The college football season kicks off this week, so take a look at this clever table containing the schedules of most major college teams utilizing the logos of each team and opponent. And here is an interesting pre-season analysis of the major conferences.

We already know that the Chronicle sportswriters lead the nation in pre-season puff pieces about local professional football team. But now the Chron sportswriters are expanding the reach of their incessant cheerleading to Dallas with this soft toss about new Cowboys head coach, Wade Phillips, who happens to be the son of the still hugely popular former Houston Oilers head coach, Bum Phillips:

So after all these years, Wade is who he is, something of a rumpled, unprepossessing presence on the sideline and not the most silver-tongued of news conference orators. The only thing overtly sexy about him is his latest job title: head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, one of sport’s most lustrous brands. [. . .]
Funny thing. If you ask the Cowboys about their new coach, they’re wont to speak about how Wade also sees stuff. For that reason, quarterback Tony Romo calls him the smartest coach he has ever been around.

Let’s just say that there is a slight difference of opinion about Wade’s head coaching abilities at one of his previous stops, Buffalo, New York. The Buffalo News’ Jerry Sullivan laid out the case against Phillips as a head coach in a column (not available online) at the time the Cowboys hired Phillips last February:

When I heard that Jerry Jones had hired Wade Phillips to be the Dallas Cowboys’ new head coach, I had the same reaction as when Jones signed Drew Bledsoe two years ago:
Good luck, fella.
Is this what it’s come to for the once-great Dallas franchise? When times get tough, go out and grab a castoff from the Buffalo Bills’ recent, sorry past? Maybe Jones’ next move will be luring Rob Johnson out of retirement to compete with Tony Romo for the quarterback job.
Ralph Wilson has to be smiling. Maybe he can’t get Jones and the other rich NFL owners to give him a bigger share of the revenue pie. But at least Wilson gets the satisfaction of seeing the Cowboys picking through his table scraps — you know, the way the Bills did with Patriots discards during the Donahoe era.
Jones can spin it any way he likes. But it’s clear that the Cowboys owner, who has the title of general manager, decided it was time to meddle again and wanted a puppet as coach. Jones gave Bill Parcells control for four years and didn’t get a single playoff win for his trouble. That makes 10 years without a playoff win for the storied Cowboys — nearly as long as Buffalo’s playoff drought.
Phillips was the ideal candidate, a retread who is close to 60 and was desperate for one last shot at a top job. Phillips is a nice, self-deprecating guy, a native Texan who wore ostrich-skin boots to his introductory news conference.
“Wade wanted it so bad,” Jones said when he announced Phillips’ hiring.
Phillips wanted it badly enough to accept Jason Garrett as Jones’ hand-picked offensive coordinator. He didn’t get to pick his offensive staff. I suppose he’d have taken the Cowboys cheerleaders as coaches if Jones had required it.
Jones favors the 3-4 defense. Phillips is a 3-4 guy, a good defensive coach. Some would say great, but it’s funny how his defenses have failed to rise to the ultimate test over the years. The Chargers’ playoff collapse against the Pats last month was the most recent example.
Of course, the Cowboys aren’t hiring Phillips to run a defense. They’re hiring him to be the head coach. As Bills fans have discovered to their horror (Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey), it’s a huge step from coordinator to head man. All too often, owners elevate men beyond their intellect and abilities.
Why would Jones expect great things from Phillips in his third go-round? Phillips is a proven mediocrity as a head coach. His supporters point to his 29-21 record with the Bills. I’m sorry, those teams were loaded. It didn’t take a Vince Lombardi to produce a winning record.
Phillips isn’t big on detail. A former assistant told me Phillips didn’t account for a short practice week before the Music City Miracle, which was played on a Saturday. He wasn’t a stickler for conditioning. He was not a commanding presence on the sideline.
Phillips didn’t win a playoff game in Buffalo and made some classic blunders along the way. He made Johnson his starting QB before a playoff game, after Doug Flutie got the team to 10-5. He made Bruce DeHaven the scapegoat for the playoff loss. Then he brought in Ronnie Jones, an unqualified crony, to coach the special teams. It was a disaster.
Before a Monday night game late in the 2000 season, Phillips went on national TV and said the Bills and Colts (who were tied at the time) were essentially out of playoff contention. The Colts won and found a way into the playoffs.
My mind throbs at the memory of Phillips fumbling his way through the Flutie-Johnson flap. He was in over his head as the spokesman for a franchise. If he thought he had it tough here, wait until the Texas media gets hold of him.
They’ll chew the guy up and spit him out, ostrich skin boots and all.

