HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We'll tackle more first-day issues in a moment, but first some random thoughtage:

--I may be from Arizona and I may have tremendous respect for John McCain's military and senatorial service, but I don't understand why he chose as his running mate The New Adventures of Old Christine.

--It appears to be a coin flip as to whether former USC quarterback John David Booty will make the Minnesota Vikings roster. Let's hope he makes someone's team and then becomes the official spokesman for Booty Sweat (guess who saw Tropic Thunder this weekend?). By the way, Busta Nut? Isn't that what Arkansas boosters were attempting to do the past two years?

--Don't know how I never knew this before, but Arkansas Tech University's mascot name is Wonder Boys (for the men; the women are the Golden Suns). Arkansas Tech is my new favorite school. I went on to the website hoping that the helmet decal was a picture of an unkempt, magisterial Michael Douglas, but alas it is not. He should at least attend homecoming. Tech won its season opener, 22-3, over Northeastern State. I hope they have a team with the nickname Robins on their schedule, so we can all see the Wonder Boys versus the Boy Wonders.

--Check out who won his first Major League Baseball game on Friday. August began with Shark Week and ends with Shark Day.

--I saw our homepage, too. And I love Mark Richt, Athens, and especially longtime athletics official Claude Felton. But Georgia isn't winning the national title. Sorry. Schedule is toooooooo tough.

--UCLA put out a release earlier this week announcing that Marc Dellins was on the Doak Walker Award watch list. Which is somewhat surprising, since Dellins is the Sports Info Director in Westwood. A mistake anyone could make (they meant to say Kahlil Bell) and not as bad as the one made by the news service that put Steve Jobs' obituary on-line for about 30 seconds on Thursday. Jobs, we should say, is quite alive but is not on the Doak Walker watch list.

--Mitch Mustain is now the 3rd-string QB at USC (and not in line to endorse "MuStain Remover"). This is a dude who has an 8-0 record as a starting quarterback in college football--done when he was a freshman at Arkansas--and was considered the nation's top prep QB as a senior. To quote another non-native Angeleno, Mr. Axl Rose: "Where do we go? Where do we go now? Where do we go?"

--You may have missed this, but the oldest living Green Bay Packer passed away earlier this month. He started at quarterback for a Packer team that won the NFL championship and he even wore No. 4 (strange, eh?). His name was Herman Schneidman and he played for Curly Lambeau from 1935-39. From all accounts Schneidman was much beloved. Schneidman, who was primarily a blocking back (the QB's role in that era) lived in Quincy, Ill., and was said to enjoy his lunch dates as a member of the ROMEO's (Retired Old Men Eating Out). Cool story.

--I've decided that the game that needs to replace "Six Degrees of Kevin Stacom" (which years ago, at least on this blog, replaced "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon") is "Four Degrees of Private Ryan". It's the 10-year anniversary of Steven Spielberg's classic D-Day flick and when I saw it last week (late at night in a Beijing hotel room) I was once again blowed away by how many name actors are in the movie. Sure, there's Tom Hanks and Matt Damon and Ed Burns and Vin Diesel, but purely from a sitcom standpoint (ignoring Mr. Hanks' work in "Bosom Buddies" for a moment), you have:

--Adam Goldberg and Giovanni Ribisi, both of whom had recurring roles in "Friends"

-- Ted Danson, who starred in "Cheers" and "Becker" and is very funny on "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

--There's Nathan Fillion as the initially located James Ryan, who was on "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place", which gets us to Ryan Reynolds, which gets us to both Amy Smart and Anna Faris, etc.

--There's Bryan Cranston as the Lt. Colonel at the War Dept.. You also know him as Timothy Watley, DDS ("He's an anti-dentite!") from "Seinfeld", which leads you to almost everybody.

And that's before we even get into Dennis Farina ("Law & Order"), Barry Pepper ("61*") and Paul Giamatti ("Sideways"). Look at it this way. If you want to locate Tim Daly via my game, you can either go the Giamatti route (Giamatti to Thomas Haden Church [Sideways] to Daly [Wings]) or the Nathan Fillion route (Fillion to Traylor Howard [Two Guys...] to Tony Shalhoub [Monk] to Daly [Wings]). And I'm sure there are other ways.

Yes, I do have too much time on my hands.

But here's the kicker. If you want to find any member of the Johntourage, it's just two degrees. Because, though I somehow forgot about it, apparently I had a small role as "Old French Man" in Saving Private Ryan. Truly some of my best work...considering that my French is, well, comme ci comme ca.

It's four degrees, by the way, in accordance with total number of Ryan siblings.  

On to the today's games...

Is perhaps the media's enmity toward Rich Rodriguez shading their opinion of todays' opener at the Big House? Utah is solid, but something tells me that the Wolverines, inexperienced though they may be, are going to show up today and get the win.

Cowboys and Cougars sounds like the name of a country & western bar that can be found in a strip mall in Mesquite, Texas, but actually it's an intriguing intersectional matchup between Oklahoma State and Washington State in the Palousse. Keep an eye on OSU QB Zac Robinson.

USC big at Virginia, even if Uncle Rico is the QB. Your first look at a very, very special defense.

I'm just wonderin', What if App. State were to win? The kids on that team would be able to say they'd beaten Michigan at the Big House, LSU in Death Valley and won a national title. Legen--don't even wait for it--dary.  

Alabama-Clemson, our first look at Tide wide (out) Julio Jones. I still want to know why he was wearing an Oklahoma Sooners hoodie when he testified at a murder trial last February (he says matter of factly, as if we all testify at murder trials).

Illinois-Mizzou...We all love the Zooker, but this feels as if it's a Show Me State season.

Washington at Oregon. The Ducks just lost QB Nick Costa while the Huskies may have the Pac-10's best offensive player in Jake Locker. This is a fantastic rivalry and shouldn't be played so early in the season. It's just wrong. The Ducks are still 13.5 point faves. I don't know about that one.

Two games not on TV here in NYC that you should be aware of: Michigan State at Cal and Florida Atlantic at Texas. The Spartans are my sleeper pick of the season (great coach, senior QB and RB who get it) while FAU has one of the best QBs you don't know about, if not THE best, in Rusty Smith. Both visitors are underdogs. At least one will win. And I don't see the Longhorns covering that 24-point spread.