ESPN has revealed its preliminary list of primetime games next year, which you can see here on College Football Talk. Nothing on the list is definite, but here are the games that I'm looking forward to:
1. Ohio State v. USC: USC will be the heavy favorite going into this game with their defensive line and secondary remaining more or less in tact, especially after the shelacking they gave the Buckeyes this year in the Coliseum. But the Buckeyes will still have the most explosive offensive player on the field in Terrelle Pryor, who also showed in the Fiesta Bowl, Wisconsin game, and even last year's USC game that he plays well with the national spotlight on him.
2. Clemson v. GA Tech: If you like running games, this will be a great game. You have Paul Johnson's option attack led by Josh Nesbitt against Clemson's CJ Spiller. Seeing highly touted Clemson QB recruit Tahj Boyd in his first action is also enticing.
Let me know what games interest you around your water cooler.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Future of Big 10 Offensive Domination?
Well, schools have started having their junior days, which means we can finally kick off the 2010 recruiting season. I am sure it's be a long, lonely five days without recruiting info for all of you, but fear not, unlike the Soprano's Signing Day always comes back for another season.
So, while Texas may have signed 7 players today including a bunch of D line studs, Michigan getting a verbal commitment from Ohio WR Jerald Robinson actually caught my eye. This morning. What is surprising is that this is already the third wide out to commit Michigan in 2010, after they brought in three in 2009. For a team that seems to be based on running the ball under Coach RichRod, this seems to be a lot of wide outs on the roster. Thankfully, I also game across this great article on a Michigan message board.
Basically, the article says the RichRod is trying to re-define his offense at Michigan. Now that he is at a school that can recruit top notch talent across the depth chart on offense, unlike WVU where he could only rely on one Pat White or Steve Slaton per class, he is trying to develop a much more balanced offense. This means he needs a lot of WR dept to run constant 4 WR sets. While this is just one fan's well-written opinion, the thought of Ann Arbor having an offense as daunting as Florida's or USC's is enough to make this Michigan fan finally let go of the image of Henne-to-Manningham.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
When Will Notre Dame TV The Big 10?
As a Big 10 fan, the lack of a championship game is really frustrating (I brought up some of these frustrations previously when I suggested some tweaks to the BCS System). The NCAA requires that a conference must have 12 teams in order to have a conference championship game in football, and since the Big 10 only has 11 teams, it gets left out every year.
The rumors have been for, well, really the past decade or so that the Big 10 wanted to expand to 12 teams by bringing Notre Dame into the Big 10. The most recent hope that this would happen was in 2005, shortly after the Bob Davie and Ty Willingham fiascos in South Bend. Unfortunately for Big 10 teams, Charlie Weis came in and led the Golden Domers to back-to-back BCS bowl bids at the 2006 Fiesta and 2007 Sugar Bowls. That led to a new, fat TV contract with NBC for Notre Dame, which NBC has re-upped with Notre Dame again this fall. Once again, the Big 10 is frustrated.
So who should the Big 10 bring in if it ever wants to get its title game? Again, as I wrote about before, I think that the chances of the Mountain West getting into the BCS are pretty high in the near future. While they could just bring in a new conference, the idea of re-distributing money seems to horrify lefty-college Presidents much more than the current Congress, so that's seems pretty unlikely. More likely is that they will kick out a conference, and when it comes to football, none is more likely to be given Germany's "Das Boot" from the BCS than the creatively blogospherically titled "Big Least." If this were to happen, some of the better football schools in the conference might bolt to get back into the BCS, regardless of the Big East's basketball schedule. What teams would the Big 10 try to pick up, in this incredibly hypothetical situation?
1.) Pitt-- A rust belt team that would fit in well with the conferences "blue collar" atmosphere. They would provide a natural rival to Penn State, as well as give all the Ohio State fans in Cleveland the chance to actually beat the city of Pittsburgh in football.
