Vince Young And Week One

Week one is upon us - week one of the college football season. It's one of my favorite times of the year, second only to March Madness for, yes, college basketball. Yes, it's fair to say that I like collegiate sports!

This weekend, it didn't pay to be the home team. Well, at least for quite a few Division I schools. Michigan, Clemson, Texas A&M, Virginia, Pittsburgh ...  all home teams that lost game one this weekend. Let's put in a quick "welcome" to the first year coaches - Rich Rodriguez at Michigan and Mike Sherman at Texas A&M. Have fun in the Big 10 and Big 12. Add Virginia Tech to that last, albeit on a road trip to East Carolina. All quite unpredictable and surprising losses. Welcome to week one of college football!

Fortunately, my beloved University of Texas Longhorns had a 52-10 blowout victory over the Florida Atlantic University Owls. This was a solid performance, though incredibly boring for a blowout win. It was a bit like watching UT's perennial victory over another team of Owls, the Rice-A-Ronis from Houston. FAU's claim to fame is the comedian Carrot Top, so his orange hair would have fit nicely in Austin today. Their coach, Howard Schnellenberger, talked a bunch of smack about "putting a few hats" on UT players. Well, from what I saw tonight, Howard was a little off on his hunch. It wasn't the only thing he was off on - with the navy blue blazer, pink shirt, and gray pants, his fashion sense must have gotten left in - Miami? 1983? Ah yes, he was a coach at Oklahoma not so long ago ... perhaps that explains everything.

Prior to the game, the University of Texas retired the #10 jersey of none other than Vince Young, the quarterback of the 2005 National Champions. You can only imagine the applause and standing ovation that Vince received. Throughout the game, he could be seen on the sidelines, chatting with none other than another amazing former Longhorn, basketball standout Kevin Durant. Having been witness to Vince's incredible talent and football skills, it seems only appropriate that his number has been retired. He singlehandedly brought the Longhorns back to national acclaim. Vince was one of those players that I can distinctly remember my thoughts on when I first saw him - I think it was a simple "Wow - that is something special"!

Unfortunately, not only one day later we were exposed to one of the problems with the Longhorns during the Mack Brown era - the seventh player arrested since 2006. Lamarr Houston is the latest in a seemingly endless line of Longhorns that have been arrested. This is a very disturbing trend for any collegiate program. Let's hope Mack keeps winning - because if not, I have no doubt the alumni and supporters will be making note of this unfortunate statistic.