Hard-core college football fans may not think they know anything about NASCAR. NASCAR fans can sometimes be a little sensitive when it comes to embracing stick-and-ball sports. But the reality is that no two big league sports are more interwoven than football and racing. And it is way more than just that they both wear helmets and have officials who throw yellow flags. So, leave it up to those of us who love both (and cover both) to use Saturday nights Battle at Bristol (Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee, 8 p.m. ET on ABC) as an opportunity to educate both sides on...um...both sides of the connection.Andy Papathanassiou: Known to most as Andy Papa, he played offensive guard at Stanford and shortly after graduation was introduced to NASCAR at the nearby Sonoma Raceway. In 1992 he was hired by Hendrick Motorsports (the Alabama Crimson Tide of racing) as the sports first-ever team pit-crew coordinator. Employing football-based physical training regimens and drills, Papa oversaw Jeff Gordons revolutionary Rainbow Warriors pit crew and dramatically shaved the time the car spent on pit road. As Gordon dominated the sport, rival teams who had initially laughed at Papas gridiron methods for changing tires started copying his ideas.Brian Piccolo: Bowman Gray Stadium, also known as The Madhouse is located in eastern Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It houses both a quarter-mile asphalt short track and a college football field, home of the Winston-Salem State Rams. The top floor of the fieldhouse is also home to WSSUs motorsports management school. The racetrack was co-opened by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. in 1947 and has hosted NASCAR races since 1949, the longest run of any weekly track. That tally includes 29 Sprint Cup (then Grand National) Series races, won by legends such as Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison. From 1956-67 it served as the home field for Wake Forest Demon Deacons football, including Brian Piccolo of Brians Song fame. In fall 1964, Junior Johnson won on the racetrack while Piccolo rushed for a then-stadium-record 140 yards vs. South Carolina.Cale Yarborough: Before he was a four-time Daytona 500 winner, the fire hydrant known as Cale Yarborough was a high school football star in Timmonsville, South Carolina, and earned a scholarship to play for Clemson. Upon arrival to his first training camp with the Tigers, Yarborough informed legendary coach Frank Howard that he needed to go back home in order to run one last race and secure his local short-track championship. (In a twist, that career began on Sumter, South Carolinas Gamecock Speedway.) Howard was having none of that. He told me if I went home to run that race to go on and pack all my stuff because I wasnt coming back to Clemson, Yarborough recalled last week at the Darlington Raceway. So I packed and left. He kept calling me after that. Finally, I said, I did what you told me to do, so now Im going to be a race car driver. He said, Son, youre gonna starve to death. Yarborough won 83 races, three Winston Cup championships and was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011.Daytona: When NASCAR founder and chairman Bill France Sr. built the Daytona International Speedway in 1959, he also envisioned hosting other nonmotorsports events at his new show palace. There have been four college games played on the grass that separates the front stretch from pit road, the grass that Daytona 500 viewers are used to seeing painted with big corporate logos during the Great American Race. Those games, hosted by the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats, were played in 1974-75. Ever since the speedway maintenance crews have referred to that area as the football field. Just this year Daytona unveiled a $400 million facilities makeover to become what track officials like to call the first NASCAR stadium. Track president and uber-promoter Joie Chitwood III (yes, of the Chitwood Thrill Show Chitwoods) has floated the idea of hosting a college game, or even inviting the Jacksonville Jaguars to bring a game down I-95.Everywhere: Daytona, Bowman-Gray and Bristol are certainly not alone when it comes to sharing college football and NASCAR. Buffalos War Memorial Stadium was home to Canisius College football, early Buffalo Bills teams and a quarter-mile dirt track that hosted one NASCAR Grand National race, won by Jim Reed in 1958. Chicagos Soldier Field hosted the College All-Star Game for more than four decades and was also home to a half-mile asphalt oval. On July 21, 1956, Hall of Famer Fireball Roberts won the only NASCAR event held at Soldier Field. Just three weeks later the NFL champion Cleveland Browns defeated the college stars, including West Virginia