Former Washington running back and linebacker Tyler Simmons is having a breakthrough season on the football field for the Naval Academy.

Simmons is Navy’s third leading tackler this season with 26 stops after four games. He is an inside linebacker for the Midshipmen, who are 2-2 on the season, including throwing a big scare into Ohio State before losing 31-27 in the season opener.

Simmons is a junior for Navy and is seeing is first significant college playing time this season. He had 10 tackles in a limited role in 2008. He was one of the top players in a long line of good ones down the road at Washington, leading the Warriors to 37 wins his final three years in high school.

Simmons’ closest trip to home for a game will be an Oct. 17 Navy game in Dallas against SMU.

It’s good to see the OU-Miami game really mean something again. I was as big a Sooner fan as there was in Tulsa in the mid-1980s when OU and the Hurricanes met in some huge games.
And it was special, perhaps in part due to Miami winning all three of the meetings that decade.
I remember the shock when Vinny Testaverde led Miami into Owen Field for a win in 1985, and the total disappointment when the 1987 Orange Bowl matchup of unbeatens also went the Hurricanes’ way.
OU got some redemption two years ago by crushing Miami 51-13 in Norman. But that Hurricanes’ team wound up with just a 5-7 record.
This time, both teams are strong. Despite their early loss to BYU, the Sooners have rebounded to a No. 8 national ranking. Miami was right there with them until getting thumped by Virginia Tech Saturday.
Still, this Miami team, athletically, looks a lot more like those teams from the 80s that caused OU all the trouble they did. Don’t count on another 40-point blowout this weekend.

Eating crow
After taking shots at the smaller conference teams in a blog last week, I have to be fair to point out I was wrong on two examples. Houston and TCU did continue their unbeaten seasons, the Cougars holding off Texas Tech at home while the Horned Frogs went to Clemson and came out with a close win.
And, to help the non-BCS power conference argument even more, Oregon destroyed Pac-10 leader Cal, and looked every bit the best team in that power conference.
That’s relevant since the Ducks lost to WAC team Boise State on opening night.

That’s a lot of money. Ten million reasons to be excited to watch golf Sunday as the PGA Tour’s playoffs wrap up with the final round of the Tour Championship.

And it should be quite a finish. Tiger Woods is in the final group. Phil Mickelson is in the next to last group after seeing his putting get him in contention the last two days.

Kenny Perry is the man on top right now, two shots better than Woods, Mickelson and first-round leader Sean O’Hair. Two of the other top guys in the FedEx Cup points standings, Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker, are just another shot back.

And the $10 million prize for the points winner is quite an incentive for excitement. On a weekend locals don’t have Sooner football to watch, this might be quite a good second choice.

If you haven’t seen this, watch it, from a few of our friends down the road at Texas A&M. Who thinks it’s real?

It’s one of the ultimate phrases in football “coach-speak” for a coach to say his quarterback “managed the game” well.

The translation to that seems to be “we don’t really trust this guy to do much more than hand off and not fumble snaps or turn the ball over.”

True, turnovers are the biggest part of a football game, especially between evenly matched teams. The one that turns the ball over the most times typically is the one that ends up on the losing side. So having a quarterback who takes care of the ball is at a premium.

But so is having a guy who can make plays. And handing off every down and throwing short passes gets it done on some days, but ultimately, you need a lot more than that against a quality opponent — in addition to the whole taking care of the football thing.

I wonder how a quarterback who hears his coach say he is “managing the game” well feels about it?

The little guy is still getting respect in the national college football polls. But the respect may not be deserved.
Boise State is No. 8 in the latest AP poll. They have beaten a decent Oregon team but also have faced Miami of Ohio.
TCU’s defense is stout, and they are solid at No. 15 and No. 17 Houston’s win at Oklahoma State two weeks ago was one of the most impressive for any team this season.
The team that dropped the ball was Brigham Young. Their first-week win against an injured Oklahoma team spurred some hopes that they could compete for a shot in a BCS bowl, if not the national championship game.
Then Florida State came to town and pounded them. POUNDED. As in 54-28. That’s an unranked Florida State team to boot. (They since have moved into the poll at No. 18, one spot ahead of BYU.)
Utah also was ranked before being “upset” Saturday by Oregon, a team that looked quite a bit better than the Utes to me.
That’s where I think these teams are. They are good, yes, and deserve the credit for that. And they’ll get it in the form of a lot of wins when they get into conference play. But solid teams from major conferences, like Florida State did last week or like I suspect Clemson will do this week hosting TCU, or Texas Tech playing at Houston, are too much for the little guys to handle. Especially on a consistent basis.
Houston is a good football team. They had a huge win in Stillwater. But against the entire eight-game Big 12 schedule they’d do well to break even and wind up in a middle-of-the-pack bowl game.
I always like the underdog, but these teams aren’t ready to make that jump, and it will be a shame if someone crashes a major BCS bowl soon at the expense of a team they have no business being ranked higher than.