Funny how none of the foregoing made it into the Chron article. Everything remains peaches and cream at the Chron during the pre-season.

It’s safe to say that the fellow described in this ESPN.com article is not your typical 59-year old:

Mike Flynt was drinking beer and swapping stories with some old football buddies a few months ago when he brought up the biggest regret of his life: getting kicked off the college team before his senior year.
So, one of his pals said, why not do something about it?
Most 59-year-olds would have laughed. Flynt’s only concern was if he was eligible.
Finding out he was, Flynt returned to Sul Ross State this month, 37 years after he left and six years before he goes on Medicare. His comeback peaked Wednesday with the coach saying he’s made the Division III team’s roster. He could be in action as soon as Sept. 1. [. . .]
A longtime strength and conditioning coach at Nebraska, Oregon and Texas A&M, he’s spent the last several years selling the Powerbase training system he invented. Clients include school systems and the military. His colorful life story includes being the son of a Battle of the Bulge survivor and having dabbled in gold mines and oil wells — successfully. [. . .]
Flynt’s position is still being determined, but he used to play linebacker. Wherever he lines up, he’ll likely become the oldest player in college football history. Neither the NCAA or NAIA keeps such a statistic, but research hasn’t turned up anyone older than their mid-40s. And even those are rare, for obvious reasons. [. . .]
. . . his wife wasn’t as fired up by the idea.
“I feel like I’m married to Peter Pan,” she said. . .

Amidst the Chronicle’s incessant pre-season cheerleading for the Texans, most objective observers concede that the team is thin at the wide receiver position after Pro Bowl WR Andre Johnson.
Sort of makes you wonder why one of the team’s top draft choices at the wide receiver position is excelling with one of the top teams in the NFL rather than the Texans? And the guy who the Texans brought in to replace him is no longer with the team?
Count me as still skeptical of the Kubiak regime.

I enjoy the football season as much as anyone, but I absolutely abhor the football pre-season.
For weeks, we are forced to endure literally hundreds of glowing newspaper articles and media reports regarding football practice, which happens to be one of the most boring exercises in organized human activity ever invented. Prior to the Texans’ 2006 season, I noted a couple of times (here and here) how the Chronicle sportswriters have elevated the pre-season cheerleading about the local NFL team to absurd levels, which means that we will then be treated to dozens of more inane articles and media reports after the season begins on how disappointing the Texans are performing.
The sheer amount of over-analysis is overwhelming. Today, while flipping the radio dial in my car, I happened upon two radio show hosts analyzing for about five minutes two incompletions from Saturday night’s Texans-Bears pre-season game. Here is a typical Chronicle entry regarding Monday’s Texans’ practice:

The offense looked strong Monday with Bethel Johnson making some big catches. He may have earned himself a little more playing time this weekend. He saw the field Saturday, but didn’t record a reception.

Pretty earth shattering stuff, don’t you think? The amount of time expended on all of this is really absurd.
At any rate, from the looks of this article (pdf here), the Chronicle sportswriters are off and running again this pre-season in their role as the primary Texans cheerleaders:

A cornerback by trade in the NFL, Von Hutchins is getting a serious look from the Texans at free safety, and that’s where he was playing Saturday when he intercepted a Rex Grossman pass late in the first quarter.
Hutchins stepped in front of intended receiver Mark Bradley and made the pick at the Chicago 36, then returned it 20 yards before being run out of bounds at the 16.
The heads-up play, which set up the second of Kris Brown’s four field goals in the Texans’ 19-17 victory, . . .