linebacker Sam Huff 26-0. In one of my favorite explanations ever, a NASCAR historian Greg Fielden said the Soldier Field track was removed in 1970 following protests by hippies.Fast cars and superstars: In June 2007 ABC aired a reality show where NASCAR stars coached celebrities to race in a time-trial competition at Charlotte Motor Speedway. John Elway, coached by 2004 Cup champ Kurt Busch, defeated a field that included Serena Williams and John Cena. On set, the real drama came when former NC State player/Steelers coach Bill Cowher wrecked not once, but twice.Gibbs: While he was still in the midst of his first stint as Washington Redskins head coach, lifelong gearhead Joe Gibbs became a NASCAR team owner in 1991. The following year he won the Daytona 500 with driver Dale Jarrett (who turned down a football scholarship to Gardner-Webb to be a racer), and in the quarter-century since, he has built a NASCAR empire, winning 138 Cup Series races and four Cup titles. His right-hand men at Joe Gibbs Racing have been his sons. J.D. Gibbs was a defensive back and quarterback at William & Mary from 1987-90 and also made 29 starts as a driver across three different NASCAR series. Coy Gibbs was an outstanding linebacker at Stanford, leading the team in tackles in 1994. Both sons have been longtime executives at JGR.Harbaugh: Back when he was still Captain Comeback, the then-Indianapolis Colts QB became co-owner of the Panther Racing IndyCar team, winners of two series championships and near-winners of the Indianapolis 500. In June he attended the Sprint Cup race at the Michigan International Speedway as a guest of Joe Gibbs and is a fan of 2012 Cup champ and Michigan native Brad Keselowski. The whole drivers arent athletes debate is a joke, the head Wolverine said earlier this year. Anyone who says that has never been to a race.Instant replay: Reviewable calls arent just a football thing. Over the last decade NASCAR has been very aggressive about integrating video cameras and replay capabilities to help Race Control keep an eye on all 40 cars, 300-plus crew members and every inch of their miles-plus-sized playing surfaces. The multicamera NASCAR replay system is so advanced it has largely replaced the former army of on-the-ground human officials. That system has attracted calls of interest from college officiating coordinators with tech questions as they push toward centralized officiating HQs to oversee game weekends.Josh Jones: Known to NASCAR fans on Twitter as Mother Function and for his epic practical joke duels with his boss, Jones is director of business development for KHI Management, the celebrity marketing agency owned by 2014 Sprint Cup camp Kevin Harvick. Before he started helping boost the careers of people like country star Jake Owen and Miesha Tate of the UFC, Jones was an All-American kicker at Western Carolina. He was a career 28-for-35 on field goal attempts and in 1999 set the Southern Conference record with 20 kicking points in one game.King Richard Petty: Before his Royal Fastness became the all-time winningest NASCAR driver, he was a star right guard at Randleman (North Carolina) High School (and he had to be the skinniest guard in football history). After graduation he came back for a Tigers game and spotted head cheerleader Lynda Owens. They were married shortly thereafter. Their son Kyle later became the star quarterback for Randleman and was offered scholarships to East Carolina and Georgia Tech. Instead, he chose to follow his father into racing, even as that father tried to talk him out of it. Recalls The King: Kyle said, is it that hard being a race car driver, daddy? I said, no, I gotta go tell your mother youre turning down college. Thatll be the hardest part. Kyle went on to win eight races and is currently an analyst for NBC Sports. Grandson Kyle Barlow [Kyles nephew] just finished four years as a reserve QB at Hampden-Sydney.Les Richter: Known in the motorsports community simply as Coach, Richter was an ironman offensive lineman, linebacker and kicker at Cal, earning All-American honors over his final two seasons. The No. 2 overall pick of the 1952 NFL draft, he played 11 seasons for the L.A. Rams and made the Pro Bowl eight times. After football he became a giant in NASCAR, running the Riverside Raceway, guiding the opening of the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, and serving as a vice president of both NASCAR and its track ownership arm. In 2011 he was elected posthumously to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has been a multiple nominee for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Sprint Cup Series race winners at Auto Club Speedway receive the Les Richter Trophy.Moss Motorsports: From 2008-11 Randy Moss co-owned