College Football

College football New Orleans Bowl: Florida Atlantic vs. Memphis 8 p.m. [ESPN2] The Burrowing Owls (I called FAU just "the Owls" once but was corrected by some alumni) didn't even have a football team until seven years ago, when former Baltimore Colts head coach Howard Schnellenberger started the program. In college football's speediest ascent ever, Florida Atlantic has gone from zero to Division I-AA to Division I-A to sharing first place in the Sun Belt Conference with a bowl berth.

College football Emerald Bowl: Maryland vs. Oregon State 8:30 p.m. [ESPN] The Terps (6-6) are riding a three-game bowl winning streak, and they will have to play their best if they want to keep that going against favored Oregon State (five points). The Beavers (8-4) finished third in the Pacific-10, won their last three games and knocked off Cal when that team was ranked No. 2. Oregon State's featured rusher, Yvenson Bernard, has gone over 1,000 yards three straight seasons. Maryland quarterback Chris Turner has thrown for more than 1,700 yards and completed 64 percent of his passes.

From the beginning, we're hooked by the Darwinian nature of sports. We trust that at the final buzzer, the best team will be the one left standing. It's this simple and unalienable truth that keeps us coming back for more, that encourages us to wave foam fingers and build our entire week around three hours of weekend couch time. I love that the best competitor reaps the rewards, and I like that after the season the soil is tilled and every team has the chance to start anew. But I should probably make a confession: While I love the idea of parity in sports, too often, the practice of it puts me to sleep.

SAN FRANCISCO-- --If you had been in Union Square downtown here yesterday morning, you would never wonder again why the college football bowl system will live forever and why a playoff will never be born. The Emerald Bowl's joint pep rally was held, and surrounding the giant Christmas tree in the middle of the square were the coaches, players, bands, cheerleaders, mascots and a few hundred alumni and fans of Maryland and Oregon State. They were loud, they were excited, they were a rippling sea of red and white and orange and black, and a bunch of them (presumably excluding the players and coaches, who later in the day had to prepare for tonight's game)

Sports pages found lackingFour years ago when I moved to Baltimore I looked forward to getting my sports news from The Sun. I assumed that in a large, northeastern city, the sports page would be complete and comprehensive. What I've found is ridiculous.Maybe it is because I follow the NBA and college football. All I get from The Sun are footnotes on college football or attempts to slam the NBA.Maybe if Baltimore didn't have that embarrassment of an arena, it might land an NBA franchise. Or, maybe if Maryland wasn't a perennial college football disgrace, someone would bother to report on college football.

The 15-minute clock was running on the Arizona Cardinals at the No. 8 overall position in the NFL draft yesterday, and the hearts of every member of the Ravens' front office and scouting staffs were pounding with every second.Then the phone rang and all the tension was relieved.Within the next 30 minutes, Arizona took Ohio State receiver David Boston and Detroit selected linebacker Chris Claiborne, clearing the way for the Ravens to select one of the players they coveted most in University of Arizona corner- back Chris McAlister with the No. 10 pick.

IN BALTIMORE, when do blue and gray make green?When the blue-coated midshipmen of the Naval Academy and the gray-clad cadets from West Point meet at the Army-Navy game on Dec. 20, 2000, at PSINet Stadium.The classic college football game, whose return to Baltimore after a half-century seemed a long shot as recently as a year ago, could mean $15 million in economic spinoff. That was the impact of the game in Philadelphia, and there's no reason it can't be just as lucrative for Baltimore.The Baltimore Ravens and Maryland Stadium Authority, which will share profits after the service academies receive their cut, lobbied hard to land the event.

WASHINGTON -- The college football season began before most college classes did. First things first.There is a plan -- adored by fans, but not yet by university and athletic conferences' officials -- to extend the season with a 16-team playoff culminating in a national championship game that promoters say would generate $3 billion over eight years.Fan interest, measured by television audiences, in post-season bowl games has declined over the past decade, while college basketball's playoff -- "March Madness" -- has become so successful that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is reportedly negotiating a $3 billion to $4 billion (the number of years is unsettled)

John Robinson and Lou Holtz are among college football's biggest names, having spent a majority of their respective careers in the glare that comes with coaching at schools such as Southern Cal and Notre Dame. Eleven years ago this week, their careers and teams collided at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, with the Fighting Irish beating the Trojans and going on to win the national championship.They are now far removed from that moment and those programs, with Robinson at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Holtz at South Carolina.

