College Football

Its March 21st, which means one thing.

Its college football season.

And don't call it sour grapes and think that I'm not following the NCAA tournament anymore because Illinois lost. Because a) Illinois hadn't won a postseason game in 5 years and I still followed all those tournaments, and b) I will still provide coverage of the NCAA tournament on this blog in the upcoming weeks. If you know me, you would know that Illinois losing would not be a "deal breaker." Also, if you don't know me, look at the fact that I spent 35 out 60 hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday doing livechat/liveblog for the NCAA tournament. Would someone who does that actually give up following the tournament on a drop of the hat?

That being said, the tournament has been pretty disappointing thus far. The early session on Thursday contained the most highlights; with an upset win by Morehead State, an upset by Richmond, and three buzzer beaters by Matt Howard, Juan Fernandez, and Brandon Knight. After that on Thursday, however, you would be hard pressed to find a competitive game (unless you call UCLA almost blowing it a close/competitive game), and Friday offered nothing good. The Villanova-GMU game was close but hardly good basketball, while Tennessee put up the worst performance in recent memory. The Arizona-Memphis game was surprisingly high scoring, and provided the days' highlights.

This past weekend was awful. I saw a lot of bad basketball the past weekend; which is ironic in the sense that as you get fewer and fewer teams, who are pruported to be the best teams, you would think you would see better basketball. The highlight of Saturday morning was how Kentucky came out and played great defense in the second half, setting up one of the only three games I have any interest in coming this week (more on this later). Although Temple and SDSU went to 2OTs, they didn't even go over the second half Over/Under Las Vegas posted - (SDSU outscored Temple 35-33 in the final 30 minutes of the game...). The Butler Pitt game will unfortunately be remembered for its bizarre ending, not for the way Butler played in the first half. It was definitely the game of the week, but again, not because of some asshole ref at the end. Pullen put up a good performance, but fell short. And UCONN gets flagrant fouls called in their favor if you breathe on them incorrectly, so be careful Aztecs.

Quickly going through Sunday; Washington blew the game. Period. Forget about the clock issue, although if Romar did request more time be put on the clock and they didn't, then this is a pretty serious issue. I would say Texas blew it......I didn't like how after they stopped Arizona, they called timeout. Why? Have you ever seen this? They stopped U of A, up 2, with 12 seconds left. The rebounder called timeout instead of holding it for 3 seconds and getting fouled. This allowed U of A to set up their press, and made Texas have to inbound it. Then, they get called for a five seconds call after four seconds (someone did a frame by frame, and determined the ref blew the whistle after 120 frames, which would be approx 4.5 seconds......funny, I thought we all learned how to count to five when we were 2). Then, U of A gets an and1. Then, Texas gets fouled twice on the other end with no call. After Texas was cross checked in mid-air, they rebounded, and a U of A player jumped on Texas' back with 0.5 seconds left. Too late to call a foul you say? Tell that to Butler and Pittsburgh.

So all the games this weekend sucked. Unfortunately, it isn't going to get much better. Kansas' region sucks, just plain and simple. Am I really supposed to drive home quickly, in and out of traffic, to race to go see the VCU v. F$U game? Duke should handle Arizona pretty easily. The UConn game will undoubtedly be fixed, as will the UNC Marquette game.

Which leaves the only three good games out of eight. I'm going to be interested to see if Butler can continue to play at a high level - they will need to. Jimmer v. Florida will be entertaining, and Ohio State v. Kentucky should be the best game of the weekend, no matter who wins what when. If it ends up being Duke SDSU, or BYU Wisconsin, these games would be good, but still probably not as good as tOSU vs Kentucky. Oh yeah, Kansas vs VCU would be good tooooo.......


I don't really have that much more to say, because, I think I said it all in the three live blogs I have posted below. Check those for more information. I started to think more about college football as the day went on yesterday, and I decided that Alabama should be #1, albeit after minimal research. I would never rank Oklahoma #1 at anything, and LSU loses their best player at every level of their defense (Nevis on the line, Sheppard at LB, Peterson in the secondary). Plus, while I love the potential of Jefferson, Randle, and Shepard on the offense, and no one can argue that they are great athletes, LSU has never been consistent enough to me offensively (although they did look good in the Cotton Bowl). If anyone wants to buy me an early birthday present, tickets to LSU @ Alabama on November 5th would be a good start.

