Sidelines
Fresno State paying
for tough scheduleDOES Fresno State's scheduling plan still look good to everyone? Or anyone?
I love hearing all the "we'll take on anyone, anytime, anywhere," talk from football players and coaches. It's a lot of fun. I just sit back and enjoy it. It's like the guy who yells, "Hold me back! Hold me back!"
(You'll notice that nobody actually does this. All the talk comes during the season, when you know for sure that you've got a pretty good team and there's really nothing you can do about it.)
All this bravado tends to die down at actual scheduling time, which is fine. You can't blame them for that. Football coaches are not fools. Not when job security is on the line. Not when a train wreck can spin a once-promising season into oblivion.
And you never know how many dominoes will fall from there.
You don't necessarily run scared, but you mix the big games in there, you pace yourself, you pick your spots. (Alabama at Hawaii this season, UH at USC next year? I like it, I like it.) You put yourself in the position to succeed and grow.
Scheduling may not be quite as important as recruiting or coaching, but it's in there somewhere.
At this point, Hawaii's program still benefits from playing an Eastern Illinois. You saw last week how nice it is to have a UTEP (yes, a WAC team, but you get the point) on the schedule. BYU was more than challenging enough, and Cincinnati will be. Alabama has talent and tradition that is staggering. Win that one game and a lot of dreams come true.
And if you're trying to win your conference, that's enough. For now.
"Anyone, anytime, anywhere" is a great rallying cry - it gets fans all fired up. But nobody is really that crazy. Nobody who coaches for a living. Nobody except Fresno State's Pat Hill.
And what happens?
This. Fresno State. A conference favorite now battered and reeling. Three losses already, headed into WAC play, the last one by the score of 59-19.
This was supposed to be Hill's most talented team.
It doesn't seem so ingenious anymore.
OFTEN, SO MUCH in sports is based on momentum and confidence. That's why a basketball shooter who is struggling will sometimes need to hit a layup or sink a couple of free throws to get going again.That's what we thought (see above) Eastern Illinois was for Timmy Chang. A layup.
That's what UTEP could have been, we saw that it should have been.
Now here comes 0-4 SMU. But of course the Mustangs were a layup last week, and they didn't like that. Not at all.
We all saw highlights of the ESPN interview in which a distraught Randy Moss sobbed, "It seems like whatever I do right is wrong."Randy, I understand. We've all felt that way. And we can all see the confusion, anyone could have made the same mistake.
But just for future reference, and I say this to avoid similar heartbreak:
Driving into traffic officials is generally not considered the "right" thing to do.
This one was in the Page 2 SAY WHAT? segment in yesterday's sports section:"I wish I knew," Colorado coach Gary Barnett said when asked how his team could lose to USC so badly one week, then turn around and spank UCLA the next. "If I could tell, I'd make a lot of money."
Uh, Coach ... you do make a lot of money.
Then there is the sad saga of Broncos quarterback Brian Griese, who injured himself tripping over his dog."These things happen," he said.
OK I admit it, I have no comeback for that one.
And we thought UH's quarterback had bad luck with injuries.
A reader wants to know what is wrong with Hawaii's running backs. It brings to mind an old Bear Bryant quote, recounted in last week's Sports Illustrated, where the famous coach was asked if the great John David Crow were injured."There is nothing wrong with John David," the Bear allegedly growled, "that giving him the ball a few more times won't cure."
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com