Iron Bowl (ALA 39-33-1) Alabama 23 @ Auburn 17 – In traditional with Black Friday the main course will be served before all the appetizers today. Auburn will be able to move the ball, but the Tide defense will prove too tough and Mark Ingram too consistent.

Continue Reading “Rivalry Week Divine Predictions. Open Threadage. Updated Jesus Cup Standings.” »

Early this morning, a historic moment occurred on the campus of Ohio State University: The University of Michigan flag was raised outside of both Orton Hall and University Hall.

via Blogging the Buckeyes

If you’ve got a rooting interest in Clean Old Fashioned Hate then head over to From the Rumble Seat for a spirited debate.

This week the fabulous (Tim Gunn voice) Texas Longhorns blog Barking Carnival is hosting the BlogPoll Roundtable. We’re not worthy.

1. Mack Brown has won three out of the last four games in Dallas against OU. Meanwhile, Bob Stoops continues to pile up Big 12 trophies like NCAA inquiries. With the presumption that Mack will hang up his concho belt in the next two years in deference to the undeniable coaching force that is Will Muschamp, how does this year’s Texas/OU game define Mack Brown’s legacy? Texas wins and it’s likely Pasadena bound. A loss would likely cement this depressing statistic: a 7th conference championships for OU vs one in 12 years under Mack Brown, which was delivered by some guy named Vince Young.

If you had asked me this before the 13-0 Vince Young championship season I would have defined Mack Brown’s legacy as whiny underachiever. However, since 2004 he has put Texas’ surplus of talent to work. The Horns are 56-8 (second only to USC 59-6) with a BCS Championship and three wins over Oklahoma. A win against the Sooners this year would most likely yield a second Big 12 Championship and BCS Championship Game appearance. If Texas can accomplish all of that this year then I believe he’ll be remembered as a slow starter that turned Texas back into an elite program. Otherwise he may go down as a one-hit-wonder.

Example One-Hit-Wonder

2. Flipping the lens, does another OU loss — 4/5 to Texas, 0/5 in the last five BCS bowls — permanently establish Big Game Bob as an overrated, overpaid coach disguised as an asshole? At least sweater vest is an all around nice guy. I just feel sorry for Tressel when he comes up short in big games. When Stoops does it I cackle in a spasmatic fit of primeval laughter. So the natives are getting restless in Norman, and by natives I mean the people that stole the land from the natives that actually lived there. Who neeeds to win a big game more: Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel, or Mark Richt?

I disagree on the Sweater Vest. He gets so deep under my skin no ointment or balm can quell how irritated and aggravated I get. No one is that perfect and it’s as if he’s over compensating for something. I’ll digress, the answer to your question is Mark Richt and it’s not even close. Both Stoops and Tressel have get out out jail free cards crystal balls. Furthermore, Oklahoma and Ohio State are the premier teams in their conferences, routinely winning their respective championships and more often than not getting back to the BCS Championship Game. Meanwhile in Athens Richt and Georgia haven’t been to the SEC Championship Game since 2005 and they’ve taken a backseat to rivals Florida and Georgia Tech. After losses to LSU and Tennessee Georgia is hemorrhaging blood and Richt needs that big win Band-Aid.
Continue Reading “Blogpoll RoundTable: Week 6″ »

This is our new Thursday night thread. We hope YOU our readers and friends in the blogosphere pop your heads in and engage in a little conversation.

1. Virginia Tech-Nebraska. The Hokies look to sweep the two-year two-game series with Nebraska. The Huskers are improved, hungry and capable of gorging themselves full of turkey. Thoughts?
2. BYU-Florida State. With a win BYU can tout an impressive out of conference resume that could be enough to send them to the MNC. Florida State is looking to prove they’re the proverbial “back”. Thoughts?
   H/T: Mike Bianchi
3. Texas-Texas Tech. How many points will the ‘Horns win by or are you going “guns up”? Thoughts?
4. Boise State-Fresno State. Any time, anywhere (except on the Smurf Turf). Well Pat Hill you got ‘em at home. Thoughts?
5. Big Ten Redemption. OSU and Toledo tangle in front of a crowd with brown bags over their heads. Sparty travels to South Bend to crash Charlie Weis’ buffet line. Thoughts?
6. Arkansas-Georgia. The only time pigs and dogs get along together is in Vietnamese cuisine. They are both relatively unknown quantities.  But more importantly, were Mark Richt and Christopher Walken separated at birth? Thoughts?
   

