The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 23

SECTION Scoreboard2. Action Ratings3 Classified5 DXO, Tuesday, October 9, 1984 Leoid Series- Team: 3 Football I Ji LARRY WOODY Tigers Tie, Sigh IT MIGHT BE CALLED the tie that binds. Memphis State coach Rey Dempsey is concerned that the residue of disappointment from last Saturday night's 17-17 deadlock with Florida State could cloud the seven days, but I was able to throw on the side a little bit and hopefully it won't mess me up too bad," Morris said. Thurmond, a control and sinkerball pitcher, lasted only 3 innings in his playoff start at Chicago last Wednesday, giving up four runs on seven hits. "The attitude I'll take is the attitude I've taken all season long, one pitch at a time," said Thurmond, adding that he was not intimidated about starting against Morris, who has won 39 games over the past two seasons.

"I'm not thinking about Jack Morris," Thurmond said. "I've got to get the Tigers out; I'm not pitching against Jack Morris, and I don't intend to bat against him. If I can do my job, then we'll win." This being an even-numbered year, the designated hitter will be used in the World Series, creating a few problems for Williams. The man he would have used as DH, center fielder Kevin McReynolds, has a broken bone in his left wrist and won't play at all. "I might use Champ Summers.

I might Use Kurt Bevac-qua. I might use Tim Flannery. I have to look at all the evaluations first" said Williams, who had not decided upon a starting lineup by yesterday afternoon. He did say, however, that he would start switch-hitting Bobby Brown in center field against Morris. Williams said he would "tolerate" the DH.

He said, "I used to play it the other way" as manager of the (Turn to Page 2, Column 2) remainder of the Tigers' A Disappointment? With a 'v. tie of the 6th-ranked team in Game 1 starter for Detroit will be right-hander Jack Morris, 19-11 during the season and winner of Game 1 of Detroit's three-game sweep of Kansas City in the AL Championship Series. Left-hander Mark Thurmond, 14-8, the loser of Game 2 in San Diego's five-game NLCS victory over Chicago, will open for the Padres. Morris, who had won 12 of his 19 games by the All-Star break, said he felt strong again and was ready to start the World Series. Morris will pitch on seven days' rest because of the playoff sweep.

"I guess I am feeling a little pressure," Morris said, "but I feel positive about my pitching and I'm anxious to get started. "My rhythm is better with four or five days rest than me nation, wnicn enierea me game favored by 12 points? Most definitely. Tie, schmi. Memphis State should've won the game. Never mind that the score was the same for both teams; the Tigers came out losers.

1 8 MemPnis 1 had the Seminoles 1 down 17-14, pinned on their SAN DIEGO (AP) Sparky Anderson was managing the Cincinnati Reds in 1972, and he remembers his last meeting on a baseball diamond with Dick" Williams in the World Series that year against Oakland. The two managers meet again in the 1984 World Series, which begins tonight with Game 1 at 7:35 p.m. CDT (WSMV-TV, Channel 4). This time, Anderson manages the American League champions, the Detroit Tigers, while Williams manages the National League champions, the San Diego Padres. The Tigers are making their first World Series appearance since 1968; the Padres never had gotten to postseason play before this year.

"I managed against Dick in 1972. 1 wish I wouldn't have," Anderson said. 'Cincinnati should have won that Series, but Dick outmanaged me. I think Dick won that Series for them." The Oakland A's won the 1972 World Series in seven games. Six of them were decided by one run.

"Boston (in 1975) was the most fun I had in a World Series," Anderson said, "but the 1972 Series was the best I'd ever been in. Alvin Dark (with Oakland) in 1974 and Dick in 1972 those were the two best managed Series I've seen." Game 2 of the series is set for tomorrow night After a day off, the Series switches to Detroit for Games 3, 4 and 5 Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Monday is another off day, and the final two games of the Series, if necessary, would be played here next Tuesday and Wednesday. Noisy Fans Await VU Tiger Stadium Looms By JIMMY DAVY You haven't known the ultimate excitement of college football until you have been in LSU's Tiger Stadium on Saturday night There is an emphasis on nighttime. It takes all day for the 76,000 Tiger faithful to assemble outside the stadium, spending hours beside their cars, trucks, vans and other recreational vehicles.

