Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.Zed's Dead, But Not The Spread -- Great find from Smart Football of UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel discussing in great detail the spread offense and UCLA's decision not to run it. Smart Football has his response as well, synthesizing Neuheisel's main arguments and where he gets confused before making the conclusion that the term has "quickly lost all use as a meaningful and descriptive term".
Such is the lexicon though, especially given the complicated nature of football formations and concepts. Times will eventually change but the evidence is there with the last four BCS champions all having run some form of spread offense.
Hope Springs Eternal -- We probably have to go back 15 years, to 1993, to find a true powerhouse Notre Dame football team. But like with all fans, there's always next year. This time around the Irish are very unlikely to field a powerhouse but fans will almost certainly settle for 'much improved' especially against what appears to be a downy soft schedule.
Spring games are often the lone, extremely limited peek into a team's progress in evading last year's demons and the 247 rush yards produced by the Irish offense provide tremendous hope that some corner has been turned.
Are Defending Champions Always This Grumpy? -- We forgive Urban Meyer for his testy reaction to Lane Kiffin's behavior this spring, but its like Coach Meyer won't surrender his Angry Face anytime soon. Asked by the New York Times about what has changed in football since he began coaching, Meyer cited the 'NFL approach to football'.
I don't want to say anti-team, but the individualism is something that I don't believe in, but you do see it. It takes us a while to get that out of here. That's the biggest generation gap difference I see is that stuff's acceptable at the so-called highest level of sports and then you get down to college and every coach in college is trying not to have that
I'm a NFL critic but its hard to consider what he describes as strictly an NFL phenomena.
Couldn't Be More Symbolic -- This week's BCS meetings begin today in idyllic Pasadena, home of the ever-controversial Rose Bowl. Kudos to the organizers' bit of defiance.
Amusingly, the Mountain West still has not signed onto the next BCS television deal, but USA Today calls their delay largely symbolic. Outgoing Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen told USA Today 'we could proceed without them' if they don't sign.
Technically true but the whole running to Congress thing is more than an idle threat, if ridiculously impetuous.
You May Hate Them, But This Is Cool
Alabama's new promotional video (via The Wiz)
Overtime, Ball On The 25
-- Here's your 2009 College Football Hall of Fame ballot.
-- Illinois sophomore defensive tackle Corey Liuget ended up with the Illini in part because they had basements. Oregon laws prevent you from filling up your own gas tank but you won't see me moving there anytime soon.
-- Alabama has changed the paint and logo scheme for its end zones. Looks nice.
-- USC's offense threw in a new wrinkle at a recent scrimmage and defensive end Everson Griffen is finally flashing some of his immense raw ability.
-- Speaking of USC, Charles White's Heisman Trophy went on the auction block and found no takers. How depressing for all parties.
