Posted on 08/28/2006 5:53:39 PM PDT by MikefromOhio
It's finally here!!! College football at it's best!!
The scheduled games (and my picks) are below:
Week One – College Football
Yes the season is finally here. It’s about freakin time too. Anyway, I am in several pick’em type leagues and here is how I am going to be filling my card out. Debate, criticize or whatever, but let’s remember that it’s just a game ok?
All rankings are from the ESPN.com Scoreboard page. I will also list any games of interest and any other games listed in my Public Yahoo league.
GAME(s) of the WEEK
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006
(9) California at (23) Tennessee (-1.5)
Cal faces a pretty stiff challenge going into Knoxville against a Tennessee team that everyone is expecting to rebound after a sub-par year. This is going to be a hard game to win right out of the chute and I don’t think they can do it.
Tennessee 24 – Cal 17
Monday, September 4th, 2006
(11) Florida State at (12) Miami (-3)
Now there normally won’t be two games that qualify as games of the week, but seeing that the preseason rankings aren’t exactly accurate by any stretch, I’ll go with two here. First off, last year’s defensive struggle won’t be repeated this year. FSU and Miami both lost key players on the defensive side of the ball. FSU lost more and they have more question marks on offense. Look for Miami to win a close and relatively offensive game.
Miami 32 – Florida State 28
Thursday, August 31st, 2006 – 10:00 PM ET
Northern Arizona at (24) Arizona State (NL)
ASU has an offense to hang with the big boys, but can they develop a defense? Certainly their offense will click against Northern Arizona, but how will their defense look? This game might even be close for a half or so.
The Prediction:
ASU 47 – Northern Arizona – 17
Saturday September 2nd 2006 (in ranking order)
Northern Illinois at (1) Ohio State (-18.5)
Northern Illinois isn’t a pushover by any stretch of the imagination. Although they aren’t on the caliber of Texas or Notre Dame, they can go into Columbus and sneak away with the win IF Ohio State is looking ahead. On paper this game doesn’t look like much of a contest.
The Prediction:
Ohio State 45 – Northern Illinois 10
(2) Notre Dame (-7.5) at Georgia Tech
Can Notre Dame find a defense to go along with the great offense? Calvin Johnson and GT will be a great first test. This game will go closer than many think.
ND 28 – GT 24
North Texas at (3) Texas (-41)
This game is all about getting experience for Colt McCoy. Texas will blow North Texas off of the field.
Texas 60 – North Texas 0
Washington State at (4) Auburn (-14.5)
Some people say Auburn is for real. Others don’t seem to pay much attention to them. Auburn thrives off of that type of non-hype, or at least they have in the past. This year they aren’t starting out of the top 10, they start at #4. Wazzu is improving, but they aren’t quite there yet.
Auburn 45 – Wazzu 13
Marshall at (5) West Virginia (-22)
All West Virginia has to do is win ONE game (at Louisville) and they are in the BCS title game. Marshall is a shadow of it’s former self and this is going to be another long year for the Thundering Herd.
WVU 42 – Marshall 14
(6) USC (-8) at Arkansas
USC 52 – Arkansas 20
Southern Miss at (7) Florida (-20)
Florida 44 – Southern Miss 13
Louisiana – Lafayette at (8) LSU (-30.5)
LSU 45 – LALA 7
UAB at (10) Oklahoma (-21.5)
Oklahoma 33 – UAB 13
Kentucky at (13) Louisville (-22.5)
L-ville 45 – Kentucky 10
Vandy at (14) Michigan (-26)
Michigan 33 – Vandy 9
Western Kentucky at (15) Georgia (NL)
UGA 35 – WKU 14
Montana – (16) Iowa (NL)
Iowa 52 – Montana 10
Northeastern at (17) Virginia Tech (NL)
VT 32 – Northeastern 0
Florida Atlantic – (18) Clemson (NL)
Clemson 38 – FAU 7
Akron – (19) Penn State (-16.5)
Penn State 24 – Akron 0
La Tech at (20) Nebraska (-20.5)
Nebraska 37 – La Tech 3
Stanford at (21) Oregon (-11)
Oregon 34 – Stanford 12
(22) TCU (-7.5) at Baylor
TCU 35 – Baylor 10
SMU at (25) Texas Tech (-26)
Texas Tech 59 – SMU 13
0-0 Straight UP 0-0 Against the Spread
For some reason, Arkansas just matches up horribly with USC. The quality of the team is not as great as their scores have reflected the last couple of times they've played.
