August 24, 2007

2007 College Football Preview

A year ago, I was still feeling the aftershocks of enduring one of my alma maters schooling my other alma mater. What a difference a year makes!

Before I get started on my Top 25 prediction, I would like to comment on a few things about college football 2007.

1) The Trojans of USC are back! There are a lot of doubters out there due to their youth and haters due to their recent success, but believe me, this team is more substance than hype in 2007. The team is built on a defense that could go down as the best of all time while the offense revolves around a senior quarterback and great line. That is how success starts in college football. The biggest concerns are at the kicker position and whether USC can generate enough turnovers. I’m not worried about either; who needs a kicker when you have an offense and defense like SC? I guarantee USC will not lose a game this year due to its kicking game. Pete Carroll’s teams are known for being 20+ in the turnover category. Last year was a fluke.

2) No one outside of the BCS Conferences should even dream about winning the Heisman. Writers have always wanted to make the Heisman trophy a best player contest, but let’s face the truth, it is about the team they play for as well. A lot of players from non-BCS schools garnished attention for the award like Steve McNair from Alcorn State and Ladanian Tomlinson of TCU, but no one from a non-BCS team has made a serious push for the award since Marshall Faulk of San Diego State back in 1992. Even then, he lost to Gino Torretta, a good but not great QB playing for a great Miami team. Players like Randy Moss and Alex Smith made it as Heisman finalists, but did not have realistic chances of winning. So for all the Colt Brennan fans, just give up already. At least he can still look forward to an NFL career, something few Heisman-winning QBs can say.

3) Ranking the conferences: 1. Pac 10 – 2, 2-t. Big East – 7, 2-t. ACC – 7, 4. Big 12 – 8, 5-t. SEC – 9, 5-t. Big Ten – 9. That is the number of non-Division I-A schools each conference plays. Since each conference does not have the same number of teams, if we calculate the average number of non-DI-A schools each team in each conference plays, we will have the following: 1. Pac 10 – 0.200 per team, 2. ACC – 0.583, 3. Big 12 – 0.667, 4-t. SEC – 0.750, 4-t. Big Ten – 0.750, 6. Big East – 0.875. One thing we can see from this conference ranking is that the Pac 10 is by far the conference that schedules the least cupcake teams. It is one thing for Indiana and Baylor to schedule Indiana State and Texas State, but it is another for traditional powerhouses expecting to challenge for the the national title to schedule I-AA teams. Florida, Auburn, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio State should be ashamed of themselves for scheduling Western Kentucky, Tennessee Tech, Appalachian State, The Citadel, and Youngstown State. Apparently Auburn did not learn from their mistake of scheduling The Citadel in 2004 when they were left out of the championship by once again scheduling a cupcake in Tennessee Tech. I applaud Miami (Fl) for taking on Oklahoma and Texas A&M, Tennessee and California for their two-game series, Florida State and Alabama for their series, UCLA for taking on strong mid-majors in BYU and Utah, Oregon for playing Michigan following their series with Oklahoma a year ago, and Syracuse for playing three BCS out of conference teams (Washington, Iowa, and Illinois). These teams gives us what fans want to see and should be the model for other athletic directors.

I definitely will have less time to work on this year’s preview, but having written last year’s preview saves me much time for this year. I won’t have time to review every team in the 6 major conferences, but I will give a brief overview for the top 25 teams and where they will end up in the polls at the end of the season. The preview will be up before Thursday’s kickoffs!

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