By the time Mike the Tiger is hauled around the field in a cage and roars Into a microphone, the LSU faithful are in the Roman-like stadium and the proper fervor has been reached. To say that all this affords the nocturnal Tigers a greater home field advantage than other teams enjoy is an understatement. It is something they give up grudgingly, even for television. This Saturday's game with Vanderbilt was a natural for the Southeastern Conference television package on WTBS, which telecasts its games with morning kickoffs. Some close to the LSU program say that Tiger athletic officials, aware of this, hurried to ESPN, the exclusive cable sports network, promoting the game.

ESPN airs its games at 6:30 p.m. CDT, and if this network took the game it would assure a nighttime kickoff for home vf 2 Aides To Direct Overton By CINDY SMITH Overton principal William Stan-field announced yesterday that Don-nell "Pot" Graves and Terry Anderson will serve as interim co-head football coaches at the school for the remainder of the season. Veteran Overton High head coach Nick Coutras resigned Friday afternoon for health reasons, and Stan-field replaced him with the two men, both of whom have been Overton assistants to Coutras for several years. "We've decided that the best thing is to have two coaches. Coach Graves and Coach Anderson, to guide the team for the rest of the year." said Stanf ield yesterday.

"We're very fortunate at Overton High School in having outstanding assistant coaches, each of whom has an assignment in preparing the team," said the principal. "I've known for about three weeks that replacing Nick might be a possibility, and I have thought that it is a good idea to try and keep the transition as smooth as possible. That's why we're going with the two coaches." uwu 1UI CU1U 11V REY DEMPSEY outs. Houdini couldn't have escaped. But then Houdini didn't have the benefit of two 15-yard pass interference calls to work with.

Those two calls allowed Florida State to stay alive long enough for a 42-yard field goal that twirled through with no time left on the clock. Dempsey didn't dwell on the calls that cost his team one of the biggest victories in its history. He realizes the futility of fretting fallen flags. His concern now is that his players attention stay focused straight ahead on Saturday's homecoming game with Southwest Louisiana, with no over-the-shoulder glances at what might have been. "When I was at Southern Illinois, I had a team that lost a game in the final four seconds and then lost the next three games to teams that weren't as good as we were," said Dempsey yesterday.

"I don't want that to happen again." So concerned is Dempsey that he called a late-night team meeting Sunday to re-emphasize the fact that what's past is past. Don't die with the tie. "Southwest Louisiana has a good team, with good overall speed," says Dempsey, whose own squad stands 3-1-1. "This will not be a game where we can just take our hats out there and win. We will emphasize all week that we can't have a letdown." Dempsey's only comment on the fatal flags: "It's unusual to have two that late in the game it was just a series of circumstances." On the positive side, Dempsey said the tie bitter as it may have been got his program some attention.

"I think that ball game is going to bring us some respect around the nation," he said. "It wasn't a fluke. We played hard for 60 minutes." The most impressive thing about the Tigers last Saturday night was their defense. The Seminoles went into the game averaging 43 points a game but were semi-lucky to come out with 1 7. If the Memphis State offense doesn't roll, it's not because of lack of lard in the line.

SID Bob Winn has calculated that the Tigers' interior line is the biggest in the country. Tackle to tackle reads like this: 6-5, 255; 6-6, 307; 6-2, 262; 6-4, 287; 6-4, 294. James "Punkin" Williams, a Humboldt native who transferred from Vanderbilt after his freshman year, is a flashy runner who led the Tigers with 88 yards on 17 carries. Jeff Womack, a sophomore from McMinnville, had 18 yards on four carries after being sidelined early with a shoulder injury. The Tigers thundered onto the field last Saturday night outfitted in all dark-blue uniforms for the first time ever.

Based on the way they played, maybe the new duds should become Memphis State's pernament wardrobe. After this week's game with Southwest Louisiana, Memphis State has home stands against Mississippi State and North Carolina, then hits the trail for its final three contests. The Tigers catch, in order, Georgia, Tennessee and Tulane. AP Loserphoto coming. It worked.

