Champs for a Day

This is getting a little ridiculous. Here it is, week nine of the college football season and we've already seen six teams in the number-one slot. The team that should end up there hasn't even hit the top spot yet, but more on that later.

This week the Pitt Panthers join the incessant parade of national championship claimants, but not to worry. The Pitt team that barely got past Boston College Saturday will lose to Penn State in three weeks, if it lasts that long.

So what happens when Pitt falls? There are only three other undefeated teams left: Clemson, Southern Mississippi, and Yale.

Okay, real teams. That leaves Clemson.

The Tigers made a big push for number one this week by mauling Wake Forest, 82-24. They hoped that a big win would push them past Pitt. It didn't. In fact, in the UPI Coaches Poll it dropped them below Southern Cal.

It would seem that other coaches didn't appreciate it when Clemson boss Danny Ford left his first team in for the whole game to run up the score against hapless Wake. It would also seem that Ford learned nothing about coaching etiquette during his years under Bear Bryant, the man who taught Bum Phillips to take off his hat when his team played indoors.

You don't actually think that the Almighty would let Ford and his Big Cats get away with doing a thing like that to a team called the Deacons do you? Clemson can count itself out of the running already, or at least after it travels to Chapel Hill to play North Carolina this weekend. The Tar Heels have lost only one game at home in over two years and that was two weeks ago when they had lost their top quarterback, their top two tailbacks, half the defense, the stadium announcer, and the coach's wife to injuries. This week some of them are back, and Ford will pay.

Pitt down, Clemson down. Southern Cal takes the top spot. You talk Southern Cal, you're talking Marcus Allen. You talk Marcus Allen, you're talking the most overrated player in college football today. It's not that he's not good. It takes a quality back to gain 147 yards against Notre Dame, even if the Irish are 3-4.

But, face it, you or I or Gary Coleman could run for over 200 yards on 44 carrries against Indiana, Oregon State, or Tennessee with the USC offensive line in front of us and every other play a student body right.

The Trojans are good, but the best team that they will play all year is Oklahoma--the same Oklahoma that is now 4-2-1. When, and if, USC goes to the Rose Bowl, all it will have to do is beat a team from the hapless Big Ten--an effort that hardly merits a national title.

So who, you may ask, does deserve the national championship Texas or Georgia. Texas has the most talent around this year. Georgia has Herschel Walker.

Of the two, Georgia will win it simply because it is already higher in the polls. Even an undefeated Pitt or Clemson squad will have to face the Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl and give Herschel a chance to bring home his second national title.