Slow clocks and other notes:
Is 40 the new 35?
That's the tantalizing NFL question just around the corner, after the wild-card weekend. Brett Favre, who looks about six days younger than Willie Nelson, made himself the hottest story of American summer camps the past two summers, and now Favre can become the winter quarterback for the ages.
He might be overexposed and self-obsessed. He might have overstepped conventional boundaries while evidently wresting offensive control from Minnesota coaches, but Favre just finished one of the peak seasons in his Hall of Fame career.
While detractors were ordering another jar of fade cream, Favre kept connecting on fade routes and firing missiles through keyholes. The Vikings face a tough draw in the NFC, but New Orleans wobbled something awful down the stretch. The possibilities seem endless.
A waltz into Hall of Fame
This is the age of the aging athlete, symbolized this week by Favre and recent retiree Randy Johnson. Five years from now, Johnson will waltz into the Baseball Hall of Fame with something close to unanimous approval. He deserves it.
He also deserves more inspection and recognition. The typical highlights show Johnson tugging on his sparse facial hair and vaporizing a bird that crossed the flight pattern of a 98-mph fastball years ago.
A reasonable witness could identify Johnson as one of history's three greatest left-handed pitchers, right behind Warren Spahn and Lefty Grove. Johnson (303-166, 3.29 earned-run average) has the No. 4 winning percentage among all 300-game winners.
He's second to Roger Clemens in career strikeouts with 4,875, pitched 100 complete games and threw 37 shutouts. He was brutal against lefties, who batted .199.
The esoteric topper: In 22 seasons and more than 4,100 innings, left-handed batters hit only 25 homers off Johnson.
No league dominated
Alabama's victory over Texas validated the Southeastern Conference's superiority, delivering a fourth straight BCS title, but the pomp-and-circumstance league barely topped the field this season.
Bowls leveled off reputations. Five of the six BCS conferences more or less broke even, especially if you toss out an irrelevant dog bowl here and there.
The SEC won six of 10 games, but the drop-off after Alabama and Florida was quite steep all season long.
Other BCS records: Big 12 4-4, Big Ten 4-3 (with two BCS bowl victories and three teams in the final top nine), Big East 4-2 (but with bad losses by champ Cincinnati and West Virginia, which tied for second), ACC 3-4 and Pac-10 2-5.
Iowa beat Georgia Tech 24-14 by smothering the triple-option offense. The Hawkeyes outgained Tech 403-155 and reinforced the notion that preparation means everything against the Coach Paul Johnson's rare offense. Last season, LSU staggered Tech 38-3 in the Atlanta bowl.
These bowl busts raise a pointed question: Will ACC teams gradually solve the triple option with repeated exposures?
The Yellow Jackets went three-and-out only 14 times during the regular season but had three-and-out series on their first four possessions against Iowa and six times in the first half.
In headliner BCS bowls, the ACC has won only once since FSU's 1999 title. Virginia Tech defeated Cincy a year ago at the Orange Bowl. This season, ACC teams finished 12-15 against opponents from BCS leagues and Notre Dame.
The 2010 jockeying began immediately. Virginia Tech finished 10th in the final AP poll, a reward for dismantling disheveled Tennessee, and jumped ahead in ACC speculation.
The same day, however, defensive end Jason Worilds surprised Tech by declaring himself a junior candidate for the NFL Draft. The Hokies will return quarterback Tyrod Taylor, tailback Ryan Williams and other elements of a powerful ground game, but losing six defensive starters could knock them out of the national top five.
lrawlings@wsjournal.com
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