CRAFT WORK
It is never a good sign at halftime when, as a quarterback making your first collegiate start, the ESPN announcer reminds viewers what the NCAA record is for most interceptions thrown in one game (9, by John Reeves of Florida versus Auburn in 1969). But that was UCLA Bruin quarterback Kevin Craft's situation.
By halftime of Monday night's nationally televised prime-time contest at the Rose Bowl, Craft had already thrown four interceptions--one of which had been returned for a touchdown. Here was Craft imploding on national television, and you'd have to think that among young American males, only Sarah Palin's future son-in-law was having a worse day.
And how had Craft even arrived at this point? He was supposed to be UCLA's 3rd-string quarterback, after all, behind Patrick Cowan and Ben Olson. But last spring Cowan and Olson, who have started before for the Bruins--and been knocked out before with season-ending injuries--were injured in the same practice. And so last spring Craft, who had only enrolled at Westwood earlier that day, suddenly found himself the Big Man On Campus before he'd even had a chance to buy his books.
It's even stranger than that. Craft started five games as a freshman at San Diego State two years ago. If his father, who was the Aztecs' head coach at the time, had not been fired, Craft would almost surely be preparing to face Notre Dame in South Bend on Saturday.
Instead, because UCLA quarterbacks have "Spinal Tap Drummer" syndrome, Craft was wearing powder-blue and confounding his "relentlessly upbeat" head coach, Rick Neuheisel, the entire first half. Craft finished the half 7-18 passing, with those four picks.
Neuheisel, like Craft, was making a debut of sorts. It was his first game as UCLA's head coach. Ahh, but Neuheisel had an advantage. He had once been a 4th-string quarterback for the Bruins, and he too had been thrown in into a starter's role wholly unprepared. How much faith did Neuheisel have in Craft and an offense that lacks experience? Before the contest, arguing his team's chances to stay with Tennessee, Neuheisel had told reporter, "We have a great punter."
At halftime Neuheisel informed Craft that he had thrown four picks in his first start for the Bruins. He also reminded him, because the Bruin defense was doing its job, "Punting is winning."
The rest is the type of fairy tale ending that makes college football the greatest sport there is. In the second half Craft went 18-25 with no interceptions and UCLA somehow--and if you watched the first half, you'll find it nearly impossible to comprehend--upset the No. 18 Vols, a vastly superior team physically, to put a gilded frame around Neuheisel's--and Craft's--UCLA debut.
Personal aside: I've known Neuheisel, or known of him, since I was 11 years old. In the first high school game I ever attended, Neuheisel was playing quarterback for McClintock High School in Tempe, Arizona (he'd lead the Chargers to a state championship that season). The "Slick Rick" moniker just does not fit. Neuheisel is one of the smartest and most likeable people in college football, and that another flaxen-haired and unlikely-looking football coach was in the Rose Bowl on Monday evening (Lou Holtz), seemed like destiny to me. Neuheisel, while not an exact replica (he was a Rose Bowl MVP once, after all), is the modern-day Holtz.
A week or so ago UCLA took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that seemed tailor-made to blow up in their faces. The ad showed a picture of Neuheisel pointing off in the distance (Notre Dame fans will draw the similarity between that shot and "First Down Moses") with the declaration, "THE FOOTBALL MONOPOLY IN LOS ANGELES IS OFFICIALLY OVER".
Whoa. UCLA, after all, has only beaten its crosstown rival USC once since 1998. One sports web site had a little fun with the ad by reproducing it with the word "THERE" tacked on to it. But give UCLA credit. With a decided talent disadvantage and against a top-20 school from the SEC--and on Phil Fulmer's 58th birthday, no less--the Bruins got an emotional season-opening win to launch the Neuheisel era last night. Some coaches just have a way with players and with magic. Neuheisel is one of those people.
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For the record, I have no idea how UCLA's victory will affect Marc Dellins' Doak Walker Award candidacy.
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Trends from Week 1: East is least and West is best. USC traveled to Charlottesville and won 52-7. Fresno State journeyed to New Brunswick and beat up on Rutgers 24-7. Utah made a pilgrimage to Ann Arbor and was clearly the better team as it spoiled Rich Rodriguez's Maize-and-Blue debut, 25-23. And Tennessee and Michigan State trekked to Pasadena and Berkeley, respectively, and both lost. Only Florida salvaged the day for the east-of-the-Mississippi crowd, routing Hawaii 56-10.
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You ask why we love college football like we do no other sport? Two stories, just from the opening weekend.
1) The skydiving team that North Carolina hired to jump into Keenan Stadium in Chapel Hill to deliver the game ball errs and lands instead inside Wallace Wade Stadium at Duke, some eight miles away. Suddenly we understand with much more clarity why D-Day did not go as smoothly as planned.
2) At Central Florida on Monday, a teleconference with head coach George O'Leary was delayed because the school accidentally provided the number for a phone-sex line instead of the correct number for the teleconference. Writers phoning in actually heard, "Hi sexy! You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line."
And suddenly talking about the spread offense seemed, well, offensive. As my good friend and the world's greatest blog commenter, G.A.., who apprised me of this tale, wrote, "Why does it seem that every time one digit (on a phone number) is wrong, it's never for the local library?"
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NBCSports.com's John Walters goes into the world of college sports and well beyond. From Notre Dame to the latest in pop culture, JDub tackles it all.
"Punting is winning" - Great motto for the UCLA football team.
Also, gotta love it when during the USC weekly football press conference last week Carroll was asked about the 'Monopoly is over' ad and he asked if that meant the Olympics were over.
Lastly, can we all please remember that Tennessee is not really a football school but more of a women's basketball school.
"As my good friend and the world's greatest blog commenter, G.A."....What!....sounds like it is time for a Johntorage meeting...
we may have to strike like Boeing!
I was just reading this and comparing it to your list of 25 players who will have the most impact on Notre Dame's season. This validates your choice as Jimmy Clausen as #1 even further. Quarterbacks have such an impact on the game that the position can even make a good story out of a 3rd string-how lucky to play on a team whose starting quarterbacks never learned that milk does a body good-throws 4 interceptions in one half-should still be holding his clipboard signal caller!