Let me put it this way. If you are being audited by the IRS, would you call a convicted tax cheat to represent you? I don’t think so.

There is no doubt that USC is in for some heavy penalties from the NCAA for recruiting violations. RB Bush’s parents reportedly got free housing, OJ Mayo reportedly got paid for a job he never did, and now there is the case of RB McKnight. The basketball program announced “self inflicted” penalties. That is like sending your 10 year old to his room for not doing his homework when he has his play station, lap top and television to keep him entertained. Nice idea but it doesn’t hold water.

So what did the pinheads at USC do? They hired the walking talking poster boy for foot in the mouth Lane Kiffin to be the new HC. Understand that this is the same Kiffin that got a reprimand from the NCAA for mistakenly claiming that Florida had committed a violation by contacting a player on a visit to Tennessee. This is the same Kiffin that after the first year of his tenor at Rocky Top has the NCAA starting an official investigation into his recruiting practices. This is the same Kiffin regime that is being looked at already for contacting recruits committed to Tennessee after he was named the pick of USC. Those calls were supposedly made by some of the staff he is taking with him. He has only been the USC guy for a week and already he is being checked out by the NCAA.

I hate to break the news to the folks at USC but hiring Kiffin is just going to make the NCAA mad.

That will hurt their chances of preventing stiffer penalties not help convince investigators they are doing their best to correct previous problems.

Given the number of investigations into multiple sports, there is clearly an institutional problem at USC. The Kiffin hire is going to throw gas on a fire that has already consumed most of the Trojan house. You can bet that Kiffin will stumble into another few violations before the NCAA is finished with their investigation. Most of the rest of the College football world is hoping that Kiffin will give himself and USC just enough rope to hang the future of the team for years to come. No matter what happens, by hiring Kiffin the school deserves whatever it gets.

Your fantasy football doesn’t have to be over. Run a pro football franchise all year long for free at . Tell them Coach Smith sent you.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

In the Pros

Carolina and Delhomme are both very over rated. “DelInt” threw 4 picks against the Eagles. All the experts picked the Panthers to win but as I predicted here on Friday, the Panthers are paper tigers. The Eagles went to Panther land and kicked butt. The Eagles are now in trouble due to an injury to McNabb. He was hit by 2 players in the endzone AFTER he was down. I will have more to say about that tomorrow.

A couple of other teams showed they may be road warriors. The Jets upset the Texans on the road. It was a nice win led by rookie Sanchez passes. He was 18-31 272 yards 1 TD and 1 pick. Nice start for the rook.

The Jaguars look better than anyone thought. They went into Indy and should have won the game. They ended up losing 14-12. Clearly there is something wrong with the Colts and it has nothing to do with the D not having S Bob Sanders.

The 49ers were road warriors going into Arizona and getting the win. The win was led by the D. Arizona is going to have to improve on the O line to win consistently.

The Bronco D played better than expected at Cincinnati. They held Benson to 76 yard rushing and Palmer without a TD. They also got 2 picks. The Bengal receivers had caught the Dropsy Flew on Friday and had not recovered. The Bengal O line is one thing holding them back.

The Chiefs played the Ravens tough. The Chief D scored 1 TD and set up the second.

I told you so.

As predicted, the Bears went to GB and gave the Packers all they wanted and more. A single bone head play beat the Bears.

It took the Vikes the first series in the second half to finish the Browns. Quinn started and didn’t look too bad. The Browns O line is horrible particularly the right side. Several penalties on St. Clair and others slowed the O. They cannot win if they kick field goals inside the 10. Farve did just enough let the Vikes sneak by the Browns 34-20. The lack of ball control by the O let a great effort by the Browns D go to waste.

The Redskins came close to beating the Giants. The lack of catches will make Manning’s life miserable this year. The WRs will cause more picks than he will. Now the Giant problems at WR got worse with the ankle injury to Nicks. Initial reports say he will be out 2 to 4 weeks.

The Dolphins played pretty well but the Falcons are really good. A tougher schedule and not being able to sneak up on teams will result in a worse record for the fish. Pennington is going to have to stop throwing picks.

Drew Brees threw 6 TDs in the opener for the Saints. Of course it was against the Lions. Matt Stafford had a tough day but helped the Lions to 27 points. That was 3 weeks of scoring for last year’s team.

Bonehead play of the day

Leading by 2 points in the second half, the long snapper Patrick Mannelly did a direct snap to the up man to fake a punt and go for the first down. That might not have been a bad move if the Bears had been deep in the Packer end of the field. But the Bears were inside their own 35 and it was 4^th and 11. The Pack took over and kicked a field goal to take the lead and never looked back. A lesser coach would throw the 12 year vet under the team bus but Smith probably will not.

The Paul Brown “I’d rather be lucky than good” award

The Broncos used a tip drill on the Bengals by throwing the longest pass play in the final minute of the game in NFL history. With the ball on the 13, the pass was tipped by a Bengal and it was caught by Brandon Stokley who ran it in for a TD.

