Before I croak and drift down to Davey Jones' locker,
maybe, just maybe...
Wildcat-turned-Celtic-turned-Cardinal Rick Pitino will
become UK's worst nightmare come true and evolve into the Adolph Rupp of
Louisville.
Bob Huggins, one of the best coaches at the college or
pro levels, will figure out a way to either shore up the sometimes
roguish off-court image his storied Cincinnati program has unintentionally
acquired or move up to the NBA where troublesome behavior by players is
often overlooked even when it is not understood.
Bill Herrion will: (1) be able to stand the heat when
the lopsided C-USA losses start mounting in the Pirates' initiation into
big-time basketball; (2) will his team to a major upset at home so the fans
will get a taste of the possibilities; and, (3) turn Gabriel Mikulas
into the Malik Rose of ECU.
Herb Sendek's N.C. State program, plagued by a
succession of bad breaks, bad chemistry and bad apples, will finally have
the extended dose of good karma it deserves. The straight-laced and
always-focused Sendek, who is among the country's top 10 or 15
recruiters/basketball technicians, is way overdue for some good fortune.
Raleigh's Entertainment and Sports Arena will get a real name from a real
sponsor willing to fork over a Brinks Truck load of real money.
Duke will give Carl Franks the resources and the time
to, inch-by-inch, step-by-step, lead Blue Devil football back to
respectability. If Stanford can prosper on the gridiron, there's no
reason Duke can't do the same if the university's unwavering commitment is
in place.
Lou Holtz will cure the 'Chicken Curse' once and for
all and deliver a BCS holiday present to remember to South Carolina's
remarkably persistent fans. No school's loyalists are more deserving
than the misery-conditioned but always rabid Gamecock
masses.
The Texas Longhorns will win the mythical national
championship (Yes, it's mythical until there's a playoff.) and Mack Brown
will scamper up the coaching ladder to become the Trail Boss of the Dallas
Cowboys.
John Bunting will take what he learned in North
Carolina's roaring second half comeback that fell short against Oklahoma and
cobble together a bowl season against one of the nation's most difficult
schedules.
In order to quit punishing the innocent, the NCAA will
figure out a way to start incorporating a goodly measure of common sense and
fairness into the process it uses to interpret and apply rules. Even
robotic government bureaucrats would have handled the case of N.C. State
football recruit Tramain Hall, who apparently signed with the Wolfpack with honorable
intentions and whom the Wolfpack seemed to court in good faith, in a more
rational and reasonable
fashion than did the NCAA.
Mike Slive and the C-USA presidents will have the patience and steadiness
of purpose to expand in football only when it is for the right reasons
and will involve the addition of the right program. If the
preferred school is not ready to join the family, putting expansion on the
backburner is likely to eventually result in the emergence of intriguing
scenarios as Division I-A conferences realign and the pressure builds for a
playoff to be incorporated into or supplant the BCS.
Rotten Mullet Awards:
Wonder if UNC's John Bunting and N.C. State's Chuck Amato
learned anything useful from the backlashes they recently encountered?
They're smart men, so they're bound to realize by now that the consequences
of fumbles by a coach in what he says can be just as unsettling as turnovers
on the field? Bunting's verbal darts at a homesick punter who left the
program and Amato's whining about what he labeled as an unlevel
playing field between the Wolfpack and ECU served no useful purpose in
furthering either coach's credibility or objectives.
Fishbone in the Throat Awards:
When will it dawn on the Old North State's prep sports policy makers that
there's something hypocritical about the relatively hard-line stance they
take towards organized off-season football activities versus their
perfunctory wink and nod at the proliferation of big-money basketball
recruiting bazaars otherwise known as All-Star camps?
Something I've been scratching my head about:
Does Steve Logan use Grecian Formula to ensure that his precisely-groomed
black locks will always look the way they did when he became ECU's football
boss in 1992? Or is it genetics?
Lots of graying and balding middle-aged men want to know.
Until the Nor'easters and tides bring my barnacled but
sturdy old vessel back this way again, may favorable winds fill your sails.
