Wednesday Grab-Bag

A few notes:

• One thing I failed to mention in yesterday's post is how much I am enjoying the fact that Matt Leinart came back for his Senior season, keeping the nucleus of the offense together for one more year. As much as I root against the Trojans, it's fun to watch a team keep the core of its offense (Leinart-Bush-White) together for 3 seasons. It's things like this that separate College Football from College Basketball, and make it more enjoyable to follow. If football played out like hoops, Leinart would have declared for the draft after his Sophomore season, then gone back in the draft after a few workouts. He would have won the Heisman as a Junior, then worn a San Francisco 49ers jersey to the Orange Bowl post-game press conference. The only question mark would be 'does he sign an endorsement deal with And1 or Reebok?', not 'will he come back for his Senior year'. Similarly, Reggie Bush would have left after his Freshman year, and LenDale White would have jumped into the draft last year after the Arizona Cardinals guaranteed his agent that they'd select him if he fell to their slot in the Top 10. Instead, you have the core of a dynamic offense that could be College Football's first three-peat National Champion. Even if Bush and White both forgo their Senior year to enter the 2006 draft, this has been one of the more enjoyable teams to follow over a period of time, mostly because of the consistency.

• One other note on the Bush-White combo in the backfield, they don't get as many touches as they might if they didn't have the defending Heisman trophy winner as their QB, but they have the potential to be right up there with other all-time great college football backfields like the Pony Express of SMU (Eric Dickerson and Craig James), and Army's Heisman-winning duo of the 1940's, Doc "Mr. Inside" Blanchard and Glenn "Mr. Outside" Davis. Nevertheless, none of them hold a candle to The Four Horseman, the greatest college backfield of all-time.

• Final note on College Football; I don't get a vote, but if I did my current Heisman Ballot would go 1)Reggie Bush, 2)Vince Young, 3)Matt Leinart.

• The Cards are back home trying to win Game 6 against the Astros tonight to force a decisive Game 7 between the two teams for the second year in a row. While tonight's pitching matchup looks good (Mulder vs Oswalt), a potential Game 7 looms with Roger Clemens on the hill again for Houston (he pitched Game 7 last year), against either Jeff Suppan or Matt Morris. Simmons did a great job of covering the Astros agony in Game 5, but I'm not convinced they're out of it. They have the edge on paper in pitching for both games, so we'll see how they rebound. On the other hand, if Oswalt can't get the job done, Clemens doesn't have the best record in big games. After all, he was on the hill for both Game 7 of last year's LCS, and Game 6 of the '86 World Series. He did win a decisive World Series game for the Yanks one year, if I remember correctly, but they probably could have won those games (circa '98-'99) if Paul O'Neill was pitching them.

• Finally, in a story that will surely grow in the coming weeks, this year is the 20th anniversary of The Super Bowl Shuffle. You know what that means? Perfect time for a remake. After all, since they redid 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', it's clear that nothing from the 1980s is sacred. Since the Chicago Bears, who did the original, are nowhere near contention, I'd like to nominate the undefeated Indianapolis Colts to take on this project. Just the thought of Peyton Manning rapping has to be one of the sporting highlights of the year.