Sports fodder for a Friday morning ... It is impossible to root against the Arizona Cardinals and Kurt Warner. The Cardinals are everybody's team with roots in Chicago, St. Louis and Arizona. They play in a stadium named after a university (University of Phoenix) that doesn't have any sports teams and has campuses all over the country. Yes, even in Reno. Warner is a former grocery store bagger who ended up marrying one of the check-out girls and the couple now has seven children. He didn't start as a quarterback in college until his senior year, wasn't drafted by the NFL and had to go play with a couple of teams that sound like roller derby rejects (the Iowa Barnstormers and Amsterdam Admirals). Rooting for the Cardinals is like pulling for the coyote against the roadrunner. You just want to see it happen once to prove it is indeed possible.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have the better football team and should win by at least a touchdown on Sunday. But, unlike the coyote, the Cardinals do have a legitimate chance. The whole game will come down to how well the Cardinals' offensive line prevents those roadrunner anvils from falling on the head of their bag boy quarterback. If Warner has time to throw and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald doesn't run into the side of a mountain that is painted to look like a train tunnel, look out. This isn't the Steelers of the 1970s. Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris and the Steel Curtain won't be playing.
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The Arizona Cardinals winning the Super Bowl would be like the Wolf Pack winning college football's national championship. The Pack and Cardinals had a very similar season this year. Both teams won a few more games than they lost in the regular season in a mediocre division or conference. The only difference is that the Cardinals actually have a chance to win a championship. College football, which is supposed to be in the business of providing opportunities to our nation's youth, is set up to prevent a school like Nevada from ever winning a football national title.
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The Mountain West Conference wants an automatic BCS berth. The conference, after all, had three football teams (BYU, Utah and TCU) ranked in the BCS' Top 25. They think they deserve a piece of the guaranteed pie. Well, good luck with that. But if the Mountain West gets an automatic BCS berth then the Western Athletic Conference deserves one, too. The top teams in the WAC are just as good as the top teams in the Mountain West. The BCS has always been too narrow in scope. It's time to expand the BCS from six conferences with automatic bids to eight and give the west the respect it deserves.
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It looks like the Oakland Raiders are going to name Tom Cable as their permanent (that means six months in Al Davis' world) head coach. Good choice. Cable deserves the opportunity. The guy has paid his dues, including stints as a UNLV assistant and Idaho head coach. If that didn't prepare him to work for the Raiders, well, nothing will. Cable is a stand-up guy and he'll get this young team to play hard. A 9-7 season isn't out of the question next year in the weak AFC West. And, don't forget Raider fans, the Cardinals got to the Super Bowl by winning nine games. It can happen again.
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There is some discussion about the Mountain West expanding from eight to 12 teams and forming a super conference called the Great Western Conference. Sounds like a great idea. The league could add Nevada, Fresno State, Boise State and Hawaii and the BCS would have to take notice. The time has come for the Mountain West and WAC to become friends and join forces and become the west's version of the Big East. Every sport would benefit.
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University of Houston basketball player Aubrey Coleman steps on the face of Chase Budinger of the Arizona Wildcats and gets a one-game suspension. One game? Sleeping late and missing practice is worth one game. Getting caught at a club at 3 a.m. by 25 cell phone cameras the night before a road game is worth one game. Stepping on a guy's face? Five games.
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The University of Illinois is going to give Michael Jordan's son, Jeffrey, a full scholarship. Jeffrey plays about 10 minutes a game and averages about two points a game. And did we mention he's the son of a millionaire? Jeffrey doesn't need a scholarship. His father could send five kids to the University of Illinois on what he spends on golf and poker alone in one year. The country is in a serious financial crisis. Universities all across the country are struggling and have to cut programs and teaching positions. The last thing they need to do is give a full ride to a kid who barely plays and could hire a limousine service to drive him to the arena if he so chooses.
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The NFL will announce its latest Hall of Fame class on Saturday. Don't blink " or go shopping for your Super Bowl snacks " or you'll miss it. The nation spends a week every year ripping baseball's sportswriters for their Hall of Fame mistakes but nobody seems to care about the NFL's Hall of Fame choices. In case you care, Rod Woodson and Bruce Smith should be locks for this year's Hall of Fame class. Russ Grimm and Bob Kuechenberg also are more than deserving. But it doesn't really matter, right? It's only football. Now go get those chips and dip. Sunday is almost here.