| Authored by Jeff Risdon - 8th December, 2008 - 11:03 am
 It's bowling season in the college football world, the time of year when every team that won half their games or more gets to keep playing.
Most games feature a smattering of locals intermixed with alumni of the two schools in stadiums that are lucky to be half-filled. Then there are the BCS monster Bowls, where scalpers can extort enough cash to bail out one of the Big Three automakers. Before I concoct a Bowl forecast and offer you the chance to best me in a confidence prediction contest, here's a look back at the season that was...
$.01 -- As a Buckeye fan living in Michigan, it's often really hard to show my colors. Not this year. In fact, the amazing collapse of the proud Michigan football program took all the fangs out of the heated rivalry. Most people around these parts expected the Wolverines to struggle, but finishing 3-9 and losing to Toledo (which fired its coach three weeks later) astonished everyone.
Rich Rodriguez has another think coming if he believes he can survive another Bowl-less season, and that's a very distinct possibility. This team is more than one recruiting class away from getting back to the upper half of a down Big Ten; it needs far better results from the players already wearing those ugly new Adidas uniforms. One of the recurring comments about this season was how little the players progressed, how little improvement there was from August to November. Note to Rodriguez: the Big Ten has seen the spread for years and knows how to defend it better than any other conference. If you're a one-trick pony, you're not long for this carnival.
$.02 -- The video game-like offensive numbers in the Big 12 make for great stats, but the more I watched, the less I enjoyed it. Running every play from the shotgun with four or five receivers spread out and throwing the ball no more than three seconds after the snap is barely football. For those like me who enjoy big hits and defense and even a good block here and there, Texas Tech and Oklahoma and Mizzou were basically unwatchable. And from a scouting standpoint, the numbers are almost worthless. That offense has a very limited lifespan in the NFL, as do the guys who run it. Ask Andre Ware or Kliff Kingsbury.
$.03 -- Ball State might have lost the MAC title game (horrific non-TD call on Lewis' run, BTW), but the Cardinals put together one of the most thrilling seasons and stories in college football in some time. This program was a bottom-feeder in a bottom-feeding conference for years, but their success was no fluke. The saga of Dante Love, the best player on the team before his near-paralysis, and the impressive way Coach Brady Hoke put together a team of undersized, lightly-regarded talent and got them to believe in winning and genuinely having fun in the process is a great message for other small-school programs. For the first time ever, the Ball State Cardinals were the best team in the state of Indiana.
$.04 -- I do not have a Heisman Trophy ballot, but if I did it would look like this:
1st: Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma
2nd: Tim Tebow, QB, Florida
3rd: Mark Sanchez, QB, USC
4th: Michael Crabtree, WR, Texas Tech
5th: Colt McCoy, QB, Texas
Why Bradford? His pinpoint accuracy translates across offensive systems, and their offense embarrassed defenses at a historic rate. I may not like it, but it's still impressive. Tebow could not do what Bradford did with Bradford's weapons in the same offense. Sanchez is almost criminally overlooked by the East Coast bias and by the fact that USC pissed away yet another season with an inexplicable loss to a vastly inferior opponent. Crabtree does special things in that offense, things that no other receivers can do. McCoy is the ringleader of what is probably the best team in the country, and that always merits Heisman reward.
$.05 -- We are stuck with the BCS, but here is my completely hypothetical projection of what a 16-team tournament would look like, and how it would play out. Note that I did not stick to the final BCS ratings.
#1 Florida (SEC Champs) beats #16 Troy (Sun Belt Champs)
#2 Texas (they beat Oklahoma, remember -- at large) beats #15 Buffalo (MAC Champs)
#3 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champs) beats #14 East Carolina (Conference USA Champs)
#13 Cincinnati (Big East Champs) upsets #4 Alabama (at large)
#12 Virginia Tech (ACC Champs) upsets #5 Penn State (Big 10 Champs)
#6 USC (Pac 10 Champs) beats #11 Boise State (WAC Champs)
#7 Utah (Mountain West Champs) beats #10 Texas Tech (at large)
#9 Ohio State (at large) beats #8 TCU (at large), then...
Florida beats Ohio State, Texas squeaks by Utah, USC shocks Oklahoma, and Cincinnati survives Virginia Tech.
In the semis, Florida bombards Cincinnati and USC stumps Texas.
