NCAA Football Fcs

In the old days, Yvonde Lewis used to tuck her hair up into her cap, shoving it in as far as it would go. She just wanted to blend in.

Then she would stand on the sidelines, working high school football games in Houston as a head linesman, and listen to the young football players,

"Is that he or a she?"

"I don't know, ask ..."

"I'm not going to ask, you ask."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The spirited discussion between recruiting analysts five years ago focused on prep quarterbacks Ryan Perrilloux and Mark Sanchez. Which player would be selected as the recruiting site's No. 1 player in the country? Perrrilloux or Sanchez?

Scout.com selected Sanchez, who has certainly fulfilled expectations, starring at USC and landing fifth overall in April's NFL draft to the New York Jets. The rookie will start the season opener at Houston Sunday.

Perrilloux, meanwhile, has led a crisscross collegiate career through Louisiana and Alabama, surviving suspensions and a dismissal. The senior started for Jacksonville State University against Florida State Saturday. The Florida Panhandle might be a long way from Broadway, but the bright lights always seem to find Perrilloux.

Northern Iowa is not your run-of-the-mill Football Championship Subdivision (or, if you prefer, Division I-AA) program. The Panthers are a regular in the playoffs, advancing to the semifinals in 2008 before losing a gut-wrencher to eventual national champion Richmond.

As inexcusable as it may be for major college programs to continue scheduling FCS cupcakes, No. 21 Iowa had to know they weren't in for an easy afternoon at Kinnick Stadium Saturday. If UNI's reputation didn't do it for them, that 10-point third-quarter hole sure seemed to work.

Sometimes a win is a win and you're just glad to have one. If you're Indiana, you can't afford to be too picky. The Hoosiers beat Eastern Kentucky, a Division 1-AA Football Championship Subdivision school, Thursday night, 19-13.

As the score might suggest, the EKU Colonels were in this one right to the very end. Twice in the fourth quarter the Colonels had the ball in IU territory with a chance to take the lead. Twice the defense came up with big plays. That's the only thing that saved Bill Lynch's bacon. His revamped pistol offense played pretty well in the first half but looked positively Oregonian in the second.

That's still a good sign, though, right? I mean, the defense did come up with the two big stops when they needed to, and wasn't EKU a playoff team last season?

Apparently that old cliche about a tiger never changing his stripes remains true, even if the Tiger is now a Gamecock.

Ryan Perrilloux remains a tantalizing football talent. Unfortunately, that talent remains attached to a 10-cent brain. After finding multiple ways to blow multiple chances at Louisiana State, Perrilloux finally had to leave the Tigers. He landed at 1-AA Jacksonville State and made it through the season without incident -- much to everyone's shock.

Now comes the news that Perrilloux will miss the season opener at Georgia Tech after being suspended for the always clear, "violation of team rules." Jacksonville State coach Jack Crowe did not elaborate, but it does restore the status quo to the Perrilloux narrative.

Every week 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.

Good Cop Bad Cop -- The American Football Coaches Association is trying to inject some sportsmanship into an opening week pregame near you. The AFCA has put forth a non-binding proposal that teams shake hands en masse before each Week 1 game, roughly four minutes before spending the next four hours in violent, competitive, collision-heavy contact.

Kudos, I guess. It's well-meaning and doesn't necessarily do any harm, but this seems more for show than sincerity given the necessarily violent nature of the game. As AFCA honcho Grant Teaff says, "It is symbolic, but it is, we think, a very important initiative." Meanwhile, the NCAA rules committee has cooked up its own, much more dangerous plan to counter unsportsmanlike play.

Every week 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.

Remember Cal 2004 -- Texas coach Mack Brown, who, aside from last year's Big 12 tiebreaker dustup, has benefited greatly from the BCS, has apparently decided to get off his high horse when it comes to matters of BCS. Brown hilariously brought in experts during the offseason to explain the BCS to him and his coaches, ignoring that he fully understood matters enough in 2004 to politic for Texas' inclusion over a Cal team that had a better season and overall performance to that point than his Longhorns.

Given that some schools are packing their stadiums for spring football practice/pep rallies, is it any wonder that the latest trend is towards getting a corporate sponsor for the glorified scrimmages. It should also be no surprise that the football-mad SEC programs have taken the lead in this practice.

Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State all had corporate sponsors in the very title of the spring game. With every athletic department is concerned about finding money from every and any possible source and more corporate sponsored spring games are on the way. Wisconsin and Cal also had corporate sponsors for their spring games.

Since being fired from Miami, Larry Coker has worked for ESPN as a regional college football analyst. Each year, he's put his name out there for any and every coaching job, yet no one has bit on the coach, who's won a BCS championship and was a national coach of the year.

These are desperate times, so Larry Coker has applied to be the coach of a program that does not actually exist, putting in an application to be the first head coach at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Now he waits.

Traffic in South Florida delayed both schools team buses from arriving at the site of the BCS national title game on time as scheduled, a trivial tidbit to the season's final game you'd be excused for not knowing.

Oklahoma's record-setting offensive unit did eventually make it, but if you watched Florida's 24-14 win over the Sooners, you'd be excused for not knowing that either.

Because what took the field was trivial compared to the biblical 702-point offense that burned through the Big 12 and burned out scoreboards.

After a season in which they spent more time scoring in the 60s than Tiger Woods in his best week, Oklahoma's high-octane offense played like it had a pound of sugar in its gas tank, a herky-jerky rendering of a once prolific offense.

It was less like they were playing football and more like every member of the team had been simultaneously asked to recite the alphabet backwards. It was like watching Usain Bolt run the 100-meters only after twirling around enough to make himself dizzy.

And in the end it rendered 360 yards. Two interceptions. Fourteen measly points.

One awfully familiar feeling.

Another year, another bowl loss for Oklahoma. And it only seems to be getting worse.