Coach Can Carry a Team, if Not a Tune

Has anyone ever spotted Texas Tech football Coach Mike Leach and country singer Vince Gill in the same room?

A few years ago, Leach kept hearing about his apparent resemblance to the Grammy-winning artist and decided to do some investigating.

“When Vince Gill got hot ... I was in Georgia. I had to look at one of his CD covers to see if I actually did look like him,” Leach said in a Saturday interview on TBS, which was previewing the Texas-Texas Tech game this Saturday.

“There is one waitress I know of and several high school students in the state of Georgia that still to this day think they met Vince Gill.”

Add Gill: There’s no word on whether Gill is a Red Raider football fan, but he is an avid golfer.

“I’m holding out just the slightest glimmer of hope that I’m going to explode onto the senior tour,” he told reporters at a charity golf event last month. “I’m just kidding.”

Trivia time: Who was the first player in NCAA history to pass for 2,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in a season?

Comparison shopping: It’s about that time again -- time for the yearly summation of the state of baseball, Yankees versus Red Sox.

Boston Globe columnist Jackie MacMullen wrote about the road to grudging respect for the Yankees: “The Yankees walk like professionals, talk like professionals, and play like professionals. Three games into this disastrous series, they look like the slick Wall Street guys with the perfect hair driving their Mercedes to Easy Street, while the Red Sox look like overmatched school kids with shirt tails that won’t stay tucked in, running up the street trying to catch a bus.”

Jolt of Jerry: Shannon Sharpe of CBS’ “NFL Today,” addressing a possible relocation for Jerry Rice:

“Only if he wants to be a third or fourth receiver, possibly fifth,” Sharpe said. “This all started when the streak was stopped. His streak was what Jerry Rice is about.

“Now if you have to trade him -- what do you get? Two pounds of coffee up in Seattle? He is not the same player that he once was.”

Add Sharpe: He was asked to evaluate the dancing moves of St. Louis Ram Coach Mike Martz last week.

“Not as good as mine,” Sharpe said. “Not as good as mine, but his dancing is like his coach’s challenges, not very good. Cut it out, Mike.”

Vertically challenged: Carolina tackle Jordan Gross, on the Panthers’ 1-4 start. “It’s not an uphill battle, it’s almost a vertical battle, to get the momentum changed.”

Trivia answer: Woody Dantzler. His career numbers at Clemson: He passed for 5,819 yards and rushed for 2,704 yards.

And finally: Howie Long, having some fun at the expense of Fox colleague Terry Bradshaw on Sunday: “In Montana, they renamed one of their towns after one of the all-time greats, Joe Montana.

“Well, a town in Massachusetts changed their name to honor my guy Terry Bradshaw -- Marblehead.”