2.) West Virginia-- It makes sense in the long run in that WV is a rust belt state-- a state that, like the rest of the Big 10, is suffering from a transition to a post-industrial economy and an increasingly shrinking population. Plus, you get the RichRod-WVU blood feud. You know, pending Tate Forcier or Denard Robinson actually keep him in Ann Arbor long enough.
3.) Louisville-- This is a school that works in terms of proximity to the rest of the Big 10, which is crucial. Their rivalry with Kentucky also provides the chance to build up an annual Big 10-SEC match up, which could potentially be the spring board to a football equivalent to the ACC-Big 10 Challenge in football. Unlikely, but bringing the Cardinal in would at least be a first step.
The rumors have been for, well, really the past decade or so that the Big 10 wanted to expand to 12 teams by bringing Notre Dame into the Big 10. The most recent hope that this would happen was in 2005, shortly after the Bob Davie and Ty Willingham fiascos in South Bend. Unfortunately for Big 10 teams, Charlie Weis came in and led the Golden Domers to back-to-back BCS bowl bids at the 2006 Fiesta and 2007 Sugar Bowls. That led to a new, fat TV contract with NBC for Notre Dame, which NBC has re-upped with Notre Dame again this fall. Once again, the Big 10 is frustrated.
So who should the Big 10 bring in if it ever wants to get its title game? Again, as I wrote about before, I think that the chances of the Mountain West getting into the BCS are pretty high in the near future. While they could just bring in a new conference, the idea of re-distributing money seems to horrify lefty-college Presidents much more than the current Congress, so that's seems pretty unlikely. More likely is that they will kick out a conference, and when it comes to football, none is more likely to be given Germany's "Das Boot" from the BCS than the creatively blogospherically titled "Big Least." If this were to happen, some of the better football schools in the conference might bolt to get back into the BCS, regardless of the Big East's basketball schedule. What teams would the Big 10 try to pick up, in this incredibly hypothetical situation?
1.) Pitt-- A rust belt team that would fit in well with the conferences "blue collar" atmosphere. They would provide a natural rival to Penn State, as well as give all the Ohio State fans in Cleveland the chance to actually beat the city of Pittsburgh in football.
2.) West Virginia-- It makes sense in the long run in that WV is a rust belt state-- a state that, like the rest of the Big 10, is suffering from a transition to a post-industrial economy and an increasingly shrinking population. Plus, you get the RichRod-WVU blood feud. You know, pending Tate Forcier or Denard Robinson actually keep him in Ann Arbor long enough.
3.) Louisville-- This is a school that works in terms of proximity to the rest of the Big 10, which is crucial. Their rivalry with Kentucky also provides the chance to build up an annual Big 10-SEC match up, which could potentially be the spring board to a football equivalent to the ACC-Big 10 Challenge in football. Unlikely, but bringing the Cardinal in would at least be a first step.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Possible Scandel Brewing?
Bleacher Report post this article recently about the number of scholarships available at Alabama for the fall of 2009. According to their math, Saban had exactly 8 open scholarships to offer to recruits this fal. Yet, a quick glance of the recruiting rankings reveals that Saban and the Tide actually signed 27 players to Letters of Intent yesterday. I admittedly to do not understand how this is possible or what loopholes there are in the system to get around the scholarship restrictions, but it seems as if Saban either is fudging numbers or is actually going to cut kids between now and the first week of fall practices in late July. I don't know if this is system wide and Saban just generates the most attention, but something doesn't feel right about this story.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
SIGNING DAY SIGNING DAY SIGNING DAY!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my god, we are only 2 hours away from National Signing Day! We are only a few hours away from watching high school seniors announce to the world where they are going to spend the next 3-5 years of their lives (in the case of Jordan Shipley, college is like a weapons charge, and lasts 5-9, based on parole). Now, as a high school teacher that has three sections of seniors, I kinda get to do this everyday. But tomorrow-- they're good at sports. It's like I always say, "Kids, reading is important. But not as important as your 40 without pads." It's simple, poindexter, athletes matter and you don't.
