It’s Missing a Key Ingredient

It’s still as important as a sunrise to the South and definitely pivotal pigskin in terms of the Southeastern Conference East Division race, but No. 10 Florida at No. 4 Tennessee this week without Steve Spurrier feels like “The Three Tenors” at the Hollywood Bowl without Pavarotti.

As Tony Soprano might say, “Whaddayagonna do?”

Spurrier has taken his ball plays and flapping lips to the NFL--we’re guessing he’d rather have played Vanderbilt last Monday night instead of Philadelphia--depriving the college game its annual three-ringed football circus and sideline sideshow.

No one poked, prodded and psychologically tormented Tennessee more than Spurrier, who went 7-3 against Volunteer Coach Phillip Fulmer and never failed to remind us.

“He could annoy you from time to time,” Fulmer confessed Wednesday on his weekly conference call. “Whether it was intentional or planned, I don’t know.”

Would you believe intentional and planned?

Florida whipped Tennessee five consecutive years at one stretch in the 1990s and likely deprived Volunteer quarterback Peyton Manning the Heisman Trophy in 1996 and ’97. Manning was winless in three games against the Gators.

It was Spurrier who suggested Manning returned to Tennessee for his senior season to lead his team to another Citrus Bowl, Spurrier who liked to call Tennessee the “Knox County Champions” and Spurrier who said you couldn’t spell Citrus Bowl without “UT.”

With Spurrier manning the microphone, Fulmer sometimes came off nationally as a whistle-blowing Elmer Fudd.

The irony is Spurrier’s superior national appeal eclipsed the extraordinary and parallel achievements of another SEC school and coach: Tennessee and Fulmer.

In the 10 years since the SEC split into six-team divisions, only two schools have won the East Division: Florida or Tennessee.

In the 10 seasons as SEC contemporaries, Fulmer won as many national titles as Spurrier, one, and boasted the better winning percentage.

You read it right. Spurrier’s 122-27-1 record in 12 years at Florida worked out to a percentage of .817, while Fulmer’s 10-year record of 95-20 entering play this year is .826.

Fulmer was even gaining ground in his personal battle, splitting the last four games against Spurrier’s Gators.

Fulmer, though, was never going to match his adversary in the war of words.

“Steve had a very dominant type of personality,” Fulmer said. “I guess he was the media-friendly type of guy. We just tried to go about our business here and be ourselves. I don’t feel like I felt dominated by him, but certainly he demanded a lot of attention.”

With Spurrier gone, and Florida floundering a bit already in the first days of first-year Coach Ron Zook, you’d think this is Tennessee’s time to make up for lost headlines.

Naturally, the mild-mannered Fulmer doesn’t see it that way.

“I don’t really concern myself with that,” he said. “I do think we get very good national attention, at least from the people who are important, and that’s the fans and the prospects. We’ve done OK.”

Fulmer says he never disliked Spurrier and acknowledged the coaches’ wives are friends.

Professionally, Spurrier’s success no doubt pushed Fulmer to heights he might otherwise never have reached.

“You have to be, I guess, an admirer of what he was able to do while he was in the conference and respect that,” Fulmer said of the former Florida coach. “He had a tremendous amount of success and deserves his due from that standpoint.”

Now, perhaps, Fulmer will reach his due point.

Not Yet in Bloom

Colorado freshman receiver Jeremy Bloom returned to practice this week and hopes to play against UCLA after a toe injury forced him to miss last week’s USC game.

Bloom has yet to catch a pass but did return a punt 75 yards for a touchdown in the opener against Colorado State.

Bloom made national headlines last month when he was forced to choose football over skiing after the NCAA refused his request to allow him to keep endorsement money earned as a star on the World Cup freestyle circuit.

Bloom postponed his football career last year so he could compete in the Salt Lake City Olympics. He finished ninth in freestyle moguls but went on to win the World Cup title in his event.

Bloom was torn between his love of two sports. Collegiate athletes are allowed to maintain their amateur status in one sport and play professionally in another, but are not allowed to accept endorsement money. In World Cup skiing, however, endorsement money is critical to subsidizing one’s career.

Interviewed recently in Boulder, Bloom said his “ski career is in jeopardy” and that he remained displeased with the NCAA’s decision.

“You feel so helpless,” Bloom said. “There were two things I wanted to do when I was little, play football and ski in the Olympics. I never thought an organization would take that away from me.”