Doug Gillett who gangsta leans to the left and is the proprietor of the phenomenal Georgia football, often politically infused, blog Hey Jenny Slater is the host of the preseason BlogPoll roundtable. Please enjoy my humble responses to his wonderful questions.

1. Without naming names, a few teams seem to have popped up frequently on everyone’s “overrated” lists in the preseason, so let’s forget about them for the moment and concentrate on a different group: sleepers. Which currently unheralded team are you currently putting at least a few of your chips behind in the hopes that you’ll be able to say “totally called that” once they’ve accomplished big things by the end of the season?

I’m bullish on USF and you better believe pun in-fuckin’-tended. South Florida has respectable Sunshine State talent, but they’ve underachieved the last couple of years. They followed up their coming out party in 2006 with two more nine win seasons. That sounds great on paper until you’re told in 2007-08 they had a 43% winning percentage over their last seven games. Ewww, that’s overflowing toilet water nasty. Grothe and Selvie are seniors and will lead the Bulls to a 10+ win season and represent the Big East in the BCS.

2. In a similar vein, pick a sleeper player on your team whom nobody’s talking about right now and tell us why we will be talking about them by December.

David Wilson, who you probably don’t know about unless you followed Junior World Championship Football, has, dare I type it, ESS EEE CEE speed.

There are two reasons why YOU will know about him by the end of 2009. He’s going to be put in situations on special teams to make highlight real plays and will get more chances out of the backfield to go to the house since Darren Evans has been lost for the season. Continue Reading “Preseason BlogPoll roundtable: sleepers, statement games, and spending money.” »

But this dictatorship is so much better than the last. According to Harvey Perlman, the recently appointed chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee (Czar), the alternative to the BCS is not a playoff.

There are six automatic qualifying conferences and Notre Dame that currently comprise that body. The six automatic qualifying conferences are conferences that had contractual relationships with bowls prior to the BCS. The Big 12 had a contract with the Fiesta Bowl, the Pac 10 and Big Ten had the Rose Bowl and the SEC had the Sugar Bowl and The ACC had the Orange Bowl. What we agreed to do was modify those agreements to allow a No. 1 and No. 2 team to play each other for the national championship. But we weren’t going to give up those contractual rights without having control over what the system was.
…
What I think most people don’t understand is that the alternative to the current system is not a playoff. The alternative to the BCS is going back to our traditional relationship with our bowl partners.

We love a good scare tactic, but don’t buy that for a minute. The BCS won’t be dissolved into a less fair system. Also like we mentioned a week ago (and will have something more on this next week) the BCS Bowls are brand names. The conference tie-ins mean very little. This is proven by the successes of non-traditional match-ups and failures of traditional match-ups.

There’s a possibility of a Michigan Gerogia home-and-home in 2010 and 2011.

Some sources tell me that the Athletic Department is looking into a home game against the University of Georgia in 2010, one that would also bring the Wolverines to Athens in 2011.

Two tradition rich schools, SEC versus Big Ten and spread offense versus tenacious defense oh please, please, pretty please make this series happen!

Now that the Fridge is leaner and healthier he might be sticking around past 2011; Franklin wins lottery.

Friedgen, 62, said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that he might want to stay beyond the three years for which he is under contract. On Feb. 6, the university signed an agreement promising to pay $1 million to offensive coordinator James Franklin – who has turned down coaching jobs at other schools and in the NFL – if he is not elevated to head coach by Jan. 2, 2012.

We only have one response.

There’s a chance ECU could play for the National Championship. It’s about the same of us winning the lottery and the Master’s on the same day as solving the energy crisis.

Your daily college football news guaranteed to be a day late and dollar short. If you’d like your blog’s link to appear here contact us.

Brian takes exception to Heather Dinich’s latest ACC bowl projections, while Jeff is no doubt at Ikea with Mrs. Jeff. We agree the ACC won’t be getting 10 bowl eligible teams again this year. Brian points out this, must-have-been-looked-over, factoid.

NC State, North Carolina and Duke all have to get to 7 wins since they are playing not 1, but 2 I-AA cupcakes this season.

Honestly, two chances for Duke to lose to a 1aa team scares us. As for how BC will fare in ‘09, we have them going no worse than 7-5. Our four guaranteed losses are @Clemson, Florida State, @VT and @ND.

Georgia suspended two players for violating the university’s substance abuse policy.  Bruce Figgins is a two-time loser which explains his six game long abeyance. Projected starter Justin Houston will sit and watch the first two games from his not so comfortable hand me down plether couch. “The cushions are cracked give me a rash.” This is why you schedule Georgia Southern and not Oklahoma State to start the season.

Urban Meyer’s size 11 Croc is firmly planted on the neck of the college football universe.

Is this a good program? No, it’s a great program. We have our foot squarely on peoples’ necks, and we’re not going to take it off. Right now, everyone is trying to catch the Gators. We will not let that happen.

We’ll be pulling for every Florida opponent in 2009.

Orson explains what blogs are and what they aren’t. Eyes forward, sit up straight and pay attention Mr. Whitlock.

Around the Interwebs is a whenever-the-eff-I-feel-like-it-a-week summary of the day’s news in college football. If you’d like your link to appear email it to cgb [at] collegegameaballs [dot] com.

Q. What appeals to you about Georgia football? A. Their style of offense. Matthew Stafford played at Georgia, and he has got a great chance to be one of the first players taken in the NFL draft. If Georgia is turning out first-round draft picks like that at quarterback, then I think anyone would take a close look at Georgia. They just put a lot of guys in the league. I also like that Georgia wins. They were ranked No. 1 at one point last year. (AJC.com)

Cocktails in Atlanta? Once again there’s talk about moving the anual showdown between Florida and Georgia outside of Jacksonville, Florida.

The four-year contract is set to expire next year and discussions are underway about playing the game at the Georgia Dome once every four years, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Gary Stokan, president of the Atlanta Sports Council, tells the Chronicle that in conversations with Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans and Coach Mark Richt, “both of them expressed a high level of interest.”

It’s not a half-bad idea to have both a Georgia and Florida site for the next series of games. But, why not go balls out and play the next four games in: Jacksonville, Atlanta, Athens and Gainesville? I think it would be fun to see how the away team handles themselves and just how amped the home fans get.

Jimmy Clausen will have to work to retain his job as starting quarterback for Notre Dame. Charlie Weis hopes that backup quarterback Dayne Crist plays well enough in spring to pressure Clausen to raise his game.

Weis hopes and expects sophomore Dayne Crist to push Clausen in what Weis termed a “pedal-to-the-metal” spring for the quarterback position.

“I don’t think Dayne wants to sit there and wait until Jimmy graduates to say, OK, time for me to play,” Weis said. “Dayne is coming into spring to try and make it tough on Jimmy. That’s what he should be doing. He understands if he intends to beat (Clausen) out, he will have to play better than him. That would be a nice problem to have to deal with.”

Crist was another 5 star recruit who went to the same middle school as Clausen, was convinced to go to Notre Dame by Clausen and is trained by the same quarterback coach as Clausen. If Clausen doesn’t get off to a solid start Domers will be clamoring for him to replace Clausen.

Spring Football is on la Televisión. Noteable games being broadcast on cable channels you may receive are: Texas, Georgia and Alabama.

Around the Interwebs is a whenever-the-eff-I-feel-like-it-a-week summary of the day’s news in college football. If you’d like your link to appear email it to cgb [at] collegegameaballs [dot] com.