Other than that, I think the hype for F$U is warranted. Emmanuel looked good in limited action last year, and the defense seems solid. Sleeper-wise I like Arizona State. They were much better than their 6-6 record even last year. They had close losses at the Coliseum and really played the Ducks as close as anybody. They run this very interesting offense that I would be surprised if it isn't seen more this year by other teams. lemme try to explain over a blog:

They line up in Shotgun, dual RBs. On the signal, the RB motions out into the flat. Only he doesn't motion, he doesn't jog and then line up in a slot, he full out sprints, parallel to the line of scrimmage, towards the sidelines. The effect of this is similar to the read option. Putting WR's and RBs in motion always accomplished the same thing; it tips what defense the otehr team is playing, and if you plan right, you can create a mismatch. This motion seems to be even more effective, however, as a RB can sprint from, say formation left, to the right side, and take a linebacker out of position, leading ASU to be able to run HB draw with the other halfback. Or, the linebacker can stay put, and ASU can snap it quickly, make a quick throw to the flat, and pick up an easy 5 yards. Again, just like any other play in football, it relies on precision and consistent execution. It is really no different than the read option that Northwestern invented a few years ago though, which countless teams now run (oregon and illinois are 2 examples). Its shotgun, put the ball in the stomach of the ballcarrier, and read the DE's movement. If he crashes down the line, the QB keeps it and runs to where the DE just was as the tackle/wr handle the backside linebacker and SS, and if the DE stays at home, you have created a wide alley for your HB to run through.


I honestly like Illinois a lot again this year as well. Again, we're looking at a team that lost their three best players; Wilson, Liuget, and LeShoure. Last year, however, they made only their third bowl in ten years. They did it with a freshman QB who got better throughout the year. THey return everyone on their offensive line. They return a RB who split time with LeShoure. They return 3/4 of their secondary. With their schedule, it would be beyond a major disappointment if they didnt return to a bowl. More importantly, the season was a success with two new coordinators. The defense wrapped up and made sound, form tackles for the first time in five years. The offense had a gameplan and stuck to it throughout the game. A 6-0 start isn't likely, but it isn't impossible either.


Finally, I am going to try and post more youtubes of classic college football moments, games, highlights, traditions, whatever, here. It would be ideal to get at least one post every single day leading up to the start of the season, but it might not be very realistic either (not for a lack of material though). I'd like to start with this one:

Michigan vs. Northwestern 2000


A great game, obviously. But it is pretty indicative of things to come; as the game came to mind yesterday, I said "lemme look that game up," and it came no surprise to me that Musburger was doing it (someone needs to have a Musburger count, and see what % of clips I post involve him). It was no surprise then, either, that Burger was rooting hard for his alma mater, and most likely had substantial amounts of $$$$ on the game. It also is indicative of youtube highlights. 99 times out of 100, when you look up the highlights for a game, it is posted by a fan of one of the teams involved, and only shows the highlights of that team. This is a major problem, and something I don't really understand. If you were a NW fan, and you had a copy of this game, why not post all the highlights? You won the game. Can't you swallow very little pride and admit that Michigan probably made a couple of good plays in the course of putting up 51 points? Why not show their highlights? Again, it shouldn't be that depressing of an experience, since as you are editing the video, you remember that they won. Some get even worse, as is the case wit the ASU OSU Rose Bowl (which will be on here eventually, and was announced by Musburger), as fans have to put the little comments on the youtube as you watch. LIke during the final drive, as Germaine throws to Boston and he is tackled in a clear pass interference, the user puts up "Pass Interference!?!?!" I get it dude. You got screwed. I can see with my own two eyes. I hear Dick Vermeil yell for pass interference. I hear Musburger breath a sigh of relief because he had money on ASU there and he dodged a bullet. I don't need your further comments telling me it was Pass Interference.

But the lack of highlights leads me to enjoy the game less. Again, even if I was the biggest NW fan watching this, I would still like to see what Michigan did. I appreciate that the user left in the Damien Anderson drop at the end, because that was obviously important, but it contributed to the flow/momentum of the football game, which is what football is all about. Why not show how Michigan jumped out to a 28-10 lead? Hear what the announcers were saying at that point? Show NW fans reactions at Ryan Field. WHY WHY WHY? When you dont show the other teams' highlights, you end up getting the equivalent of a highlight reel that they put together for end of the year banquets. All those plays NW has in this might as well just be independent of each other. I get no rhythm or flow, and don't get the same excitement of watching these highlights as I did watching that game 11 years ago (and I can rememeber this game, which is a testament to its quality, as I can't remember to check my mail and end up paying my bills two months late).

But anyway, you shold still enjoy the clip.