I have never really gotten into National Signing Day before. In fact, I normally spend most of the month of January putting down the phone whenever Hoogs calls, turning on the Office, and shouting "uh oh," or "really?," or "no he din't!" as he speaks non-stop for 45 minutes about some running back in Texas and how people don't know if he's really 5'9" or 5'8". It's stupid. Yet, somehow, because of the combination of increased media coverage, this stupid blog, and the fact that Michigan's recruiting class is actually one to watch this year, I've become obsessed. I just spent the last four days checking www.mgoblog.com (great site by the way) multiple times per day, including every hour today. With this new research, however, I have noticed some surprising similarities between recruiting and my last true obsession: The OC. So, what characters in college football would fit into the predictable yet intriguing characters from Fox's last great drama?
Ryan Atwood: In many ways the simplest character archetype on the show. Kid from the wrong sides of the tracks who makes good. Randy Shannon should fit into this role, after all, he survived some of the most dangerous streets in Florida to eventually become the head coach at "The M." Err, "The U." Unfortunately, Ryan is successful in almost every way-- socially he sleeps with an obscene amount of hot women for a 17 year old poor kid, those bizarre dog collars he had from season one are worn exclusively by middle class white kids who want to rebel but know smoking is too dangerous to risk, and actually acclimates with the rich family that adopts him (unlike Shannon's alienation of Miami benefactors). Plus, Ryan took APs, which automatically removes him from any school that allowed Ray Lewis to matriculate.
So, who is Ryan? It's got to be Urban Meyer. Wrong side of the tracks? Let's see, he's from Bowling Green, Ohio. Ever been there? Of course not, but you sure as hell don't want to cross those tracks. He also specializes coaching special teams, which means he's also semi-retarded. So, check wrong side of the tracks. Makes good on the gift rich, benevolent Florida gave of rescuing him from the hell that is Utah. 2 National Titles says yes. Also, pretty much all the recruiting world now revolves around him, which makes him the star of the show. Oh yeah, and take one look at Meyer. Tell me in a recruiting war he wouldn't throw the first punch.
Like Bobby Bowden, her boobs sag more each season
Marissa Cooper: Let's see, bat shit crazy that everything wrong seems to happen to? Well, this is a lot easier to cast. This is Bobby Bowden. Bobby has recruited players like Peter Warrick, Preston Parker, and then there are stories like this. So check that. Both are also stupid, let's keep this good thing rolling. Marissa was also permanently connected in one way or another with Ryan, and since he's in the same state and recruiting pool as Urban Meyer, I think he fills the bill. Finally, as we all know, Marissa died about three years after she should have left the show. You can complete this Bobby Bowden joke on your own.
Seth Cohen: The guy that is obviously a nerd, but still successful in terms of getting girls way too good for him and ends up at a good school. Not Brown, not a crazy successful school, but RISD is good. This fits the bill for Jim Tressell perfectly. Both wear sweater vests (I assume). He gets way too many recruits out of Florida and Georgia for a school in the Big 10 that plays a vanilla offense, like Seth and Summer. And yes, I think Tressell somewhere had an awkward pot phase where he somehow made recreation drug use uncool on TV.
Sandy Cohen: Umm, I'm pretty sure Pete Carroll actually watches The OC each off-season just to more fully emulate Sandy Cohen. After another awkward interception against a quality Pac 10 opponent like UCLA or Oregon State, if you watch closely, you can actually see Carroll say, "Aw, John David! How could you!" They both surf, they both pretend to be "slumming it" (Sandy as a Public Defender and Carroll as a college, not NFL, coach) when in reality they are obscenely wealthy. Oh yeah, and as we learned when Sandy had to get that hospital built with mob money in season four and Carroll needed Joe McKnight in 2006, both cheat.
