Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Wednesday 09/02 Quickie: College Football,
Rubio, Brady, Hamels, Goodell, FIU, More

Let's set aside the next three days here to dig into the college football season, which starts tomorrow night and ramps up nationally on Saturday.

Today's SN column leads with the Top 5 storylines I think will dominate the season -- obviously, the thrill of college football is the emergence (often sudden) of the unexpected. Still...

(1) Tebow as GOAT. You may be weary, but "all-time" is an undeniably interesting thing to watch in real-time.

(2) Florida repeat. There is something inherently dramatic about "championship or fail," and Florida is looking to match Nebraska as the best team of the ESPN (post-1980) era.

(3) Menage a Heisman. Believe it or not, I actually think that Colt McCoy will win the Heisman, even if Tebow leads Florida to a wire-to-wire unbeaten regular season. McCoy seems to have that "it's his turn" mojo from the media.

(4) Notre Dame. It remains a huge brand in college football, with all the intrigue over whether they are "back" or merely pretending. Don't be fooled: A 9- or 10-win season will be built on the back of a flimsy schedule, and when they get their inevitable BCS bowl bid -- even though better teams will be snubbed -- they will get destroyed, and we will once again say: "Um, why do they get the near-automatic BCS bid again?)

(5) This year's Utah: I think Boise State will go unbeaten. But if they lose at home to Oregon tomorrow night -- and I don't think they will -- look for TCU to be the BCS-crasher. (Unless, of course, Notre Dame snaps up the spot designated for the unbeaten BCS-crasher. Ridiculous.)

In the comments, I'd love to get your own top storyline (or storylines) for the season. (Don't forget to sign up for the College Pick 'Em group -- Daily Quickie Readers!)

More you'll find in today's column:
*Don't buy the Kahn-friendly Rubio spin.
*Cole Hamels: Best start of the season for him.
*Rockies back on top of NL Wild Card.
*Don't sleep on this brewing NFL-NFLPA collusion scandal.
*And more.

Complete column here
. More later.

-- D.S.

4 comments:

Chaddogg said...

Dan -- Lake the Posts noted an important anniversary today: 14 years ago today, Northwestern defeated Notre Dame in one of the biggest upsets (NU was 23.5 point underdogs, I think) in college football history.

The start of Northwestern's renaissance (NU's current coach, Pat Fitzgerald, was the MLB on that team) as the Cats went towards the Rose Bowl.....

And, arguably, the beginning of Notre Dame's slide into mediocrity -- the game took the glitter off of Ron Paulus, and while ND went 9-3 that year and appeared in the Fiesta Bowl, they've never truly been the same since losing to Northwestern. In fact, they've never PLAYED Northwestern since that upset, which goes to show you how much it hurt the Domers....

Steve Sprague said...

How's this for a great BCS scenario? Notre Dame wins 10 games and gets in, Boise State goes unbeaten and gets in, the teams face off in the Fiesta Bowl with Boise State crushing Notre Dame. In the past they could always point to a tough draw, OSU and LSU in back to back years, but to be crushed by Boise State would be proof that they should no longer have automatic in status.

Unknown said...

2006: 10-win ND goes to BCS, undefeated Boise State goes to BCS.

Your constant hate towards ND is understandable (you aren't alone), your constant inability to look at them with any kind of objectivity, to the degree that it compromises your integrity as a pundit in any other way, is not.

Unknown said...

The only thing missing from ND's schedule is Charleston Southern.