Locker makes right move in returning to school

Amazing to see some people are criticizing University of Washington quarterback Jake Locker for deciding to return for his senior season of college instead of chucking his textbooks away and accepting NFL riches.

Seems Locker is pretty sure he needs another year of seasoning and that becoming the best player he can possibly be is a tad more important than cashing paychecks in the fall of 2010.

But no, numerous pundits say Locker should have done the money grab — as in the old hit song by the Steve Miller Band: Take the Money and Run.

Locker probably would’ve been the first quarterback chosen in the 2010 NFL Draft and likely among the Top 5 players selected. Because there’s a chance that an NFL rookie salary scale could be instituted, people are criticizing him for passing up money now that may not be there in a year from now.

But if he takes the money this spring and turns out to be a bust — is that you Ryan Leaf? Hey Heath Shuler, raise your hand too — then Locker gets ridiculed for not being worthy of such a high selection and stealing a boatland of cash.

Not fair at all, particularly when the No. 1 thing you hear about today’s athletes is that they are greedy and how the cash is more important to them than winning or being the best possible player they can be.

Locker obviously assessed his situation closely and decided it was the best move to return to Washington and play another season in Steve Sarkisian’s pro-style offense. Sure he could possibly discover a serious injury like Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford did in September but now that Locker didn’t put his name in the draft, guess who’s projected to be the first quarterback selected?

Yeah, Bradford. Doesn’t sound like the injury diminished his stock all that much.

I see plenty of top-flight NFL quarterbacks who stayed in college for four seasons, including the two leading candidates for NFL MVP — Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints. A couple other good ones — Philip Rivers of the San Diego Chargers and Eli Manning of the New York Giants — didn’t leave after their junior seasons either.

Of course, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots wasn’t even highly coveted after his senior season at Michigan and he seemed to turn out all right.

Locker has NFL size (6-foot-3, 226 pounds) and is a great athlete but there are definitely things he can improve on. His accuracy has improved each year and his touchdown-to-interception ratio (21 to 11 this season) stands room for improvement.

Most importantly, he’s decided he’s not ready for the NFL yet. And in this era of me-first, grab-the-money-and-run players, that’s a refreshing development.

Chuck Long back in coaching

I thought of former San Diego State football coach Chuck Long on Saturday night when I found out at a college basketball game that the Heisman Trophy balloting between winner Mark Ingram of Alabama and runner-up Toby Gerhart of Stanford was the closest margin (28 points) in history.

Instantly, I remembered how Lisa Long (Chuck’s classy wife) told me in the summer of 2006 that the family always checks for the margin between the winner and the runner-up shortly after the Heisman announcement.

You see, up until Gerhart’s close loss on Saturday night, Long was the closest second-place finisher for college football’s most-coveted honor. Long, a star quarterback at Iowa, lost by 45 points to the immortal Bo Jackson of Auburn in the 1985 balloting.

I certainly didn’t anticipate thinking about Long again on Sunday. But here I am because he’ll be back on the football this fall as the new offensive coordinator at Kansas.

Though Long was a disaster as San Diego State’s head coach — the Aztecs went 9-27 during this three seasons — he had a terrific run as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator. I’ll never forget 2003 Heisman winner Jason White telling me about how his college career would’ve been over because of two bad knees if not for Long’s willingness to change the offense (Oklahoma began taking every snap out of the shotgun) so he could continue playing.

New Kansas coach Turner Gill hired Long to run the Jayhawks offense and it will be interesting to see the results. The Jayhawks have been a good program in recent seasons under Mark Mangino and Gill is an intriguing coach after changing Buffalo from a laughingstock to a competitive program.

Long is as classy I guy that I’ve ever dealt with in terms of the coach/journalist dynamic and I’m glad to see him back in football coaching after he spent last season as campus errand boy after being fired with two seasons remaining on his San Diego State contract.

But I do wonder if he and his wife will still be checking for the Heisman winner’s margin of victory when the 2010 winner is announced.

Chargers display “Big D” in win over Cowboys

Three times the Dallas Cowboys gave the ball to Marion Barber from the Chargers’ 1-yard line and three times he was stopped from reaching the end zone.

That late second-quarter sequence in which the Cowboys came up empty was the prime reason why the San Diego Chargers won their eighth consecutive game, outlasting the Dallas Cowboys 20-17 on Sunday at Jerry Jones’ big ol’ playground.