First, the interception was thrown by backup Bears QB, Brian Griese, not Grossman. And, of yeah, it would be nice if the Chronicle reporter noticed that the Texans actually lost the game, 20-19.
It’s going to be a long season enduring media reports about the local football team.

As noted last week here, it’s been a tough off-season for University of Oklahoma Sooner football program, what with more NCAA sanctions and all. But it was only a matter of time before the Sooner faithful would be in a position to fight back. A flurry of Texas Longhorn players getting arrested during the off-season has given Sooner fans their opportunity. The Mack Brown-Longhorn “All-Character” team below is the result:

With the opening of the Texans’ pre-season training camp, the players are being asked about what it’s like not to have David Carr quarterbacking the Texans for the first time in the team’s history. Carr is already on record as saying that he’s glad to be away from the Texans’ sieve-like offensive line, which prompted some mild barbs back at Carr from his former main target.
But as this Stephanie Stradley post reports, more of Carr’s former teammates are “diplomatically” letting it be known publicly that they are not sorry that Carr is gone. Even Bob McNair goes on record as saying that the team had bent over backward to accomodate his slow development as an NFL QB, but finally just had to move on.
My, how times change.

Former San Francisco 49er’s coach Bill Walsh died earlier this week, so the WSJ’s Allen Barra provides this wonderful tribute to Coach Walsh that, among other things, reminds us of his most special legacy:

It was as a teacher, though, that Mr. Walsh had his greatest and most lasting influence on football. Unlike Lombardi, who left worshippers but no disciples, Mr. Walsh spawned an entire generation of acolytes. His defensive coordinator George Seifert won two Super Bowls with San Francisco; his offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren won one with Green Bay. Mr. Seifert’s pupil Mike Shanahan, schooled in Mr. Walsh’s methods, won two more with Denver.
Mr. Walsh’s influence on football today is so pervasive that nearly 20 years after his final game, the Super Bowl has practically become an annual showcase for his adherents. This past February, Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, a former player under Mr. Walsh, squared off against the Chicago Bears’ Lovie Smith, who trained as an assistant to Dennis Green, once a Walsh receiver’s coach.
That Messrs. Dungy and Smith were the first African-American coaches to reach the Super Bowl highlights perhaps Mr. Walsh’s greatest legacy: In 1987, he helped create the Minority Coaching Fellowship Program. “I can tell you this,” says Mr. Dungy, “his life was about much more than just X’s and O’s.”

Meanwhile, Jean Bramel reminds long-suffering Cincinnati Bengals fans (including my nephew, Josh) that Walsh was once an up and coming assistant coach with the Bengals, and actually began developing the West Coast offense while with the Bengals. Alas, Walsh was the subject of one of the more egregious “pass-overs” in NFL history:

[While with the Bengals, Coach Walsh] found a way to modify his passing attack with short, precise passes and mulitple wide receiving options putting pressure on the defense with timing routes ó what is now known as the West Coast offense but could rightly be called the Cincinnati offense. Walsh again found a near perfect fit for his new playbook in Ken Anderson, a smart, calm, precise passer. Walshís offense was clicking for the Bengals in the early 1970s. By the end of the 1975 season, Anderson was running the offense to perfection with a 60% plus completion rate and 8 yards plus per passing attempt. Curtis had been to three consecutive Pro Bowls and was a star. The Bengals had made the playoffs in 1973 and 1975. The future was ridiculously bright.
Then Bengal head coach and patriarch Paul Brown retired and handed the reins to long time offensive assistant Tiger Johnson instead of Walsh, who resigned in disappointment. The rest, as they say, is history. Walsh spent a season in San Diego as an assistant and coached Stanford for two seasons before taking the head coaching job in San Francisco where his offense flourished under Joe Montana. Johnsonís Bengal teams steadily declined and he was fired in 1978. Cincinnati made two Super Bowls in the 1980s, only to lose both to the franchise Bill Walsh built.
Rest in peace, Bill Walsh. This Bengal fan still longs for what couldíve been.

Tiger Johnson over Bill Walsh? That sounds almost Oileresque, don’t you think?