Julie Cooper: Never the protagonist of the show, yet always the one you love to watch. In other words, she's Nick Saban. Let's see, the show starts off with Julie married to power hungry but corrupt and unlikable Caleb Nichol. Nick Saban was Bill Belicheck's assistant. She then totally whored herself out by screwing a high schooler. Saban coached at Michigan State. After brief trist of getting back together with Jimmy-- like when Saban went to the NFL-- Julie eventually ended up with Summer's dad, Dr. Neil Roberts. Yep, at the end of the day, she found happiness with a rich man in a traditional, established, respectable field that had been hurt and was afraid to trust after his last marriage. Sound a lot like Alabama after Mike, Not Don, Shula? Count it! Finally, Julie Cooper is old, loose, and not even real person. Yet, you all know (male and female) that if she asked you to get on her F train, you'd all jump on. Same with recruits and Nick Saban (last year's #1 class, and on pace to do it again).
Anyway, with all the attention National Signing Day is getting, it just shows you that my million dollar idea of making fraternity rush a reality TV show. Hopefully for my teams, their rush goes better than my college experience, where all the cool kids call you and say "Hey, this is Brian F-----, yeah, it's just not gonna work out."
Enjoy NSD, and feel free to debate or fill in the missing characters in the comments.
Oh my god, we are only 2 hours away from National Signing Day! We are only a few hours away from watching high school seniors announce to the world where they are going to spend the next 3-5 years of their lives (in the case of Jordan Shipley, college is like a weapons charge, and lasts 5-9, based on parole). Now, as a high school teacher that has three sections of seniors, I kinda get to do this everyday. But tomorrow-- they're good at sports. It's like I always say, "Kids, reading is important. But not as important as your 40 without pads." It's simple, poindexter, athletes matter and you don't.
I have never really gotten into National Signing Day before. In fact, I normally spend most of the month of January putting down the phone whenever Hoogs calls, turning on the Office, and shouting "uh oh," or "really?," or "no he din't!" as he speaks non-stop for 45 minutes about some running back in Texas and how people don't know if he's really 5'9" or 5'8". It's stupid. Yet, somehow, because of the combination of increased media coverage, this stupid blog, and the fact that Michigan's recruiting class is actually one to watch this year, I've become obsessed. I just spent the last four days checking www.mgoblog.com (great site by the way) multiple times per day, including every hour today. With this new research, however, I have noticed some surprising similarities between recruiting and my last true obsession: The OC. So, what characters in college football would fit into the predictable yet intriguing characters from Fox's last great drama?
Ryan Atwood: In many ways the simplest character archetype on the show. Kid from the wrong sides of the tracks who makes good. Randy Shannon should fit into this role, after all, he survived some of the most dangerous streets in Florida to eventually become the head coach at "The M." Err, "The U." Unfortunately, Ryan is successful in almost every way-- socially he sleeps with an obscene amount of hot women for a 17 year old poor kid, those bizarre dog collars he had from season one are worn exclusively by middle class white kids who want to rebel but know smoking is too dangerous to risk, and actually acclimates with the rich family that adopts him (unlike Shannon's alienation of Miami benefactors). Plus, Ryan took APs, which automatically removes him from any school that allowed Ray Lewis to matriculate.So, who is Ryan? It's got to be Urban Meyer. Wrong side of the tracks? Let's see, he's from Bowling Green, Ohio. Ever been there? Of course not, but you sure as hell don't want to cross those tracks. He also specializes coaching special teams, which means he's also semi-retarded. So, check wrong side of the tracks. Makes good on the gift rich, benevolent Florida gave of rescuing him from the hell that is Utah. 2 National Titles says yes. Also, pretty much all the recruiting world now revolves around him, which makes him the star of the show. Oh yeah, and take one look at Meyer. Tell me in a recruiting war he wouldn't throw the first punch.
