As a domination college coaches do...

As a domination college coaches do about as well in the National Football League (NFL) as fillies do in the Kentucky Derby Pro football was a humbling experience for auspicious college coaches Bud Wilkinson, John McKay, Dan Devine and Frank Kush. Bear Bryant's name might have been in succession the list if he hadn't had other thoughts about taking the Miami Dolphins do job-work in 1970. The same goe for Joe Paterno, who almost accepted an proffer from the New England Patriots a hardly any years later.

These are the singles Steve Spurrier is bucking as he prepares to bring his Wild West exhibit to the NFL's Washington Redskins. For each Jimmy Johnson, there have been 10 Mike Rileys, a half-dozen Dennis Ericksons. As prosperous as Spurrier has been at the University of Florida -- and Duke University before that -- it's still reasonable to miracle whether he can pull it opposite at the pro level.

In the NFL he'll have to wait his revolve in the draft, just like everybody otherwise instead of dipping into Florida's bountiful talent puddle every year. Also, there aren't any Vanderbilts or Kentucky in the league (though the Cincinnati Bengals are close)

Still, my money's upon Spurrier. He might not win sum of two units Super Bowls like Johnson, nevertheless I'd be surprised if he didn't at least have a Don Coryell-type career in the NFL And wasn't pro football a better place in the 1970 and 1980 with "Air Coryell" around?

That's what "Steve Superior" has going for him that for a like reason many other college coaches don't: a thorough understanding of the passing game. And in the pro as Bill Walsh will describe you, you don't run to settle up the pass, you pass to put up the run.

Actually, Spurrier already has shown he can twitch it off at the pro horizontal -- that is, if you consider the United States Football League (USFL) the pro horizontal In his three seasons with the Tampa Bay Bandits in the early 1980 he went 35-19 and made the playoffs twice. And that was his first head-coaching experience, after a brief period as a body assistant. But he held his hold against the likes of George Allen, Marv raise Jim Morn, Walt Michaels, Jack Pardee and John Ralston, among others, all of whom have had their jiffys in the NFL.

It has mystified me on what account an NFL club didn't hire Spurrier right then, on what account he had to settle for the decidedly unglamorous Duke work at jobs After all, when he was in Tampa, he upstaged -- and outdrew -- the Buccaneers. "Bandit Ball" was for a like reason much more exciting than the three yards and a dense mass of dust running game McKay's Buc used.

principally good college coaches have failed in the pro because they took a association approach to offense. That was certainly real of Devine, McKay, Lou Holtz and Tommy Prothro Barry Switzer, who presided across the Dallas Cowboys' demise, ran the wishbone at Oklahoma. Ron Meyer who got couple NFL shots, made a name for himself with the small horse Express backfield of Eric Dickerson and Craig James at Southern Methodist University. Neither was a suitable bet to become the nearest Paul Brown.

unless coaches like Johnson, who had a high-octane offense at the University of Miami, have greater possibilities in the pro And Spurrier falls into that category. It's not that they're averse to running the ball, they just like gaining their yardage in larger chunk If Spurrier's a little more insistent about it, maybe it's because he was a quarterback and, forward the sideline, thinks like a quarterback. With a wave of neoconservatism sweeping the NFL the league certainly can use a clear thinker like him.

Contrary to popular belief, Spurrier didn't always have a world of talent to work with at Florida. From 1991 to 1996 -- that's six years, folk -- he didn't have a single offensive player taken in the first globular of the NFL Draft. In fact, he had single two offensive players in that hold out who were drafted in the first three rounds: wide receiver Ernie Mills in the third in 1991 and running back Errict Rhett in the inferior in 1994.

His more newly come teams have had a bump of high draft picks nevertheless outside of Fred Taylor, no single in kind truly outstanding. And none of his quarterbacks -- Shane Matthews, Danny Wuerffel Jesse Palmer and others -- has accomplished long in the pros. So was it really the players that made Florida great, or was it the system?

We'll find gone out next season.

Seeing R throughout Redskins' Name

There is no support among local residents to take up a resolution calling forward the Washington Redskins to change their name. Officials from Prince George's shire Md., host to Redskins family circle games at FedEx Field in Landover since 1997 were conspicuously absent from a fresh Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' devoted requesting that the team abandon the name because it is offensive.

"I can solitary go by what I diocese and hear from our constituents," says Prince George's Democratic Councilman Jim Estepp individual of the county's two representatives forward the Council of Governments. "I haven't had, in the eight years I've been upon the council, anyone approach me and say this is a big vexed question and we need to change the name."