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Tom Coughlin at Boston College

February 2nd 2012 21:20
Before pro football, New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin was the head man at Boston College University from 1991 to 1993. In three years at the school he compiled a record of 21-13-1 with two bowl appearances.



Coughlin arrived in Chestnut Hill from the Giants where he was the teams wide receivers coach. He took over a team that had finished 4-7 under Jack Bicknell in 1990. Before 1991 Boston College had been an independent in football and a member of the Big East Conference in basketball. In 1991 the Big East decided to add football and the Eagles were one of its charter members.

In his first year at the helm, Coughlin and the Eagles suffered another 4-7 season. The next season they were much improved, finishing with a record of 8-3-1. The team earned a berth in the Hall of Fame Bowl where they were defeated by Tennessee 38-23. Boston College finished the 1992 season ranked number 21 in the country.

The 1993 season would be even better. Boston College would go 9-3 and finish the campaign with a 31-13 win over Virginia in the Carquest Bowl. The Eagles would finish ranked number 12 in the nation.

Coughlin's biggest win at BC came that season. The Eagles traveled to South Bend Indiana to play rival Notre Dame on November 20 in their annual 'Holy War.' Going into the game, Notre Dame was undefeated and ranked number one in the nation after defeating Florida State the week before. It was thought that Boston College would be nothing more than a tuneup before the Fighting Irish went off to play in the Orange Bowl against Nebraska.



But Coughlin and the Eagles stunned the Notre Dame. After falling behind 39-38 with just over a minute to play, BC drove into field goal. On the last play of the game David Gordon booted a 41 yard field goal and Boston College ran off with a 41-39 win.

After the Carquest Bowl, Coughlin was hired to coach the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars. He has not coached in college since.

Tom Ccoughlin may not have stayed at Boston College long, but he will be remembered as one of the best football coaches in school history for beating Notre Dame if nothing else.
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The NFL has played a few Super Bowls in college football stadiums. In fact the first game was played in the Los Angeles Coliseum which was used for the pros at the time, but is now only used solely by the Southern Cal Trojans.

When talking about Super Bowls played in college stadiums most of them involved ones which hosted pro teams at the same time. Like Tulane University Stadium in New Orleans, the Orange Bowl in Miami and Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona. But some of them were strictly college.



Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas was the first strictly college stadium to host the Super Bowl. The Minnesota Vikings and Miami Dolphins met there in 1974 for Super Bowl VIII. It was the first game not played in Los Angeles, Miami or New Orleans. It would be the last played in Houston until January 2004.

Three years after Rice Stadium Super Bowl XI was played in Pasadena, California's Rose Bowl. For years, the Tournament of Roses committee which sponsors the game, refused to hold any pro football games in the stadium. But changing economic times forced them to change their tune. The Rose Bowl would go on to host five Super Bowls (XI, XIV, XVII, XXI and XXVII). It has not hosted one since January 1994.



There is one more strictly college stadium that has hosted the Super Bowl. Stanford University Stadium in Palo Alto, California was host for Super Bowl XIX between the Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers. It was basically a home field advantage for the Niners (just as Super Bowl XIV was for the Los Angeles Rams) as Palo Alto is within driving distance of San Francisco.

With corporate sponsorships and new stadiums being built the days of college stadiums hosting the Super Bowl are probably past. The city of Los Angeles no longer has a team and the league has opted to have their California Super Bowls in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium.

But before the big game became 'The Big Game' the NFL wasn't against having stadiums like Rice, the Rose Bowl or Stanford host it.

And those three go down as college stadiums that hosted the Super Bowl.
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A Week Full of Turkey Bowls

December 27th 2011 23:07
When I played youth football our season's ended with what we called the Turkey Bowl. It was a game in which your boy's and girl's club invited another to play just for fun.



I look at the college football bowl scene and see a full week of Turkey Bowls. the only difference is that they are playing at neutral sites and making a little money. Other than that their games have no more meaning than the one's I played in.

There are no championships at stake. Many of the teams aren't even ranked. Some of them don't even have winning records. Besides the BCS bowls almost all of them are nothing more than games for teams to play.

Right now the Little Caeser's Bowl is on ESPN between Purdue and Western Michigan.I know nothing about either team. I'd rather watch Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on 'Parden the Interruption.' And I love football.

I was thinking to myself the other day how many bowl games there were when I first started watching football. My memory is bad, but here they are.

The Blue-Gray, Bluebonnet, Sun, Gator, Peach, Liberty, Tangerine, Cotton, Sugar, Rose, Orange and Hula. The first and last were all-star games. Which means that there were only 10 real bowl games. The only one's played on New Years were the Cotton, Sugar, Rose and Orange. If you weren't in the top 20 then you weren't invited.

You could watch every bowl game and not miss a play some years.

Then along came ESPN and domed stadiums. Suddenly there was TV money and climate controlled arenas in cold weather regions. Gotta sell ads and pay for arenas. What better way than with bowl games?

So if you want to call all of the games before New Years Day by their name that's fine. I just consider it a week's worth of Turkey Bowls.
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Now We Must Wait and Watch Mediocrity

December 15th 2011 19:27
The Division I-A college football season came to an official end last weekend with the Army-Navy game. Now we must wait until January 2nd for the BCS bowls to start and January 9, 2012 for the national championship game between Alabama and LSU. This is way too long.


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RG III Wins Heisman

December 12th 2011 20:58
He came out of nowhere, but Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III is this years winner of the Heisman Trophy. He beat out Standford quarterback Andrew Luck who finished second. I think both were deserving candidates. And Griffin was very humble in victory which impressed me.


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The Heisman Trophy will be awarded this weekend to the best college football player in the land and he won’t be from the Ivy League. The candidates come from traditional football schools such as Alabama, Baylor, Stanford and Wisconsin. Not Ivy League schools like Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale.


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The Army-Navy Game Comes to Washington

December 6th 2011 22:08
The 112th version of the Army-Navy game will be played this Saturday at FedEx Field in Landover, MD not Washington D.C. as it is being promoted. But Landover is about five miles outside D.C. so close enough. It will be the first time that the Nations Capitol will host the game. The game has been played in Baltimore and Annapolis, but never Washington.


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The First SEC Championship Game

December 2nd 2011 21:29
The first SEC championship game was played in 1992 between the Florida Gators and Alabama Crimson Tide at Legion Field in Birmingham. At stake was not only the conference championship and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. For Alabama an undefeated season and shot at the national championship was as well.


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On Friday night the UCLA Bruins and Stanford Cardinal will make college football history by playing in the first Pacific 12 Conference championship game. The Cardinal won their half of the Pac 12 with an 11-1 record while UCLA went a mediocre 6-6. As big games go this one does not rate. This was not the case when the Bruins faced cross town rival Southern Cal in 1967.


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The ACC's College Football Woes

December 1st 2011 06:07
While the Southeastern Conference has grown stronger in football since expanding their brothers in the Atlantic Coast have not. In trying to keep up with the Joneses the ACC has weakened itself on and off of the field.


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