Alabama-Birmingham football head coach Watson Brown despises the beginning of the college football season.

And while Brown, in his 25th year as a head coach, enjoys his job, he, like many college coaches, tends to lose a little more sleep than usual at the beginning of the year.

‘I’ve never been big on first games,’ Brown said. ‘We’re the only sport in the world that doesn’t have some form of a preseason game against somebody else. Every time we go out in football, it’s your first one.’

For coaches that have inexperienced or young teams, that first game can be a terrifying experience. While the NFL has four preseason games to work out the kinks, coaches in the college ranks are forced to make decisions solely on what they see in practice. Many times, practices and games have very different results.

‘I just look at the NFL and they have preseason games and they’re trying to get things ready,’ said Arkansas head coach Houston Nutt. ‘You usually aren’t your sharpest in the first game. Part of me would love to have an easier first game, just to get your feet wet, get everyone on the same page and have that first one where you can have a lot of success and build on that.’

The stakes are even higher for teams that have hopes of playing in a Bowl Championship Series game. In most years, one loss, even in the first week of the season, could eliminate a team from contention.

With the NCAA seriously considering legislation proposing that college teams play 12 games every year, there are some coaches that would prefer adding a preseason game and playing an 11-game schedule instead. College football teams currently cycle between 11- and 12-game schedules, depending on the number of weeks in a season.

‘The thing that happens is we get so used to our players, so used to our schemes, that our defensive players probably know our offense better than our offense does,’ Miami head coach Larry Coker said. ‘You see them every day. It’s the same people going against the same people. Rather than adding a 12th game, add a preseason game or two where you can go and play against somebody else. Maybe Oklahoma or Oklahoma State or Syracuse could come to the Orange Bowl and play. We’d return the game the next preseason. That could be very productive.’

And while there seems to be considerable support for a preseason game, the NCAA has never discussed implementing one. The NCAA has gone to lengths to establish a clear line between collegiate and professional athletics, and a preseason game would only hurt those efforts, said Gail Dent, a spokeswoman for the NCAA.

The NCAA is also concerned a majority of its members would not be in favor of playing an exhibition game that does not count. Exhibition games like the Kickoff Classic and the Pigskin Classic traditionally were played as a symbolic start to the college season, but counted toward teams’ regular-season records. Legislation by the NCAA outlawed those exhibition games starting next season.

Even if there was support for preseason or exhibition games, many people believe that there would be no change in the quality of play.

‘We’ve had exhibitions in basketball where they’d play a club team and it wouldn’t count,’ said Mark Womack, head of the NCAA Football Certification Committee. ‘Football’s a sport where there’s 13 weeks to fit in an 11-game season or, in some years, 14 weeks to fit in a 12-game schedule. There’s legislation in the cycle now about adding a 12th game in every year.

‘You would have 12 games in 13 weeks in some years. With an exhibition game, you would have 13 games in 14 weeks. That’s too much.’

Although the same strenuous schedule of 13 games in 14 weeks is asked of teams that play in bowl games after the season, more coaches are willing to make sacrifices for a game that truly counts.

While an early-season blunder could derail a team’s bowl chances, most of the teams that are in contention have experienced players that can step into the first game at a high level.

‘I’ve been through the NFL and the preseason games and if you didn’t have any of them, you’d be OK,’ said Pete Carroll, Southern California’s head football coach. ‘As long as it’s all the same, it doesn’t matter. In college football, it works out just fine. You have to prepare your team to play that opener and everybody’s got the same time to do that. I can see having no preseason games, but I would love to add another game to the college season.

‘In the NFL, I loved preseason and it was fun to coach during that time, but when you lose as many players as they did in the league this year, it really makes you want to question whether to do it.’

UNLV head coach John Robinson announced that he will step down from his position, effective at the end of the season. UNLV has not announced a replacement.

Robinson said he decided to retire due to chronic health problems.

‘This is time for me to go and for us to continue to move on,’ Robinson said. ‘The discussion between my wife and I has been going on for some time. I feel that we need some time to sit down and focus on (our health problems).’

Speculation that Robinson would be fired has surrounded the struggling UNLV program in recent years. The Rebels are 0-4 this season after a 31-21 loss to Utah State on Saturday.

‘With the losses that we have endured, I think we needed to change something and get our team thinking forward,’ Robinson said. ‘I believe there is a pressure cooker building up around speculation about what is going to happen and now there is no speculation – this is what’s going to happen and we can move forward.’

Florida State finally figured out the problem with its anemic passing game on Saturday – quarterback Chris Rix.

When Rix went down late in the first quarter against Clemson last week with an ankle injury, the Seminoles called on sophomore Wyatt Sexton to help them come back from a 6-3 deficit. Sexton more than exceeded expectations, leading FSU to a 41-22 win. He threw for 162 yards and FSU’s first passing touchdown this year.

Sexton’s performance even inspired the crowd to chant his name.

‘Chris Rix will be out two weeks, maybe even longer,’ FSU head coach Bobby Bowden said. ‘I thought (Sexton) did an excellent job under the circumstances. It’s going to be a few games until you can say he’s for real. (The quarterback situation) will be determined later.’

Published on September 29, 2004 at 12:00 pm