Far be it from me to know what’s going on in Sam Bradford’s head, much less in his ailing shoulder.
But it’s become the most worried about shoulder in all of the Sooner football world, if not all of college football. And for a guy who shoulders so much of a load for his team as a returning Heisman Trophy winner, it’s understandable.
It’s also getting a little silly. One wonders how many times a day Bradford himself has to answer the question as he strolls around campus. Or coach Bob Stoops. Or offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson. Or even people here in our office who anyone thinks might have some sort of “inside knowledge.”
Bradford is expected to be back this season, perhaps as soon as the Miami game in two weeks. But it could be later, and could be not at all.
And while folks around here are of course concerned about his return for OU’s win-loss record and Big 12 and national title hopes, the big picture for Bradford also involves his pro football future.
Will it hurt his chances if he doesn’t come back and play at all this year? Will it hurt his chances worse if he comes back and plays but not as well as people were hoping?
Regardless of anything that happens in the 2009 college football season, he will still get a great shot at playing pro football. He’ll go through the workouts, the poking and prodding and a thousand questions about every possible aspect of his life, his physical condition and who knows what else that a potential No. 1 pick has to endure from 32 NFL teams.
By that point, they’ll know whether his shoulder is OK. After all he’s shown us the last couple of years you have to believe his heart and his head will be fine.

Like millions of Americans, I’ve been bitten by the Fantasy Football bug.

Actually, I was affected way sooner than a lot of folks. My first time to play was in an old play-by-mail league in 1989. My first two quarterbacks were Joe Montana and Don Majkowski!

I finished second that season out of 10 teams. I didn’t play during college but got back into it when the explosion of e-mail and Internet made leagues more easy to run.

Somehow, in all the years I’ve played since, every year since 1995 and sometimes with multiple teams, I’ve only won one championship, in 2001. I should have gotten myself a trophy and a championship banner.

What I do have is a great team name. The Jason Hansons, in honor of the Lions’ kicker, who always seems to find his way onto my roster.

So far, my team looks like the Lions. I got drilled by a former co-worker in week one and lost my starting quarterback, Donovan McNabb. I’m headed into this week’s second game against another former co-worker with either Buffalo’s Trent Edwards or Cleveland’s Brady Quinn at quarterback. Ouch.

I hope your team is faring better.

As football season really starts to get rolling, it’s worthy of note that Tiger Woods may be finding his putting stroke again.

Kept from winning a major championship for the first time in five years largely because of his putting, Tiger exploded last week for a 63 in the final round of the Deutsche Bank Championship. He’s tied for the lead entering the third round this week and figures to be battling Steve Stricker for the FedEx Cup points championship at the season-ending Tour Championship.

The prize will get his, and everyone’s, attention. Winner leaves with $10 million.

Seeing the injuries to OU stars Jermaine Gresham and Sam Bradford on the first weekend of the football season provides yet another example of the respect all fans should have for the men who make their way onto the fields of gridiron battle.
Whether you’re a probable first-round draft pick like these guys or are a blocker on the kickoff return team for a small high school in central Oklahoma, there are some things in common.
You’re putting in a lot of hours.
You’re working hard.
And you’re putting your body at risk to do something you’re passionate about.
I’m not trying to take away from the kids with other interests. My kids are in band. I played violin for a number of years. I was a golfer in high school. I did play four years of basketball also.
Many others are active in drama, speech and debate, activities through their church or just excelling in the classroom.
It takes a lot of work to do any of those things. But they don’t put you through the physical and sometimes mental pounding of a football season.
No matter who you’re cheering for on a Friday or Saturday, you should have a level of respect for every young man who puts forth the effort to play this game.