Dallas ran off 24 first-half plays from the Chargers’ side of the field and ventured inside the 25-yard line on three different drives yet had just three points at the half. That was because the Chargers displayed “Big D” while playing just outside the “Big D” in Arlington.

Linebackers Brandon Siler and Tim Dobbins both made stellar stops on the powerful Barber during the goal-line stand. It’s a different ballgame if the Cowboys tie the score there instead of trailing 10-3 at the half.

The Chargers would later score 10 fourth-quarter points to pull away from Dallas and record their 16th straight December victory, an NFL record. They improve to 10-3 and now have a two-game AFC West lead over the Denver Broncos (8-5), who lost to the Indianapolis Colts despite receiver Brandon Marshall setting an NFL record with 21 receptions in a single game.

Dallas drops to 8-5 as the folks around the Metroplex fear another late-season Cowboys’ collapse.

What the natives ought to fear most is Wade Phillips’ late-game decision-making. With the Cowboys needing two scores, Phillips didn’t call for a field goal once Dallas reached the Chargers’ 18-yard line with 26 seconds left. Instead, the Cowboys ran three more offensive plays, finally scoring on Tony Romo’s 9-yard touchdown pass to Patrick Crayton with two seconds left.

Way to give your guys a chance to win, Wade. You can bet Chargers coach Norv Turner was ecstatic to see Phillips fail simple game management class.

The Chargers’ offense didn’t fly as high as usual but did its best work early in the fourth quarter after Dallas defensive standout DeMarcus Ware went down with a serious neck injury. After play resumed, Philip Rivers connected with Vincent Jackson for 39 yards on third-and-12 to the Cowboys’ 14. Rivers than hit Antonio Gates for a touchdown on the following play to give the Chargers a 17-10 lead.

The next time the Chargers had the ball, they killed seven minutes, 17 seconds of time en route to setting up Nate Kaeding for a 34-yard field goal. That made it a 10-point game with 1:56 remaining.

Earlier in the contest, LaDainian Tomlinson scored on a 1-yard run for his 10th rushing touchdown of the season. Tomlinson has 10 or more rushing scores for an NFL-record nine straight seasons.

The Chargers face a crucial contest against the Cincinnati Bengals (9-4) next Sunday. The Chargers already have a one-game lead over the Bengals for the AFC’s No. 2 seed (and the all-important first-week playoff bye) so it rates as a must-win game for Cincinnati.

San Diego State beats Arizona in basketball … seriously

The headline is not a misprint. It really has happened — San Diego State beat Arizona in a game of basketball.

And it wasn’t just a victory, it was a savage beatdown: Try Aztecs 63, Wildcats 46.

The final score tells two things — how far Arizona has declined while scoring its fewest points since 1985, and that San Diego State (8-2) may be line for a special season.

The latter is a distinct possibility after viewing this contest. It was strange seeing San Diego State having better athletes and more talent than the Wildcats, the top program on the West Coast for most of the last quarter-century (apologies to UCLA).

The Aztecs last beat Arizona in basketball in December of 1983, when San Diego State had Michael Cage on the roster and Lute Olson was in his first season as Wildcats coach. Cage, the top player in San Diego State history, had 31 points and 12 rebounds in that contest.

You may recall Arizona went 11-17 in Olson’s first season before he turned the program into an annual NCAA tournament participant (yes, Arizona hasn’t missed the NCAA tourney since Olson’s first season in Tucson).

Now Sean Miller, the former Xavier coach, is trying to keep the Wildcats (4-5) afloat and it looks like he’s in for a long season. I’m not sure Arizona could finish in the middle of the pack in the Mountain West Conference, let alone the Pacific-10.

Regardless, beating Arizona is big for San Diego State. The two teams had met five times this decade with Arizona regularly outclassing the Aztecs.  Even when San Diego State thought it had a legitimate chance to upset the Wildcats during the 2006-07 campaign, Arizona dispatched them easily, rolling to a 21-point victory on the Aztecs’ homecourt.

Of course, last season’s loss to Arizona was particularly painful because the Wildcats became the last team into the 65-team NCAA tournament field while the Aztecs were one of the top teams (along with Saint Mary’s) to miss the tourney. If San Diego State had won that game, the Aztecs likely would’ve been in the field instead of Arizona.

Steve Fisher’s team has a strong chance at reaching the NCAA tournament this season. Freshman forward Kawhi Leonard (13 points, 12 rebounds) is a beast and was the most talented player on the court against Arizona. Junior guard D.J. Gay frustrated Arizona star Nic Wise (four points on 2-of-9 shooting) and junior forward Billy White continues to shoot a high percentage — he’s shooting 67.6 percent from the field. 

