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 Friday, December 13, 2002
Weekend wrap-up: McCullough is Trojans' horse
By Terry Bowden
Special to BCSfootball.com
Bowden's Weekly Chat Show
Every Saturday throughout the season, ABC studio analyst Terry Bowden will weigh in his assessment of the day's games, the highlights, the lowlights and the surprises.
Three Game Balls:
|  | | Sultan McCullough was named MVP in Sunday's Kickoff Classic. |
My first game ball goes to Sultan McCullough. He brought us back a glimpse of what tailbacks used to look like at Southern California. He took it to Penn State early, kept going at them late, and really took smashmouth football to a team that's supposed to have written the book on it. He had 128 yards, one touchdown, and with his speed and the power, Southern Cal is not going to need young Carson Palmer to be perfect early in the season.
Chris Weinke: After leading his team to an undefeated national championship, he was 32-of-50 for 318 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He kind of did it all on a night when the offense was overall, fairly lackluster. He really did have the kind of opening game that will accumulate into the numbers that will keep him in the Heisman hunt.
My third game ball goes to the game officials of the BCA Classic, who showed the good judgment and common sense to cancel the game when a severe lightning storm struck. And although a lot of fans and players may have been disappointed not to play in a game that would have pitted Virginia Tech against Georgia Tech, the chance for serious injury and harm was too great for players and fans alike.
Surprise of the weekend:
The surprise of the weekend had to be the lopsided victory for USC. Here's a game that I really thought Southern Cal was the better team, but was picking Penn State because of the long travel distance for Southern Cal. The only thing I could not have done, and most people would not, was to have predicted such a lopsided score for USC. Not only did it occur because of the physical way in which Southern Cal handled the Nittany Lions on offense and on defense, but also the way in which Penn State played. The Lions were whipped on offense, they were whipped on defense, and they were whipped in the kicking game.
Helped themselves:
Obviously Southern Cal and the Pac-10. Going into this season, USC and the Pac-10 had lost a lot of respect from other teams and conferences in the country. But with this great victory for Southern Cal, everybody on the West Coast and in Los Angeles are beaming with a little pride right now, as one of the traditional great programs of the West Coast took it to one of the traditional programs of the East Coast.
Though there are eight or nine games in September alone pitting Pac-10 teams against other top teams in the country, you'd have to say the Pac-10, especially USC, delivered the first blow.
Brian Stallworth, new starting quarterback for Louisiana Tech. He only completed 26 of 31 throws for 332 yards and four touchdowns against an overmatched Mississippi Valley State team. Twenty-six of 31 is kind of hard to believe. That's incredible, and a good start for the young man who must replace San Francisco 49er Tim Rattay.
The wide receivers by committee of Florida State. You can all but forget Peter Warrick because from what I saw from Marvin "Snoop" Minnis, Atrews Bell, Anquan Boldin and Javon Walker, Florida State is going to be just as good, if not better, at the wide receiver position.
Hurt themselves:
Penn State: Penn State was just not ready to play. The Lions hurt themselves because from this point on, until they start playing better football, there is going to be a lot of doubt in this football team. For the last two weeks, all I heard was that the Rashard Casey incident was no distraction to this team, but with a blocked punt, fumbles, interceptions, and a porous defense, somebody had to be distracted.
My suspicions are that things are not quite as bad as they look, and not quite as good as some Penn State fans predicted. Joe Paterno will get this team back on course, Rashard Casey will calm down, and this team will be much better than what it showed in the Kickoff Classic, but probably, as predicted, not strong enough to challenge for the conference championship.
Kansas State University: They hurt themselves in two ways:
1. They showed the same inconsistency at quarterback from Jonathan Beasley that they were concerned about last year. Although they won the game, and a win is a win is a win, the Wildcats still leave their fans and their coaches with a little uncertainty as to whether Beasley will play with the consistency that he must in order for them to win the big games on their schedule, especially Nebraska at home. Beasley put up good numbers, but at the same time threw two unnecessary interceptions and fumbled a pitch-out that lost a considerable amount of yardage. He must improve for them to beat teams that are better than 1-10 Iowa.
2. Even bigger than the inconsistency of Jonathan Beasley was the possible loss of David Allen. Allen, who was one punt return, and 173 yards away from becoming the all-time leading punt returner and punt returner for touchdowns, injured his ankle. We don't know how severe it is, but if they do lose him, not only do they lose their top tailback, but they also lose the nation's top punt returner. There really is a risk when you take a young man as talented at making big plays as David Allen and make him your tailback workhorse, because if he gets banged up as he did, you're going to lose a lot more of your weapons. Not only must he get well, but they must find another tailback to rotate with him.
Finally, who hurt themselves was Florida State. Florida State hurt its image as a true contender for the national championship because you win with kicking as well as offense and defense, and Florida State showed it may not have any kicking game at all. Matt Munyon, the young walk-on replacement for Sebastian Janikowski, missed two field goals and an extra point, and left a whole lot of questions marks regarding Florida State's kicking game. That's not going to matter against BYU, but you can imagine in a big game or Miami or Florida, when it comes down to the last minutes and a critical field goal, you've got to wonder if Florida State will be able to carry the streak.
The other loser in that game was Florida State's running game. Florida State cannot depend on being able to throw the ball every time against the good football teams as we saw Saturday, where Chris Weinke threw for more times in a game, 50, than he's thrown in his entire career at Florida State. But with only 57 yards rushing, the Seminoles still showed an inability to blend a consistent running game into their explosive passing game. Until they can do this, they will have a tough time taking their team to the FedEx Orange Bowl.
Terry Bowden is ABC's college football studio analyst and hosts a weekly audio chat on BCSfootball.com on Thursdays at 5 p.m. ET.
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