Yo. Dog here, still in the house. R-Dub? Still hung over, which gives me a shot to flow. What? Man ... Dub was just mumbling to me about not blowing up the spot while I'm flowing. Like, as if.

I said, "Who doing this, Dub? Me or you?" Dub staggered back to the couch. Dub is sick, man. Guess you know that by now, right? Don't worry about R-Dub. He be "chillin'." Leave him sleep.

Yo. ESPN Page 2 World. Check it out. Newest-Latest for 2002: "What Turns A Dog Stone Deaf? -- What To Tune Out In Ball."

You likes? I likes. I'm sayin', copyrights. HBO miniseries.

	Slow-mo ain't slow enough no mo to catch the exploits of stars such as David Boston.

What does it mean? Feel me. We don't see as much about ball as we hear about ball, right? We hear twice as much as we see when we're watching a game on TV, right? Then we hear three times as much after the game until the next game, right? We're offering an entertaining public service here. Dog will tell you what to tune out so you won't information overload. Gotta hit mute at times or your brain will lock, and think whatever some talking head says.

But we can't just, like, turn it off, either. As far as sports go, we're hooked. And it's OK. Everybody's hooked on something. Dog's hooked on what he sees, not what he hears. It's like going to a museum or an art gallery. Are you looking at the paintings, at the strangely sexually orient-tated sculptures, at the wax figures, at whatever, or are you hearing some emaciated chick with lockjaw or some bowling pin in a blue blazer droning on about it?

Here's some of what Dog is currently tuning out:

NFL instant replay and "Instant reflex" syndrome in the TV broadcasters
The speed of the game, the skill level out on a shrinking 120-yard by 53-yard field of play -- remember when they kicked off from the 40? -- the stripping techniques (ball-stripping, not clothes-stripping; clothes-stripping is a whole other area), etc., are so refined now, not even the cameras can always catch what's happening. Yo. Slow-mo ain't slow enough no mo.

Plus, anybody who can break wind on any couch in America can lie there and say what the otherwise reasonable play-by-play men and color commentators say, all together as one, once an instant replay "challenge" "has been issued," like it's a game show all of a sudden. Elimi-Date. Elimi-Dat-Horrible-Call.

"Oh, I think he's out-of-bounds ... yeah, he's out. He's definitely out ... did he have the ball? ... it appears he did ... but was it secured? ... could he perform a function relative to the game? ... I think he had possession .... you think he had possession? ... back that up again ... he's got it ... think he's got it? ... I do ..."

Dog ain't buying this. I'll listen to 'em commentate on the game itself. I won't listen to 'em breaking down the film of the game.

"... looks like that ball came out before his knee hit ... but then there's the matter of the elbow ... and whether the ref blew the whistle beforehand ... they missed that, that's holding ... that's clearly holding ... no, that's not ... you can call it on every play anyway ... definitely pass interference ... his knee was down ... his knee was definitely down. I used to play in this stadium for the team he's playing against, and their coach is a friend of mine, and I hate that team's owner and the GM, those cold fish screwed me over three years, and my medical suit's pending, and I'm telling you his knee's down ... hard to tell from this angle, though."

Don't know about you. I hit mute. If it gets too bad, I switch on over to PlayStation 2 Madden 2002. Madden, he keeps it brief.

Yo, broadcasters: Use that time to tell me something I don't know, about the teams, the game, the next play in progression if the play is called good, or if it isn't. Give me the tendencies of the players in the game -- speculate what's happening in the minds (if they can be called minds) on the sidelines, or over in Foxboro, or out in Oak-town, or up in the coaching boxes ... give me something to help me get down on a smart bet the next week. Otherwise, I'm hitting mute every time I see a red handkerchief come out.

Tyrone Willingham as agent of social change

	The Golden Dome or Touchdown Jesus didn't lure Tyrone Willingham as much as Irish's green sealed the deal.

Everybody knows Ty Willie was Notre Dame's like, 10th choice. There was Rick Neuheisel, Chucky Gruden, Mooch, Nick Saban, Gary Barnett, Mike Bellotti, Steve Spurrier (on everybody's Top 10 Drop-Everything-For List, and possibly headed to the NFL after his resignation at Florida on Friday), Tom Coughlin, Lou Holtz (who lobbied for his son, My Son Skip; if it came down to a choice between My Son Skip and Ty Willie, even Ty Willie wins). But let's face it, nobody that Notre Dame wanted ever wanted Notre Dame back. That was key for Ty Willie. That, and the money, of course. If he was going to Notre Dame for the same less-than-half-mil he was getting from Stanford, what would be the point in going? But a mil more a year, minimum -- that gets a man to thinking, and to packing his bags.

Ty Willie got a call because nobody else Notre Dame wanted even wanted to sniff at the job; and it gets old, having people turn you down in the press and the media before you even ask them out.

Makes you look desperate. Uncool. A legendary football school with moss growing on its legend can't afford to be made to look ridiculous. (Hey, it worked for Mr. Woltz in "The Godfather").

That's the way it happens for the brothers, usually. Do you think anybody wanted to coach Georgetown basketball before John Thompson came in? Tampa Bay was Toilet City before Tony Dungy was elected. Denny Green's about to get whacked, but the Vikings weren't anything to write home about before he started his 10-year run up there. All this blah-blah about the first African-American head football coach at Notre Dame, the first African-American head coach in any sport at Notre Dame ...

Fuzzy-wuzzy blah-blah. I know 10 dudes who could do it. And not the Near-Blond 10, either. Art Shell could do it. Ted Cottrell could do it. Doug Williams could do it. Marvin Lewis could do it. Tony Dungy could do it. Herm Edwards could do it. R-Dub could do it, if he wasn't too busy sleeping one off.

