Welcome to the debut column of Fourth & Inches. I will certainly make every effort to keep it short and entertaining......  

FOURTH  

With the recent passing of Northwestern University football coach Randy Walker I was forced to take a walk back down memory lane. From as far back as I can remember, the program was a human punching bag not just to the Big 10 in which they are a member of but to college football in general. I mean even Dennis Green who currently coaches the Arizona Cardinals and had a pretty good run with the Vikings could not turn the program around. They were affectionately known as the Muppets of the Big 10. I remember in November of '78 my father taking me to a Michigan-Northwestern game in Evanston. What I remember more than the waxing Michigan put on Northwestern was that there were about 25,000 people at the game and most of them were Wolverine fans. I remember telling my dad I could never go to a school where you get punched in the mouth on a weekly basis. My dad went on to tell me that Northwestern was a very good institution for higher learning. Yeah, yeah I said to myself but they are still losers. Well thanks to Gary Barnett and most recently Randy Walker the Northwestern program has earned a degree of respect and are no longer a punching bag of the conference. Now I eventually ended up attending Syracuse University which is now another 1-10 season away from being consider the Muppets of the Big East....... How about that for irony?

INCHES  

Don't hold me to this yet but my early season prediction for a 2006 BCS title game....... AUBURN V. OKLAHOMA