Factor in transfers Malcolm Thomas and Tyrone Shelley and the return of Tim Shelton (knee) and the Aztecs have a nice mix of talent.

And on this night, they were far better than Arizona in every aspect of the game, something the Wildcats’ coach was quick to admit.

“From the opening tip to the final buzzer, they were the stronger, more physical, more ferocious, tougher and taller team,” Miller said afterwards. 

Now who would have ever thought an Arizona coach would be saying that about a San Diego State squad?

Indications point to running back winning Heisman

The Heisman Trophy will be awarded on Saturday night and I’m not privy to the name of the person who will win the coveted award.

But I can tell you what position he plays: Running back.

Alabama’s Mark Ingram and Stanford’s Toby Gerhart appear to be in the lead according to some of the folks who contact voters and forecast the winner.

Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh could finish third, which would be a stunning accomplishment. Suh received no preseason hype for the award and the voters traditionally shun defensive players — probably because a large number of those casting ballots only know football on a surface level (read: stats) and don’t understand the game at a deep level.

Texas quarterback Colt McCoy appears to be fourth in line with Florida quarterback Tim Tebow running a distant fifth. Clemson running back C.J. Spiller is pushing Tebow for fifth.

I’m on record that Gerhart should be the Heisman winner (see http://mrsportsblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/stanfords-toby-gerhart-should-win-the-heisman/ for why) but I won’t have a major problem with Ingram or Suh taking home the hardware.

It is pretty amazing that a tradition-rich program like Alabama has never had a Heisman winner. And it certainly would be a terrific thing if Suh won the award after having a mammoth season for an interior defensive linemen — 12 sacks and 82 tackles, including 23 tackles for losses. (http://mrsportsblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/maybe-im-forecasting-the-wrong-heisman-winner/)

There’s nobody else in college football that will crack the top six spots. The next line of players include Houston quarterback Chase Keenum, Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore and Notre Dame receiver Golden Tate.

Tiger Woods gives new meaning to “in the hole”

You hear the phrase uttered over and over if you attend a golf tournament. Whenever a golfer is on the green and putts the ball toward the cup, numerous fans can’t wait to yell the phrase.

Even more people compete to yell it the loudest immediately after Tiger Woods putts the golf ball.

“In the hole!”

All this time, I thought they were referring to Woods’ golf game. But perhaps they knew about Woods’ real prowess — sacking up with women all over the globe.

Nothing wrong with that if you’re single — right Derek Jeter?

But Woods is married and had cultivated the public image that he was beyond perfect. You know, that he was above things such as adultery.

Now people are seeing the real Tiger Woods – and reading anecdotes from women about how he’s a Tiger in the bedroom — and it’s nowhere near as pretty as the family image Tiger worked hard to cultivate for public consumption.

Think of  how often Woods said family was always his first priority. Think of how many times he has praised wife Elin Nordegren as his best friend and soul mate. Think about the way Tiger would make sure he was photographed holding one of his children after winning a golf tournament.

That carefully crafted facade has been shattered. Now the nation knows how disingenuous the real Tiger is.

How about changing Eldrick’s nickname from “Tiger” to “Phony?”

His swift decline from pristine role model to sleazy tabloid show joke — Jon and Kate now have severe competition in terms of being the nation’s biggest punchline — has taken the control out of Woods’ golf bag. When David Letterman can bag on you for cheating on your wife, you know you’ve hit a new low.

It’s both sad and funny to see how the biggest control freak in sports has been stripped of his ability to diffuse the situation.

Woods tried to control the situation by refusing to speak to law enforcement to speak about his bizarre midde-of-the-night car accident. Then he tried to control it with a statement on his Web site. According to reports, he’s also willing to pay for people’s silence to keep more details about his affairs from leaking out.

After a string of double bogeys in handling the situation, Woods released another statement on Friday night where he admits to “infidelity” and says he’s taking an “indefinite break from professional golf.” (Tiger’s whole statement can be found on his Web site — not that he needs my help to get online hits — http://web.tigerwoods.com/news/article/200912117801012/news/)

Apparently, Woods has no interest in facing real people and probing questions, but all another statement does is prolong the situation. He can dodge the media and try not to face the music but eventually he’s going to need to discuss it before he returns to golf.

The sooner he discusses it, the sooner the attention will dissipate. Tiger seems to think his silence will make it go away but it won’t. He’s too big an icon for that to happen.

