I come to you today, humbly, in praise of a player you might not know about. To some, he seemingly operates on the fringes of college football (read: West Coast), attracting attention from only those who dissect box scores with a biologist's care, or watch ESPN as if its intravenous fluid. To some, he's as alien as the reputation of his hometown -- Roswell, N.M.

Stay up late some Saturday night and you might see him, making would-be tacklers miss, breaking misguided arm tackles and slipping through seams like thread through a needle. He embodies things that, in the college game, can be difficult to find but impossible to do without -- toughness, consistency, humility and excellence.

Disgraced. That's how George O'Leary's coaching career might have ended.

Hired to coach Notre Dame after resurrecting the football program at Georgia Tech, O'Leary found his Irish dream had come true — until an enterprising reporter started fact-checking his resume. A fudge here, a stretch there, and all of a sudden O'Leary wasn't all he was cracked up to be.

Here we are in week eight of the 2005 college football season.  It really does seem like just yesterday I was complaining that there was no kickoff classic this year to signal the start of the season. 

I guess that's ok because this week the "Official" shotgun start began for all the college junkies from Miami, Fla. to Los Angeles, Ca. to debate.  That's right, on Monday the first BCS poll was released. There were no real surprises. USC, Texas and Virginia Tech are #1, #2 and #3 as expected and the three SEC heavyweights, Georgia, Alabama and LSU are ready to pounce on any opportunity that comes their way.  This year the Associated Press took their better than all attitude and left, while taking their poll with them.  In it's place this year, is the Harris Poll, made up of
former coaches, players, and media members.  No matter what your opinion of the National Championship format is, let's face it, nothing fuels the fire for message boards and sports talk radio more than the never ending saga of the
BCS.

In many ways, the Temple Owls' football program is a better place because of head coach Bobby Wallace.

As a result of his eight years in Philadelphia, the team now dresses in a state- of-the-art fieldhouse, not the cramped basement of McGonigle Hall. They now play at Lincoln Financial Field, the home of the Philadelphia Eagles.