basketball, for sure. Football may be another story. Duke has lost 23 consecutive games and is closing in on Northwestern’s major college record of 34. The ray of hope shines on Sept. 28, when hapless Duke gets a crack at hapless Navy in Annapolis.

If Duke fails there, well, there’s always basketball.

How long will Penn State’s Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden of Florida State keep coaching?

As long as both can keep a whistle in their mouths.

For the record, Bowden is 72 and Paterno turns 76 in December, but there’s a cat-and-mouse battle for posterity going on here. Paterno leads all major college coaches in victories with 327, but Bowden is only three behind at 324.

If Paterno retires, Bowden will zoom ahead and seize the all-time lead. Bowden might take the lead regardless, unless Paterno can turn course on consecutive losing seasons.

Is the Big 12 the best conference?

Yes. Let’s lower the lights and make the Iowa State presentation. The Cyclones were perhaps one blown officials’ call from taking Florida State into overtime last weekend, yet may end up fourth in the Big 12’s North Division and scrambling to make a bowl.

Why? This is the year Iowa State plays at Oklahoma, at Texas, at Colorado, at Kansas State and gets to host Nebraska.

The Big 12 has four teams ranked in the Associated Press top 10 and three--Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma--have real shots at the national title (Not this year, Nebraska).

Can Washington State really make a national title run out of the Pac-10?

Wow, safe to say that’s the first time in history that subject has ever been broached. Amazingly, the short answer is “maybe.” Washington State has a tough question to answer on Sept. 14 when it plays at Ohio State, but the rest of the nonconference schedule is Ryan Leaf soft, plus the Cougars get Washington, USC and Oregon at Pullman this year.

Stranger things have happened, although we can’t think of any at the moment.