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$.10 For The College Football Season
Authored by Jeff Risdon - 27th August, 2007 - 1:56 pm
Four games were decided by two points or fewer on Sunday, while another went into overtime. Even better than that? Andrew enjoyed a spectacular fantasy weekend.
Between 2002 and 2006, each school that came into the season ranked No. 1 in the nation ran the table in the regular season, but we've seen huge turnover in 07 and 08.
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As I sit in my Chris Spielman throwback OSU jersey…
$.01-- The police blotter section of the sports pages has been overrun with college football players being arrested this offseason. 14 of the 25 teams ranked in the preseason have had players either arrested or suspended from the team for disciplinary measures. It’s time the universities (especially West Virginia!) stepped up and stop admitting troubled kids who are strictly athletes, not student-athletes. Methinks that would curb a lot (but not all) of the disturbing arrests.
$.02-- The SEC is far and away the best conference in the country. Defending national champs Florida bring back a cadre of NFL-ready talent, and they could very well wind up 3rd in their own SEC division. Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Arkansas, and perhaps South Carolina and Alabama would all be legit 9+ win teams in any other conference, but in the brutal SEC I suspect at least one of those teams will need to win their Bowl game to finish with a winning record. All of those teams would wind up no worse than 3rd in any other conference.
$.03-- This is the year we find out how good a coach Charlie Weis is at Notre Dame. The Irish are now stocked with Weis recruits and must replace every skill position player on offense and several key defensive starters. The Weis luster will take a big hit if this group doesn’t win at least 8 games, but they might need to win out (4 games) after the USC game just to get into a bowl. Another humiliating bowl loss, especially if it’s to Cincinnati in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, and the vultures might start circling too.
$.04-- Heisman Trophy prediction. It’s Arkansas RB Darren McFadden’s to lose, and if the Razorbacks stay in the SEC West title picture all year he’s a lock. Hawaii QB Colt Brennan is going to put up some truly outrageous numbers, but their soft schedule and the fact he plays most of his games at 2 AM Eastern time ruins his chances. Florida QB Tim Tebow will get loads of early-season love, until he has to carry his team and everyone figures out he’s not that great. West Virginia RB Steve Slaton, Louisville QB Brian Brohm, Michigan RB Mike Hart, and USC QB John David Booty will draw attention and some votes. Sleepers: Rutgers RB Ray Rice and Miami DE Calais Campbell.
$.05-- Eight games that will decide the national championship: Virginia Tech at LSU, USC at Cal, Tennessee at Florida, Michigan at Wisconsin, Texas vs. Oklahoma, Louisville at West Virginia, Florida at LSU, TCU at Texas. Note that LSU hosts two of those games…
$.06-- Most people couldn’t care less about D-II, but I live 10 miles from the campus of the best football program in the country (with apologies to Mount Union). Grand Valley State in Michigan has won 28 games in a row and 4 of the last 5 national titles, and they loaded up on recruits good enough to play in the MAC or Big East. The Lakers are good enough to beat most MAC teams and some lower-rung BCS conference teams, and they do it with a tiny budget and limited scholarships on an uninspiring campus that’s hard to get to. Their conference is the Big 10 of D-II, yet the Lakers continue to mow through the likes of Northwood, Saginaw Valley State, and Ferris State.
$.07-- I’m a lifelong Buckeye fan, but I have a feeling this is going to be an off year in Columbus. It’s not unrealistic that the Scarlet & Gray will be underdogs in 3 of their last 4 games (@Penn State, Wisconsin, and @Michigan), and the 4th game (Illinois) will be no picnic. But if new QB Todd Boeckman steps up and RB Chris Wells lives up to his recruiting hype, Jim Tressel & Co. might wind up in a BCS Bowl game once again, led by a defense that is steaming mad after being embarrassed by Florida in the title game.
$.08-- Preseason mock draft Top 10: 1. Brian Brohm, QB Louisville; 2. Sam Baker, OT USC; 3. Glenn Dorsey, DT LSU; 4. Jake Long, OT Michigan; 5. Darren McFadden, RB Arkansas; 6. Lawrence Jackson, DE USC; 7. Keith Rivers, LB USC; 8. James Laurinaitis, LB Ohio State; 9. Early Doucet, WR LSU; 10. Andre Woodson QB Kentucky. It will be very interesting to see how far Brohm falls, in the vein of Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn the past two drafts. Brohm is more naturally talented than either of those two, but his injury issues are a more legit knock than either Leinart or Quinn faced.
$.09--BCS Bowl Predictions:
National Title Game: LSU vs. Michigan
Orange Bowl: Tennessee vs. West Virginia
Fiesta Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Texas
Rose Bowl: USC vs. Wisconsin
Sugar Bowl: Louisville vs. Boise State
Two teams that will be arbitrarily excluded to a great deal of consternation: UCLA and Nebraska--and one of those teams will record a victory over USC.
$.10-- Other fearless preseason predictions:
-Oklahoma State beats either Texas or Oklahoma but chokes away a game to either Kansas or Texas A&M that keeps them from making the Big 12 title game
-the two teams that fall the farthest from their preseason rankings: Cal and Florida
-other than USC, no Pac-10 team wins any games against other BCS conference schools
-Joe Paterno calls it a career after beating Bobby Bowden in the Champs Sports Bowl
-three teams that are a lot better than most experts think: Miami, Kentucky, and Southern Mississippi.
-this is the season where the defenses finally start catching up to the spread offense phenomenon, and you’ll see a lot less of it in future seasons
-my beloved Ohio Bobcats slump back to the pack in the lousy MAC East. We still love you, Frank Solich, for getting us to a MAC Title game and a bowl!
-Notre Dame loses 5 of its first 6 games
-Al Groh squanders yet another very talented roster at Virginia, which will lose its last 5 games and miss a bowl once again
-nobody will ever give me credit for the 90% of these that go right, but complete strangers will accost me in sports bars and ridicule me for the ones I got wrong.