Now LSU plays at night on ESPN, and WTBS will telecast Saturday's Georgja-Ole Miss game from Athens, where daytime games are the tradition. Things worked out just right for everyone, with the notable exception of Vanderbilt's football team, which (Turn to Page 4, Column 1) Coutras, who is remaining at as a physical education teacher, (Turn to Page 5, Column 1) Detroit's Sparky Anderson, left, and San Diego's Dick Williams chat after meeting the press prior to the start of the World Series, which opens tonight in San Diego. TSU 7th; Upset Trend Worries Thomas doesn't register wjth young players all the time," said Thomas. "So the coaches are going to have to keep up the intensity themselves this week and hope some of that wears off on the players, because we're going to need as big an effort this week as we had last week," added the first-year TSU jrsf coach. The Big Blue will go into the game without freshman wide receiver Frank Pillow, who suffered a borderline knee sprain in the Grambling game and will be lost for three to six weeks.

Also questionable is offensive lineman Rod Adams, who suffered a sternum contusion. (Turn to Page 4, Column 1) By TED POWER One team is undefeated and nationally-ranked, the other is still winless. It is a scenario painfully familiar to Vanderbilt football followers, whose previously unbeaten Commodores were surprised by Tulane last Saturday. And now Tennessee State, 5-0 and ranked seventh in the NCAA Division I-AA poll, finds itself in similar straits as the Big Blue prepares for Saturday's 1:30 p.m. game against 0-5 Tennessee Tech in Cookeville.

"Everyone knows what happened to Vanderbilt this past weekend. Now we're facing the same situation," said TSU coach Bill Thomas, whose Tigers climbed two notches in the I-AA poll following a 34-24 victory over rival Grambling State. Indiana State remained No.l in the I-AA rankings, followed by Holy Cross, Murray State, Alcorn State, Boston University, Furman and TSU. The ranking did little to impress Thomas, who instead turned away from the stormy victory over Grambling and began looking toward Tennessee Tech. His top priority this week is to keep his players motivated.

The battle with the winless Golden Eagles comes on the heels of a fierce struggle with an old rival that has left many of the Tigers emotionally drained. "We've talked about all the upsets around the nation and how any team can beat any other team, but that UPI, Fans' Polls Set Up Showdown Despite Adversity, Gators Strike Back From TENNESSEAN Staff Wire Reports The game between Texas and Oklahoma at Dallas next Saturday will pit the top two college football teams in the nation. That is the setup according to 259-8011, between 5 p.m and 8 p.m. each Monday. Fans' top 10 ballots are taken, a top 20 list is compiled and results of the poll are published on Tuesdays.

(Turn to Page 4, Column 1) Your Top 20 Results of The Tennessean Reader Ratings poll of fans for college football with first-place votes in parentheses (points assigned on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis): the United Press International Board of Coaches college football poll released yesterday. And fans voting in TTxe Tennessean Reader Ratings last night agreed. Both polls selected Texas No. 1 and Oklahoma No. 2.

It will be the first time the two top-ranked teams have met since the Jan. 1, 1983, Sugar Bowl between No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Penn State. Texas held onto its No.l rating in the UPI poll yesterday for the second week after trouncing Rice 38-13.

The Longhorns received 34 of 39 first-place votes and 579 points. Oklahoma received one first-place vote and 518 points. "Oklahoma means a lot" Texas tailback Terry Orr said. "They're our next opponent and that's always the most important But No.l against No. 2 it'll be the biggest game of everyone's career." No.

3 Washington and No. 4 Boston College also received first-place votes in the UPI balloting. Washington moved up from fourth, getting three votes for No. 1. Boston College, fifth last week, got the other first-place vote.

Brigham Young rounds out the UPI top five. Vanderbilt which cracked the UPI top 20 last week, failed to make the poll's top 20 list this week following the Commodores 27-23 loss to Tulane last Saturday. In the Reader Ratings which allows fans to vote for their top teams like voters in the wire service polls Texas collected 33 first-place votes. A total of 80 ballots were cast by fans in last night's poll. The fans picked Boston College third, Washington fourth and Brigham Young fifth.

Rounding out the Reader Ratings top 10 were, in order, Nebraska, SMU, LSU, Tennessee and Ohio State. Tennessee was idle last Saturday and had fallen out of the top 20 last week but climbed back into the top 10 this week, collecting seven first-place votes. Vanderbilt with eight first-place nods, took the 1 1th spot in the readers' poll, followed in the second 10 by Auburn, Florida State, Miami, Kentucky, Clemson, Georgia, Oklahoma State, Penn State and Memphis State. The Reader Ratings are conducted by The Tennessean each Monday throughout the football season. Fans are invited to call the special Reader Ratings line, By DAVID CLIMER The motto of the Florida football team is to live for today, for tomorrow you may be on probation.

