Re: College Football Fans
here's one for fans of the game...<br /><br />HE SPORTING NEWS OCTOBER 11, 2004<br />Here's to winning -- with honor<br /><br />By Matt Hayes - SportingNews<br /><br />Sign the letter, kid. Play for State U. and win a championship, and<br />we'll get you ready for<br />those NFL millions.<br />Sign the letter, son. Come to the academy, enrich your life, fight for<br />your country.<br />And play football, too.<br />The sports story of the year is playing out on the shores of the<br />Chesapeake in the<br />beautiful eastern Maryland town of Annapolis. It is here we find the<br />underdog, the hero<br />and that enlightening sense of reality we too often take for granted.<br />It is here we find a<br />team of brothers with an unshakable bond, a gang of glory.<br />If Navy weren't 5-0 for the first time since 1979, if the Middies<br />weren't in the process of<br />turning the college football world sideways with an improbable run at<br />-- holy moly! -- the<br />BCS, it would be just like any fall at Navy. And this weekend's game<br />against Notre Dame<br />would be just like any of the 40 consecutive Irish victories over the<br />Middies.<br />But it's not. A moment of painful perspective before the season opener<br />against Duke<br />made sure of that. Minutes before the game, the team was told Ron<br />Winchester, a star<br />offensive lineman for the Middies in 2000, was killed by a roadside<br />bomb in Iraq. Only a<br />handful of players on the current team knew Winchester, but the<br />enormity and reality of<br />the situation galvanized this group.<br />The team already had turned the corner under third-year coach Paul<br />Johnson and quickly<br />was becoming a factor again in Division I football. Now it had even<br />more motivation.<br />"If you sign that piece of paper to play for Navy," says quarterback<br />Aaron Polanco, "you<br />have to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice."<br />Want to root for someone this week? Pull for Navy. Not because of Irish<br />hatred or BCS<br />frustration or any other useless, frivolous fight. Pull for the guys no<br />big-time BCS school<br />wants but every man, woman and child in this country desperately needs.<br />Pull for the<br />humble, hard-working Johnson, who used to win national championships at<br />Division IAA<br />Georgia Southern but returned to Annapolis because it was the right<br />thing to do.<br />"What does us being 5-0 mean?" says Johnson, offensive coordinator at<br />the academy in<br />1995 and '96. "We can't be any worse than 5-6."<br />Don't believe it. If a physical, punishing Navy team beats Notre Dame<br />this weekend, the<br />schedule sets up for the Middies to deliver the sports story of the<br />year. After the Irish,<br />Navy finishes with Rice, Delaware, Tulane, Rutgers and Army. No one<br />among that group<br />can handle the precision of Navy's triple-option offense or its<br />physical offensive and<br />defensive lines.<br />So if the Middies run the table and capture our imaginations, how could<br />the Fiesta Bowl<br />not choose a service academy over any other BCS-eligible team? How<br />could the Fiesta<br />Bowl pass on an overwhelming media spotlight and advertising bonanza<br />that would make<br />the Orange Bowl national championship game look like Eastern Michigan<br />vs. Ball State?<br />This is what college sports -- amateur sports -- are all about: the<br />underdog, the<br />unthinkable and the poetry that plays out with every passing week of a<br />magical season.<br />We're so accepting of the green and greed of college football, of<br />strippers, payoffs,<br />booster slush funds and convicted felons with second chances running<br />around campus.<br />Yet we scoff at the honor, discipline and dedication of a team because<br />its players don't<br />have those little BCS stickers on the backs of their helmets.<br />Two weeks ago, Navy traveled across the country to Colorado to play<br />fellow service<br />academy Air Force. Polanco led a last-minute drive, and kicker Geoff<br />Blumenfeld hit his<br />first field goal of the season in the final seconds to help the Middies<br />win one of their two<br />toughest games of the season. They walked off the field to a standing<br />ovation from the<br />crowd in Colorado Springs, Colo.<br />This weekend at Giants Stadium, across the river from a forever-altered<br />New York City<br />skyline, we all know what's at stake.<br />"I don't know that they talk a great deal about the situation in Iraq,"<br />Johnson says. "It's<br />just something they see themselves doing when they graduate. It's what<br />they signed up<br />for."<br />Sign the letter, son.<br />Enrich your life, fight for your country.<br />And be a part of the sports story of the year.
). So, my question is, do you guys think Louisville has a chance to win this game? (I think Miami is ranked #3, and Louisville #18, or 17, or 20) 