a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team (think Triple-A baseball). The former Marshall All-American receiver had moderate success before the team folded, but he did grant one of my all-time ESPN.com interviews.Nebraska: In 1996 the University of Nebraska announced that it was going to take on full sponsorship of veteran Lake Speeds No. 9 Ford. There was even a much-ballyhooed unveiling of the all-red car, driven onto the field at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln to thunderous applause. Unfortunately, the deal was yanked over the winter, and the car never raced. On the upside, a Huskers die-cast car has become a bit of a white whale for NASCAR memorabilia collectors.Ole Miss: Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze is an admitted NASCAR junkie and still has his collection of races he recorded on VHS in the 1990s as a big Jeff Gordon fan. Now hes buds with driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., an Olive Branch, Mississippi, native who is a staple on the Oxford sideline with longtime girlfriend Danica Patrick.Punch: As in Dr. Jerry Punch. The former NC State backup QB is one of ESPNs longest tenured announcers, coming onboard as a pit reporter for NASCAR races in 1984 and adding college football sidelines in 1989. In 1988 he was working a race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway when future ESPN coworker Rusty Wallace suffered a horrible crash in practice. Punch jumped the wall, shed his TV gear, climbed into the wrecked car and quite literally saved the NASCAR legends life.Quarterbacks: Former Dallas Cowboys signal callers Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach were co-investors in a NASCAR Cup Series team titled Hall of Fame Racing. The No. 96 car only earned four top-10 finishes over four seasons. Other former college stars who took a turn at NASCAR ownership included Joe Washington, Brett Favre and Dan Marino, who somehow convinced the notoriously superstitious racers to use his No. 13.Recruiting: No, NASCAR teams havent reached the borderline insanity level of college recruiting or NFL scouting, but they do a follow a similar model, scouting for college athletes who they think have what it takes to go over the wall on race day. Again, the leaders in this field has been Hendrick Motorsports. Chris Burkey, HMS head pit-crew coach, is a former Wingate University wide receiver and spent several seasons as NFL scout, including a stint with the Miami Dolphins under Nick Saban. Burkey travels the country to watch athletes and holds combines at the race shop in Concord, North Carolina. Last year, the team even held their own signing day to announce a new crop of candidates. There are currently 14 former FBS & FCS college football players at Hendrick Motorsports alone, some working on the four Sprint Cup teams, others pitting lower-level cars until theyre ready for the varsity squad. Among them is Rowdy Harrell, who owns three national championship rings from his time as a walk-on linebacker at Alabama. He also owns a Daytona 500 ring, working as a tire carrier for Dale Earnhardt Jr. When Burkey called Tuscaloosa looking for talent, Saban called Harrell. He said, Hey, weve found a job for you. I think it would be a great fit, so take it or leave it. He took it.Safety: ?Unfortunately, football and racing share the commonality of gruesome injuries. Fortunately for racers, their sport has worked faster in the prevention department than the football powers-that-be. Thats especially true when it comes to energy absorption and head injuries, thanks to development of safer soft-wall barriers, better helmets and head-and-neck restraints. Just ask Jim Brown, who visited with Richard Petty at Pocono Raceway in 2013. Football has a ways to go, because this is the first time that weve really ever taken the safety situation seriously, because of the lawsuits. And when we come out of this, I think we will have a much safer game, and we wont take away from the impact of the game. So were a little behind NASCAR, and if we pay attention to the fact that someone realized that something had to be done that would make it safer, the same thing has to happen in football. Two different sports, but if youre conscientious about it, and you want to make sure its as safe as you can make it, then you can do that.Tim Brown: Speaking of Browns, if this one had had his way, he would have followed Staubach as a Heisman Trophy winner who also tried to win NASCAR races. A decade ago he formed an alliance with longtime NASCAR owner Jack Roush to start a new race team. Unfortunately, it didnt work out. I would still like to get it going because I love NASCAR, Brown said during a visit to Pocono Raceway in 2012 to give Jeff Gordon the Heisman Humanitarian Award. But so many