It has been a few years now that I've been writing about, and picking, games for the college football season. Aside from the first year I haven't done that consistently to the fullest and for that I'm sorry. I am constantly trying to find something that I can do, that's not bullshit and hits on games that interest me each week. This is what I've come up with. It's sure to change throughout the year as I find it untenable, boring, or unsatisfying to do... So without further adieu, this is what I'm gonna do.
My preview each week is going to be a ramble about games and trends I find interesting. I'm going to shy away from droning on about statistics and am gonna focus on story lines I find interesting or infuriating. There will still be some stats obviously. I won't touch on most games, and some weeks there will be relatively few, but I hope to write something each week and pick some winners. This seems like it should be a useful exercise that will help shed some light on crutch arguments we all use and think about while also still be semi-entertaining. This will most likely be a disaster,and on at least one week I'm going to do this column without any punctuation and just type it how it runs through my head. I'll save that for mid-season when we're all a little bit insane. So yeah, here's week one. Tell me what you think after this or in the future as I nail down how I'm going to do this.
Alright... Week 1... What to talk about? Well I don't have many thoughts on Hawaii-Cal but Sydney should be cool, and Friday has a Tennessee-App State game that's kinda fun, but uninspiring. Friday, has even less, with the headliner being Kansas State at Stanford and the yearly rivalry between CU and CSU in Denver. I think Cal, Tennessee, Stanford and CU win those games. Saturday has got to be one of the best opening Saturdays that we've seen in quite some time. It's so good that Oklahoma-Houston at NRG Stadium is a 11:00 game. My numbers have Houston regressing a bit, but I think a defense that adds immediate fire power up front, and an offense led by Greg Ward are going to give Oklahoma a run for it's money. Oklahoma is talented, and has some stability at QB for the first time in a while. Ohio State might get some week one fun with post-Babers Bowling Green, while Michigan is gonna romp all over a Hawaii team that has to travel to Australia, back to Hawaii, then to Ann Arbor for an early game with Michigan. Give me Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Michigan. As we head to the afternoon, Game Day heads to Lambeau for what should be one of the biggest drunk fests of the year and hopefully a nice distraction for the folks in Baton Rouge. Hope everyone down there finds the first weekend of the season as well as it can. LSU is gonna roll here, as Dave Aranda gives a tough time to his old team week one with a shit ton more talent. UCLA-Texas A&M is an odd one. UCLA has a very good young QB, with a defense with a ton of talent and good amount of experience, but they lost a lot of contributors and they have to hit the road in a great environment. A&M for their part is mired in a multi year quagmire of mediocrity and QB transfers. This is one dysfunction against another and it'll be fun to watch the fan base meltdown on either side. Give me LSU and A&M in the afternoon slot as we head to the Georgia Dome. Mark Richt officially lost control of Georgia with his firing and Kirby is going to be under a lot of pressure year one with a talented roster. They take on UNC which has sanctions looming somewhere, and a season in which they shocked much of the world by being very good. UNC gives them a run for their money, but Chubb runs roughshod over the second half to give UGA the victory in a game that gets ust through the gap between the 2:30 and 6:00 o'clock games. Saturday night we get USC-Alabama which looks good on paper, and in my rankings, but I'm skeptical of how successful that USC offense will be against Alabama. This game is going to be close for 2.5 quarters and it will do nothing to temper any yearly USC hype, but Alabama is too talented and will have to wait until conference play to get tested. Clemson goes to Alabama Clemson in what is a great 2013 match-up and instead is still a very interesting game in 2016. What is Auburn and is Malzahn going to ruin his reputation for good if fired after another disappointing season. Auburn is going to flash some talent on defense, but Watson and co. are going to unleash hell in the second half. Oh and real late night, catch that BYU-Arizona game, I have a hunch it's going to be fun. Lastly a pair of high profile games on Sunday and Monday. The Sunday game got more exciting when Convict U (ND) had half a dozen players, including some starters, arrested for a myriad of issues. Texas is starting it's ascent and yes it's taking longer than most thought, but Smart may finally have found a QB-OC combo that will produce and the talent level has overall has really bounced back. Notre Dame has Kizer and Zaire and that will keep them in games, but a slightly weekend Notre Dame leaves the door open for the Longhorns to announce themselves. Lastly, the most hated program of this decade faces a team that I bet most assume has had better records over the last couple of seasons. Florida State has the best running back in college football (Yes, he slightly edges out Fournette for me.) and the defense should take a huge leap after field a pretty impressive number of freshmen last season. For Ole Miss, Chad Kelly is back and there is no reason to think that Hugh Freeze won't have a prolific offense once again. There's talent there on defense too, and you'll be they'll need all of it to have a chance. I think Ole Miss keeps it inside a TD, but they never really feel like they have a chance.
