Post by cviller on Aug 22, 2007 13:12:01 GMT -5
by Jack Bogaczyk
Daily Mail Sports Editor
IF you are a West Virginia University football fan, you should be sitting down for this.
You can add to the strange synergy of this past weekend, when two likely starters - J.T. Thomas and Ellis Lankster - were arrested for alleged theft of a laptop, an incident in which a 32-inch television also somehow disappeared.
That came on the fifth anniversary weekend of the first hint that "Pac-Man" Jones may someday more significantly soil the Mountaineer program's name - his 2002 arrest with former teammate Leandre Washington on felony assault charges following an altercation that involved a pool stick.
Next came the Monday revelation that WVU has reassumed its former post as the No. 1 Party School in the nation, as chosen by the Princeton Review - an honor accompanied by a No. 1 in Their Students (almost) Never Study. What? They knew Jason Gwaltney?
However, hours before the party Thomas and Lankster visited, Coach Rich Rodriguez's program got another No. 1 nod. It was from one voter in the Associated Press preseason media poll, in which the Mountaineers landed an all-time high No. 3.
The WVU voter is Joe Giglio of the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. He's 32, a good guy, Ringwood, N.J., native, a 1997 graduate of N.C. State and he covers the ACC. The accnow.newsobserver.com Web site is where you can read Giglio.
So, you say? How does that make his voting for WVU a subject of curiosity?
Well - are you ready for this? - his middle name is Paterno.
He's Joe Paterno Giglio.
Holy Happy Valley! The Mountaineers haven't been able to get a Joe Paterno to play for 15 years, but they get a Joe Paterno's No. 1 vote. Would that fog ol' JoePa's glasses, or what?
"Two years ago, I voted Louisville No. 1 in preseason and they started out 12th, so I was somewhat embarrassed by that," Giglio said Tuesday. "I also learned that it's a lot harder to win in Morgantown (Louisville blew a 24-7 lead and fell in three overtimes) than a lot of people think.
"I took criticism (for U of L's early ranking) and I admit I made a mistake."
Giglio said he bases his preseason poll on a projection on how a team's schedule will play out. However, he isn't just rooting his No. 1 WVU vote on who the Mountaineers play, and where.
"I simply think West Virginia is the best team in college football," Giglio said. "The offensive system Rich Rodriguez has, with the players to fit into it, you have to go back to Nebraska (1983) with Mike Rozier and Turner Gill to find something comparable in my opinion.
"Steve Slaton and Pat White are like (Heisman Trophy running back) Rozier and (quarterback) Gill. To me, that's a fair comparison. That's how unstoppable they are, in that system."
OK, but what about defense?
"Is West Virginia commensurate to what people think of as a national championship defense, no," Giglio said. "But let me remind people that Texas, in 2005, didn't have a superior defense. They just showed up when they had to, and they won the national title.
"They gave 38 points to USC and won the Rose Bowl (41-38). Do you have to have a great defense to win a national title. Not necessarily. And West Virginia's offense is better than that Texas offense was."
Southern Cal is No. 1 in the preseason AP poll. Giglio had the Trojans at No. 2, followed by Texas, Florida and Virginia Tech.
"I think there's a really good chance USC-West Virginia is the national championship game," Giglio said. "USC is good, but they don't have a team that has Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White and so on.
"USC lost twice in its (Pac-10) conference last year. It only scored nine points against UCLA and looked terrible in a big game.
"USC is No. 1 now, but remember, in the last two years USC (in 2005) and Ohio State (last season) were No. 1 from the preseason all year, and neither one won the national title."
He sounded like an ordinary Joe, so how did he also become Paterno?
"My father (Lou Giglio) is a retired high school football assistant coach in New Jersey," Giglio said. "He met Coach Paterno at clinics a few times.
"He went to Montclair State and Fairleigh Dickinson, but he's a big Penn State fan because of Coach Paterno. He took my mom to Penn State on their honeymoon ... it was spring practice."
So, a Joe Paterno votes in the AP poll, but not in the USA Today coaches' poll.
It's as hard to believe as someone buying a Dell laptop for $35 at a campus-side McDonald's, huh?
Contact Sports Editor Jack Bogaczyk at jackb@dailymail.com or 348-7949.