Arkansas would probably beat a lot of teams that give USC trouble but for some reason they just completely fold against USC.
Was at the Oregon game and this is our best team in a long time. Put this team on your sleepers list. Great RB and QB combination!
Pray for W and Our Troops
Notre Dame is the only team that can move up in the polls even when they lose. (Michigan in the 1980s used to do that and OSU is getting close to that level now)
I would really like to see the subjective polls eliminated and have a known algorithim for the rankings (since a playoff seems to out of the question).
The problem is that unless a team starts off in the top 10 then it is almost impossible to get there. The bigger problem is that it is almost impossible for teams that start off in the top 5 or 6 to fall out of the top ten if they lose early and then have one more loss a few weeks later coupled with a couple of good wins.
OSU last year was a prime example of that. Although they were clearly one of the best teams inn the country, they did have two losses.
That makes it impossible for a team that starts out of the top 25 like Alabama or Auburn/LSU in previous years to move into the top 5 since it takes them so long to get there and then one loss sends them reeling back to #15.
LOL - give them 10 more tries and maybe they're get it down to 10 points.
Like I said, Arkansas is far from a world beater but they are a very competitive team - they are entirely capable of playing top 5 calibre teams like LSU, Auburn, UGA and UT competitively and even beating them on occasion.
SEC teams like LSU, UGA, UF and UT have tons of depth as well and flood the NFL with players so its not like they've never seen talent like USC before.
Whatever it is, Arkansas should stay away from USC for a while.
(since a playoff seems to out of the question).
There are four keys to establishing a real national play off system:
1) Protecting the Conferences self interests.
2) Protecting the Bowls self interests.
3) Creating a sufficient demand on the part of the fans for such a system.
4) Finding a leader(s) of strength who would stand up and strongly advocate that such a system be implemented.
So far I think we have only achieved #3.
Not to toot my own horn, but I believe that 1 and 2 can be accomplished via a method I have posted on before.
Good post. I think the biggest problem with a playoff would be establishing the teams that make the cut. Unless the procedure for establishing the teams was an objective freely examined algorithim the same problems would arise.
In basketball the committee picks 65 teams to make the field and there is still controversy every year when some bubble teams are left out. Imagine the uproar when only 8 or 16 teams make the college football playoff and 2 loss OSU or ND team makes the cut over a one loss SEC or Big-12 team.
The main problem now is that there is no clear definition of what being ranked #1 means. Is it the team that is playing the best right now, the team with the best record or the team with the best winning percentage * strength of schedule?
I missed Michigan-Vandy, Oklahoma-UAB(the Sooners are going into a hornet's nest against Oregon next week), and got suckered into taking Arkansas against USC. Nailed the rest of my picks.
I missed Michigan because they didnt cover the spread and Oregon and Akron for beating the spread and Tennessee because well California sucked and was way overhyped.
The system I envision would eliminate that, as the schedules would do it. Specifically:
Align the country into 16 conferences of either 12 teams (lowest impact on existing conferences) or of 16 teams each (largest number of eligible teams).
Each conference is then aligned into two divisions. Each conference has a one game playoff to determine their conference champion. Only conference champions would be eligible to move on into the play offs.
Conference schedule would be eight games plus one for the championship. Thus 9 games played and 16 teams going on in the playoffs.
The devil is in the details though.
I have a bridge for sale, please contact me for further details.
The up and comer in the Pac 10 is Arizona. Stoops will have them in a bowl before he is done, probably not this year but soon. They looked pretty good on defense against BYU, we will see if the offense comes around.
Cal is always overhyped and always fall apart.
hmmmmm
LOL
Well let's see how I do in week 2 and then we'll talk LOL
LOL
ok, but I wouldn't hit the books in Vegas. You'd never get me off of the poker tables :)
well Cal was hit last year as being soft.
On the first week, especially on the first week with a timing offense, on the road, against a team from a very physical conference, I'll take physical over timing.
Now in a month the game would probably be closer.
But the first week is a hard time to win a game on the road like that.
nah, I think you'll be ok..
well from what I saw last night (and it was only very briefly) the Arkansas QB looked really rattled.
He probably saw 30 defenders instead of 11.
GT was a landmine for ND.
The big part is that they won.
But now they have to face Penn State.
Penn State is more stable on offense and has a better defense.
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