Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 20, 1993 TAG: 9311200188
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"It's easy to figure out," Gibbs said Thursday from Three Rivers Stadium, before heading to Mile High Stadium for Sunday's NBC telecast of the Denver-Pittsburgh game (4 p.m., WSLS). "Everybody's hurt up front. Almost everyone on the offensive line has had one thing or another. The defensive line has been decimated, and in this league, there's a delicate balance you have to have.
"One thing I'm sure of, too, is that Richie is the right guy for that job. A lot of stuff is being said, but he's the right man."
Gibbs wouldn't comment on Petitbon's decision to bench quarterback Mark Rypien and make backup Rich Gannon the starter Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams.
"I'm not the coach," he said.
Gibbs gets his fourth - and biggest - assignment in the Broncos-Steelers game, where he will be paired with Bob Costas on play-by-play. Gibbs' earlier games as an analyst have stunned some viewers, who didn't expect a coach who wasn't very quotable to be as candid and colorful as he has been.
"What's been hardest has been getting what I say in those few seconds available," Gibbs said. "I'm enjoying this, and NBC has been so good with my schedule, working around things.
"Some people said I was vanilla, and maybe I am. The point everybody misses, though, is that I was a football coach. My job was to win. So, I was positioning myself where I wasn't looking to get quoted. I wasn't looking to say something stupid that someone would pick up on and get us beat the next game.
"I'm not a football coach now, but no one at NBC said I had to be critical. They just told me to be myself, to say what I thought. Really, I've been pretty relaxed. It's still just a tryout for NBC and me. They're seeing if they like me, and I'm seeing if I like TV work."
He hasn't been in the booth enough to make a decision on a job for which he is being paid $125,000 this season. He has, however, traveled more than in any past year of his life. Among the NASCAR team he owns, watching his youngest son, Coy, play Stanford football and speaking engagements, he's become a too-frequent flier.
"I'm thrilled finishing fourth in the points in just our second year of ownership," Gibbs said of his Winston Cup team, with driver Dale Jarrett. "We think there's a lot we can do to improve, too. It's been a fun and interesting year all around.
"I'd been a football coach for 27 years. I have no idea if I'll coach again. As for the Charlotte deal [speculation that he will be the first coach of the expansion Carolina Panthers], there's nothing to talk about. I'm taking it a day at a time, and we'll see what happens.
"I'm not under contract to the Redskins anymore [although he had two seasons left on a three-year deal]. When I stopped coaching, they stopped paying."
Gibbs said that being away from the sideline has allowed him to view the NFL from more than one angle. What he's seen produces the kind of retort only the ex-coach Gibbs would make:
"There's so many guys hurt in the NFL these days, it's almost down to who has the best backup quarterback."
\ DEFENSE BEST: Dick Vermeil, the always-astute ABC analyst for today's huge Big East Conference football game between Miami and unbeaten West Virginia (3:30 p.m., WSET) likes the Hurricanes because of their defense and expects a low-scoring game at Mountaineer Field.
"Miami's offense isn't nearly as good as in the past, but that defense can run and it has six dominating linemen," said Vermeil, who does a statistical analysis to prepare for a telecast. "Miami's defense forces an opponent to make 54 snaps before giving up a touchdown. By comparison, West Virginia's opponents are scoring once every 33 snaps.
"West Virginia has a great offense and is very good at returning kickoffs, which will help field position. The punter, Todd Sauerbrun, will help West Virginia's field position, too. Offensively, I like West Virginia's ability to run the ball. It's a dominating team offensively.
"Virginia Tech and Louisville have been the best teams West Virginia has played, and the Mountaineers have won close games. Whether they can beat Miami is another story. Playing at home will help West Virginia, but Miami's speed on the [artificial] turf is a plus."
\ RATINGS GAME: NBC's Notre Dame-Florida State telecast on Nov. 13 attracted a 16.0 Nielsen rating, the highest for a college football telecast not only since the sport was deregulated for TV in 1984, but since a 17.3 for the Auburn-Alabama game in 1981 on ABC. The Fighting Irish's 31-24 victory was seen by an estimated 50 million viewers. The highest-rated regular-season game (22.9) was a 21-21 tie between Notre Dame and Southern Cal in 1968 on ABC.
\ REMEMBERING: On Sunday, a feature piece on "The NFL Today" on CBS (12:30 p.m., WDBJ) will recall a decision by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle to play games 48 hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 30 years ago this weekend. Rozelle, upon retirement two years ago, called that decision the worst of his tenure.
Petitbon, the Redskins' first-year head coach, was a Chicago Bears defensive back that day. "On one hand, I thought we shouldn't play," Petitbon says in the CBS piece. "On the other hand, if you have a job to do, there's a lot more at stake than showing sympathy for the president. I think we should have played."
\ AROUND THE DIAL: Today's Virginia Tech-Virginia football game (noon, WSET) won't be televised in the largest alumni pocket for both schools - the Washington, D.C., market. ACC network affiliate WJLA, an ABC station, was committed to airing Ohio State-Michigan. That game telecast is pre-empted in Roanoke-Lynchburg. . . . Five days after its 13th telecast of the New York City Marathon, ABC Sports announced it was dropping the race. Sunday's marathon wasn't aired locally by WSET. ABC has televised the NYC Marathon live, start-to-finish, since 1981. Race director Fred Lebow said he was "shocked and devastated" by the decision. . . . ABC has named Jim McKay as host for its 11-game World Cup soccer coverage next summer. McKay was the play-by-play voice for ABC's North American Soccer League coverage in 1979-80. . . . ESPN begins its women's basketball coverage today at 12:30 p.m. with Texas Tech-Vanderbilt from the Tipoff Classic in Jackson, Tenn., where the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame is being built.
by CNB