Like Bobby Bowden, her boobs sag more each seasonMarissa Cooper: Let's see, bat shit crazy that everything wrong seems to happen to? Well, this is a lot easier to cast. This is Bobby Bowden. Bobby has recruited players like Peter Warrick, Preston Parker, and then there are stories like this. So check that. Both are also stupid, let's keep this good thing rolling. Marissa was also permanently connected in one way or another with Ryan, and since he's in the same state and recruiting pool as Urban Meyer, I think he fills the bill. Finally, as we all know, Marissa died about three years after she should have left the show. You can complete this Bobby Bowden joke on your own.
Seth Cohen: The guy that is obviously a nerd, but still successful in terms of getting girls way too good for him and ends up at a good school. Not Brown, not a crazy successful school, but RISD is good. This fits the bill for Jim Tressell perfectly. Both wear sweater vests (I assume). He gets way too many recruits out of Florida and Georgia for a school in the Big 10 that plays a vanilla offense, like Seth and Summer. And yes, I think Tressell somewhere had an awkward pot phase where he somehow made recreation drug use uncool on TV.
Sandy Cohen: Umm, I'm pretty sure Pete Carroll actually watches The OC each off-season just to more fully emulate Sandy Cohen. After another awkward interception against a quality Pac 10 opponent like UCLA or Oregon State, if you watch closely, you can actually see Carroll say, "Aw, John David! How could you!" They both surf, they both pretend to be "slumming it" (Sandy as a Public Defender and Carroll as a college, not NFL, coach) when in reality they are obscenely wealthy. Oh yeah, and as we learned when Sandy had to get that hospital built with mob money in season four and Carroll needed Joe McKnight in 2006, both cheat.
Julie Cooper: Never the protagonist of the show, yet always the one you love to watch. In other words, she's Nick Saban. Let's see, the show starts off with Julie married to power hungry but corrupt and unlikable Caleb Nichol. Nick Saban was Bill Belicheck's assistant. She then totally whored herself out by screwing a high schooler. Saban coached at Michigan State. After brief trist of getting back together with Jimmy-- like when Saban went to the NFL-- Julie eventually ended up with Summer's dad, Dr. Neil Roberts. Yep, at the end of the day, she found happiness with a rich man in a traditional, established, respectable field that had been hurt and was afraid to trust after his last marriage. Sound a lot like Alabama after Mike, Not Don, Shula? Count it! Finally, Julie Cooper is old, loose, and not even real person. Yet, you all know (male and female) that if she asked you to get on her F train, you'd all jump on. Same with recruits and Nick Saban (last year's #1 class, and on pace to do it again).Anyway, with all the attention National Signing Day is getting, it just shows you that my million dollar idea of making fraternity rush a reality TV show. Hopefully for my teams, their rush goes better than my college experience, where all the cool kids call you and say "Hey, this is Brian F-----, yeah, it's just not gonna work out."
Enjoy NSD, and feel free to debate or fill in the missing characters in the comments.
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Boone To Your Draft Status
I don't know if you all saw this, but apparently former OSU LT Alex Boone had a slight run-in with the law over the weekend. As a Michigan fan, I have to say, this is beyond hilarious. You dream of the day when you see headlines like "Ohio State Player Tasered by Cops."
What's really funny though is that this isn't even the most embarrassing moment in Boone's life as a Buckeye. After all, just pop in tape of him trying to block defensive ends from Florida, LSU, USC or Texas. Or, really, we can all re-live his memorable post-loss to USC comments from the fall. Sweet headband, let me know when you get in the East Street Band after Tony wacks Sal.
What's really funny though is that this isn't even the most embarrassing moment in Boone's life as a Buckeye. After all, just pop in tape of him trying to block defensive ends from Florida, LSU, USC or Texas. Or, really, we can all re-live his memorable post-loss to USC comments from the fall. Sweet headband, let me know when you get in the East Street Band after Tony wacks Sal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)