STARTING FIVE

1. From Mack to Mac?

Mack Brown is, after 16 often outstanding seasons, out at Texas. But that’s literally and figuratively yesterday’s news. Who should replace him?
How about a Texan?

How about someone with a charismatic personality who’s good with the media?
How about someone with previous college coaching experience (see above) who can deliver a tears-to-your-eyes pre-game speech?
Texas Tech has a coach who looks like Ryan Gosling? So what, the Longhorns could have a coach who looks exactly like Matthew McConaughey –and you can bet your ass he will roam the sideline shirtless.

And, man, can he recruit. You may think McConaughey doesn’t take football seriously enough based on the closing scene from “Dazed & Confused“: “You gotta do what Randall “Pink” Floyd wants to do…You just gotta keep livin’, man: L-I-V-I-N.” Then again,  look at it this way: Wooderson landed Randall “Pink” Floyd (to drive to Houston to buy Aerosmith tickets) that morning and Coach Conrad did not.

Alright?
Alright, alright.

As for the 62 year-old Brown? He will coach again. He is only two months older than Nick Saban, after all. Where should he go? Perhaps to a conference in the Midwest that could use some big-time coaching flash. Can you say, “MACK-tion?”

2. Leading Man

British actor Peter O’Toole, a true heavyweight, passes from our midst at the age of 81.

If you have never seen Lawrence of Arabia, make a point to watch it this week. The 1962 David Lean production is a true epic, one of the most visually arresting films ever made and in every scene that he appears, the golden-haired, sparkle-eyed O’Toole upstages the wondrous desert scenery. This is a man about whom, in every scene you watch him, you will say, “Well, of course he should be a movie star. Any other profession would have been a tremendous waste.”

After seeing the film, British playwright Noel Coward quipped to O’Toole, “If you’d been any prettier, it would have been “Florence of Arabia.'” By the way, the six-foot-two O’Toole was playing a man, T.E. Lawrence, who in real life stood five-foot-four. The film took two years to make.

See “My Favorite Year”, too, if you can. A tremendous and often-overlooked comedy.

Lawrence of Arabia won seven Oscars, but O’Toole lost for Best Actor to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. O’Toole would go on to be nominated for eight Oscars without winning one, which is a record for Oscar bridesmaidery.

You cannot discuss O’Toole, however, without mentioning his ardor for the debauched evening…and morning after. He and best friend Richard Harris were the Glimmer Twins of British cinema in the Sixties and Seventies. O’Toole’s exploits in that era would have put Austin Powers to shame.

Here he is, long after having established his hell-raising reputation, making a memorable entrance on “Letterman.” Stay tuned until he offers his camel a beverage.

O’Toole’s father was Irish and his mother was Scottish. So of course he is claimed as “British.”

3. Dieseled

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if you or I took on an NFL running back with a head of steam, Washington’s Josh Wilson provided a glimpse of that yesterday. Wilson, five-foot-ten and 188 pounds, dared to take on Atlanta’s stallion of a running back, Stephen Jackson, at the goal line yesterday and got knocked straight to Wednesday. You have to admire Wilson for even daring to challenge the six-foot-two, 230-pound coil of muscle that Jackson is, but that didn’t end well.

4. Peyton’s Place? The Cover of SI

On the day that l’il brother Eli throws five interceptions in a home shutout loss to the Seattle Seahawks (who may just be returning to Met Life Stadium in 48 days), Peyton Manning is named Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year.” It is a highly defensible, albeit safe, choice. Manning does lead the NFL with 47 touchdown passes –Eli leads in INTs with 25– and will certainly shatter Tom Brady’s record of 50 in a season that the New England quarterback set in 2007. Manning is also, two years removed from a neck surgery that many thought would augur his decline, enjoying a career renaissance, the best season he or perhaps any quarterback has ever had.

Manning is also a cool guy, a fun guy and a smart guy. You could almost present him with the honor simply for this video (even if the people who made this owe Bret and Jermaine royalties), and that’s before you even watch ESPN’s hagiography, “The Book of Manning.”

So, difficult to quibble with the choice, although that never stops anyone –including me. If SI had not presented the Boston Red Sox with this very honor in 2004 –and deservedly so — the story line of Boston Strong (plus the fact that a few top editors have Boston roots) would have made them an intoxicating, if not obvious, choice. I’ll always wonder, had the Tide held on to beat Auburn, if Alabama would have been handed the honor. And then there’s my favorite, Spanish tennis master Rafael Nadal, who went 75-7 on the ATP Tour in 2013 after returning from an injury and winning two of the three Grand Slams he entered. Besides, Rafi is humble and one of the best ambassadors professional sport has these days. Maybe if he had just lasted longer than the first round at Wimbledon….

Two final thoughts: In a year in which a player named Peyton quarterbacked his team to a major championship (Peyton Siva, Louisville Cardinals’, NCAA men’s basketball), it was a Peyton who did not who garnered this honor.

Also, writer Lee Jenkins opens with the angle on how popular the name “Peyton” has become since the advent of Manning’s rise, beginning at Tennessee. And while you cannot blame two writers for having the same thought, independently of one another, I imagine Michael Pointer of the Indianpolis Star, who penned this story two months earlier, is feeling a little dyspeptic this morning.

5. Season-Ending Crane-Hanger

I’ll admit that I have never seen “Homeland”, but many of you have. And last night, for the Season 3 finale, they killed off Nicholas Brody, one of the show’s two main characters –the one not currently appearing on the cover of Glamour –by having him swing from a crane in Tehran.

Reserves

Notre Dame wins the national championship in (European) football with a 2-1 defeat of Maryland in the men’s College Cup final. Sure, but would the Fighting Irish have beat an SEC team? Doubt it.

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The Dallas Cowboys blow a 26-3 halftime lead at home to the Green Bay Packers, who were playing Matt Flynn at quarterback, in a game that the How ‘Bout Them’s absolutely had to have. We’ve come to the end of the road on this one: Jerry Jones must fire Jerry Jones (and hire Mack Brown?).

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The Portland Trail Blazers are 21-4, equaling their outstanding start in 1977-78 when they went on to a 50-10 record before losing MVP favorite Bill Walton to a season-ending injury from which the franchise still has not fully recovered. Until now. One of these weeks, just you watch, ESPN is even going to air a Trail Blazers game from the Rose City. Ten teams will play on Christmas Day, when television officially recognizes the start of the NBA season, and neither the Blazers nor the Indiana Pacers will be among them.

You can forgive TV execs for not thinking Portland would be THIS good. But you hope they find a way to get LeMarcus Aldridge and the gang some air time soon.

*Blazer coach is Terry Stotts. Looks a little bit like Peyton, no?

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Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell talk celebrity, true celebrity, and celebrity misdeeds, which leads to the creation of the “Woods Number.”

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Jameis Winston wins the Heisman Trophy, remembers that his main talking point is “the process”, and now looks forward to winning the national championship on his 20th birthday. Reportedly, 32 voters left the precocious Seminole redshirt freshman off their ballots.

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Prince Harry reaches the South Pole before reaching the altar. Are you surprised? Harry: “Did I miss the Metallica show?”

Remote Patrol

Home Alone

AMC 8 p.m.

Do you remember how absolutely huge, utterly Bieberian, Macauley Caulkin was after this movie appeared? And there’s Daniel Stern, whom you know better as the V/O for “The Wonder Years”, in the role as the comically inept heavy.