Thank God for football
Labor Day has to be the 3rd best holiday of the year (after Thanksgiving and Christmas) as it is the kickoff to another football season. I was pretty much glued to my television set (other than the 2 hours that I played Trivial Pursuit with my family, which my Dad won) for the entire weekend. My thoughts after the first week of the college season:
- Why do top 25 teams schedule cupcakes for their first game? I understand that you want to start the season off with a win, but I guarantee that most of these teams get better competition in practice. Northern Illinois, North Texas, Louisiana-Lafeyette, Akron....nothing is gained by beating those teams. The only thing that can happen is that you drop in the polls with a lousy performance (see Oklahoma vs. UAB). Do what Notre Dame, Auburn and USC did and schedule a middle of the pack school from a big name conference.
- Why do we have preseason rankings? #9 California got destroyed by #22 Tennessee. #2 Notre Dame looked like poo against unranked Georgia Tech. If Notre Dame were to lose this week to Penn St. and Tennessee were to win again, Notre Dame will probably still be ranked ahead of them (and possibly Penn St. too) just because of some arbitrary preseason ranking.
- What happened to the Big 12? In the past 15 years, four Big 12 schools (Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska) have won the National Championship. But it seems that Texas is the only National Championship caliber school left in the conference. Colorado lost to Montana St, Oklahoma had trouble with UAB, and Nebraska isn't what it once was. I understand that there are ups and downs in college football, but usually when one school goes down, another is on the way up.
And now for my weekly Penn St. and Florida St. review/rant:
Ok, ok. Penn State is back. JoePa finally realized that he had to play freshmen and he's winning the recruiting wars again. But they didn't look all that good on Saturday from what I saw. My buddy Aaron, who is the biggest Penn St fan/apologist in the world (he was still talking smack when they were having losing seasons), was at the game and he said even he wasn't impressed. And like I said earlier, what really do they get out of beating Akron? They roll into Notre Dame this weekend, for what should be a great game. Penn St. has some of the best receivers in the country and they'll score some points, but I think ND will win for 3 reasons: 1) Home field advantage: South Bend, Touchdown Jesus, renewing a rivalry....not a place I'd like to take a quarterback for his first ever road start. 2) ND will be pissed off after having a crap performance against GT. 3) ND played a decent team last week, so they'll be a little more prepared for the speed of the game.
FSU vs. Miami. Almost always one of the best games of the year, unless you're an FSU fan, which I am. ESPN Classic played a bunch of old FSU-Miami games yesterday, and Miami won every one of them. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a game on Classic that FSU has won. Anyway, I'm not completely sold on this being the first game of the year. Granted, the losing team has plenty of time to get back to the top of the polls (Miami got back to #3 at one point last year), but it usually takes a couple weeks to get the offense up to speed, and as a result, you get the bludgeoning of last night. Three total yards of rushing between the teams (FSU was at 5 until Weathorford took a knee at the end). Those were 2 of the fastest defenses I've ever seen. And to think that FSU lost 4 guys in the first round of the draft. It was a typical FSU-Miami game: FSU makes a bunch of dumb penalties, Miami gets some big plays, FSU takes a small lead early in the 4th. I really expected Miami to score a touchdown on one of their last 2 drives, just because I've seen it so many times. But alas, FSU pulled it out. A lot was made after them game about "the adjustments" Jeff Bowden made as offensive coordinator. Let's get this straight....Jeff Bowden is offensive as coordinator. That offense has been unimaginative since he took over. Changing you're "strategy" to throw the ball up to your big guys is not genius....its desperate.
Anyway, the schedule sets up nicely for FSU. They only have 3 more away games, and Florida and Clemson come to Tallahassee. They'll still probably lose at least one game they shouldn't on the way.
- Why do top 25 teams schedule cupcakes for their first game? I understand that you want to start the season off with a win, but I guarantee that most of these teams get better competition in practice. Northern Illinois, North Texas, Louisiana-Lafeyette, Akron....nothing is gained by beating those teams. The only thing that can happen is that you drop in the polls with a lousy performance (see Oklahoma vs. UAB). Do what Notre Dame, Auburn and USC did and schedule a middle of the pack school from a big name conference.
- Why do we have preseason rankings? #9 California got destroyed by #22 Tennessee. #2 Notre Dame looked like poo against unranked Georgia Tech. If Notre Dame were to lose this week to Penn St. and Tennessee were to win again, Notre Dame will probably still be ranked ahead of them (and possibly Penn St. too) just because of some arbitrary preseason ranking.
- What happened to the Big 12? In the past 15 years, four Big 12 schools (Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska) have won the National Championship. But it seems that Texas is the only National Championship caliber school left in the conference. Colorado lost to Montana St, Oklahoma had trouble with UAB, and Nebraska isn't what it once was. I understand that there are ups and downs in college football, but usually when one school goes down, another is on the way up.
And now for my weekly Penn St. and Florida St. review/rant:
Ok, ok. Penn State is back. JoePa finally realized that he had to play freshmen and he's winning the recruiting wars again. But they didn't look all that good on Saturday from what I saw. My buddy Aaron, who is the biggest Penn St fan/apologist in the world (he was still talking smack when they were having losing seasons), was at the game and he said even he wasn't impressed. And like I said earlier, what really do they get out of beating Akron? They roll into Notre Dame this weekend, for what should be a great game. Penn St. has some of the best receivers in the country and they'll score some points, but I think ND will win for 3 reasons: 1) Home field advantage: South Bend, Touchdown Jesus, renewing a rivalry....not a place I'd like to take a quarterback for his first ever road start. 2) ND will be pissed off after having a crap performance against GT. 3) ND played a decent team last week, so they'll be a little more prepared for the speed of the game.
FSU vs. Miami. Almost always one of the best games of the year, unless you're an FSU fan, which I am. ESPN Classic played a bunch of old FSU-Miami games yesterday, and Miami won every one of them. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen a game on Classic that FSU has won. Anyway, I'm not completely sold on this being the first game of the year. Granted, the losing team has plenty of time to get back to the top of the polls (Miami got back to #3 at one point last year), but it usually takes a couple weeks to get the offense up to speed, and as a result, you get the bludgeoning of last night. Three total yards of rushing between the teams (FSU was at 5 until Weathorford took a knee at the end). Those were 2 of the fastest defenses I've ever seen. And to think that FSU lost 4 guys in the first round of the draft. It was a typical FSU-Miami game: FSU makes a bunch of dumb penalties, Miami gets some big plays, FSU takes a small lead early in the 4th. I really expected Miami to score a touchdown on one of their last 2 drives, just because I've seen it so many times. But alas, FSU pulled it out. A lot was made after them game about "the adjustments" Jeff Bowden made as offensive coordinator. Let's get this straight....Jeff Bowden is offensive as coordinator. That offense has been unimaginative since he took over. Changing you're "strategy" to throw the ball up to your big guys is not genius....its desperate.
Anyway, the schedule sets up nicely for FSU. They only have 3 more away games, and Florida and Clemson come to Tallahassee. They'll still probably lose at least one game they shouldn't on the way.
posted by Michael at 7:11 PM
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