College Football

#3 USC is still USC and #8 Ohio State is the same as well. The OSU D played very well until the game was on the line then folded and let USC march the ball down for the winning TD.

#5 Oklahoma State was too busy reading their clippings from a nice road win to prepare for their game Saturday. They are not the real deal. Houston passed the OSU D into the ground.

#16 TCU had a nice win at Virginia. # 7 Penn State held Syracuse scoreless until the 2^nd string was in for the 4^th quarter.

#18 Notre Dame will probably move up two spots after a close loss to Michigan. The Michigan D has come around faster than I though. ND is as usual over rated.

Three different radio hosts picked #19 North Carolina as a sure thing to cover the spread against UConn. I went the other way and picked UConn to win. They came close and only a holding penalty in their own endzone prevented OT and gave the game via safety to NC.

Best analysis of the weekend

Deion Sanders on the NFL channel had the best piece of analysis when he said that the Panthers are in danger of losing their locker room due to the management granting Delhomme a new deal with 20 mil guaranteed right after he intercepted them out of the playoffs and despite the fact his current deal wasn’t up. They snubbed DL Julius Peppers who deserved the deal to give it to DelInt. Sanders is exactly right and it was a comment that only an ex-player would know to make.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .

Best comment of the month: on Tuesday morning QB. Analysis: Sanchez has all the tools except experience in the NFL

from Crime Scene Cleanup

I am very interested to see where Sanchez is in 5 years. Looks like he is a great guy, but I’m still not sold on him being a franchise QB or anywhere close to it…Time will tell

Crime: That is the beauty of Pro Football, time will definitely tell.

Updates on previous articles:

The Bengals will go as far as their O takes them. Carson Palmer is hurt already with a high ankle sprain. The team says that he will be fine for game 1. Don’t believe it. The dreaded HAS is the kind of injury that will linger all year.

Major League Baseball gets “BALCOed” right between the eyes The Federal court has ordered that the samples and test results be destroyed. Now that is a decision that would have meant a lot more to MLB 3 years ago!

Bronco Owner Bowlen shoots his team in the leg. Now the 2^nd best player on the team, WR Brandon Marshall, has been suspended until Sept. 6^th. He is not happy and wants to be traded like QB Jay Cutler. The QB that they got for pro bowl Cutler looks like a gun shy rookie and the Bears are coming to Denver to play. Nice job Bowlen. Stay away from Marshall as a top 4 rounds list in your Fantasy Draft. WR Eddie Royal’s value is now higher.

Dallas needs a new head coach to get to the next level WR Roy Williams was hurt on Thursday when he collided with a DB in a no pads half speed practice. X rays were negative on his shoulder. Nice job Coach Phillips. The yellow pages to find a Realtor are holding up the leg of your desk.

Tampa Bay—Pick a quarterback; any quarterback Friday night the Bucs announced that Byron Leftwich would be the starter game 1. In my opinion this is the right pick but Tampa is a long way from being competitive. Stay tuned because this is likely to change any time.

Fresh pickings off the cob:

The next challenge for the America’s Cup is to be held in the Persian Gulf (???) All kinds of law suits are grinding through the courts. Was the water off Somalia not available? How stupid can they be to put yachts in the middle of the Gulf wars? Hopefully the yachts won’t get run over by an aircraft carrier or Iranian war ship.

Jerry Jones and his JumboTron vs. the NFL The NFL has backed off of forcing JJ to move the world’s largest HDTV. The only thing bigger than the Tron is Jerry’s ego. Jer, next time hire an engineer.

What do preseason games mean? Not much except PS Week 3. We will take a long look at week 3 results of the 1s vs 1s and what those games mean after we finish the NFC West.

Two 1^st round picks are not yet signed. Guess who? Andre Smith (OT Alabama) has yet to sign with the Bengals. Nothing surprising here because Mike Brown (the cheapskate of the league) always struggles to sign early picks. The other is WR Michael Crabtree (Texas Tech) is the other with the 49ers. Crabtree believes he was the best WR in the draft but the Raiders didn’t think so and drafted Darrius Heyward-Bey before Crabtree. Don’t look for either to be a factor this year. The critical aspect of the preseason and training camp is to get the O line working together as a unit. Smith will be too far behind. Besides, Smith was not known for his work ethic. He was the one that walked out of the Combine because he wasn’t ready despite knowing when it would be held for 2 years. He isn’t a bust yet but might already be a “bu.”

Crabtree faces 4 problems. First, it usually takes WRs 2 or 3 seasons to blossom. Second, very seldom is a college junior at all successful in their rookie season. Third WRs coming from the run and shoot type O like the one at TT struggle more than those from a more pro style program. And 4^th, he has really pissed head coach Mike Singletary off and that is not likely to get him on the field any time soon.

That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for college football and basketball and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for and edits https://fryingpansports.com. He has also published several novels on and edits .