Hell, George O'Leary could still do it. But Ty Willie ain't just there to coach. He's there to win. Just like he would be if he was one of those blond recruiting icon coaches everybody craves so much. They must look good on living room couches. They are so cute, if that's what turns you on. Ty Willie ain't cute. But he didn't lose to Cal in seven years, and at Stanford he beat ND like a drum.

You have to know, if you're Ty Willie, that you get a crack at a job at ND only when nobody else on your level seems to want that job, when it seems impossible, when some blond guy's résumé blows up publicly and can't be cleaned up. That's when you get a shot. Never think it's because of the kindness in people's hearts, although that's how it'll sell, and the selling is what needs to be tuned out. Anonymous contributing alumni don't have hearts.

But they can count. Especially wins.

So don't try to make it out to be "Brian's Song" or nothing. This is going to be hard -- but Ty Willie just might do it. That's the real social significance of it. Ty Willie might be the best man to get it done under the impossible scenario -- the Kobayashi Maru.

Just don't act like Ty Willie's the first black man who could coach football, or ta-dah, just became qualified. ND was desperate.

Sometimes, that's when good things happen.

NFL playoff coaches "in trouble"

	Lions coach Marty Mornhinweg, right, better hope Matt Millen is patient.

This one is usually fodder for newspapers, this being just about all the ghouls have left, posting the betting line and speculating about everybody else's job security except theirs. I'd like to ask some of them, do you think you'll be back at The Tribune-Gazette next year? See what they say.

But their hands are tied. The game's already been reported on, analyzed and forgotten about by the time the newspaper comes out. So, they write "So-and-So's in trouble." "Owner has given him a vote of confidence, which is the kiss of death." Blah-blah-blah.

My hands ain't tied. I can unmute the talking heads, if this is the alternative. Mostly, the newspaper columnists and analysts have issues with the head coaches and their own editors. The coaches don't pick them first in press conferences to ask "hunh?" questions. They don't call them by first name if they do get picked. So they got no personal connection anywhere, really. Their wives don't have job security, so NFL head coaches are definitely dead meat.

You can take them serious if you want to.

I'm wrapping fish.

Dick Jauron in Chicago, Dungy in Tampa and Dave Wannstedt in Miami have been lit up like Christmas trees on a weekly basis in their hometown newspapers for daring not to go undefeated, even though their teams made it into the NFL playoffs and stand as good a shot as any to go to the Super Bowl. I can see dogging out losers who didn't make it. You don't make it into the NFL playoffs as a head coach, you take your chances. Denny Green, out. Mike Riley, out. Tom Coughlin, oughta be out.

Then you've got the lock-ins (Schottenheimer, Campo, Dude in Buffalo) who have long-term contracts, but nowhere to go with them. Then you've got coaches with Accomplishment Immunity, who have won the Super Bowl (Shanahan, Holmgren, Vermeil), or who have been to the Super Bowl (Fassel, Fisher, Cowher), or who seem like they could be on their way to the Super Bowl with the right breaks (Martz, Gruden, Belichick, Reid).

Come to think of it, playing Head Coachie Roulette is about all the print mass media has left available to them. But the NFL coaches whose teams make the playoffs should have bought themselves at least another year, at least in their hometowns, don't you think?

Especially in places like Chicago and Tampa Bay. Anybody who wins in the NFC Central, which always puts a division champ and two wild-card teams into the NFL playoffs, is pretty good.

So keep your head up, Marty M. in Detroit. A change is gonna come. Just hope the change ain't you. Ask Spike Millen to be patient. Great guy, Spike. Hope Ford sells a lot of Escalades until they can get it together in Detroit. They're about the only NFC Central team that hasn't done well over the last 10 years.

	Mike Davis knew coming in his teams would get hosed.

Mike Davis and Lleyton Hewitt in the Crying Game
So Southern Illinois and Butler beat Indiana in December. After Butler did it, IU coach Mike Davis said his team was getting "hosed" by the refs everywhere it went -- and we know why, Mike Davis said.

I remember Davis when he played for Wimp Sanderson at 'Bama. Anybody who plays for a guy named Wimp, then coaches under a Battleaxe like Bob Knight, has to have schizoid potential. It ain't all your imagination, but you need to see "A Beautiful Mind." Reason it out. You knew coming in that you'd get hosed, didn't you?

Race? Who said anything about race? We just agreed you were gonna get "hosed." Good move to clean it up later, say you meant your team was getting "hosed" because you were a "young coach." I know you didn't mean that. You know you didn't mean that. You had a point in there. But that's the house, the vig part of what you have to conquer in order to survive and prosper at IU. So deal. If you deal with it enough, suffer stoically in silence, sooner or later you'll win the refs over with your refusal to let them make you whine. You'll get a straight game called. Meantime ... chill.

	When Lleyton Hewitt shut up and concentrated on playing, he became No. 1 in the world.

Unless you want to be lumped in with Lleyton Hewitt, the world's No. 1 tennis player from Australia, who complained about a black line judge at the 2001 U.S. Open when he was playing that black tennis player, that American, James Blake, Hewitt said he was getting hosed. But sooner or later, he had to get back to tennis, and he did. Kept his concentration, and won, even though we'll be sensitive to his commentaries about the pigmentation of line judges from now on, you can bet. Don't know if winning is worth all the trouble.

Can't do your job and make the calls too. Well, you can if you're Coach K., but that ain't the point. The point is, every Dog has his day. I should know. So let's hear it. Let's just not hear it all.