This Wall Street Journal ($) article profiles Dr. Fran Pirozzolo, The Woodlands-based sports psychologist who has developed a successful practice by catering to a couple of dozen professional athletes who seek him out for “stress inoculation” and other “mental toughness” techniques that supposedly enhance performance. I have listened to Dr. Pirozzolo several times on local sports-talk radio shows and, for the life of me, cannot understand how he is able to persuade professional athletes to pay him money for the psycho-babble that he exudes on those shows. However, as the article notes, Dr. Pizzorolo is also the “staff psychologist” of the Houston Texans, who are not exactly the most well-adjusted and emotionally stable group at this time. If offensive coordinator Chris Palmer lost his job after these two performances (here and here), then how on earth has Dr. Fran not also been canned?

Pittsburgh 27 Texans 7

“Houston, we have a problem.”
After an absolutely awful performance in Week One of the NFL schedule, the Texans outdid themselves in their home opener by rolling over and playing dead to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-7. This is a Texans team that is clearly in turmoil, as most of the players are lifeless and merely going through the motions. In fact, the Texans are beginning to resemble those vintage Oiler disaster-teams of the early 1970’s.

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Two local quarterbacks had very different tales during the first full week of college and pro football of the 2005 season.
Texas Longhorns 25 Ohio State 22

In a magnificent early-season game between two storied college football programs, Texas’ WR Limas Sweed made a tremendous catch for the winning touchdown in the closing minutes on a 24 yard pass from QB Vince Young as the Longhorns held on to beat Ohio State before a record 105,000 crowd in Columbus. Although the gazelle-like Young was the media-picked star of the game, it was the Longhorn defense that actually won the game for the Horns as that plucky unit held the Buckeyes to three field goals after three Longhorn turnovers deep in their own territory gave the Ohio State offense multiple opportunities to build an insurmountable lead. Also, it looks to me as if the Horns have a couple of emerging stars in freshman RB Jamaal Charles and MLB Aaron Harris. About the only negative for the Horns was their kick-off team, which continued the abysmal trend that first appeared in last season’s Rose Bowl game against Michigan. The Horns have a couple of warm-up games against Rice at home and Missouri on the road sandwiched around an off-week before the Oklahoma game on October 8th in Dallas.

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As the fourth season of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday in Buffalo against the Bills, Houston professional football fans no longer consider the Texans an NFL expansion franchise. As a result, it’s now put up or shut up time for a franchise that has largely received a free pass from a fan base that, for the first three seasons of the team’s existence, was simply thrilled that the National Football League had returned to Houston.
That inherited goodwill is pretty well used up, as the boo-birds let the Texan team members know during an awful final regular season loss last season to the moribund Cleveland Browns. That debacle blew the opportunity for the Texans to finish the season at an even 8-8. Nevetheless, a 7-9 record for a third year franchise is still respectable, and the Texans do have a number of positive factors working in their favor, not the least of which is a wonderful fellow in owner Bob McNair. So, even with the team’s generally awful 2005 pre-season performances, there remains an air of cautious optimism regarding the Texans’ chances this season.

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Amidst the chaos resulting from Hurricane Katrina, at least a small amount of normalcy returned this past weekend as the local college football season kicked off. As with last season, I will pass along a brief summary of the local and notable college and professional games of the past week, and refer to links that provide more thorough analysis of particular games. Now, for this week’s games:
Texas Longhorns 60 Louisiana-Lafayette 3

The Horns cruised in what amounted to a scrimmage against outmanned an outmanned and understandably distracted team from Louisiana-Lafayette, otherwise know as “La-La” in football circles. However, the price of poker goes up considerably this coming Saturday as the Horns travel to Columbus, Ohio to face a fellow top 10 ranked Ohio State team.

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If you are interested in college football, then don’t miss the well-done series of articles in the by Mark Wangrin in today’s San Antonio Express-News, The Great Texas Football Rebellion.
Mr. Wangrin does a nice job of recounting the details and intrigue behind the creation of the Big 12 Conference, including the parochial Texas politics that kept TCU and the University of Houston out of the conference and perennial doormat Baylor in.

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Hank Stram, one of the most creative professional football coaches and indisputedly one of the best evaluators of talent, died on Monday at the age of 82 from complications of diabetes. He was best known for coaching the Kansas City Chiefs to one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history, a 23-7 victory over the Minnesota Vikings in 1970’s Super Bowl IV, a game that was particularly notable because of pre-game allegations regarding Kansas City QB Len Dawson’s alleged association with gambling figures.
The Chronicle’s Mickey Herskowitz — the preeminent sportswriter regarding football coaches from Stram’s era — weighs in on Coach Stram in this typically fine column. Mr. Herskowitz’s piece includes the following anecdote about the early days of professional football in Dallas, where Coach Stram coached the Dallas Texans AFL franchise. After sharing the Metroplex with the Dallas Cowboys NFL franchise for a couple of seasons, the Texans franchise moved to Kansas City in deference to the Cowboys. Herskowitz observes:

Stram fought the battle of Dallas, where the Cowboys and Texans both drew so poorly that a playoff was suggested, with the winning team getting to leave town.

Following on these earlier posts on the current conflict between the Universities of Nebraska and Oklahoma, the ‘Huskers have scored an upset!
My sense is that the ‘Huskers will not do as well against the Sooners on the gridiron this fall.
Update: OU fan Jim Bob Baker, who had taken the “over” on the pre-verdict over/under betting line of a three year sentence for the defendant, observed the following about the jury:

“Not guilty? Gee, I didn’t know that there were that many Oklahoma State alumni in Cleveland County (Norman), Oklahoma.”