The Gators, now referred to as the Gainesville Raiders for their growing outlaw reputation, will travel to Tennessee this weekend, presumably with NCAA Investigators nipping at their heels all the way to Knoxville. But if you're expecting the Gators to belly up under the pressure of such impending doom, you're in for a surprise. The team that faces Tennessee on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. CDT at Neyland Stadium has shown an amazing ability of concentrating on the task at hand. And the task this week Is to solidify the Gators' standing among the nation's better teams and to improve on the No.

18 rating they received by the United Press International panel yesterday. It Is a team that is playing one game at a time after compiling 107 alleged NCAA violations one at a time. All those alleged violations have resulted in the NCAA holding a possible three-year. probationary period over the Gator program's head. It's just a matter of when the ax is going to fall.

In the face of such pressure, the Florida players have pulled together and rallied around interim coach Galen Hall, who took over upon Charley Pell's resignation under much fire three weeks ago. "When something like this happens, you either fall apart or you pull together. We've pulled together," says tailback Neal Anderson, a 210-pound bundle of talent who leads a covey of talented Gator runners with 369 yards in the team's 3-1-1 start Anderson gives much of the credit for the Gators' resilience in the face of adversity to interim coach Hall. An import from the University of Oklahoma, Hall had just settled into the role as offensive coordinator when the sky fell on Pell. As an outsider who wasn't implicated in any of the various allegations, Hall was the obvious pick as Pell's replacement at least for the moment And with the Gators playing superbly under him these last three weeks, talk is surfacing that Hall might be considered as a permanent head coach next season, if longtime Florida supporters can forget about people like Steve Spurrier and Howard Schnellenberger.

"It would be just fine with me to have Coach Hall back next year," says Anderson, a junior. "He's been (Turn to Page 4, Column 1) Team Tot. Pis. 1. Texas (33) 631 2.

Oklahoma (3) 484 3. Boston College (9) 466 4. Washington (2) 386 5. Brigham Young (3) 368 t. Nebraska (3) 361 7.

SMU 173 8. LSU (4) 162 9. Tennessee (7) 154 10. Ohio State 147 11. Vanderbilt (8) 145 12.

Auburn (3) 129 13. Florida Slate 128 14. Miami 110 15. Kentucky (1) 78 16. Clemson 60 17.

Georgia 54 IB. Oklahoma Slate 40 19. Penn State 38 20. Memphis State 37 UPl's Selections NEW YORK (UPI) The United Press International Board of Coaches Top 20 college football ratings, with first place votes and records in parentheses (total points based on IS points for first place, 14 for second, I. Texas (34) (3-0) 579 I.

Oklahoma (1) (4-0) 518 3. Washington (3) (5-0) 487 4. Boston College (1) (3-0) 4S9 5. Brigham Young (5-0) 429 6. Nebraska (4-1) 360 7.

Southern Methodist (3-0) 330 8. Florida State (4-0-1) 227 9. Ohio State (4-1) 218 10. Louisiana State (3-0-1) 208 II. Miami, Fla.

(5-2) 185 12. Penn State (4-1) 143 13. Oklahoma Stale (4-1) 99 14. South Carolina (4-0) 88 15. Georgia (3-1) 87 16.

Auburn (3-2) 76 17. Purdue (4-1) S3 18. Florida (3-1-1) 39 19. Iowa (3-2) 35 20. Kentucky (4-0) 16 Note: Bv agreement with the American Football Coaches Association, teams on NCAA or conference probation are Ineligible for the Top 20 and national championship consideration bv the UPI Board of Coaches.

The teams currently on probation are Illinois and Kansas. Others receiving votes: (In alphabetical order) Alabama, Army, California, Florida (2), Georgia Tech, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan Sta'e, Mississippi, Navy, New Mexico, North Carolina State (I), Oregon, Oregon Stale, Purdue, South Carolina, Southern California, Texas Christian, Tulane (1)..