things have to happen just right to make it happen.Underwater: Thats where former Louisiana Tech QB Terry Bradshaw drove a Hoss Ellington-owned No.1 Hawaiian Tropic Chevy in the 1981 cinematic masterpiece The Cannonball Run, along with copilot Mel Tillis. Thats the same car made famous by Donnie Allison during the legendary finish of the 1979 Daytona 500, when Allison crashed with and then fought with Yarborough. The same year as the films release its director, stuntman-turned-Oscar winner Hal Needham, became a NASCAR team owner, teaming up with the Bandit himself, former Florida State QB Burt Reynolds. Hal and Burts Skoal Bandit cars won nine races, 13 poles and barely missed winning the 1984 Winston Cup title with driver Harry Gant. Also one of ?my favorite assignments ever.Video study: Just like college football coaches and players, racers have become film-room junkies. Drivers watch race recordings, studying the lines they run on the track like a wide receiver watches his routes. Pit crews have team meetings to watch film from isolated overhead cameras of each pit stop. Then they do the same during live pit practices, correcting missteps during their painstakingly choreographed mechanics. Crew chiefs, like head coaches, watch all of the above, creating very literal playbooks for every race day, tailored to individual racetracks, trends based on previous races at those tracks, and even weather conditions.Whoa Nellie! Jerry Punch isnt the only crossover commentator to call NASCAR and college football. Jack Arute was a staple of sidelines and garages with ABC and ESPN. Jim McKay called races from Daytona to Darlington, including the first-ever live flag-to-flag televised NASCAR event at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway in 1971. In the 1960s Howard Cosell voiced newsreel-style highlight films of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Jim Lampley was the play-by-play man for Richard Pettys historic 200th career win on July 4, 1984. Eli Gold, the longtime voice of the Alabama Crimson Tide, was also a longtime anchor for the Motor Racing Network, NASCARs radio division. And Keith Jackson, the Voice of College Football, called dozens of races for ABCs Wide World of Sports, including Dale Earnhardts most infamous Intimidator moment, The Pass in the Grass in the 1987 All-Star Race.Exhibition games: The Battle at Bristol will not be the first football game played at Bristol Motor Speedway. On Sept. 2, 1961, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Washington Redskins 17-10, icing the preseason victory with an interception at the goal line. Sonny Jurgensen started for the Eagles and posted a 9-for-15/145-yard passing day. The temporary grass field wasnt ideal, but as Philly running back and former Wake Forest star Billy Ray Barnes recalls, Hey, we got $50 each.Your team logo here: These days race teams change their cars paint schemes as often as college teams change their uniform combinations. A countless number of times those schemes have been college-sports driven. In the 1990s Starter athletic apparel would cover the hood of driver Elton Sawyers car with the logo of their biggest clients nearest the tracks he visited each weekend, from Georgia and Wisconsin to UConn and The U. Over the years NASCAR has seen checkerboard Vols cars to houndstooth Tide rides to, most recently, a maize and blue Michigan Wolverines machine. On Oct. 19, 2013, Jamie McMurray won at the Talladega Superspeedway in an Auburn ride. That same fall the Tigers made their Cinderella run to the BCS title game. I still take credit for that, McMurray jokes now. Then the Joplin, Missouri, native adds, But dont tell them Im really a Mizzou fan.Zooming: Isnt this the most basic, primal connection between college football and NASCAR? Whether youre a tailback or wide receiver, a race car driver or tire changer, or merely just a fan of all of the above, everyone has the same goal. To quote Ricky Bobby, star of the only DVD that Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield keeps in his home theater, I wanna go fast. Bill Masterton Jersey .