Woods will have to go into hiding in the short term to stay out of the media eye – or even more difficult, the eyes of TMZ. I hear there’s some privacy in Antarctica, save for a few pesky penguins. I’m guessing penguins don’t know how to use camera phones.

And if Tiger finds a golf course in Antarctica, you know there’s one phrase he doesn’t want to hear for a while.

“Tiger — in the hole!”

Cowboys Stadium is “the biggest thing” in Texas

Perhaps this is what Chargers coach Norv Turner is talking about when he repeatedly says "the biggest thing."

The new Cowboys Stadium is enormous. The San Diego Chargers and Dallas Cowboys play there this Sunday.

So big ... so big ... so big.

Chargers getting closer to City of Industry move

The San Diego Chargers moved closer to becoming the City of Industry Chargers on Thursday by changing their stance of not asking for public funds to build a new football stadium.

Such a change after seven years of pursuing a new stadium — remember, the Chargers have been stating for years that no public funds would be necessary — is an incredulous development.

The Chargers’ spin doctor on all things stadium  — Mark Fabiani — put his usual overdose of spin on the change in philosophy but a popular pro football Web site isn’t spinning with acceptance of the spin (http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2009/12/10/chargers-now-want-public-money-for-new-stadium/).

Of course, the Chargers don’t want to get shut out in San Diego and also have another NFL team beat them to the punch by moving into the new City of Industry facility before they can. So perhaps part of the strategy is forcing the issue in San Diego — Dean Spanos and has family have spent a lot of money and invested a lot of time in finding a stadium solution in San Diego — and getting the “never going to  happen” edict to make moving into Ed Roski’s new playground easier.

Remember, the Chargers have asserted numerous times that they want a ballot measure associated with any football stadium proposal. Putting one on the ballot calling for a couple hundred million dollars of public funds to be used has no change of winning in a city that has no interest in subsidizing the team.

Put it this way — there’s a better chance of Tiger Woods calling to share his enormous harem of women with me than San Diego voters approving a ballot measure requiring a large chunk of public financing to build a stadium. (Hey Tiger, text me with some phone numbers just in case). 

Anyway, the Chargers have never been considered geniuses when it comes to public relations and this is really bad timing when your on-field product has produced seven straight victories. Then again, maybe it’s just arrogance.

The Chargers’ players often put the cart before the horse — this current group of players was talking about winning a Super Bowl before it had even won a single playoff game — so perhaps now upper management is doing the same thing.

Follow me here — the Padres won voter approval for a new downtown ballpark right after going to the World Series in 1998. The Chargers were granted a stadium expansion after playing in the Super Bowl in January, 1995.

So maybe the hierarchy is anticipating this year’s team will be playing in the Super Bowl. The Chargers certainly aren’t afraid of the undefeated Indianapolis Colts — you surely haven’t forgotten about what’s happened in the past two postseasons when the Chargers and Colts have met, have you? – and figure they have the best shot of any AFC team to get to the Super Bowl.

Win a Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history and who knows what might occur. Perhaps even the unthinkable — approving a stadium ballot measure with public financing.

If not, the Chargers can scurry up to the City of Industry in the moving vans. And if another team beats them to it, so be it.

There’s a lot of unused land in Hemet.

Antonio Gates goes bonkers vs. Browns

He’s been such a great player for so many years now that it almost doesn’t seem possible. But I’ll say it anyway — Antonio Gates is now playing the best football of his life.

Hard to make that type of statement about a five-time Pro Bowler who just became the rare tight end to top 6,000 career receiving yards. But it’s true, the 29-year-old Gates is certainly better than ever.

Gates caught eight passes for a career-best 167 yards on Sunday to help the San Diego Chargers to a 30-23 victory over the Cleveland Browns. He now has 994 yards (sixth best in the NFL) and is on pace to shatter his previous high of 1,101 yards in 2005.

The toe injury that hampered him for much of last season is a thing of the past. You might recall Gates being the ultimate gamer in the 2007 postseason when he played two playoff games with a toe injury that would have sidelined nearly every other mortal.

He eventually had surgery and needed about six months to recover. He wasn’t the same Antonio Gates when the 2008 season started and he was frustrated that he couldn’t do some of the things he had done earlier in his career.

But now the seven-year veteran is able to all the things he used to do and he made a couple great catches during his splendid outing against the Browns.

With four games left, Gates has caught 67 passes — his sixth straight 60-catch season. He needs just six yards for his second career 1,000-yard receiving season.