Like a college coach being lured out of retirement to make one last push for a title, ABC college football announcer Keith Jackson yesterday stepped out of his six-month-long retirement to call football games for the network this fall.Jackson, who wrapped up 32 years of college football announcing with his call of last January's Fiesta Bowl national championship game, has agreed to announce Pac-10 games and the Rose Bowl for ABC.Jackson, who has lived in the Los Angeles area for more than 40 years, said the chance to continue calling games while reducing travel made the offer -- personally extended by new ABC Sports President Howard Katz -- one he could not pass up."

Senate committee criticizes BCS col. football With the system to determine the national title in college football drawing intense criticism, the U.S. Senate is getting off the sideline to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Championship Series. The current system "leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year," the Senate Judiciary's subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights said in a statement Wednesday announcing the hearings.

News item: : The Orioles made their first foray into the Asian player market, agreeing to terms with Japanese pitcher Koji Uehara on a two-year contract worth a reported $10 million. He's scheduled to arrive in Baltimore today and take his physical tomorrow. My take: : No, Boog isn't going to start serving sushi, but it's good to see the Orioles expand their horizons. Even if they overpaid the guy, it's still a big step in the right direction for a team that waited a long time to get serious about the Pacific Rim. News item: : The New York Mets reportedly have agreed to a contract with right-handed pitcher Tim Redding and have projected him as their fifth starter.

When a college football player first scores a touchdown before the home fans, it should be a moment of unfettered joy, of promise fulfilled. For Darryl Hill, who integrated the U.S. Naval Academy's football program, then became the ACC's first black football player, it was more complicated. After he caught his first touchdown pass at the University of Maryland's Byrd Stadium, the traditional cannon shot sounded. Hill threw up his arms and discarded the ball in fright. He had been told by school officials that someone had threatened to shoot him from the top of the stands.

You actually have a choice, you know. You can gripe and whine about the unfairness of the Bowl Championship Series and the stupidity of the entire college football bowl system - again. But you don't have to do it while glued to your television. The powers that be in the sport and at the networks don't provide the bowls and the BCS games as a public service, after all. They wouldn't be on the air, getting contracts extended and increased (half a billion dollars for four years from ESPN starting in 2010)

This is a no-brainer. If, after taking office Jan. 20, the First Fan wants to pick up the phone and tell college football's pooh-bahs that he supports a national championship game, more power to him. The university greedheads aren't listening to Joe the Plumber, that's for sure. As President-elect Barack Obama noted in the 60 Minutes interview, "I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

Tom Zbikowski and Reggie Campbell crossed paths on four occasions during their college football careers, a few times even meeting up when the hard-hitting Notre Dame safety and the elusive Navy slotback came face mask to face mask at the end of a play. "It was always tough playing against them," Zbikowski, now a rookie with the Ravens, said this week. "It was always a physical game; you're always sore the next day. I got a lot of respect for those guys. Those are the guys who are protecting our country."

Starting next season, the annual Army-Navy football game will become the last regular-season college football game each year. For the first time since 1985, it will take place on the second Saturday in December, so as not to conflict with the conference championship games scheduled for the first Saturday. Next season's Army-Navy game is scheduled to take place at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. "By moving it a week, it really puts it in prime time," Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said yesterday.

Before the football season began, Wake Forest's cozy football stadium got an imposing addition. Deacon Tower houses luxury suites, club seating and boxes for the university's president and the media. The seven-story brick tower might be the perfect metaphor for Wake Forest's rising expectations. Long known for basketball and golf more than football, tiny Wake (4,412 undergraduates) entered the 2006 season with an all-time Atlantic Coast Conference winning percentage of .287. But the No. 21 Demon Deacons (4-1, 2-0 ACC)

College athletic directors and presidents can be downright shameless when it comes to finding new ways to generate revenue, and nowhere is their naked ambition more obvious than when it comes to scheduling games on weeknights. It's a trend that has grown exponentially in recent years thanks to the thirst for television exposure, and now there are schools that would play on a Tuesday at 2 a.m. on an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico if you guaranteed it would be on ESPN2.

The best college football game of the 2008 season so far has been between UCLA and Tennessee, one of those ESPN instant classics that was played into overtime at the Rose Bowl on Labor Day. Last I checked, that was a Monday night. The second-best college football game this year was between South Florida and Kansas, a down-to the-final-gun shootout between a couple of Top 25 teams who normally don't have that wide of an audience. That was played last Friday night. Playing games on days and nights other than Saturdays gives college football crazies something to do and often provides teams that are not on the radar a chance to show there's more to the sport than Ohio State-Southern California.