Bloom’s rise as a freestyle moguls skier was remarkable given he started the year on the “C” team.

“I was a nobody in skiing last year,” he said. “I didn’t have a World Cup ranking. I was begging to get some financial support through endorsements. Then, my dream comes true, I end my season ranked No. 1 in the world, it’s time to capitalize on it, sign new contracts and get money to fund better training. And the second I do that, all those doors are shut. And that’s an uneasy feeling.”

Bloom, although only 5 feet 9 and 165 pounds, is no joke as a player. He was a star receiver at Loveland (Colo.) High and offered a full scholarship by Coach Gary Barnett.

“Oh no, he can play,” Barnett said. “We had him in camp a year ago, so we knew he was a player.”

As for Bloom’s ski career?

Don St. Pierre, the United States ski team’s moguls coach, said this week Bloom could have been as big a star in freestyle skiing as Jonny Mosley.

“Without a doubt,” St. Pierre said. “He has the personality to do whatever he wants.”

St. Pierre says if Bloom can avoid injuries, he could feasibly compete at this year’s World Championships in January if it could be worked out with the Colorado football team.

“You can only get up in the day and take so many risks, but Jeremy seems to walk on water,” St. Pierre said. “He’s one hell of a talent.”

If Bloom sticks with football, St. Pierre doubts the skier could compete at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy. St. Pierre says the technology is changing too fast.

“The further he gets engrossed with football, I think that would be a stretch,” St. Pierre said of 2006 Olympic plans.

Hurry-Up Offense

Welcome back to the big leagues, USC (2-0), Penn State (2-0) and Notre Dame (3-0). These fabled programs, with a combined 15 national titles since the AP began polling in 1936, are coming off non-winning seasons. The last of the Big Three to win a national title was Notre Dame in 1988.

The question: How long can this last? If Notre Dame can break a five-game losing streak against Michigan State this week, the Irish then face Stanford, Pittsburgh and Air Force, giving them a legitimate shot at being 7-0 when they play at Florida State on Oct. 26. USC still faces a strength-of-schedule quagmire; the record of the Trojans’ remaining opponents is 24-4. Penn State still has to play at Wisconsin, at Michigan and at Ohio State.

How can California (3-0) not crack this week’s coaches’ poll while Michigan State is still receiving votes? The coaches’ poll does not recognize schools that are on NCAA probation. The Associated Press poll has no such policy, which is why Cal made its debut this week at No. 23.

The anticipated comeback of Neil Parry, the San Jose State player who had his right leg amputated below the knee after an injury suffered in a game two years ago, has been put on indefinite hold while Parry continues to condition and rehabilitate. Parry has been cleared to play by Mutual of Omaha, the NCAA’s insurance carrier, and had hoped to return in time for the Spartans’ Sept. 28 home game against Texas El Paso. However, swelling in his right leg and the search for the right prosthetic device has slowed Parry’s progress. There is an outside chance he could postpone his return until next year.

In case you missed this important scroll at the bottom of your favorite cable news channel, the Insight.com Bowl announced it is dropping the “dotcom” from its bowl and will be known as the Insight Bowl.

We’re sure Florida Gator fans are aware that lowly Temple scored more points against Miami ( 21) than Florida did (16). Florida is 2-1 entering Saturday’s game at Tennessee and it’s safe to say Zook’s grace period is over. Florida was booed at home during a sloppy victory last week against Ohio, not to be confused with Ohio State. “I’ve been here when they booed before,” said Zook, a former Florida assistant in the early 1990s. “No one wants to make these people happy more than our players and staff.”

It was no surprise the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee this week upheld sanctions for Alabama and Kentucky. The eye-popper was Terry Don Phillips, chairman of the committee, saying that if not for “unequivocal” cooperation of the school, the Alabama football program would have been shut down under the NCAA’s “death penalty.” Kentucky, off to a surprising 3-0 start, took the NCAA news like men. “We started two-a-days knowing we can’t go to a bowl,” Kentucky Coach Guy Morriss said. “What’s changed? We still can’t go.”

Last year, the North Division of the Big 12 Conference had one school in the national title game, Nebraska, and another, Colorado, which missed making the title game by 0.05 of a bowl championship series point. Last week, Nebraska and Colorado were outscored, 80-10, in losses to Penn State and USC.