Gates has a great rapport with quarterback Philip Rivers and it shows. Rivers has supreme trust in Gates, which was evident on two long plays (56 and 36) in which he was double covered and Rivers threw the ball up and trusted that Gates would come down with it.

Of course, the former college basketball star at Kent State did.   

“I kind of threw it up to give him a chance,” said Rivers in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I’m sure he’s gone up on the post or grabbed a rebound off the board like that back in the day. He was as ‘on’ as I’ve ever seen him, and that’s saying a lot.”

Rivers had another good game, going 18-of-25 for 373 yards and two touchdowns — a 66-yarder to Mike Tolbert and a 31-yarder to Darren Sproles.

Running back LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for 64 yards and passed Marshall Faulk and Jim Brown to move into eighth place on the career rushing list with 12,321 yards. Tomlinson also became the fastest player to score 150 career touchdowns. He did so in his 137th game; Emmitt Smith (160 games) was the previous fastest to 150 scores.

The Chargers (9-3) have won seven consecutive games and now enter a hard stretch — at the Dallas Cowboys, home against the Cincinnati Bengals and a Christmas night road game against the Tennessee Titans. They’ve now won 15 straight December games dating back to the 2005 season.

The Browns (1-11) played great in the first quarter and showed resiliency in the second half of the fourth quarter but lost their seventh straight game. Cleveland quarterback Brady Quinn had one of his better games, passing for 271 yards and three touchdowns.

But the Browns don’t have much talent — their receivers are horrible — and it’s going to take a long time for Cleveland to turn around its fortunes.

But this game belonged to the Chargers’ tight end. The Gates are always open when Rivers looks his way — double covered or not.

“BCS Buster Bowl” pairing a letdown

When a team from a non-BCS conference makes it into one of the five BCS bowls, you want to see that team play an opponent from one of the power conferences.

But now that two non-BCS teams are part of this year’s major bowl games, it’s disappointing that the two programs will be pitted against one another.

The Fiesta Bowl pairing between TCU and Boise State is a major letdown. The two teams played each other in last season’s Poinsettia Bowl (TCU won that game) and there’s no opportunity for an epic upset.

You know, like Boise State’s incredible victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl three years ago and Utah’s annihilation of Alabama in last season’s Sugar Bowl.

I would have preferred seeing TCU play Florida in the Sugar Bowl — I can tell you Urban Meyer and the Gators wanted no part of the Horned Frogs — and Boise State drawing Iowa as its Fiesta Bowl opponent.

The Fiesta Bowl matchup already has drawn the label of “BCS Buster Bowl.” Not sure if that is a compliment or not. Kind of gives the connotation that the two schools are undeserving party crashers when the truth is that both teams are very much worthy of the big stage.

TCU (12-0) has one of the top defenses in the country (led by defensive lineman Jerry Hughes) and a great coach in Gary Patterson. Boise State is known for its offense under coach Chris Petersen and quarterback Kellen Moore is the nation’s most efficient passer.

I’m glad to see both teams among the 10 teams playing in BCS bowls. I just didn’t want to see them play each other.

The other BCS matchups are as follows: National title game — Alabama vs. Texas; Sugar Bowl — Florida vs. Cincinnati; Rose Bowl — Oregon vs. Ohio State and Orange Bowl — Georgia Tech vs. Iowa.

Thought the Holiday Bowl has a good matchup with Arizona playing Nebraska — the Cornhuskers feature the nation’s best defensive player in dominating defensive tackle Ndamunkong Suh. The Poinsettia Bowl pairing of Utah against California is decent.

Some underwhelming matchups include Fresno State vs. Wyoming in the New Mexico Bowl; Ohio University vs. Marshall in the Little Caesars Bowl; South Florida against Northern Illinois in the International Bowl; Middle Tennessee vs. Southern Mississippi in the New Orleans Bowl and Idaho playing Bowling Green in the Humanitarian Bowl.

Idaho and Bowling Green would be a boring early-season game that nobody cared about and it rates as an insufferable pairing for a bowl game. If that’s the best you can do for a bowl matchup, perhaps there needs to be an examination of why there even is a Humanitarian Bowl.

Suddenly, the potential Army vs. Temple matchup in the EagleBank Bowl doesn’t sound so bad (UCLA replaces Army as Temple’s opponent if Army loses to Navy on Dec. 12).

There are 34 postseason bowl games, about 10 too many. As for bowls that carry relevance, you can count them on two hands.

The BCS has rendered most bowl games as meaningless and it will remain that way until a playoff finally becomes part of the college football landscape.