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CALLING SIGNALS |
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in 2005 |
 COLIN COWHERD ...hoisted by own petard? |
Some forecasters wind up
eating their predictions
By BUCKY FOX
of TheColumnists.com
There he goes again.
Radio rambler Colin Cowherd loves forecasting. Now he’s positively promising that Pete Carroll will stay at Southern Cal.
That was my cue to call it this way: Carroll would leave USC to coach the San Francisco 49ers.
Not only Carroll. Also his Heisman QB, Matt Leinart. And his offensive whiz, Norm Chow.
All three would bolt up the coast for the NFL.
Why was I so positive? Money.
Carroll makes $2 million now. He can triple that with the Niners. Chow can double his half-mil contract.
Leinart? He can escape campus life for the No. 1 draft jackpot.
What a choice. A senior year of nightly pizza. A rookie year of sports cars. Hmmm.
To those calling for Leinart to play a last year in college: Get a clue.
But back to Cowherd and Carroll. Now that the Trojan coach says he’s sticking to L.A., this could be Cowherd’s first right call in 2005.
Cowherd guaranteed these bowl results to kick off the year: Texas A&M over Tennessee, and Oklahoma over USC. What happened? The opposite by a landslide.
And he barely acknowledged his whiffs. Nothing like an arrogant pundit who’s wrong.
Cowherd usually has a fun ESPN radio show. But, man, is he slumping in ’05.
I’m still trying to shake off my stinkeroo pick of ’04: that the Niners would make the playoffs. They merely finished in the toilet.
So let’s go live in
’05:
The Super Bowl? All Pennsylvania. Steelers over Eagles.
College hoops? Maryland wins its second title in four years. After Saturday's 34-point loss at North Carolina, two words: It's early. Get ready to hear the best unknown fight song at the Final Four.
The greatest: Hand that tag to USC. What, you think previous national champions of college football could beat these Trojans? Maybe the 1971 Nebraska Cornhuskers? The 1974 Oklahoma Sooners? The 2001 Miami Hurricanes? Forget it. You saw how this SC bunch blitzed No. 2 OU 55-19 in a replay of the Dust Bowl. Class dismissed.
Up Hill: Kudos to Pat Hill. On the radio recently, the Fresno State football coach painted a brilliant playoff picture: Take the champions of the 11 Division I-A conferences, add five at-large teams, and you have a 16-team bracket. Turn the dead last month of the season into the December Dance, and we have a real college football winner.
Close the program: It’s tiresome enough to hear college coaches refer to their teams by the royal “programs.” But what’s with sportswriters sucked in? Memo to the pack: Trojans, Sooners, Tigers, Bulldogs are teams. Period.
Rudy No D: Soon fans of the Los Angeles Lakers
will wake up to their team’s problem. He’s Rudy Tomjanovich.
The honeymoon should be over for the Lakers’ first-year
coach. They’re playing no defense. Their offense consists
of drive and kick … drive and kick. And oh, all-Kobe all
the time. If Rudy T can’t get Lamar Odom into the swing--and
get the team scrambling on D--this coach won’t last past
the spring.
Speaking of which: The man Rudy T replaced--Phil Jackson--can
get ready to return to the NBA this summer. In Minnesota. Notice
how the Timberwolves have turned into Sacramento. A dead end.
They would come alive fast under Jackson. Would he come back
for the T-Wolves? You bet. They still have Kevin Garnett, and
you can see Jackson salivate over coaching that talent. Plus,
the greatest coach in NBA history wants his 10th title.
©2005 by Bucky Fox. The photo of Colin Cowherd is courtesy of ESPN Radio This column was first posted on Jan. 10, 2005.
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