No Adding of Fuel to the Fire

Forget everything you wish first-year Washington Coach Tyrone Willingham would say in the days before he faces Notre Dame for the first time since the school fired him:

* Notre Dame, they still play football?

* Funny how Charlie Weis never mentions that he’s back in the top 25 with my players.

* I wonder whether Charlie gets fired if he goes to two bowl games in three years?

It’s never going to be that way with Willingham, though.

Rick Neuheisel?

Now there was a completely different nut.

When he bolted Colorado for Washington in 1999 and happened to host Colorado in the first month of his first year, Neuheisel played it like Laurence Olivier.

After Washington pulled out a win, Neuheisel ran like Jim Valvano around Husky Stadium and embraced former players as though they’d just been found alive on an island five years after a plane crash.

Neuheisel kissed his former sports information director on the cheek, hugged one player and said, “Don’t let the press get between you and me.”

He welled up at one point, saying, “I’m a guy who has to hide my eyes at the end of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ ”

Neuheisel sarcastically ripped those who accused him of tampering with former Colorado players. “It was nice to at least say, legally, good luck to them.”

What’s good for the sporting press, of course, is not always good for the program. Neuheisel was later fired.

Then vs. now: Notre Dame plays at Washington this Saturday and Willingham denied he was playing down the raw emotions of having been the first African American coach at Notre Dame and, subsequently, being the first coach of any color to be canned before his contract was up.

Then he let loose with, “I’d much prefer Washington to win than Notre Dame to win,” followed by, “When you get to the game, it’s a football game.”

On the difference of coaching at Notre Dame and Washington, Willingham dropped this bombshell: “The things I did and didn’t do I still do and don’t do.”

He said he watched Notre Dame’s dramatic overtime loss to Michigan State last Saturday because “it was a game that was on.”

So, while it may have been unbecoming what Notre Dame did to Willingham, it may have worked out for the best.

The man in charge at Notre Dame needs a certain pizazz, and Willingham, frankly, lacks it.

In Weis, the Irish got a hair-trigger talker with strong plays and stronger opinions. Weis couldn’t be boring if he tried.

Notre Dame is 2-1 and suddenly one of the best reality shows on NBC.

Weis knew he could put up points on Pitt because he coached for years against Dave Wannstedt in the pros and, well, it was “Dave’s defense.”

Washington is 1-2 and crawling out of a dark 1-10 hole of last season.

It’s a stretch to think Willingham can get the Huskies back to elite status -- even though the yacht-to-the-game crowd will someday expect it -- but right now they’ll take 6-5.

Given the run-amok mess that Washington became under Neuheisel, Willingham can do what he did at Stanford and what, really, he does best -- build respectably, if not greatness, without ever uttering a quote anyone would want to jot down.

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On the Road ... Again?

USC fans have a right to know whether Dan Fouts is the Pacfic 10 Conference schedule maker.

After a two-year break in the series, USC on Saturday plays its third consecutive game against Oregon at Eugene.

Asked to explain that quirk, assistant Pac-10 Conference commissioner Duane Lindberg had a ready reply.

“It is horribly confusing,” he said.

USC has not hosted Oregon since the 2000 season and Lindberg lays blame on the conference’s complicated 16-year schedule cycle.

The rotation demands that traditional rivals face each other every year (USC-UCLA, Arizona-Arizona State) which forces “misses” on the schedule against nontraditional rivals.

Lindberg said the USC-Oregon series got thrown for a loop when conference athletic directors insisted that USC and UCLA also play California and Stanford every year.

Something had to give, Lindberg said.

“When you go to put things back together, then you run into problems,” he said. “It’s created a significant amount of oddities.”

There should be fewer quirks beginning next year when, with a 12th game allowed under NCAA rules, the Pac-10 goes to a round-robin format.

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Poll Position

The Harris Interactive College Football Poll, which replaces Associated Press in this year’s bowl championship series rankings formula, makes its debut Sunday.

Harris conducted a mock poll among its 114 voters last weekend and, by all accounts, the dry run was a success.

Results were not revealed, but word leaked out that USC was No. 1 and Texas was ranked higher than California.

One Harris poll voter’s role has gotten a lot more interesting now that UCLA is off to a 3-0 start.

Pete Dalis, the Bruins’ former athletic director, said he is taking his job seriously.

“I watch a ton of games,” Dalis said. “That first Labor Day weekend, I can’t tell you how many games I watched. I try to watch everything I can.”

With UCLA off this weekend, Dalis will spend Saturday like most college football-loving Americans: on the couch with a remote control in his hand.

Only final ballots will be made public, but Dalis says he probably would have been a Harris voter even if he was forced to make weekly disclosures.

Dalis said it would have been no different than being athletic director at a major college.

“They’re going to call and rip you for everything you do,” he said.

Dalis’ vote could get more interesting if UCLA and USC are undefeated entering the Dec. 3 game at the Coliseum.

We wondered whether Dalis had USC at the top of his list.

“That is correct,” Dalis said.

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Davis vs. Goliath

Look for coaches to use UC Davis’ upset over Stanford as a motivating tool to keep their teams from overlooking a lesser opponent.

Wait, hold that thought, it’s already happened. Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach played the UC Davis card this week as his No. 19-ranked Red Raiders prepare for Indiana State, which lost last week to Murray State.

“We are not making fun of this game at all,” Texas Tech cornerback Khalid Naziruddin said as if reading a script handed to him by his coach, “because we know any team can come in here and beat you if you are not clicking on all cylinders.”

Texas Tech is coming off an 80-21 win over Sam Houston State, after which Red Raider quarterback Cody Hodges was moved to clarify comments he made suggesting his high-powered offense might score 100 points against Indiana State. What Hodges said he meant was that, “If we get the ball 15 times a game, we expect to score 15 points.” And if all those scores are touchdowns, um, that’s 105 points.

Texas Tech leads the nation in scoring (68 points a game), passing (584 yards a game), total offense (711.50) and weakest nonconference schedule.

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Hurry-Up Offense

* A positive note for those who complained Stanford has been treated too harshly in its loss to UC Davis: the Cardinal had no penalties in the game.

* USC 70, Arkansas 17, leftover stocking stuffer: It was the worst nonconference defeat for a Southeastern Conference team since 1969, when Houston beat Mississippi State, 74-0. Five days later, Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt was still scratching his head.

“I don’t think there is any way you can stop them,” he said of the USC offense during Wednesday’s SEC coaches’ conference call. “As long as Matt Leinart is healthy and Reggie Bush is healthy there isn’t a way. I just don’t see it.”

* As if he needed more advantages ... Notre Dame’s Weis may have more insight into Washington’s defense this week given the Huskies’ defensive coordinator, Ken Baer, held the same job last year at Notre Dame.

“Well,” Weis said this week, “it helps when you have the playbook.”

* After hard-fought victories against Miami and Boston College, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden says his sixth-ranked Seminoles are lucky to be 3-0.

Bowden: “We could really be 1-2 and one-half because the Citadel beat us for a half.”

* Call it wishful thinking, but Sugar Bowl executive director Paul Hoolahan hopes the game can return to New Orleans in 2007.

Hoolahan believes the Louisiana Superdome, damaged by Hurricane Katrina, can be returned to “functionality” within a year, with a major overhaul completed in time for the Sugar Bowl to host the 2008 BCS national title game.

“We would like to think the Superdome, the new Superdome, could become the economic engine of the recovery,” Hoolahan said.