So there we are, week one predicted. This column is going to be weird some weeks, more normal others, and most of the time enthusiastic.
My preview each week is going to be a ramble about games and trends I find interesting. I'm going to shy away from droning on about statistics and am gonna focus on story lines I find interesting or infuriating. There will still be some stats obviously. I won't touch on most games, and some weeks there will be relatively few, but I hope to write something each week and pick some winners. This seems like it should be a useful exercise that will help shed some light on crutch arguments we all use and think about while also still be semi-entertaining. This will most likely be a disaster,and on at least one week I'm going to do this column without any punctuation and just type it how it runs through my head. I'll save that for mid-season when we're all a little bit insane. So yeah, here's week one. Tell me what you think after this or in the future as I nail down how I'm going to do this.
Alright... Week 1... What to talk about? Well I don't have many thoughts on Hawaii-Cal but Sydney should be cool, and Friday has a Tennessee-App State game that's kinda fun, but uninspiring. Friday, has even less, with the headliner being Kansas State at Stanford and the yearly rivalry between CU and CSU in Denver. I think Cal, Tennessee, Stanford and CU win those games. Saturday has got to be one of the best opening Saturdays that we've seen in quite some time. It's so good that Oklahoma-Houston at NRG Stadium is a 11:00 game. My numbers have Houston regressing a bit, but I think a defense that adds immediate fire power up front, and an offense led by Greg Ward are going to give Oklahoma a run for it's money. Oklahoma is talented, and has some stability at QB for the first time in a while. Ohio State might get some week one fun with post-Babers Bowling Green, while Michigan is gonna romp all over a Hawaii team that has to travel to Australia, back to Hawaii, then to Ann Arbor for an early game with Michigan. Give me Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Michigan. As we head to the afternoon, Game Day heads to Lambeau for what should be one of the biggest drunk fests of the year and hopefully a nice distraction for the folks in Baton Rouge. Hope everyone down there finds the first weekend of the season as well as it can. LSU is gonna roll here, as Dave Aranda gives a tough time to his old team week one with a shit ton more talent. UCLA-Texas A&M is an odd one. UCLA has a very good young QB, with a defense with a ton of talent and good amount of experience, but they lost a lot of contributors and they have to hit the road in a great environment. A&M for their part is mired in a multi year quagmire of mediocrity and QB transfers. This is one dysfunction against another and it'll be fun to watch the fan base meltdown on either side. Give me LSU and A&M in the afternoon slot as we head to the Georgia Dome. Mark Richt officially lost control of Georgia with his firing and Kirby is going to be under a lot of pressure year one with a talented roster. They take on UNC which has sanctions looming somewhere, and a season in which they shocked much of the world by being very good. UNC gives them a run for their money, but Chubb runs roughshod over the second half to give UGA the victory in a game that gets ust through the gap between the 2:30 and 6:00 o'clock games. Saturday night we get USC-Alabama which looks good on paper, and in my rankings, but I'm skeptical of how successful that USC offense will be against Alabama. This game is going to be close for 2.5 quarters and it will do nothing to temper any yearly USC hype, but Alabama is too talented and will have to wait until conference play to get tested. Clemson goes to Alabama Clemson in what is a great 2013 match-up and instead is still a very interesting game in 2016. What is Auburn and is Malzahn going to ruin his reputation for good if fired after another disappointing season. Auburn is going to flash some talent on defense, but Watson and co. are going to unleash hell in the second half. Oh and real late night, catch that BYU-Arizona game, I have a hunch it's going to be fun. Lastly a pair of high profile games on Sunday and Monday. The Sunday game got more exciting when Convict U (ND) had half a dozen players, including some starters, arrested for a myriad of issues. Texas is starting it's ascent and yes it's taking longer than most thought, but Smart may finally have found a QB-OC combo that will produce and the talent level has overall has really bounced back. Notre Dame has Kizer and Zaire and that will keep them in games, but a slightly weekend Notre Dame leaves the door open for the Longhorns to announce themselves. Lastly, the most hated program of this decade faces a team that I bet most assume has had better records over the last couple of seasons. Florida State has the best running back in college football (Yes, he slightly edges out Fournette for me.) and the defense should take a huge leap after field a pretty impressive number of freshmen last season. For Ole Miss, Chad Kelly is back and there is no reason to think that Hugh Freeze won't have a prolific offense once again. There's talent there on defense too, and you'll be they'll need all of it to have a chance. I think Ole Miss keeps it inside a TD, but they never really feel like they have a chance.
So there we are, week one predicted. This column is going to be weird some weeks, more normal others, and most of the time enthusiastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment