Pat Hill: The Fresno State mentor has always had Pac Ten athletes with junior college brains, but where are the athletes this year? Definitely not in the defensive backfield, where the Bulldogs have allowed 15 TD passes and haven’t notched a single interception. Since their near miss at USC last year Fresno has failed to cover the spread in 9 straight games by a combined 155 points. In their most recent 3 straight losses the Bulldogs have failed to cover the spread by 25, 26, and 27 points. There simply isn’t much effort being put out in Fresno. Strange situation for a good coach.

George O’Leary: After going from 0-11 to 8-3 in the regular season last year, the feel good story of the Knights has turned sour. With 18 returning starters back from the Conference USA divisional champion, much was expected this season. But UCF is 2-4 with wins over Villanova and Marshall. In a nationally televised Friday night spotlight game last week the Knights trailed Pitt 38-0 at halftime.

Gregg Williams: The defensive coordinator of the Redskins Gregg (“the second G is for Genius” says Fox Sports Radio’s Steve Czaban) Williams accepted a $3 million per year contract to ignore head coaching offers and stay as ‘Skins defensive coordinator last year. Locking him up with the big bucks has given Dan Snyder a 22½ points per game, 333 yards per game, 5.5 yards per play defense on an extremely disappointing team.

Want a coach who should be on everyone’s radar screen in the ACC, where openings at Duke, Miami, Virginia, and North Carolina appear likely this winter? How about Clemson offensive coordinator Rob Spence? Spence took Clemson’s offense from 296 yards per game to 385 yards per game in his first year on the job. This year Clemson is averaging 461 yards and 44 points per game. Spence had great success at Toledo previously. The Tigers haven’t huddled before a single offensive play in Spence’s 19 games on the job in Clemson.

Miami’s brawl with FIU wouldn’t have happened in the olden days, and never happens at “classy” programs like USC and Notre Dame, right? Watch Lindsay Nelson and Paul Hornung’s call of a wild Irish/Trojan free for all in 1971 at http://youtube.com/watch?v=1zgzXSbuyB8

Is artificial Polytrack changing the horse game? In the Washington Post Andy Beyer concludes his column on the introduction of the fake surface at Keeneland by writing, “The people who have championed synthetic racing surfaces should take a careful look at Keeneland and decide if this bizarre, go-as-slow-as-you-can style of racing is what the sport really needs.”

Is Andy maybe not having the winningest of Keeneland meets? You can read the whole column here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801725.html

There are 117 teams in Division 1A. New Mexico State has the worst pass defense. The Aggies allow a stunning 12.2 yards per pass attempt. Not per completion, per pass attempt. New Mexico State allows nearly 3 yards per pass attempt more than any other team in Division 1-A. So who do Hal Mumme’s Aggies have this week? June Jones and the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, who scored TD’s on 10 of their 13 possessions last week at Fresno, scoring 62 points in the first 3 quarters of that one. UH has covered all three trips to the mainland thus far this season. While it may be a bit of a letdown situation Hawaii returns home to take on Idaho next week and then has Utah State, so there’s nothing further for them to focus on. 3 TD’s is a lot to cover but it’s hard to see Hawaii being slowed down here. Go with the Rainbow Warriors.

Our colleague Dave Fobare is doing a splendid job with his handicapping. Check out the hotline for Dave’s free analysis at 1-770-618-8700. The hotline is a free 24-hour service that will provide you with valuable information from a hard working handicapper, so call regularly.

The Eagles gave up a time-consuming game-winning drive to the Saints and the defense will bounce back from that disappointment. They gave up only 3.2 yards per rush to the Saints but proved to be vulnerable against the pass. Don’t expect that to be the case against Tampa’s young QB Bruce Gradkowski. The rookie has been somewhat impressive in his two starts, but the Bucs gained only 4.2 yards per play against a Bengals team that had allowed 3 of 4 previous opponents to gain their season highs in yardage. The Eagles defensive front is a different level of opponent for the rookie. Meanwhile the Bucs are playing very well defensively, holding Cincy’s lively offense to a single TD. Remember that the previous week in a loss to the Saints, the Saints gave up 24 points but that included a TD on a punt return and a 25-yard TD drive following a turnover. Look under this total.

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