Rocky Bleier won four Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers and a Purple Heart in Vietnam, where he was shot.
Former Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy, an ex-Army Air Corpsman and son of a wounded World War I vet, once said of the Super Bowl, “This is not a must-win; World War II was a must-win.”
Roger Staubach, after fulfilling his Navy commitment, made his NFL debut six years after winning the Heisman Trophy. — LA Times
23 Things to know heading into College Football’s 4th Saturday
The relationship between college football and the city is one of the wackiest things in New York sports. The last significant game played in the area was in 2002. Only one market in the entire country had a lower TV rating for last year’s BCS national-championship game (New York was 55th, Providence, R.I., was 56th). So there’s a case to be made that being New York’s college-football team in recent years is a bit like being Albuquerque’s curling team. But a confluence of new stadiums, new strategies to take New York and even a bowl game has resulted in something the city hasn’t seen in years: a crowded college-football landscape, a heightened battle to be the region’s team and, dare we say, a college-football renaissance in New York.
Maryland has adopted an unusual method of preparing for Navy’s triple-option offense: The Terps are practicing without a ball. The Midshipmen, who play Maryland in the season opener on Sept. 6 at M&T Bank Stadium, are difficult to mimic. It’s hard for opposing scout teams to duplicate the speed and multiple fakes of Ricky Dobbs, Navy’s senior quarterback and captain. So Maryland coaches have made it easier this week by asking the scout team offense to play without the ball. That way, scout quarterback Devin Burns can provide his best — and speediest — impersonation of Dobbs without having to worry about fumbling. “Most of the option stuff we do without a ball,” Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said. “It allows those kids to run faster. Some teams preparing for the option have done that before. We want to make sure we take care of him,” meaning Dobbs. — Baltimore Sun
Does it matter how much a team’s offensive line weighs? If it did, we’d all be touting the prestige of the Idaho Vandals, whose projected starting linemen average 333.8 pounds apiece, No. 1 in the nation. Texas Tech (324.2) would come in second while poor old Air Force (259) would be the bottom dwellers, according to Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, an annual publication that analyzes every team in the country. Alabama and Ohio State, the top teams in the country according to preseason coaching polls, fall to 42nd and 52nd place, respectively. But this might not be so bad, considering Alabama’s average lineman weighed 298.4 pounds when the school won the title last year—that would rank 82nd this season. The fact that the Big 12 and SEC have the highest average weights is understandable since they’re usually two of the best conferences.
Heaviest O-Lines by average weight
Lightest O-Lines by average weight
Source: Phil Steele College Football Preview / Wall Street Journal
© 2012 Ben Maller
