With there being no major college football games last weekend, I found myself watching a few plays of the Division II championship game a Division I-AA semifinal game.

Though both might have been good games, I couldn’t stay interested in either one. As most of my readers know, any sport other than football (and golf) is about like a second language to me. I am not ready to put away football and begin research on anything else yet.

Fans realize that even in college basketball, anything before January is just pre-season exhibition. So this week I’ll ramble a bit, starting with some history.

Earlier this season while I was covering a St. Andrews football game, I noticed in the program the principal of the St. Andrews was Jim Seidule. As I had gone to Sewanee many years ago with a man by that name, I asked one of the St. Andrews coaches about what age Mr. Seidule was. He said, &uot;60 or 70, I think.&uot;

Later at another game, I ran into Mr. Seidule, and he is indeed the same man I knew at Sewanee. Jim had been the starting wingback on the &uot;Purple Tigers&uot; team and had actually roomed with Natchezian Albert Metcalfe at that time.

Seidule has just returned from his 50th class reunion and saw many of our old classmates and teammates while there.

Small world, isn’t it?

I, for one, was sorry to see Ole Miss fire Coach David Cutcliffe. Coach Cut is a fine individual and has a nationally known reputation for recruiting and developing good quarterbacks. Eli Manning went to Ole Miss only because of Cutcliffe.

Cut’s big mistake was putting all of his eggs in the Michael Spurlock-at-quarterback basket. Spurlock was obviously a great practice player. One of a coach’s hardest duties is to determine who his gamers are.

Those are the kids who really come to life under the pressure of game conditions. A lot of youngsters can produce results on the practice field, but only a few can come up with those same results inside the 20s in front of 85,000.

The real jewels are those players who can practice great and then turn it up another notch at game time. Those kinds make some coaches great.

Cutcliffe likely rode the Spurlock horse too long, and by the time he realized Lane was the answer it was too late.

Coach Cut isn’t the first good coach to be fired and won’t be the last. Money drives these big football programs, and most of that money comes from individual benefactors. They must be kept happy.

There are 28 college bowl games this season, starting with the New Orleans Bowl tonight. About 200 college football officials will have their season extended for that one coveted additional assignment.

I don’t know which conferences will be assigning officials for which bowls, but it will be interesting to see if SEC and ACC officials will miss one of those assignments because of the actions taken by South Carolina and Clemson, who withdrew from bowl consideration because of the fight between their teams.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com

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