When Bill McCartney abruptly resigned three years ago, Colorado handed Rick Neuheisel the Buffalo head-coaching job, the college football equivalent of a brand new Porsche.

Bob Simmons, McCartney’s top assistant, got a beat-up Pinto and a road map.

Simmons wound up in Backwater - Stillwater - Okla., as head coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, who were mired in a seven-game winless streak.

Given the dearth of minorities in major-college head-coaching posts, some observers wondered if race had anything to do with Colorado’s decision, a charge university officials heatedly denied.

Neuheisel, who is white, had been in Boulder only one season. Simmons, who is black, had spent seven years with McCartney. Simmons reportedly had received McCartney’s endorsement.

“You wonder how much time you have to put in,” Simmons said at the time. “But that was their choice and you have to move on.”

Simmons has done that, with style. When Colorado and Oklahoma State meet Saturday in Stillwater, one program finds itself basking in the national spotlight - and it isn’t the one with the lovely campus in the Rockies.

The 5-0 Cowboys have risen to No. 20 in this week’s AP rankings. And they’ve done it despite losing 11 players, including their top returning tackler and rusher, to academic-related suspensions a week before the opener.

Given what happened three years ago, it seems impossible to overstate the importance of this game for Simmons, 49.

“Rick and I are friends, but it’s not like we get on the phone and call each other,” Simmons said. “When we were on the (Colorado) staff, we got together and played golf together. But that’s about the extent of our relationship.”

The Cowboys were last ranked in 1988, when a little running back named Barry Sanders whirled through the Great Plains on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy. That was also the last year Oklahoma State defeated Colorado. It wasn’t considered an upset then, nor should it be if the Cowboys prevail Saturday at Lewis Field.

“They just get better every week,” Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes said. “They’ve done a phenomenal job.”

The 25th-ranked Buffs, meanwhile, are 2-2 after losing at home to Texas A&M.

“We don’t have to apologize to anybody,” Neuheisel, 36, said. “We’ve had great success here and we’re going to continue to have success here.”

Nothin’ could be finer

James Knight, the referee who suffered a heart attack during the North Carolina-Virginia game Sept. 27, is expected to be released from a Chapel Hill hospital this week, Bradley Faircloth, ACC assistant commissioner and coordinator of officials, said Tuesday.

“It’s just a fantastic story,” said Faircloth, who rode in the ambulance with Knight after the 51-year-old was stricken. “I had no idea when that occurred that he would make it.”

Reach out and touch someone

Notre Dame played Michigan the week after Baylor played Michigan. But Fighting Irish coach Bob Davie didn’t call Bears coach Dave Roberts, his former staffmate at Notre Dame, for tips on the Wolverines.

“He’s got his hands full,” Roberts said. “I’ve got our hands full. I know they’re struggling a little bit, but he’ll get it worked out.”

Quick kicks

Ron Vanderlinden is an optimist, but when he left Evanston for Maryland last winter, did he think his Terrapins would have as many wins as Northwestern in midseason? Both have two… . Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee, who leaves for Brown in a few months, dropped into the packed media interview room Saturday at Ohio Stadium. “Are you going to miss this at Brown?” a reporter asked. Gee, a huge football fan, retorted, “I want you to know that the Brown Bears are 3-0 after beating Fordham.”

For the first time in 28 years, neither Oklahoma nor Texas is ranked as they shoot it out Saturday in Dallas. “Maybe it will be a better game,” said coach John Mackovic, under fire again from Longhorns fans.

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