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team. Bobby Smith Jersey . "I wrote 36 on my sheet at the beginning of the game," the Cincinnati coach said, referring the yard line the ball would need to be snapped from. http://www.cheapstarsjerseys.com/?tag=adidas-jon-casey-jersey . Only three players drafted by NHL clubs were included on the Czech selection camp roster on Wednesday. Those players were Dallas Stars 2012 first-rounder Radek Faksa, Winnipeg Jets 2013 fourth-rounder Jan Kostalek and Phoenix Coyotes 2012 seventh-rounder Marek Langhamer. Wholesale Stars Jerseys .S. -- Nikolaj Ehlers registered a hat trick for the third straight game and Jonathan Drouin had a goal and five assists as the Halifax Mooseheads hammered the host Cape Breton Screaming Eagles 10-1 on Tuesday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. Dino Ciccarelli Jersey . In Europe, top teams seem to be largely happy with their squads after spending nearly $1 billion in the off-season. And although English league clubs are unlikely to splash cash in January, Arsenal and Chelsea could be tempted to strengthen their squads with new strikers. CARMEL, Ind. -- Dustin Johnson knows as well as anyone that no matter how good he is and how well he plays, something can always go wrong in golf.Just not this week at the BMW Championship.Not this year, really.An awesome talent, Johnson is starting to pile up the victories to prove it. He ran off four birdies in a five-hole stretch to regain control Sunday, left Paul Casey feeling helpless by matching his eagle putt late in the round and sailed home to a 5-under 67 for a three-shot victory at Crooked Stick.Ran into a buzz saw, Casey said after a 67 to finish runner-up in a FedEx Cup playoff event for the second straight week. That was something special the last two days, and I did everything I could. So Im holding my head up very high.Johnson, though, it at another level right now.Known for so many years as the guy who couldnt catch a break in the biggest events, he won for the third time in eight starts dating to his first major at the U.S. Open. And this might have been his most complete performance. Powerful off the tee, relentless with the putter, dialed with his wedges, there was no stopping him.Ive got a lot of confidence in every part of my game, Johnson said.He just doesnt have much to say about it, mainly because he doesnt need to.Caseys last hope came on the par-5 15th when he rolled in a 25-foot eagle putt to get within one shot. That lasted as long as it took Johnson to line up his 18-foot eagle putt and pour it in to restore his three-shot margin.He finished at 23-under 265 and went over $9 million in earnings for the year, along with taking the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup to the finale in two weeks at East Lake for the Tour Championship.The consolation for Casey, along with $1,836,000 for his two runner-up finishes, was the No. 5 seed at the Tour Championship in two weeks. That means he only has to win at East Lake to capture the $10 million bonus.Rickie Fowler wont have any chance at all.Fowler, who started the week at No. 22 in the FedEx Cup , closed with a 71 and finished 59th at Crooked Stick. He was bumped out of the top 10 by the smallest margin in the 10-year history of the FedEx Cup -- 0.57 points behind Charl Schwartzel, who closed with a 64.The timing is pparticularly bad for Fowler because Davis Love III makes three of his captains picks for the Ryder Cup on Monday, with another one right after the Tour Championship.dddddddddddd Fowler wont have another chance to audition, though he might get picked on Monday, anyway.Asked if he had done enough to be picked, Fowler said, I would like to think so.Ive done basically everything I can do as far as schedule and playing, said Fowler, who left the Olympics to play the following week on the PGA Tour. It would have been nice to play better to make the pick a lot easier on him. But whether he has his mind made up or is still thinking, thats up to him.Fowlers hopes came down to J.B. Holmes in a finish that had nothing to do with the trophy. Fowler would have made it to the Tour Championship if Holmes made either a birdie or a bogey. Holmes would have been eliminated with a bogey.He drilled it down the middle of the fairway, hit the green, lagged a 40-foot putt to 4 feet and made it for par for a 74.I envisioned it being a little bit better than that going into the day, but thats how it is, Holmes said. You dont always have your best game, and I was able to finish it off and get in the Tour Championship.Holmes tied for fourth, key for him because the big hitter from Kentucky also needs a captains pick to play in the Ryder Cup. Holmes finished at No. 10 in the Ryder Cup standings, one spot ahead of Fowler.I feel like I played well enough to get that shot, Holmes said. Well see.Roberto Castro holed out for eagle from the seventh fairway on his way to a 67 to finish alone in third, sending the Georgia Tech grad and Atlanta resident home to play in the Tour Championship for the second time.All this activity was far more compelling than the actual tournament, for Johnson never looked as though he was going to lose -- no matter how well Casey played. Casey is playing some of his best golf in seven years, and he now has a clear shot at the $10 million bonus at East Lake.Maybe.If I dont run into Dustin in two weeks, he said, I got a great chance to maybe win the FedEx Cup. ' ' '