That leaves a National Title game of Florida versus USC. If the game is anywhere except the Rose Bowl, Florida wins.
$.06 -- They do play out the championship in the FCS, which you undoubtedly know as 1-AA, and this season has produced a great deal of excitement and upsets. Witness Richmond shocking defending champ and #1 seed Appalachian State, or lightly regarded Albany blanking Jacksonville. But as they play it out, I can't help but think that results like these would only muddy the championship waters even more than the BCS. I can hear the arguments now: "Florida didn't deserve the #1 seed, Oklahoma would have won had we had that easier draw" or "My team caught a bad matchup and never got to show it could beat those other teams" or "Why does USC get to play every game at home, that's unfair." Different format, same old arguments, and the controversy never ends.
$.07 -- Charlie Weis should count his lucky stars that he is still employed by Notre Dame. He's a marginally talented coach who offends more recruits than he draws in, and he hasn't won a game over a decent opponent in years. He's never done that with his own players, and the biggest fish he has landed, QB Jimmy Claussen, is a shell-shocked prima donna. His heralded offense has consistently ranked near the bottom of the FBS, and the Irish might not have one player drafted this April. In short, Notre Dame is no longer a nationally relevant football program and is barely hanging onto regional relevance. The traditional talent pipelines from Cleveland and Indianapolis have all but dried up, and although the university won't come out and say it, contributions are waning quickly. Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie were both axed for less, and it wouldn't surprise me if Weis is sent packing after their next embarrassing loss.
$.08 -- My dream of a Bobby Bowden-Joe Paterno Bowl game, where both ancient greats ride off into the sunset after the game, didn't happen this year but has potential next year, when both teams look to be about the second or third best teams in their respective conferences. That got me thinking about longevity and loyalty and who might someday challenge their win totals. Urban Meyer is only 44 and has 82 career wins (43 at Florida); Bob Stoops is 48 and has 109 wins (all at Oklahoma); Jim Tressel is 56 and has 218 wins (83 at Ohio State, the rest at 1-AA Youngstown State); but the one guy I think might wind up being the best candidate to challenge is Bret Bielema, the Wisconsin coach. Just 38 years old, Bielema already has 24 wins under his belt at a school that will indefinitely employ him so long as he churns out a 10-win season every 3 years or so, certainly an attainable goal at Wisconsin. If he stays until he’s 70, he could notch 300 wins at Wisconsin. Or he could be fired after next season if he coaches like he did this year, and that's part of what makes what Bowden and Paterno have achieved so freaking amazing and impressive. I'm not much of a fan of either guy, but my Cleveland Cavaliers' hat is off to both for their remarkable longevity and accomplishments.
$.09 -- Some other hardware:
Best QB: Sam Bradford
Best RB: LeSean McCoy, Pittsburgh
Best Lineman: Tie between Andre Smith, T, Alabama and Alex Mack, C, California
Best Coaching Performance: Brian Kelly, Cincinnati. Making a BCS Bowl while using 4 different QBs, none of whom expected to play -- that's coaching!
Best Defensive Player: Malcolm Jenkins, CB, Ohio State. According to the Big Ten Network, Jenkins allowed just 8 first-down completions to the receivers he guarded all season.
Best Kicker: Louie Sakoda, Utah
Biggest Disappointment: Tie between LSU's offense and Wisconsin
Best Game: Texas Tech over Texas in a late-night thriller
Biggest Surprise: the Mountain West being a better top to bottom conference than the Pac 10, and it really isn't much of a competition.
$.10 -- At some point, sanity has to set in for coaching salaries. Our economy is knee deep in the sheep dip, and the price of tuition continues to skyrocket at hundreds of percent higher than inflation. I know that big whale boosters pay a great percentage of the salaries and also cover the facilities and private jets, but paying a football coach $3M a year when schools are laying off professors and scaling back everywhere else sends a terrible message.
Not to pick on Rich Rodriguez, but Michigan paid West Virginia $4M for the right to pay him $2.5M a year. I live in Michigan, and our state is in economic shambles; the unemployment rate in my area tops 10% in several counties and keeps going up, and four years of tuition, room/board, and fees now cost 52% more than it did just 6 years ago at Michigan (per finaid.org). It's time to say "when" on these spiraling coaching salaries, especially considering most of the players themselves qualify for food stamps.
--Jeff.Risdon@RealGM.com |
